Porgy
by DuBose Heyward
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Book Summary Information
Author: DuBose HeywardAfterword: James M. Hutchisson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-03-14
ISBN: 1578063566
Number of pages: 168
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Book Reviews of Porgy
Book Review: Flawed But Memorable, The Novel That "Opened The Door" To African-American Culture
Summary: 4 Stars
Spured by jazz, blues, and the legendary "Harlem Renassiance," the 1920s saw a sudden general curiosity about African-American culture, which many considered outside the mainstream and therefore exotic. A resident of Charleston, South Carolina, DuBose Heyward observed the black underclass of the city and in 1925 published PORGY.
The novel was both a popular and critical success, but then as now many note that Heyward was writing from the outside: although his observation was acute, and although his portraits were generally both positive and sympathetic, Heyward was a white man. Given the social climate of the era, he was therefore not fully privy to the culture he scrutinized, and in consequence many have considered PORGY well-intended but intrinsically flawed and somewhat patronizing.
The title character of the novel is a crippled black man who lives in a slum named Catfish Row in the "Negro Quarters" of 1920s Charleston. Heyward paints the slum in colorful terms; no less so are the characters. Unable to work, Porgy exists as a beggar, using a goat cart to travel the area, and so pitiful is his physical condition that his earnings allow him enough for his room, his food, and the occasional crap game. At one such game a stevedore named Crown murders a fellow player--and in time Crown's woman, Bess, stumbles destitute into Catfish Row and Porgy takes her in.
Most readers of PORGY are likely to come to the novel from the celebrated opera PORGY AND BESS and will be quite surprised to discover that while Bess does indeed figure in the novel, neither she nor her romance with Porgy forms the focus of the book. In 1927 Heyward and wife Dorothy adapted the novel to the stage and substantially altered the plot, and it was this play, not the book, which so captured the imagination of George Gershwin. The novel is quite different and the conclusion is bathed in pathos rather than optimism.
Although it is indeed flawed by its "looking from the outside in" status, PORGY deserves more attention from the reading public than it presently receives. In a very real sense, the book opened the door to literature--by both white and black writers--about the African-American community, and thereafter the subject would become increasingly mainstream. It also captures many of the customs of the culture it observes which would have otherwise gone unrecorded. Historical significance aside, it also remains a touching work, filled with memorable characters, graced with Heyward's poetic turn of phrase, and intriguing in its effort to catch the Gullah-inflected accents of the 1920s South Carolina Africa-American community. Recommended, particularly to those interested in how "white" America perceived "black" America in the early 20th Century.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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