PARTISAN REVIEW
·391
Here is the nub of m:uqueness in .the. emerging generation of
black writers, for Brown . and ' Reed ,combine. the self-assertive mili–
tance of the sixties with the .hedonism . and .. jokery . of the same
period - with surreal effect in. Re.e.d's .case, with
Portnoy-like
lub–
ricity in Brown's. Reed's work.is a .cross between the satirical lunacy
of a Terry Southern and. the.
free~swinging
verbal exuberance of an
Ellison. His basic medium. is the ,'sick joke, ..through which he strings
together a phantasmagoric pastiche of American culture that is so
intent on being outrageous it finally becomes incoherent. Reed him–
self calls his books "circuses," and includes in his second book a
mock dialogue with . a "neo-social realist" who calls him a "crazy
dada nigger," dismisses his work as "far out esoteric bullshit," and
tells him that "all art must be for the end of liberating the masses."
Reed, for his part, insists on ·an an.arcltic pluralism of artistic ends
and styles; his own Marxism is of the Groucho and Harpo variety.
Similarly, Brown has written a piece .for the
Black Review
on pop
singer James Brown, whose politics are a,nathema to the militants.
The message is D. H. Lawrence's.- trust the tale, not the teller;
it is a sharp rebuff to the.w01.lId-be .cultl,lralcommissars who apply a
political test to artists and art --:-: iq.eologues, he says, who could not
themselves create a single poem, story .or song.
Such an unexpected defense
9£
theal,ltoporny an.d worth of art
is more than a straw in the wind; it
is
close to
a,
manifesto. So is his
freewheeling attack on
Native.
Sqneax:lY in his own novel, where his
hero inverts Baldwin's compla,int by bla)lling Bigger Thomas for
not
screwing Mary Dalton, dismissing "all those stl.lpid aSS Biggers who
think violence is sex, who .don't ·have. enough cool to seduce a 'white'
woman but who end up
stealing
,a kiss from a 'white' girl when he
should have fucked her, fucked · her. so. good she. would have gotten
a glimpse into the immortal soul ·of the unive.rse and come away from
it all a changed woman, fucked·· her sQ·beautifuUythat she would come
away feeling he was a man, .' that .his fucking ' (his humanity) had
brought out that core of goodness. whi.ch ·
is
in.the worst of thieves."
There are echoes of both Cleaver and, surprisingly, Baldwin here,
but the presiding genius is .none. other than Norman Mailer. The
white Negro comes home toroost; .the :;tltd-redeemer of "The Time
of Her Time" and
An American Dreamco,mes .strutting
out in black
face.
If
Cleaver and HerntonsexualizeBigger Th()mas into a walking
