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The Sellout
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The Sellout by Paul Beatty
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Julianne
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rated it 4 stars
Aug 09, 2016 08:07PM
Also the p value reference is not an error. You measure the p value and if it's below a certain level (usually 0.05) then the result is considered significant ie less than 95% probability it occurred by chance.
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Just finished this one and it's definitely dripping with satire, but I absolutely loved it. I feel like it's one of those that you'll either love or hate.
Ernie - I wasn't keen on it either.I found it was trying too hard to be clever and important. There is a line towards the end that says something like 'essays pretending to be fiction' which sums this up perfectly for me.
My three star review:"Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction." p. 277
That's more or less how I felt about this quasi-novel. While I could appreciate and admire much of the linguistic pyrotechnics and a few of the 'set pieces', too often (for my taste, anyway), the book devolved into a rather uninteresting rant about race relations (... and I say this as an unabashed member of the 'Lost City of White Male Privilege'). Never as funny as others have made it out to be, I chuckled a few times, but never actually laughed at anything. I almost bailed during the Prologue, which was unbearably slow and incomprehensible, but once it got into the 'story' proper, it moved swiftly for me. But I could never really relate to any of it, and it annoyed me that there is never any resolution (unless I missed it) to the Supreme Court case... Nevertheless, am quite confident it will make it from the Booker longlist, to the shortlist, and might well be the eventual winner.
The Sellout by Paul BeattyDickens was a town in the Los Angeles district of California and had the notorious reputation of being the most violent of all the districts. City administers believed they could solve the problems by simply eliminating the town and absorbing it into surrounding areas. Not welcomed by the community because even though there were many problems in Dickens they somehow had established a tight-knit community where people had a sense of belonging. Bonbon, the narrator and son of an academic father, ends up reintroducing racial segregation and is arrested and tried before the Supreme Court for violations to the constitution. Thought provoking, superb writing, and the best satirical novel I have read in a long time. 5.0
Robert wrote: "Heh I can see that happening - again this is pure satire. The idea of a plot isn't that significant, what is important is that us reader's are seeing the absurdity of contemporary thought. *SMALL S..." Thanks- this actually was helpful.
Anya wrote: "Neil wrote: "I finished this last night and thought it was excellent. I think I probably missed quite a lot of the satire due to be English and white, but I thought it was very clever and very funn..."Thanks for the head's up. I just finished reading the Sellout last night and plan to start The North Water today, so I am ready for my head to ring!
**Spoiler: I have given a brief overview of the book along with my review so please don’t read if you don’t like to know about the plot before you read. Happy reading.The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Dickens was a town in the Los Angeles district of California and had the notorious reputation of being the most violent of all the districts. City administers believed they could solve the problems by simply eliminating the town and absorbing it into surrounding areas. Not welcomed by the community because even though there were many problems in Dickens they somehow had established a tight-knit community where people had a sense of belonging. Bonbon, the narrator and son of an academic father, ends up reintroducing racial segregation and is arrested and tried before the Supreme Court for violations to the constitution. Thought provoking, superb writing, and the best satirical novel I have read in a long time. 5.0
Really struggling with this. The first 20 pages were gibberish - to be frank this book ought to have been translated into English before it was entered into the Man Booker.I'm hoping it gets better,
Paul wrote: "Really struggling with this. The first 20 pages were gibberish - to be frank this book ought to have been translated into English before it was entered into the Man Booker.I'm hoping it gets better,"
I find it fascinating how we all react differently to books. I've disliked several of this year's MB list which others have raved about. Conversely, I actually found even the beginning of this one interesting, which doesn't seem to be the case for anyone else! I didn't have any issue with the language at any point. One man's meat is another man's poison!
I agree with Neil, I thought the beginning was one of the strongest parts of the book and still my fave of the 6 books I've read so far.It would be pretty boring if everyone agreed on the same books.
I actually thought the first 20 pages were probably the best of the book. It all went a bit downhill from there. I can't think of a book I've ever been more conflicted on in terms of star rating. It reminds me a little of Oscar Wao which I thought was very showy, but at least this has a purpose unlike OW, whose only purpose seemed to be to show off the author's talents. I'm sure lots of people will disagree with that.
The Oscar Wao comparison is a good one except that Beatty doesn't have any discernable talent to show off.My least favourite Booker winner of all time was Vernon God Little. And my least favourite shortlisted book of recent times was To Rise At A Decent Hour. Paul Beatty has managed to combine the crass satire of the first with the annoying "humour" and overly-culture-specific references of the second to produce a book that is certainly poison for me!
Heh - total opposite :) - I think to Rise at a Decent Hour is one of the best books shortlisted - it captures contemporary culture fantastically - I found it inspiring. Ferris' debut novel is excellent, although there are shades of The Office in it, but I found To Rise .... a more accomplished work. As for Vernon God Little, it's a great post modern satire of our fascination with reality tv and it also touched upon the columbine massacre with such panache,that only Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin outclasses VGL. I also liked the near poetic use of language.
To date the only Booker winner which I truly hated was James Kelman's How Late it was, How Late ( I didn't like Wolf Hall too much either) and for shortlisted novel I found Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary dull.
Vernon God Little was early on in my personal Booker experience. I believe I started Bookering the year before with Life of Pi. At that time I only read the winner (how things change). I really did not know what to make of VGL. However, I do agree with Paul about the dentist - I was reading more than the winner by then but was baffled by the inclusion of that one.The Sellout seems a bit of a polarising book. I am English so missed some of the references. However, as I could see the point they were making, I sort of let them wash over me and made some assumptions (probably wrong) about what they meant. At the time, I laughed quite a lot and, personally, was pleased to have a Booker book that made me laugh. However, it has gradually slipped down my list as I have read others. I think I would still put it on my shortlist, though.
