Customer Reviews

The Women

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book makes demands: close reading, hard thinking, and immediate re-reading.

One of its great strengths is that many of those who constitute its "natural" audience will find it offensive in more ways than one. The Women transcends cant and politcal correctness to get to the heart of what matters most about personal identity in the hall of warped mirrors that constitutes our "society of the spectacle." Few works this important are written as clearly, as gracefully, as passionately. Essential reading.

Hilton Als discovers himself--strangely, a brilliant negress in negro-boy body--in this small but large masterpiece. Ignore the truly self-serving, hypersensitive comments of the Dodson advocate above whose comments "trash" Mr. Als. If you care about beauty, art, the psychology of negritude, the complexity of gender, honesty as it relates to revelation--then read this devastating book, which is a thrilling, one-of-a-kind experience.

This book is very hard to get through and understand. It isn't until you read it for the second time that it all comes together. Als talks about the women he's known and himself and ties all the lives and minds together.

It's worth saying at the outset that I met Owen Dodson several times before his death when I was a child. His most influential artistic home was not Harlem (and he certainly cannot be called a Harlem Renaissance author because his work did not coincide with that literary period). In fact, Mr. Dodson's chief artistic and professional contributions were done after the 1940s and 50s in Washington DC and the South, and Mr. Dodson was born in Brooklyn.

My early life was consumed by Owen Dodson because one of the men who had the most profound influence on me was Mr. Dodson's foremost student, the late Kenny Daugherty. Mr. Daugherty was a director, actor and former head of the Duke Ellington School for the Arts in DC who had a hand in training countless entertainers like the comedian Dave Chappelle.

While Mr. Dodson was retired from his post in the Drama department at Howard University (which he chaired for thirty long years--a lifetime in theatrical circles and academic politics), he was still a fixture among the young folk involved in the various black theater companies in the nation's capitol in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

As a child I was in a Black Repertory Company (BRC) production of Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity" and I remember the director, Mr. Daugherty, stopping our rehearsal to introduce us to the "luminary" who had just walked into the room dangling an ornate cane. That luminary was, of course, Mr. Dodson, Mr. Daugherty's own teacher and mentor.

So I am, in a sense, part of several generations of African-American people trained in the remarkable blend of humanist European-American belles-lettres and African-American cultural arts that was Mr. Dodson's inimitable forté.

It is with these clarifications in mind that I say that I value the terrific prose stylizations in this fascinating memoir by Hilton Als. Mr. Als is one of the best art critics and essayists that I have ever read. I adore his acuity and attention to advancing slippery, queer readings of heretofore marginalized media.

Yet, the Mr. Dodson painted in this book is not at all like the elderly luminary that I met long ago.

And the Mr. Dodson painted in this book is also not at all like the great mind and intellect whose poetry collections, novels, plays, and essays I read and still read.

And the Mr. Dodson painted in this book is also not at all like the caring, erudite African-American man whose production notes I heard in a few rehearsals as a child.

Several years before he died around 2004, Mr. Daugherty and I talked about Mr. Als' book and Mr. Daugherty was customarily sanguine: he basically said that we all construct our memories in the way that serves our aesthetics and our need. Mr. Daugherty believed that Mr. Als did what he needed to do artistically to tell this three-pronged story and he told me that he respected Mr. Als and would never let a condemning coin fall from his mouth to give to the deceitful ferryman on the road to an acrimonious hell in critique of Mr. Als work (and yes, my paraphrase is a neigh correct approximation of how Mr. Daugherty and Mr. Dodson talked: they were grand orators).

There is more to say about the problematic conflation of images of womanhood with venality in this memoir.

But let's give this book five well deserved stars while still recognizing the troublesome nature of its depictions and excavations of these three people.

Sometimes, the great forces who influence us become like royalty who rule over our memories and sensibilities like tyrants.

Some people are so ruled by their past influences that they must revolt and pillage the kingdoms of memory within themselves.

And (as the saying goes), some people know full well, that when you prepare to do battle with the queens or the kings, you had better be ready to kill them.

