5 comments about Bird Lives!: The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie (yardbird) Parker.

1. I've read hundreds of jazz histories, and Ross Russell's original classic, "Bird Lives!", remains among my favorite. I read it again this week, in fact. Are there more thorough Parker biographies? Well, sure. But Ross Russell was there. He created Dial Records for the purposes of recording Parker. Also, Russell (a pulp writer in his young years) always had literary aspirations, and his writing has that fun, hard-boiled style of the 1930s. Ross was a product of his literary times. I hope this book never goes out of print.
   
   Granted, I'm biased. In the early 1990s, when Ross was in his 90s and living alone in a trailer in the California desert, he and I corresponded frequently. I was writing a chapter on Dial Records for a book, and Ross was so encouraging and helpful. He had an amazing life to ups and downs. Ross was a very funny guy, and that humor runs throughout "Bird Lives!" With Bird, you either laughed or cried. Ross did a fair amount of both.
   
   Read "Bird Lives!" with an open mind, and ignore the bandwagon of critics who attack it. There's no substitute for fascinating first-person accounts, and Ross' personal experiences with the saxophone madman leave every jazz historian green with envy.



2. Ross Russell produced many Bird's historical sessions and witnessed him collapsing in California. So, he's the right man to write about Charlie Parker. On the other hand, his literary pretentions almost spoil his efforts. Buy Rob Reisner's "Bird" instead of this book.



3. For me, this book is one of those experiences that are about as good as it gets with your clothes on. Not only do we get to discover the genius of Parker, but we're taken on the journey with a brilliant writer. Here, Bird does indeed live. Russell vividly captures the essence of the man, the music and the times, and this book is as much a tribute to his superb literary talent as it is to Parker's prodigous musical gifts. A rare combination. If you haven't yet read it, I envy you. They don't get any better than this.



4. Charlie Parker was one of the most influential and important musicians of the 20th century. His musical creations and innovations shaped the face of jazz in many profound ways. In his hands the alto saxophone transcended being a mere instrument and became a means of spreading love and hope. In this classic biography we see all sides and facets of this complex and truly brilliant man. He was; a practical joker, womanizer, alcoholic, heroin addict, charming con man and over-eater extraordinaire. A legend is brought marvelously to life here, unlike in Clint Eastwood's well-intentioned but depressingly one-sided movie "Bird."



5. Ross Russell was the president of Dial records when Parker was in California. He recorded several sides while there, but Mr Russell, an obvious fan of Parker, makes a huge effort to desribe Parker's whole spectacular and at the same time tragic life and career. When I read this book, I literally could not put it down.
   Parker was a great clown and entertainer, something which Clint Eastwood's disappointing movie "Bird" never portrayed, instead sticking to the sad and seedy sections of the great Parker's life. I read this book years before the film came out, and I was shocked because I knew Eastwood to be a big jazz fan.
   Anyhow, every major event in Parker's short life is chronicled, giving an excellent narrative of an extraordinary career.
   Miled Davis in his autobiography said that Bird was a con, a cheat, and that Ross Russell exploited him. Nonetheless, this book presents many facets to describe Parker's life, in vivid detail. I'd call this essential for any true jazz fan to understand the man, his music, and the truly monumental and unsurpassed contribution Parker made to all music. Also revealed are all the main players of the time and their relation to the music and the man.
   Also, there are three books I recommend (in this order) to anyone who really wants the inside scoop on the jazz life: Bird Lives, Miles Davis' in-your-face-autobiography, and Albert Goldman's biography of Lenny Bruce. All three books can be read as companion pieces and give a realistic portrait of 3 of the most influential people of the 20th century and the world that created them. At the same time all three books provide an excellent reality check to anyone contemplating a heroin habit!

2 comments about Interviews/Entrevistas.

1. In this memoir-like collection, Anzaldua explores the intersections between her life, her writings, and post-colonial theory. The interviews contain clear explanations of Anzaldua's concept of the 'Borderlands' and 'mestizaje'; her use of the term 'New Tribalism'; and what she calls 'conocimientos' - alternate ways of knowing that synthesize reflections with action to challenge the status quo.



2. I took this with me on vacation, after earlier reading "La Frontera", and I believe the two should be read together. Gloria is the anti-white guy writer, no, not that she is anti-white guy, but that she is barely hanging on the fringes of American mainstream society. In a class I took, some of the Caucausian men thought that Gloria should "get over" her angst and anger. I say, I think she has only begun. I'd like to see her write some fairy tales, since she has so much--I think it's called "magic realism"--in her poetry in La Frontera. "Entrvistas" is like another window onto her writing mind, and the cool thing is that it's like an oral history--all interviews. A neat, and so non-traditional, way to write and communicate.

5 comments about Singin' and Swingin' and Getting Merry like Christmas.