Neil wrote: However, I do agree with Paul about the dentist - I was reading more than the winner by then but was baffled by the inclusion of that one.Not that baffling :) The chair was philosopher A.C. Grayling, so a book about an atheist Luddite being stalked by an internet persona makes sense in the context of the 2014 Booker longlist/shortlist. The theme that year was humankind vs contemporary society be it digital or otherwise.
It was baffling to me because I didn't enjoy reading it!
With the annoying dentist I did try to give the author the benefit of the doubt, that this was a narrative persona and was perhaps supposed to be annoying rather than something the author (as opposed to the narrator) thought was funny.Then I had the misfortune to meet the author...
Ah ha, I hate it when that happens. I took me nine years to read another Louis De Bernieres after meeting him.
I'm being a little unfair actually. He was charming (albeit it was clear that he thought his character was funny not annoying). Oddly the least charmless that year was the ultimate winner - Richard Flanagan - who looked like he'd rather be elsewhere, made zero eye contact etc.This was the signing session after the annual panel talk from the shortlisted authors that always takes place the day before the winner is announced.
I'm not sure if anyone has read or heard the following, but I wanted to share a brief interview with the judges (Amanda Foreman (Chair) and Abdulrazak Gurnah) on why books on the longlist made the longlist.Paul Beatty (US) - The Sellout (Oneworld)
“a brilliantly vicious satire on the absurdities of race and identity in the United States”
Gurnah: It’s a very, very, very good novel. It’s a satire. It’s full of laughs, I’d suppose you’d say, but you laugh at the other side of your face as it were, because the themes that it addresses are not really light or silly. They are really serious issues. It’s the kind of book that you think would annoy almost everybody at some point. You take it the way it's coming at you – at its face value, and you know that if you keep smiling, you will kind of discover some new way of thinking about these very issues that the book is addressing. I think it is a brave, interesting, really good book.
Ernie wrote: "It’s the kind of book that you think would annoy almost everybody at some point. ."Thanks for this and all the parts added to the other threads Ernie.
As for the Sellout I can also confirm it's the kind of book that annoys somebody at every point!
Fruit is a big theme - the narrator is obsessed with it and the delicious nature of his fruit functions several times as a deus ex machina.Is there political symbolism there? (I'm aware of the watermelon trope but it seemed to go beyond that)
The Sellout by Paul BeattyDickens was a town in the Los Angeles district of California and had the notorious reputation of being the most violent of all the districts. City administers believed they could solve the problems by simply eliminating the town and absorbing it into surrounding areas. Not welcomed by the community because even though there were many problems in Dickens they somehow had established a tightknit community where people had a sense of belonging. Bonbon, the narrator and son of an academic father, ends up reintroducing racial segregation and is arrested and tried before the Supreme Court for violations to the constitution. Thought provoking, superb writing, and the satirical novel I have read in a long time. 5.0
Paul wrote: "Fruit is a big theme - the narrator is obsessed with it and the delicious nature of his fruit functions several times as a deus ex machina.Is there political symbolism there? (I'm aware of the wa..."
I don't know if fruit used as a was political symbol, I wonder if the fruit is used as a pacifying or a seducing tool in the narrative. It seems that Bonbon becomes likeable to his society and even potential girlfriend because of his sweet fruit. I'm sure there some reference to the bible, etc.
Overall, after a few weeks after having read the book, I find it left a better mark in my memory than how I felt when I just finished reading it. I think the writer was using comedy to attack certain racist and identity issues that are floating around in our society. Sometimes humor can be a more razor-sharp criticism than a plain rant.
I started the book, hated the prologue, and put it down. A couple of weeks later, I picked it back up and read it in a couple of days. Still hate the prologue but did find the rest to be quite thought-provoking.
Wow, 80 comments! I'm late to this party. The Anglophobic comments really made me cringe especially as it's a British prize he has been nominated for but by the end of the book it was hard to find any grouping that had not had barbs thrown at them it was difficult to stay annoyed. To be honest it was the pure joy of reading this books clever, witty, satirical plot unfold that mitigated for all doubts. Gave it Five Stars! Potential winner!
Julianne wrote: "Also the p value reference is not an error. You measure the p value and if it's below a certain level (usually 0.05) then the result is considered significant ie less than 95% probability it occurr..."As a statistician, I understand this. The conventional cutoff for deeming something statistically significant is 0.05 (in medicine. There may be other conventions for other fields). Maybe I misheard (since I was listening), but I thought he said that a p-value of 0.7 was significant, which would not be an accurate statement by any definition of statistical significance that I know of.
Vanessa wrote: " Maybe I misheard (since I was listening), but I thought he said that a p-value of 0.7 was significant, which would not be an accurate statement by any definition of statistical significance that I know of."Actually the quote is 'I think an examination of the confluence of independent variables on income could result in some interesting r coefficients. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised by p values in the .75 range"
So in his defence he says "interesting" not "significant", although I think he has muddled r/r^2 with p. Although of all the many many things this book could be criticised for, this is one of the minor sins.
Thanks Paul for providing the actual context. Downside of audio...Agreed, it's a minor mistake. I still enjoyed the book.
A black man is in the Supreme Court charged with keeping a slave. This satire set in the suburb of Dickens breaks many taboo subjects in a comical way. The Little Rascals explicit racism, his mad father using him as a psychological guinea pig has some hilarious consequences. Satsuma trees and farm animals including horses in an LA agrarian ghetto is surreal. Not being an American a lot of the inside jokes were impossible to decipher. The secret segregation of Dickens and the slavery were hilarious. A great read if a little disturbing the ingrained racism in American society.