One may interpret "The Women" as a manifesto entitled,
WHAT I DO NOT WANT MY LIFE TO BECOME: Parts 1,2,& 3.
It is something like the Riddle of the Sphinx: What walks
on 4 legs, then 2 legs, then 3 legs? The answer is Hilton
Als, at different times during his exhausted development: Part 1 relates to the four-legged author, an infantile Als on all fours as mama's Cute and Adorable
baby then outrageous "Auntie man" hawking the Morton Street
piers. (These adjectives by his own description). Mama,
as enigmatic and eternal as the Sphinx to Als, has remained
in his psyche a mystery and somewhat a bother all these years: He is still deciphering her codes of meaning which
simultaneously excite, attract and repel him. Part 2 relates to Hilton Als as upright social climber in the
style of Dorothy Dean; disguised as her story, it is really
Als' preoccupation with making it in all the right circles,
and Dean has been chosen as the object of his desire. The
problem with this story is that it has, like all three sections, that tragic ending which Als absolutely abhors
and summons at every turn, his penchant for the suicidal
in the grand style of his own mother. Each chapter is filled with admiration for a life (love) so right that
somehow went wrong; it is Als' own terror of watching the
demise and his aborted attempts to outrun the death that
ultimately claims them that makes for much of the reading.
One wonders, at this slight of hand, just how much Als
himself has orchestrated the destruction. He courts death
at every turn, yet desires to be an inverted version of his
mother the Sphinx who reveals nothing yet embraces all.
In his case, he reveals all and embraces nothing and no one.
Even his Negressity seems to evade him. The ironic lies in
the fact that he loathes those whom he loved (and in one
way or another) destroyed. Like the Sphinx herself, this
destruction seems timeless, never-ending in its repetitions, its consequences.
Then there is Section Three, perhaps the
most tragic section of Als' book. It deals with the relationship between writer Owen Dodson and a very youthful
Hilton Als.
This portion of "The Women" is tragic on a multiple of
levels: The gross misrepresentation of facts surrounding
Dodson's artistic work and life, the tragic betrayal of a
mentor by his disciple (by Als' own admission and description.) There is, too, the recurring tragedy of love
gone wrong; He never explains "why." Then there is the
un-abashed trashing of other great Black writers (Countee
Cullen, Alain Locke), authors whose scholarship and achievements are undermined mercilessly without the least
regard to chronology or historical perspective. He bizarrely and routinely ostricizes them for compiling a
collective voice for their survival and Blackness, a voice
to alert the white,Euro-centric dominated world that they
did (and do) in fact exist. These writers had little or no
exposure to any precedent but caucasian role models (having
come from a slave culture until 1865); Als fails to mention
that fact, and faults them for voicing their concerns as a
race fighting for recognition as a viable group of human
beings. Because the majority of these authors wrote or-
iginally in the prevailing "white" or classical style of
their times, and/ or explored "black" dialect, Als dismisses
their talent and importance again without delving into the
"why." "The Women," like Als, gets by on dramatic flair.
At times--for instance, when Als describes the dynamics
of the interior-world of the fag-hag, or philosophical
issues surrounding Mrs. Little, Malcolm X's mother, he is
really on-target: amazingly so, that one can nearly forget
the disparity between these parts of the book and the in-
sideous portions and damage he otherwise perpetrates through
his gross misrepresentation of facts. If Als had his way,
Owen Dodson and other Black writers of merit would exist
as the last component of this 3-legged Sphinx riddle:
Als has attempted to cripple them, but has instead injured
himself by way of these allegations. He has also done a
great disservice to African-American writing in general.
How unfortunate that most readers of "The Women" will thus
fail to read those important authors whose works Als trashes
in such a demeaning manner. Strange, when Als has been
quoted by distinguished author James V. Hatch in the prolific
autobiography of Owen Dodson (entitled, "Sorrow is the Only
Faithful One") as being greatly admiring of Dodson. To par-
aphrase Hatch, Als' has stated, "Owen was my everything."
Somewhere along the line, things soured between the two,
and of course the reader is never told "why."
"The Women" may then be thought of as a long-standing
series of negations. Each section embraces a character
who he admired, one who eventually collapses in despair--
a message Als continuously re-enforces, his cry:
"I do not want to end up like this..." Als after all exists
as a mirror of each; each represents some aspect of his
own interior-life. "The Women" begins with a negation:
"Until the end, my mother never explained to me her ways
of being." It closes with the statement: "The poem was
spoken from the mouth of a dead woman." These two lines
could well have been consecutive, with one long death-knell
in-between. Thus, "The Women" might also be thought of as
a poem spoken from the mouth of a dead woman, the author
Hilton Als. Ironically, Owen Dodson was the originator of this
quote, perhaps a prophetic assessment (and forecast) of his
admitted betrayal. Als repeatedly
concedes to having, like his mother, a propensity for suicide
(a.k.a. self-destruction). Is it any wonder, then, that
each of the main characters from the triad of his book
exists as a reflection of some component of himself, as
he confesses to being mirror-image of his mother, incapable
of existing (symbolically) without her?
In "The Women," Als exhibits, at times, astoundingly pro-
vocative insights and superb writing skills. At other moments the work reads like cheap voyeurism. One wonders,
upon finishing his book and comparing it with that of James
V. Hatch, if, in fact, Als was familiar with Hatch's biography. Parts of both sound strangely similar (Hatch
published his in 1993). What is even stranger is that Als never even mentions Hatch's name at all in
the "The Women," not even as a reference in the appendix.
The sublime and the ridiculous merge in Als' book, but in a way that leads one to suspect that there is much the
reader isn't being told for the sake of self-interest.
(Of course, Als is entitled to his opinion, and even his
option of self-preservation, but it is at the readers'
exprense, and, most tragically, Owen Dodson and many other great authors of Afro-American origin).
All of Als' talent (and he clearly has merit) is dimineshed
by these factors. One is left to conclude that "The Women"
is not so much about women, nor motherhood, nor racial/
social postures as it is about lies in general, and death
specifically. Death, the ultimate lie (after all,
isn'the soul immortal, energy neither created or destroyed?)
dominates the book, preoccupying Als in one way or
another. No, "The Women" isn't even about Negressity, whatever that is, since Als himself is at a loss to define
it; for, to define it is to have dominion over it, and
that is something he's yet to master. It would appear that
he'd rather destroy what he cannot control; at one point,
he nearly admits this to his audience, when extrapolating
on Malcolm X's mother. As character reflecting his own life's story, his descriptions of Mrs. Little may be
described as the best summery of "The Women." "She was a mother, and therefore responsible for the lives of her children, one of whom did write her
life down, but for himself, not her,

