- Paperback: 326 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt Publishers Ltd (7 Jan 1971)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0156106752
- ISBN-13: 978-0156106757
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,933,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
A wandering Black longshoreman searches for racial and individual identity amid the fugitives who congregate in the waterfront slums of Marseilles.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm sorry to say this was a very hard read for me. I know the subtitle says "A Story Without a Plot", but I didn't think this was really going to be like that.
The setting is very nice. It's a late Twenties Marseilles, were a varied humanity gathers in the zone of the port to make a living. The life of these people is vividly depicted, the way they work, the way they live, the way they sometimes just about survives. The bistros and the bordellos are the main places where the story unfolds, full of people, music, different scents. You can really see and feel these places.
But as much as the crowd has a soul (in a way), the main characters in the story don't. Banjo and Ray aside, they all looked the same to me. They didn't have a purpose, they just seem to roam about, from a bistro to the next, leading quite an aimless life. I always hoped something would happen soon, but it never. And without the drive of a plot, I just read along with my waning interest.
It ended up being quite boring for me, just because nothing relevant ever happened. A shame, really.
The setting is very nice. It's a late Twenties Marseilles, were a varied humanity gathers in the zone of the port to make a living. The life of these people is vividly depicted, the way they work, the way they live, the way they sometimes just about survives. The bistros and the bordellos are the main places where the story unfolds, full of people, music, different scents. You can really see and feel these places.
But as much as the crowd has a soul (in a way), the main characters in the story don't. Banjo and Ray aside, they all looked the same to me. They didn't have a purpose, they just seem to roam about, from a bistro to the next, leading quite an aimless life. I always hoped something would happen soon, but it never. And without the drive of a plot, I just read along with my waning interest.
It ended up being quite boring for me, just because nothing relevant ever happened. A shame, really.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought two books by Claude Mckay a few years back.
I am still struggling with Banjo ..I think I find Claude Mckay's writing a bit complex and maybe in Banjo I can't really relate to the characters.
Also I never feel like something is going to happen ...just like the book's going to go on ..kind of like watching a soap.
This book is my challenge for 2009 ..I know there will be some learning in it for me
I read this book again this year (2009) and it was such an easy and enjoyable read. I read it straight after I re-read Toni Morrison's Sula.Thoroughly recommend for anyone who is trying to understand the challenges of living between two cultures, and to understand the social impact of slavery on social norms of black people across the globe. I really can't tell you what has changed since I last read this book..maybe I just have more time or getting more used to reading more complex material ..Banjo is not complex really.
I am still struggling with Banjo ..I think I find Claude Mckay's writing a bit complex and maybe in Banjo I can't really relate to the characters.
Also I never feel like something is going to happen ...just like the book's going to go on ..kind of like watching a soap.
This book is my challenge for 2009 ..I know there will be some learning in it for me
I read this book again this year (2009) and it was such an easy and enjoyable read. I read it straight after I re-read Toni Morrison's Sula.Thoroughly recommend for anyone who is trying to understand the challenges of living between two cultures, and to understand the social impact of slavery on social norms of black people across the globe. I really can't tell you what has changed since I last read this book..maybe I just have more time or getting more used to reading more complex material ..Banjo is not complex really.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Distorted Version of a Brilliant Text
25 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback
Formed in 1992, the X Press intends "to become not only Europe's biggest, but the world's number one black book publisher." Judging by their 2000 edition of McKay's Banjo: A Story Without a Plot (1929), we will have much to fear if they succeed.
The X Press edition is rife with errors and silent emendations, beginning with omission of the book's crucial subtitle: "A Story Without a Plot." This edition also omits McKay's dedication ("For Ruthope"), along with the table of contents and the chapter titles. Worse still, the publishers frequently tamper with McKay's prose, changing punctuation, omitting clauses, and converting McKay's carefully constructed dialect passages into Standard English. Consider the book's second paragraph:
X Press: "It sure is," he noted mentally; "the most wonderful bank in the ocean I ever did see."
Original: "It sure is some moh mahvelous job," he noted mentally; "most wonderful bank in the ocean I evah did see."
X Press omits an entire phrase ("some moh mahvelous job"), blurring two separate thoughts into one and making McKay's semicolon seem ungrammatical. Banjo's vernacular "evah" becomes "ever," far from a minor point since the characters in Banjo frequently reflect on the nature of language and slang. The X Press edition does not eliminate all uses of dialect, but it does efface many. For example, there are eighteen silent emendations of dialect on page 252.