1. SINGIN' & SWINGIN', the third installment in Angelou's autobiographical series of books, pleased me more than did the first two, or perhaps I should say that it is less uncomfortable to read than are its predecessors. I must confess that, by the time I finished Angelou's second book, her nearly constant expression of prejudice against Caucasian Americans was becoming tedious.
   
   One finds a very thick thread of bias and racial distrust in both CAGED BIRD and in GATHER TOGETHER, and that thread is made even more annoying by the fact that the many instances of abuse and betrayal that Angelou relates in those first two books are all perpetrated not by Whites but by her fellow Blacks, yet that race receives none of her blanket condemnation. Granted, I suppose that, had I lived as a Black in Stamps, Arkansas in the 1930s and '40s, I too would have copious reasons to distrust and dislike the entire White population of the United States, yet the barrage of vituperation directed against that population does become repetitive and predictable, two traits that an author should normally avoid in a book, the justification behind them notwithstanding. SINGIN' & SWINGIN' is not devoid of Angelou's racial prejudices by any means, but it is not so heavily laden with them, and they are not so intrusive as to overwhelm the reader.
   
   Two other targets of criticism arise in Angelou's first three books: her veracity and her own culpability for some of the blows she has described. As to the first, the historical accuracy of these books, I have mentioned in another review that I find most unusual the fact that Angelou, a dropout from the formal educational system, habitue of bars and sometime prostitute and brothel owner, actually plunged into books by authors such as Jane Eyre and Dostoevski for pleasure. Nonetheless, the fact that she writes of having done so tells us something of her self concept and desire for fulfillment and meaning in her life. In SINGIN' & SWINGIN', she writes of her success as a professional singer and dancer, of touring Europe as a cast member of the musical "Porgy and Bess," and of interacting with many "big name" performers. Did she actually "rub shoulders" with all the notables mentioned in her book?
   
   She is re-creating events from years past, and it may be that we are seeing some of her dreams as well as her actions, but what of that? Are not our dreams as much a part of our history as are our recordable acts? And are not all history books, written as they are by victors rather than by the vanquished, slanted by the world view of their authors? Besides, a good story usually benefits from some judicious embellishment. I find no quibble with Angelou's veracity, for I do not expect a word-for-word recollection of some conversation with a colleague decades ago but rather a retelling of that conversation that gives the reader a feel for the way it sounded in Angelou's ears.
   
   The third target, her own culpability for her treatment by others and for the guilt that she herself generates, is purely and simply inapplicable to a review of the book. The reader may feel strongly that Angelou had no right or privilege to seek freedom by touring Europe when she left her young son to the care of others and that she fully deserves the feeling of guilt that she describes. Another reader may feel that she was stupidly careless in her relationships with the Greek purser on her ship and with the ship's doctor. Indeed, even though the Angelou we find in this book is more mature than are her younger incarnations in the previous books, she can still be seen as incredibly naive and even foolish in numerous situations. There will be those who criticize the book because of these self-depictions. However, we must believe that this is the way Angelou saw herself at that stage of her life, and, while the reader may at times want to shake some sense into her, he must not allow this to affect his judgement of the book. Indeed, Angelou paints a very clear picture of herself--as she remembers herself--so, while we may be occasionally annoyed with the picture, we cannot fault the skill of the artist, for the picture is quite clear and unambiguous.
   
   I do not find SINGIN' & SWINGIN' to be a "stand-alone" book. For the reader to understand and appreciate Angelou's situation in this book, he needs to have read I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS and GATHER TOGETHER IN MY NAME first. We should consider her autobiographical books mere chapters from a larger tome, and we need to read those chapters in order. Of course, having once begun this imaginary book, the reader will want to finish it, and I am looking forward to beginning the next "chapter" in short order.
   
   Oh, one final thought: Ever wonder where Angelou's last name originated and how she "morphed" from Marguerite Johnson into Maya Angelou? The earlier books explained the "Maya," but this one explains the "Angelou." It's a neat revelation.



2. Maya Angelou tells us without restraint how she crawled out of the hell of her youth years to become a star dancer.
   Vivid decription of the situation of the African Americans and their mentality in the middle of last century.
   Evocative language, sharp, intelligent and fluent.
   A book to recommend.



3. I think that the book was very interesting in the beginning and the end, because I like the way it started out like she was shy about her entertainment career. And at the end it was very dramatic about how she was about to kill herself and her son as well because her life wasn't going the way she wanted it to go. Also, how the white community despised her and didn't accept the person that she was. This book really caught my eye, even though I am a young adult. I would recommend this book to teenagers and adults of all ages because it really is an excellent book.



4. this third installment of angelou's sutobiography is just as well written and interesting as her first two. however, i have become completely baffled with ine aspect of the novel. in the first two books, her son's name was guy. suddenly, in "singin and swingin..." her son is referred to as clyde! if anyone knows why this is so, please share your explanation. it would be highly appreciated! and whatever his name is, still a good read.



