Jan Priddy > Recent Status Updates

I find it interesting that this book is what the film version of Caste aspires to be—a detailed history intertwined with a personal story of discovery. In Clarren's case, however, instead of a writing purely as outraged victim, there is a sense of personal responsibility and atonement that is entirely missing from Wilkerson's work.

Interesting to read this with Wilkerson's novel. Of the two, I'd choose Clarren's work.

I have lost track of my place in this book, 203?

I heard Rebecca Clarion read from this account—brilliant and rare to find history I know absolutely nothing about: Jews homesteading in the Dakotas (new to me), the loss of Indigenous rights (known), and a woman willing to undertake both understanding and atonement. Her acceptance that "before you can fix anything, you must tell the truth, not just to God, but out loud to the entire community" (8).

I can see this is likely to be a depressing read for me, but it is well done.

Never read the flap copy.

I am revising DAUGHTER this month for Camp NaNo, so the reading only takes place when/if I have energy left after completing self-assigned work of my own. Weaving too.

No one has died yet, I know who I'd like to die, but probably the other one.

I am a great fan of French, but not loving this so far.

I am reminded that this novel and The Searcher are the only novels written in third person.

Read some reviews and was heartened that others questioned why her examinations of other caste systems limited to just Nazis and India, why in the American caste systems she so promptly discards gender and Native peoples, why she seems so unaware of classism... Her anecdotal examples are horrifying and true, but sometimes not typical or limited to Black peoples' experiences here and throughout the world.

"Can I hit them?"

"Oh, my daughter, at times you have to fight, but preferably not with your fists."

This narrative poem is taught. So far, so very good.

Like her first book, I suspect an excellent thesis is going to drown in flood of exposition. Until then, there is India & Germany to look forward to.

The "ultimate" caste system in America is money. The overt caste system is a mess of race, religion, heritage, and gender. White men may think they are always above "others" but in real life, money takes the prize. Billionaires blame us for not being them. They blame.

I am still arguing with a worthy opponent. Although I agree with her broad thesis about caste, I cannot accept her dismissal of gender as an issue, and her explanation of the plight of Native Americans. Since they had no monetary value to the ruling elite, she states, they are not even a part of the caste system. Really? They suffered extermination, lower life expectancy, and poverty; both fetishizing and ridicule.

Beautiful analogies and similes—Wilkerson is a powerful writer. I am already arguing with her, of course. I wonder when she will deal with the bottom of the American caste system once including Irish and Italian immigrants? And gender, which remains the one form of bigotry that is too often considered acceptable and even defended today.

Wilkerson is a powerful writer. I used two brief passages from WARMTH as models when I was teaching writing. It is a pleasure to read. I am writing a novel about future catastrophe. People ask if this is worst case scenario. No, the worst looks like what's really coming. My novel suggests how we might survive as a species.

I am reminded.

This novel is not 264 pages but 240 pages. Someone has counted 12 front pages and 5 pages of back matter and the 7 blank pages at the very back to inflate the length. It's not that I won't read the Acknowledgements at some point—I always do, but these 24 pages (3 of reviews) are not novel. Just sayin.

Brilliant so far! [Might this been the more effective and less sexist/contemporary-bias dystopia I have been looking for?]