If you read the Andrea Lee review above, you may not see that she has made two serious errors in her review of Hilton Als' book. Her entire review is not reprinted from the Sunday TIMES.
First, she, like Als, refers to Dodson as a poet\playwright of the Harlem Renaissance (1917-1935). Dodson did not publish his first book of poetry until 1947. He told me in 1980, "I don't know why they think I'm the last Negro alive from that mess." [Harlem Renaissance].
Lee's second and more egregious error is not have have read Dodson's novels and poetry. She writes, "Dodson ... never allows himself to go beyond the cliche-ridden canons of Harlem Renaissance writing--dialect and stock characters . . . ." If she had read the poems in POWERFUL LONG LADDER (1946, 1970) and Dodson's best novel BOY AT THE WINDOW (1951, 1967, 1977) both refute Lee's echoing of Als' misjudgements. Donald Fitzhugh reviewing BOY in the WASHINGTON BOOK WORLD wrote: Because the boy's life isn't plagued by racial attitudes, the book gives an unusual picture of the boy growing up as a boy, not a sociological specimen."
Lee is in error about Dodosn relying on dialect for his poetry. After composing BLACK MOTHER PRAYING in 1943, on the advice of his friend W.H Auden, Dodson never wrote poems in dialect again.
In letters Als addressed Dodson as "my dear Papa." The reviewer ignores the young writers's tributes to his mentor: "Like most great teachers Dodson opened up the world for me." Yes, one may have to slay one's literary father in order to hear one's own voice, but the reviewer shows only Als' trashing of Dodson.
Als trashes three people in his book: his mother, a "friend" and his mentor who taught him write. It is sad that Als, now a middle aged man of some talent, has to destroy others' reputations in an attempt to achieve one of his own. It is equally sad that Ms. Lee praises Als without knowing much about the people whom Als trashes. And how does this all come about in the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES? Alas, we white poeple are always pleased to have a Black talent trash African Americans, even if we don't know who they were.

A full account of Dodson's life may be read in SORROW IS THE ONLY FAITHFUL ONE, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1993. I am its author.

Hilton Als has a certain amount of writing ability but it obvious that he is not a person of genuine intellect (he is certainly not qualified to be a literary critic, for example) and he is definitely a person with no integrity. The fashionable and perfectly silly ideas he advances might be overlooked if he were at least capable of simple honesty. Instead he chooses to denigrate his betters while presenting his arbitrary theories. In regard to the former, he is is a sorry example of a phenomenon that only Wanda Coleman, one of the foremost contemporary African-American poets, has been honest about: the relentless presumptuousness of blacks of Caribbean background who simultaneously exploit and trash the gains and achievements of stateside black people. In this regard, he joins Harry Belafonte with his vulgar, Marxist-inspired trashing of the African-American church and Audre Lorde with her much-overrated poetry. I can only attribute this to jealousy on the part of islanders. Even though slavery was abolished earlier in the islands than in the U.S. and they enjoy a far greater degree of political and social autonomy, their achievements do not begin to equal those of stateside black people. No Ellington, no Mingus, no Bessie Smith, no Ralph Ellison, no Robert Hayden, no Toni Morrison...I could go on. Presumably this accounts for their determined effort to take advantage of stateside opportunities and ungratefully disparage those who made the opportunities possible. The worthwhile reviews of this book are the ones that introduce facts that help set the historical record straight and reveal Als as a fraud. The positive ones apparently come from people who imagine that autobiography and journalistic anecdote are sufficient to support pretentious and unconvincing theorizing.