5. A very pleasant read. There's nothing like traveling Europe and Africa by way of Angelou's memory and experience (if you can't get there personally). This autobiography covers the time Maya spent with the Porgy and Bess opera. I'm always amazed at the elegant, graceful and poetic way the author tells her life story. I'm even more amazed at how those same characteristics are exhibited in her speech, her stature, and her aura. This is a quick read that is sure to inspire. Angelou has a way of sharing wisdom and experience in a manner that connects with most any reader. Add this one to your list and be sure to check out some of her audiotapes as well. The only thing better than reading Maya's work, is listening to Maya read her work.

5 comments about Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson.

1. It's hard to miss how Timmerman is serving powerful interests by going after a very effective advocate for all working class people, not just African Americans. I hear Jesse Jackson's excellent radio show (Keep Hope Alive Radio) each weekend, and he is doing even more good work than most people could imagine. Jackson is there on picket lines when people are striking for better wages, or better working conditions. He is there when it comes to unjust sentencing regarding the death penalty, or the harsh penalties for drugs that pharmaceutical companies don't have a patent on. Jesse was there in Libya negotiating the release of a U.S. air force pilot who was being held there. Jesse is going all around the world promoting mutual respect and multicultural celebrations.
   And the list of Jackson's positive contributions goes on and on.
   What has Timmerman done with his life? Well, he has been paid to be a character assassin of the right-wing elite. Sometimes he'll go after individuals, sometimes he'll go after entire groups of people - like Muslim imams.
   I'm sure it pays well to protect multi-billion dollar corporations from the "shakedowns" of activists like Jackson.
   In an earlier period, America's right-wing would've killed Jackson, but they try to avoid creating martyrs, so they go with smear campaigns instead. Other members of the media lynch mob give Timmerman all kinds of publicity on America's airwaves, people like Sean Hannity and Limbaugh who also get paid to bear false witness in the interests of Big Business which hates activists, environmentalists, feminists, labor advocates, and anyone else who may reveal the insatiable greed of the corporate matrix.
   
   How sad that so many fall for it; or, so many choose to be deceived by shameless preachers of hate like Timmerman.
   Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson



2. I've always known that Jesse Jackson was an opportunist and a liar. Now
   I see him as much more than that! He is a danger to our Country and our way of life, and should be put UNDER the jail! The poor and uneducated who listen to him don't have a prayer of getting out of poverty until this man is off the scene. Let's hope he'll take to his rocking chair soon.
   
   I don't get it.....bright and promising young men get sent to prison for having a marajuana cigarette .....and a man like Jesse remains free! Go figure!! He was called a 'poverty pimp' and a 'race baiter' by acquaintances in the book. I couldn't agree more. It literally makes me sick to see him BLAME instead of TEACH. And if I see him 'marching' for anything at all, I become suspicious and head the other way. How sad that he takes advantage of the poorest and least educated among us.
   
   Jesse Jackson.... A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!



3. The research that Mr Timmerman did is astounding. I heard rumors years ago about how his version of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was different from those who were present. Let every lie be reveal and the truth be exposed.



4. Thanks so much for this book about Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson is for himself. He has exploited Black people and used them for his own good. Where ever there is a cause he's present. Not so much for the sake of those involved, but more or less for his own benefit. It's ashame that he has to speak for the common good of man for a fee. Before he speaks he wants to come to a payment agreement. He uses Black people. A Black problem is his gain. Black people please get hip. Jesse Jackson is a pimp in the worse way. He pimps and profits from Black problems.
   
   What if he had won the presidential election? You talking about a mess. He would have sold the country out. Jesse came to the town that I live in to help a candidate get elected. He tried to steal the spotlight. Jesse Jackson out talked and over talked the person running for election. He uses every chance that he can get to promote Jesse Jackson.
   
   Jesse has no shame. It's all about him. Please stop paying him to speak. There is self gain in everything he does. He is a user. Racial problems and issues are his gain. He is glad when things go wrong. THINK ABOUT IT.



5. I've always had a thought about "REVERAND" Jackson, and this book proves it! Jesse jackson isn't black - He's just a white man that's so full of s**t tha his body long ago lost the ability to absorb it!

5 comments about Never Die Easy: The Autobiography of Walter Payton.

1. Bought this for my boyfriend, who is a huge Walter Payton fan. He loves it. Great book for any fan who remembers and loved Sweetness.



2. The title of this book says it all! Walter Payton lived life the best way anyone should, doing your very best at whatever you do! Walter Payton was extraordinary both off and on the football field. He is a true hero who touched many lives and leaves a great legacy behind; Walter you are still missed by all! I never met Walter and I was too young to see witness his amazing football skills but I am inspired by his personal story. Everyone should read this; it's inspirational!



