Comments on: Getting started http://albanypubliclibrary.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/getting-started/ Not your typical library book group. Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:20:02 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: BenRopp http://albanypubliclibrary.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/getting-started/#comment-6 BenRopp Thu, 17 May 2007 15:20:16 +0000 http://albanypubliclibrary.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/getting-started/#comment-6 I did not find Janie's speech a stumbling block to the story -- It is so integral to it, as I see it. However, reading it does require (for me) an extra effort of imagination, not unlike reading a play, when you have to picture the drama occurring on a stage, actors moving and speaking to and around eachother. I would even compare it to reading Shakespeare since it is really a separate language --separate from traditional/modern schoolbook English -- and similarly gains in intelligibility when heard spoken aloud, or imagined spoken aloud. I read the book years ago but didn't remember much, apparently. Instead of re-reading it I listened to it on CD, which makes criticism of the speech dialect a non-issue. Having said these things, I can't help agreeing a little with (or at least understanding) Otis Ferguson, who wrote in the New Republic in 1937 "Suggestion of speech difference is a difficult art, and none should practice it who can't grasp its first rule--that the key to difference must be indicated by the signature of a different rhythm and by the delicate tampering with an occasional main word. To let the really important words stand as in Webster and then consistently misspell all the eternal particles that are no more than an aspiration in any tongue, is to set up a mood of Eddie Cantor in blackface. " (from the 'Reviews of Their Eyes Were Watching God' link above.) I did not find Janie’s speech a stumbling block to the story — It is so integral to it, as I see it. However, reading it does require (for me) an extra effort of imagination, not unlike reading a play, when you have to picture the drama occurring on a stage, actors moving and speaking to and around eachother. I would even compare it to reading Shakespeare since it is really a separate language –separate from traditional/modern schoolbook English — and similarly gains in intelligibility when heard spoken aloud, or imagined spoken aloud.

I read the book years ago but didn’t remember much, apparently. Instead of re-reading it I listened to it on CD, which makes criticism of the speech dialect a non-issue.

Having said these things, I can’t help agreeing a little with (or at least understanding) Otis Ferguson, who wrote in the New Republic in 1937
“Suggestion of speech difference is a difficult art, and none should practice it who can’t grasp its first rule–that the key to difference must be indicated by the signature of a different rhythm and by the delicate tampering with an occasional main word. To let the really important words stand as in Webster and then consistently misspell all the eternal particles that are no more than an aspiration in any tongue, is to set up a mood of Eddie Cantor in blackface. ” (from the ‘Reviews of Their Eyes Were Watching God’ link above.)

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