Soul Clap Hands and Sing

by Paule Marshall

These novellas each center on aged men who have sacrificed companionship for fame, fortune, or prestige.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

177 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Paule Marshall was an American writer, best known for her 1959 debut novel Brown Girl, Brownstones.

Marshall was educated at Brooklyn College (1953) and Hunter College (1955). She taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of California, Berkeley, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Yale University before holding the Helen Gould Sheppard Chair of Literature and Culture at New York University. In 1993 she received an honorary L.H.D. from Bates College. She was a MacArthur Fellow anda past winner of the Dos Passos Prize for Literature. In 2009, She received the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award.

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have found a new author, and I am excited as fuck about this. Paule Marshall, in this second work, absolutely destroys. Another reviewer commented about not seeing the value/point/something like that in reading anything so unremittingly bleak. I would offer, were I still allowed to practice shrinkin' without and from with under the alabaster purview of law enforcements actual and judicial, that psychologists have long posited that ‘sad’ music, instead of throwing increased shovel-weight behind an acute episode of chronic depression, has been longitudinally exhibited to produce precisely the opposite reaction. That’s to say that rather than make one sadder—which I guess is what people ostensibly assume ‘sad’ music does (who are these fucking people?)—the phenomenon of catharsis is allowed to take place by granting the afflicted access to a channel they’ve otherwise found themselves denied. I would remind that reviewer of this, and that things are not always what they appear to be. More, and this excitedly by that late in the night, I’d also say to the selfsame reviewer (who may very well read this), ‘Hey! Look at me! I read this kind of shit every day, and I am the happiest-gone-luckiest-gone-fishingest sonofabitchandabastard you’ll find in three states.’ And then I’d wave my sack of SSRI’s around over my head, and just dance dance dance with the force, don’t stop, never stopping ‘til I get enough.

On turntable: Gavin Bryars’—“The Sinking of the Titanic (The Orb’s Galaxo-Klub SeroTONin 12” Dance Remix)”

[Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1961, this book includes four short stories that, at least at first glance, appear to share a common theme: an older man is forced by the presence of a younger woman to confront his belief that he has failed to measure up. Except that, on reflection, the stories are more varied and therefore more complicated than that. In the first, a (relatively) wealthy black coconut plantation owner in Barbados cannot deal with the out-of-reach sexuality of the young woman working as his housekeeper. In the second, a Jewish college professor previously driven from teaching by a red scare makes an inexcusable pass at a black summer student. After rejecting his sexual interest, she spends a Saturday visiting his upstate farm, leaving him feeling defeated while she awakens to her power to shape her own life. In the third story, an alcoholic manager of a minor radio station is confronted by the lover he drove away years before and forced to admit that he is a closeted gay man. In the last, a dwarf reaching the end of a successful vaudeville career in Brazil worries that he will lose his sense of self after he leaves the stage, and becomes abusive to his young pregnant wife and also to his mistress and stage partner.

What unites the men in these stories is not just their gender and age, but also that they have all suffered forms of oppression and rejection - for race, for religious and political belief, for sexual orientation, for size. Most of them are far out of bounds in their treatment of women - the gay man is perhaps an exception - but the stories imply a complex relationship between the harm they've experienced and the harm they do. In tone, these stories remind me of James Tiptree's 'Houston, Houston, Do You Read?', which also examines male identity stripped of privilege; there, the characters collapse in similar ways, becoming morally judgmental, sexually aggressive, or simply violent. Both authors present and dissect their characters (in these particular stories) without much compassion for them.

[Osvaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a great collection of four longish short stories, but the final one "Brazil" is the best.

All four of these stories revolve around confrontations between men in power and women who challenge their position either through defiance or through their hope for something better. Marshall does a great job of establishing some sympathy for the male protagonists through presenting the stories through their point of views, but then undermining that sympathy by means of women coming into (or in the case of “British Guiana” back into) their lives.

Of the four stories, “Brazil” seems like the deepest examination of identity through the main character’s adoption of the role of “Caliban” a comedian whose act is based on the role of a small black brute against an Amazonian white Germanic Miranda. Given a “voice” and a successful career as buffoon through his winning of an amateur talent contest, Caliban loses his former self (a self left with no means to express itself and no memory of his previous existence) just as Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is fundamentally changed by being taught to speak by Prospero¬—the self that can speak of his condition is already changed from that voiceless self that came before and had no recourse to language and thus inaccessible. The story is his attempt to find some evidence of his old self (Heitor) and failing. There is only Caliban—a being created to encapsulate his blackness and impotent fury by the Anglo culture that colonizes the Americas.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While these stories are a good look at identity--racial or otherwise--gender roles and relationships, all four stories in this collection are so similar (and depressing) it can be hard to read an entire book of them; mainly because you know after the first two how the others will end up. That being said, Marshall is skilled at her craft and presents some interesting and unique pieces that can be explored in depth.

[Thing Two · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stories written fifty years ago that evoke a sense of place, culture, humanity -- things have changed so much in fifty years, and yet, they haven't changed at all.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read "Barbados" and use methods of criticism to write a final paper for a college course. So naturally, I read the entire novel. Marshall uses beautiful language in her work.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four character sketches of old men living in four different nations who have many regrets and do not feel prepared for the ends of their lives. The book’s epigraph is a quote from W.B. Yeats: “An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing.” Marshall’s own father did not raise her, but left her with her mother at a young age and went back to the first nation— Barbados. I wonder if writing these sketches was a way to imagine where he could be, and what he might make of his choices?

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been wishing for this book for several months until finally, I bought it... It wasn’t as detailed as I expected and the stories were somewhat a bit too subtle I’d have appreciated more detail of the lives of the characters. I’m not sure if it’s because of the era the novel was written in but meanings and scenarios seemed coded and overly modest... Good book either way though. 3 stars.

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each of the stories in this collection is a masterpiece of self-inflicted isolation and loneliness, melancholic self-reflection, and futile contemplations of redemption. The stories and the collection that contains them are hidden gems.

[carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for class —
i read the second novella in this collection, brooklyn. the novella has themes of homosexuality, sexual harassment, and political transgressions. it’s an odd story and i still don’t know how i really feel about it. definitely something different than what i normally read.

[Robert Nolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stories about men by a woman. Four stories without an agenda, just truth about the human condition. I have a hard time reviewing well-written books. Marshall was a gifted but overlooked writer. Glad I found her.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A finely crafted set of stories by a very talented and insightful writer.......

[J.A.]

Bright. Melodic. So many sentences with unexpected phrasing. Loved this collection.