3. Excellent book, very well written, and quite moving.
   
   This is NOT a book about football, but rather, a book about an amazing individual, and the impact he had on so many people.
   
   It's very easy to read, as it's more like a collection of short stories, so you don't have to read-it at one sitting.



4. I am a huge Bears and Walter Payton, and absolutely loved this book. It covers all the aspects of his life, from growing up in Mississippi, to college at Jackson State, on to the Bears, his many business endeavors after this retirement, and his untimely death. You get an in depth look into his life, as told not only by him, but from his friends and family. I would recommend this book not only to Bears and football fans, but anyone in general. There are many things you can learn from Walter, whether it be treating people the right way, or always giving 100%, even when things are bad.
   
   And one last note. Be prepared before you read the last chapter of the book. It is very emotional, to say the least, but a great read.



5. and he was no slouch in football, first ballot hall of famer over 16,000 yards rushing. 13 seasons, 9 All Pros and a Super Bowl Champion, yet all that is nothing compared to what kind of man Walter Payton was.
   In this inspiring and uplifting book we get to meet the very private Payton and get a portrait of a man of faith, values, morals and integrity. We also get to learn from someone who is facing the biggest tackler in life ( impending death) in his own words.
   I cam away awed and inspired by Walter Payton and hope that kids get ahold of this book, in a time where the above qualities are rare in sports heroes, we need more heroes and Walter definantly lives up to that title.

5 comments about For the Love of the Game : My Story.

1. This book tells about Micjaels jordans life all the way from his college life in north Carolina to the nab playing on the Bulls. He led them to 6 nab championships. Then he went on to win the gold in the summer olympics. He is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



2. In the book For The Love Of The Game. One thing that I learned about this book is that you should never give up and always keep on trying. Even if you are not good at something at first then you should not give up and keep on trying untill you get good at the thing. And that you should not just stick with one thing but, try other things. You might be good at it. And that things just do not come to you, you have to work at it. That is what I learned about the book.



3. The book is full of great photos. I especially liked the one of Jordan and Dr. J! It also has great statistics from Michael Jordan's career. The layout is very different. I did not like it all that much. I was also a little disappointed that we did not really get to see more of the real Jordan. For a brief moment, we saw his humanity when he wrote about his father. Briefly, he mentioned his family. But mostly, he wrote about himself on the court. I guess I was hoping for more humility from this superstar. I believe he has it in him but the book doesn't show it. He certainly has much to brag about, but I thought he always let his bragging be seen through his play on the court.



4. The book I read was for the love of the game. It's about Michael Jordan and his life. I'd give it four stars because it explores through his basketball statistics to personal information. He talks about how he was drafted and how he almost didn't chose nike. It talks about all the inside information. It is one of the best autobiography's I've ever read. If you like basketball or a sport, you will reall like it. I learned a lot of stuff I'd probabaly would have never known. Some of the things I didn't know was that he played baseball. He also was number 45 in basketball for a year. His first Air Jordan was band from the league. I would recommend this book for people who like sports and biography's.



5. For The Love of the Game by Michael Jordan is the best book about Michael Jordan ever. This book is so cool. The pictures are great of Michael Jordan. I have read this book four times already and I also have the paperback and the hardback. This book means so much to me because I am going through what he went through when he was in high school. He got cut from his basketball team too, and he gives me ways in the book to put that behind me and keep me going on with my life.

5 comments about Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues.

1. i was disappointed to find out that the book's only "new" evidence is some sales data of delta blues music and a few first hand accounts that once in a while these blues musicians played a tune that was not blues.
   
   In addition his long description about music sales and the development of the blues, Wald uses these first hand accounts to prove his points, while at the same time he ignores stories that don't fit into his argument-which may makes his claims specious to say the least.
   
   lets say Mr. Wald and I may not have have the same fundamentals views about the blues. I contacted Mr. Wald to mention important aspects which I believe he may have carelessly overlooked. To Mr. Wald's credit he took great time and care to explain to me (an amateur blues reader) what his points were and why they are important to blues history. These were facts that I may be missed when reading his book. so i must say this worth may be worth looking at .



2. Escaping The Delta should be one of the first books a blues novice reads as it helps fill out the outline of the music, the role of the delta and the music of Robert Johnson who did escape the delta only to be drawn back to die in its mystery and danger. There was a lot more to say about Robert Johnson and the delta at the time this book was written: very little original oral history research has been done in recent years (with the exception of the recent Howlin' Wolf book), very little extensive research into European blues magazines (the only first person interviews of the classic blues musicians -- few were done in America) has been done because full collections are hard to find (if they exist), and the author failed to interview the only people alive who really knew Robert Johnson (Honeyboy Edwards,Robert Lockwood Jr., and Robert Townsend for example). Thus little new light is shed on Johnson's life, even where he is actually buried (in Little Zion church on the Money Mississippi road outside of Greenwood) and why he is there and not thrown into the river as most bluesmen would have been. With all respect to Mr. Ward who has written an excellent book, I did all of that research in the process of researching the lives of Alex "Rice" Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II) and Robert Lockwood Jr.. I did have the opportunity to communicate with Ward about his Josh White book (Sonny Boy Williamson II played on his last album). There is more to say on the history of the blues and the delta as well as Robert Johnson.



