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Loading... Half Blood Blues. Esi Edugyan (2011)
Work InformationHalf Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (2011)
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Racism At the very beginning of World War Two in Berlin and Paris, Sid Griffiths and his friends are a jazz band trying to make it. They manage to record one song, "Half-Blood Blues", but their trumpeter was taken by the Nazis and put into a concentration camp. Fifty years later in 1992, someone releases a documentary of that trumpeter, Hieronymous Falk, and Sid reflects on the events that led up to that fateful night. The book spends most of the time in the past, revealing the memories of an old man living with regrets. As a young man, music was the most important thing to Sid, and he lovingly details their sound and passion. Their group is made up of a couple of white Germans, Hiero is mixed-race but dark, Chip was Black American, and Sid himself is mixed-race and light enough to pass for white, which allows the author to explore the differences in their experiences under Nazi Germany. There are some historical details about the jazz scene at the time and one appearance by a real person; I would have liked to see an author's note detailing some of what's known about Black and mixed-race folks' experiences during World War 2 and concentration camps. The story gets bogged down a little with Sid's feeling sorry for himself, and the ending was abrupt, but overall I am glad I read it. Half Blood Blues is a little like a cross between Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories and Suite Francaise. The story kicks off with a group of jazz musicians cutting a record in wartime Paris. Shortly afterwards one of them, a black German considered the next Louis Armstrong, is captured by the Nazis. The story cuts between the war years in Berlin and Paris, and 1992, when the central characters have grown old. The narrator is Sam, the bass player, who comes from Baltimore with Chip the drummer. The jazz scene in Weimar Berlin sought out black American players and gives them great opportunity. They hook up with a Jewish pianist and a couple of Aryan Germans, as well as Hiero, the trumpet genius. Hiero and Sam are rivals for the attentions of singer Delilah, who is a confidante of Armstrong's. This rivalry intensifies as the band members finds themselves outcasts when the Nazis take action against Jews, blacks and jazz musicians, affecting them all. They flee to Paris, only to have the Nazis follow them. There, the rivalry between Sam and Hiero turns bitter. In 1992, Chip and Sam are invited to Europe to the opening of a documentary about Hiero, which surfaces feelings long suppressed. An invitation to a meeting in Poland adds to the mystery. Edugyan has created a set of terrific characters with an argot that feels authentic. Jam sessions and Hiero's playing are described in a way that makes you feel the music and get what makes Hiero great. It is a terrific account of professional and personal jealousy in a context of shared fears that work to both pull the characters together and drive them apart at the same time.
Though Half-Blood Blues may generally have been overrated by critics, it delivers an undeniably potent, soul-searching examination of friendship and trust. This may be a novel about beautiful music in an ugly and terrifying place, all those mellifluous strands of jazz amid the jingoism and cacophony of Nazism. But major historical and literary themes of the 20th century weave through too—racism and the plight of the outsider. The book also probes timeless and universal dilemmas: Should one invest in the notion that art can transcend socially constructed barriers? Should friendship be manipulated or even sacrificed on the altar of professional ambition? Though "Half-Blood Blues" is a jazz book, its greatest strength lies more in the rhythms of its conversations and Griffiths' pitch-perfect voice than in any musical exchanges. ...[H]is dazed account of a band of weary survivors coalescing around Hiero's "Half-Blood Blues" is intoxicating enough to send you crate-digging through a record store's back room for anything like it. The novel is truly extraordinary in its evocation of time and place, its shimmering jazz vernacular, its pitch-perfect male banter and its period slang. Edugyan never stumbles with her storytelling, not over one sentence. The few weaknesses in the plot, such as they are, simply don't matter. What could have been a great Afro-German story has been sidelined..Despite the book's blurb tantalising us with promises of a black German experience, this novel is really about Sid and his version of events that led up to Hiero's arrest. It's also about his strained relationship with Chip. But as black jazz musicians they are already a familiar motif in American culture, and there's a touch of central casting about their portrayal. And while Sid's slangy vernacular is often charismatic, elsewhere the novel is problematic. It's hard to accept that both men would have chosen to live under the tyrannical regime of the Third Reich.... Much of the power of this unforgettable novel comes from the way its racial themes echo. It is very difficult to perceive and articulate the twisted skein of emotion that is black experience – and yet that is just what Edugyan manages to do with this brilliantly conceived, gorgeously executed novel. It's a work that promises to lead black literature in a whole new direction. Belongs to Publisher SeriesBBC Book at Bedtime (2011) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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