3. This volume is a book about something. But its not about Robert Johnson, its not about escaping the Delta, and its hardly about the blues. It is more a rambling chronology of popular music, and the ways in which Blues is nested into that overall context. It is as much or more about musicians other than blues musicians. And when it focuses on "blues musicians", it goes to great and repeated lengths to demonstrate they were not really "Blues" musicians at all. We understand them to be such today, the author labors, because Blues sold. In fact, the author repeats, the "Blues" musicians we have come to revere liked to play, and did play, other kinds of music as much or more than blues, including ragtime, tin pan alley, fife and drum and spirituals. See? They weren't really blues players at all. They were versatile musicians forced into this genre by the music business, many of them preferring to play something other than blues. Huh.
   
   Further, the author posits that latter day (white?) blues musicians are not really playing the blues either. They are acting "as if", affecting musical styles and inflections that are not their own. Sort of make believe blues performing. Imitating the blues musicians of yore, and not authentically expressing themselves in their own right. Despite Fred McDowell's and John Lee Hooker's assertion that "the Blues is a feeling", the author would apparently have us believe that it was only THEIR feeling, not one available to others.
   
   Suffice it to say, the author and I do not share a fundamental view of what the Blues is. Would I buy, read, or reccommend this book. No, no and no. It isn't what it says it is. And what it is is superficial in its depth of understanding of Blues expression, and how and where that happens.



4. This was a great book and a must-have in any music biography library. It's more than a music biography though. Many of us in this day and age have a mythical idea of who Robert Johnson was, we've all heard the story of how he learned to play guitar by selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads and other such lore, but this book cuts through all that and gets down to the real brass tacks: Robert Johnson was anything but popular in his time, when bands like the Mississippi Sheiks were much more popular.
   
   The historical information in the book is fascinating, it strips away all of our romantic notions about juke joints and mythological bluesmen and shows the real Delta of the early part of this century: gritty, unbelievably impoverished and depressed, dangerous and frightening. Truly the land that begat the blues.
   
   This book is truly excellent.



5. Elijah Wald's book is outstanding in the sense that he not only gives an insight to the music, but also the the personalities of second-generation bluesmen, with a strong emphasis on Robert Johnson. Mr. Wald has speculated somewhat on what has not been recorded, but much of this is corroborated in one way or the other, mostly based on interviews. The opinions and memories conveyed might have been warped, twisted or recolletions embellished, nevertheless, I strongly believe that this shall stand the test of time and stay as one of the alternatives to the romantic and platonically idealized view of the "bluesman".
   
   I did not read the book as an academic work, but as an in-depth story of Robert Johnson, his predecessors and successors. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Wald's approach was objective and far from the forced devotion that some hardcore fans of delta blues have shown. As art creates its heroes after they have lived, the concept of the delta bluesman is stereotypically formed in the minds of most people. This is especially emphasized in liner notes, booklets in box sets, and even in some books. Yes, they might have been hard-drinking, womanizing, dangerous people who have shown the delicate side to their personalities in their music and lyrics, but the fact that first and foremost they were entertainers of high calibre is frequently overlooked.
   
   Robert Johnson has only one recorded solo, his lyrics do not have consistency, but John Hammond has selected Johnson for the famed concerts in 1938. The music had already changed by the time the British Blues Explosion took place, but the neo-bluesmen had to find some heroes to identify themselves with. Bluesmen who had died young, hoboed from town to town, drank and smoked excessively and played around with women fitted perfectly with their conception of life, which evolved into sex, drugs and rock'n roll.
   
   I believe that Mr Wald's book is invaluable for uncovering this mystique about the bluesmen, and helping us blues lovers in accepting these people as "people" first.

No comments about Nieve en La Habana: Confesiones de un cubanito.

5 comments about Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans: Expanded Edition New Foreword by Elizabeth Burgos.

1. After 10 years of research, Stoll has shown that Menchu's book is an imperfect biography. How shocking! She went to sixth grade! She didn't witness her mother being tortured and murdered (although it did happen)!! There is no record of one of her brothers dying of malnutrition!!! For a time she participated in the unarmed political wing of the Guerrillas!!!!

   As one who has spent several years living and working among Guatemalans who (barely) survived army massacres, tortures and disappearances, and who was in Guatemala when Stoll's book came out, I find these revelations to hardly be capital crimes.

   Rigoberta's book was an attempt to bring international attention to the Guatemalan army's genocide campaign against the indigenous population. To that effect it was successful, although not nearly successful enough.

   Is Menchu's book a perfect account of her life? Apparently not. Is it an accurate portrayal of what happened to millions of other indigenous Guatemalans? The UN-sponsored Truth Commission, and the Catholic Church's REMHI report have definatively answered in the affirmative.

   In the end, you could say that Rigoberta's book is more accurately the story of "all poor Guatemalans" than it is her own. What Stoll sees as a fault is really one of the book's main virtues.

   There are many stories that urgently need to be told about Guatemala. That Stoll would choose to spend his professional career attacking someone who has tirelessly fought for the human and cultural rights of Guatemala's indigenous people is the real mystery here. Instead of focusing on Rigoberta Menchu, a marginal, if noble, figure in Guatemala's sad history, why not undo the country's more dangerous mythic figure, Efrain Rios Montt (killed tens of thousands during his 16 month reign of terror, and now currently runs Guatemala's Congress and ruling party).

   How many as-told-to autobiographies would stand up to 10 years of background checking? Personally, I'm waiting for Stoll's account of his own life story...




2. Stoll doggedly and biasly challenges Mechu's authenticity. By focusing on discrepancies within her testimony as told to Elisabeth Burgos-DeBray and drawing minimal attention to Menchu's actual and substantial political work on the behalf of indigenous people world wide, he paints the picture of an alternately manipulative and naïve puppet of the left. Furthermore, he suggests teachers who use Menchu in the classroom have bought into a romantic myth about virtuous Latin American rebels.

   Stoll's argument is three-fold: Firstly, he balks at the
   Postmodern notion that view "truth" is subjective, and, through a laundry list of discrepancies, aims at exposing Menchu's truths as false. Secondly, he frets that teachers present I, Rigoberta Menchu, an Indian Woman in Guatemala as a stable, simplistic, and de-contextualized account of the massacres of Guatemalan indigenous persons. Most significantly, Stoll argues that in fetishizing Menchu we not supporting the cause of "all poor Guatemalans," as Menchu suggests in the opening lines of her testimonio, but the cause of Marxist-indoctrinated guerillas. Stoll even goes so far as to assert that the testimony of the Nobel Peace Prizewinner may have extended the violence in the Guatemalan highlands, prolonging "an unpopular war" (p.278).

   Like Dinesh d'Souza's extreme right-wing book Illiberal Education, Stoll's poses a critique of the academic left. Unlike d'Souza's rant, Stoll's book is in turn a fascinating, but infuriating read, but ultimately mean-spirited, academically disingenuous and far from "objective."

   For example, when Stoll points to debatable discrepancies within the testimony, he offers other voices and political contexts. He interviews people from Menchu's village El Chimel; he interviews I Rigoberta Menchu editor Elisabeth Burgos-Debray and the ambassador who survived the army-induced embassy fire in which Menchu's father ---who along with protesters had taken the ambassador hostage---dies. A chapter is devoted to fragmented interviews with women who allegedly attended a convent school with Menchu. Stoll relishs each detail that invalidates Menchu's claim that, like many other Mayan children, she did not attend formal school and only learned Spanish as she became an activist.

   In many respects, Stoll's fieldwork seems exhaustive. It starts to pay off when Stoll deviates from his from his attack on Menchu's authenticity to historicize Guatemalan politics and trace the alliances of peasant and indigenous organizations. However, these discussions tend to break down as condemnations --- and conflations --- of Menchu and Marxism. Stoll's motives appear particularly ominous when it is revealed that, despite ten years of work in Guatemala, he listens to a mere two-and-a-half-hours of the eighteen hours of recorded testimony Rigoberta Menchu gives Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. And Stoll was right there in Burgos-Debray's apartment.

   Many years have passed since the week in 1982 when Menchu, a political refugee, gave oral testimony to the Argentine anthropologist. Until recently, that week long meeting represented most of what the public gleaned about Rigoberta Menchu. Since the testimony concludes at the point of exile, it does not reveal Menchu's constant lobbying for indigenous rights and Guatemalan peace treaties at the UN, prior to winning the Nobel Peaceprize. It is fortunate that months before the Stoll hatchet job, Menchu's own account of her political work, including life after the Peaceprize, and episodes that were obscured in the first work, was published. Stoll's self-serving book should only be read along with its source material and her second book. Considered together, the three books fashion an intriguing matrix of truth-making, of interpretations and re-interpretations that shift based on political circumstance and personal positioning.

   Still, my fundamental feeling is that Stoll was out to frame Menchu at any cost. It saddens me to see so many people jumping on his bandwagon, serving the purpose of further empowering the wealthy and privileged, and casting doubt on one of the rare voices of Central American indigenous people to reach us. Her story of oppression, resistence and survival is more important than any minor discrepencies Stoll so relishes. Stoll's book is pure careerism and is nasty to the core. Menchu's meaningful life work speaks louder. It inspires while Stoll's knarled intentions digust.




3. My wife is Guatemalan, so I have a special interest in the case of R. Menchu.

   Long before this book appeared I found it odd that I couldn't find a single Guatemalan who believed the popularized story of Menchu. I had doubts myself since the historic highway of leftism is paved with the remains of frauds and tyrants.

   This book lays my doubts to rest. Menchu is a fraud. She has been used by the Left to bash the U.S., and she used them and a gullible international media to become a star. Menchu is to the misty eyed utopian dreamers what Fabio is to lonely, yearning readers of romance novels, or what Miss February is to adolescent men. Rigoberta is the socialist pin-up girl.

   But the fantasy of the left always turns violent and ugly. In the Guatemalan case the author also demonstrates that the indians were used as pawns to further the objectives of the Left and their guerilla surrogates. The Left pushed the mostly uninterested indians into the face of the repressive right-wing government while shouting, "they say you are fascists murderers." Wedged between the bloodthirsty Left and Right, the indians got slaughtered.

   Menchu, like Lenin, Castro, Foucault, and so many before her, is a symbol of the moral corruption of the Left. People drawn to utopian reformism are also ideal candidates for the cult of personality. Menchu became (and still is) a useful invention of those who build castles in sand saturated with the blood of innocents.

   One thing is certain, this book will cause no general reassessment by the Left. Few leftists will ask themselves, "How did I get taken in by the myth of Menchu?" The Left merely steps over the bodies and havoc it precipitates, moving on to the next big religious crusade. After all, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, can you? The thousands of innocent Guatemalan eggs cracked in the leftist guerilla war merely join the millions of others around the world. Yet very few leftists have found that mass murders associated with their beliefs are reason to rethink. Even one prior reviewer of this book reduces his rating because one of the rare leftists who rethought his views has given support to the conclusions of David Stoll.

   Several thousand people were sadly murdered during the Pinochet regime in Chile, and the Left pursues this relentlessly. Millions were killed in the name of socialism in the USSR and China, and the countries they subjugated, yet the Left demands no trials, no accountability. Why?

   Have you ever heard one leftist suggest that Castro should be tried for torturing, murdering, and filling his prisons with dissidents, homosexuals, etc.? Castro is merely making socialist omelets, thus he remains a hero.

   The reaction to this book by the Left has mostly been to repudiate it as rightist disinformation (despite the fact that the author is on the Left), or to ignore it. Menchu remains a useful myth for those who detest the U.S. and still harbor utopian dreams that require more broken eggs.

   If your teacher makes you read "I, Rigoberta," read this book as well and ask some hard questions. You will be branded a racist, anti-third world, anti-multicultural, reactionary, but you will at least know the truth and it will set you free . . . especially when you flunk the course!




4. David Stoll's book makes important points. To what extent can the testimony of a single person represent the situation faced by a larger community? What happens when a single figure comes to embody a movement, and that figure has conveyed misrepresentations of the truth?
   Stoll does not claim that many poor Guatemalans did not face unbearable oppression, or that they were not massacred by para-military death squads. However, he does note that, like 1980s and early 1990s Peru, the indigenous sometimes felt trapped. He suggests that both the military and leftist guerrillas would use murder as a means to coerce the indigenous into subordination.
   Although Stoll pats himself on the back for having waited until Guatemala's lengthy civil war ended, one must question whether his timing was appropriate. His book provided ammunition for the military government to negate claims of torture and disappearances at a time when United Nations Truth Commissions were investigating military abuses.
   The issues brought up by Stoll are important, but could be addressed in a less slanderous manner. As Victor Montejo points out, the picture of Rigoberta Menchu on the cover is inappropriate. If Stoll is in fact claiming not to be an iconoclast, why is the photograph on the cover? Why is Rigoberta's name in the title?
   Let there be no doubt that Rigoberta did have a political agenda. However, if there are several exaggerations, the story should not be discredited. Consider the genre: testimony. Rigoberta was interviewed for hours a day, for about a week (I believe). Rigoberta did not edit the text. Also, we do not know what questions were asked, and how they influenced Rigoberta's responses. We do know that Burgos-Debray has marxist connections. An interviewer can have a profound effect upon the interviewee, in this case a young twenty-three year-old.



5. To start from the proverbial beginning, Rigoberta Menchu, the Mayan Guatemalan who graced the world with her autobiographical account of the terror of the countryside of that land during its lengthy civil war, lied. The author was curious how one person could have done all that Menchu claimed to have done. It turned out she hadn't. She wasn't the eyewitness at her brother's murder; her father wasn't the organizer of various rebel groups. Indeed, witnesses who knew him claimed to have known a very different personality from the one described by Rigoberta. Further, while Rigoberta was allegedly forming various political organizations in her home village--wherein she claimed she was illiterate and monolingual--she was really the scholarship student at a girls' school and quite fluent in Spanish as well as in her native, Mayan tongue.

   The consequences of that myth? romanticism? are among the analyses of Stoll's work. And I must commend him on the depth of his analysis. But...

   The Guatemalans have gone through a devestating civil war in which hundreds of thousands of civilians, most of them poor, have "been disappeared"--for which that new use of those verbs was created. It means, simply, that they don't exist any more (and that they're buried in one of those body dumps in which most were thrown and are now the subject of exhumations by forensic anthropologists). Stoll agrees that the Guatemalan army, civil patrols, and vigilantes have an inexcusable history. He doesn't seem to evade that. But...

   Contemporary American and European leftists have made that war a battle between the victimized Mayan indigenas, and the nasty, unscrupulous, and, of course, wealthier ladinos (known elsewhere in Central America as Mestizos). Stoll points out that Rigoberta's father's major conflict was not with ladinos--with many of whom he got along just fine, thank you--but with his in- laws who were, like him, Mayan. But...

   A number of guerilla groups infiltrated the countryside. Stoll examines that the bulk of Mayan and other poor were not supporters of the guerillas. Rather, they saw the guerillas as just another faction with arms. But...

   I had some struggles with the book. I, like the author, am critical of white middle and upper middle class analyses of armed struggles--as if those doing the analyzing could tell the difference between a trigger and a plate of Brie cheese. At the same time, as one who is fairly well-versed in the history of the war there and is familiar with many who've suffered as a result of it--and who has been there and stopped by the army for no reason--I find it difficult to so easily exonerate the army. Sure the guerillas were not saints, despite what some of their supporters would have us believe. But desperation leads to armed conflict when there is no hope but to fight. That strikes me as common sense, and has provided the basis for any "revolution" including the American, French, Russian, etc. It's not necessarily "right" let alone "good," but simply fact.

   In short, Stoll acknowledges that the Guatemalan army has, in a relative way, rivaled the Nazis (my comparison rather than his). But he clearly--and repeatedly--implies that the army's brutality was instigated by the actions of the guerillas. For instance, a couple of ladinos were killed by guerillas therefore the army became vioent and wiped out villages. Doubtless there was some guerilla activity that stimulated a violent response. But the extent of the army's violence--the formal, objective report issued less than two years ago says that of the violence, the army was responsible for 97 percent leaving little to blame on the guerillas--so overshadowed that of the rebels that the latter's is negligible, barely exists in a statistical sense.

   Further, I was turned off by Stoll's overuse of the word "Marxist." Whether Stoll is a right wing activist, I don't know. (As he claims to be a scholar, I hope not.) But the words "the right" came up seldom while nearly everyone, from Allende in Chile to most of the guerilla groups came up as "Marxist." And that's all too often a devil term used to classify as "enemy" rather than to examine one's political or economic policies.

   Still, I recommend the book's analyses. I agree with Stoll that even the human rights movement is compelled to draw a good vs. evil distinction rather than examining the complexities of an issue; the academy these days has too much influence of the post-modernists who love to designate others as victims (thereby often freeing those who've done the designating from amending their own comfortable lifestyles to do anything about it).

   Indeed, to his credit, Stoll, in at least four places in the text, tries to examine why Rigoberta would have manufactured her story. He asks others too why they think she would do so. He niether frees her from the fallacy nor indicts her for perjury but examines. That attempt to understand her is particularly well-taken.

   I must confess too that, despite my appreciation for his analyses, I can give him at best three stars due to guilt by association. That right wing demagog David Horowitz in one of his tracts uses Rigoberta's fabrication as an excuse to refute human rights causes in general. Perhaps--again, ideally--Stoll did not intend that with his examination. But I can't help thinking of Horowitz's reference which I read before reading this work. And that doesn't help Stoll's credibility.

   If nothing else, if you read this volume, learn from the technique that the author uses to investigate a story, who he talks with and how he reaches a conclusion. If you come to different conclusions, as I have, more power to you.

1 comments about Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture.

1. The title surprised me. Never would I think of "Jubilee" when it comes to slavery. But the end of the slavery era was, indeed, a celebration. And now National Geographic has presented us with an astonishing and beautiful commemoration of the blood, sweat, tears, and toil of enslaved Africans. For a group of people who gave, literally, their labor to build the foundation of the world's greatest culture, we do indeed owe our collective thanks. National Geographic has done just that with this extraordinary book, done in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The essays help enormously, as they give voice to the descendants of that painful era. If ever there was a must-read, Jubilee is it!