For those readers who wish to appreciate Banjo as McKay intended it, I highly recommend the Banjo (Harvest Book) Harcourt Brace edition (1957/1970), which replicates of the original Harper & Brothers 1929 edition down to the pagination. Far from being a definitive modern re-issue, the X Press edition misrepresents McKay's authorial vision, preventing readers from appreciating one of the great novels of the 20th century.
The X Press edition is rife with errors and silent emendations, beginning with omission of the book's crucial subtitle: "A Story Without a Plot." This edition also omits McKay's dedication ("For Ruthope"), along with the table of contents and the chapter titles. Worse still, the publishers frequently tamper with McKay's prose, changing punctuation, omitting clauses, and converting McKay's carefully constructed dialect passages into Standard English. Consider the book's second paragraph:
X Press: "It sure is," he noted mentally; "the most wonderful bank in the ocean I ever did see."
Original: "It sure is some moh mahvelous job," he noted mentally; "most wonderful bank in the ocean I evah did see."
X Press omits an entire phrase ("some moh mahvelous job"), blurring two separate thoughts into one and making McKay's semicolon seem ungrammatical. Banjo's vernacular "evah" becomes "ever," far from a minor point since the characters in Banjo frequently reflect on the nature of language and slang. The X Press edition does not eliminate all uses of dialect, but it does efface many. For example, there are eighteen silent emendations of dialect on page 252.
For those readers who wish to appreciate Banjo as McKay intended it, I highly recommend the Banjo (Harvest Book) Harcourt Brace edition (1957/1970), which replicates of the original Harper & Brothers 1929 edition down to the pagination. Far from being a definitive modern re-issue, the X Press edition misrepresents McKay's authorial vision, preventing readers from appreciating one of the great novels of the 20th century.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An manifesto of Black dignity, a fun book to read
11 May 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The years after World War One were a time for youth with adventure on their minds to follow what the war showed them and seek the world. This book brings to my mind another book of this heady time of excitement, Dos Passos great _1919_. However, this book goes far beyond the interesting and humorous adventures of its protagonists to sketch a vision of Pan African.
The characters are former sailors and dockworkers on the bum in Marseilles in the early 1920s, all Black from the United States, the West Indies, French and British Africa. Some are uneduated workers and former peasants, at least one is educated, living "the life of the people" on the beach. While careening through adventures involving very much sex, more alcohol, and encounters with whites from every level of European and American society, the book takes up the issues of race and racism, not only on the part of European and American whites, but the prejudices among and within the different Black nationalities themselves.
When the book was published young Africans, young West Indians, and Black Americans, but especially Francophone Blacks like Aime Caesaire and Leopold Senghor would would craft the Black cultural and political affirmations called Negritude, would champion this book as a call for Black unity, dignity, and for looking to the warmth, joy, and passion of the culture and people of Africa and her diaspora int he Americas.
The ordinary reader will enjoy this book because it is told with wit and grace and that it humor comes from the real world. After all, the protagonists live by their wits, not by their labor, and there are enough scraps with romance, hustlers, and the police to keep the plot moving.
I read it because its comments on culture and race are important to my own research, but once reading it, I found myself hungry for its pages every time I put it down, wanting to get through the current adventure and into the next.
The characters are former sailors and dockworkers on the bum in Marseilles in the early 1920s, all Black from the United States, the West Indies, French and British Africa. Some are uneduated workers and former peasants, at least one is educated, living "the life of the people" on the beach. While careening through adventures involving very much sex, more alcohol, and encounters with whites from every level of European and American society, the book takes up the issues of race and racism, not only on the part of European and American whites, but the prejudices among and within the different Black nationalities themselves.
When the book was published young Africans, young West Indians, and Black Americans, but especially Francophone Blacks like Aime Caesaire and Leopold Senghor would would craft the Black cultural and political affirmations called Negritude, would champion this book as a call for Black unity, dignity, and for looking to the warmth, joy, and passion of the culture and people of Africa and her diaspora int he Americas.
The ordinary reader will enjoy this book because it is told with wit and grace and that it humor comes from the real world. After all, the protagonists live by their wits, not by their labor, and there are enough scraps with romance, hustlers, and the police to keep the plot moving.
I read it because its comments on culture and race are important to my own research, but once reading it, I found myself hungry for its pages every time I put it down, wanting to get through the current adventure and into the next.
A Story Without a Plot... how fitting...
9 Feb 2012
Format:Paperback
I'm sorry to say this was a very hard read for me. I know the subtitle says "A Story Without a Plot", but I didn't think this was really going to be like that.
The setting is very nice. It's a late Twenties Marseilles, were a varied humanity gathers in the zone of the port to make a living. The life of these people is vividly depicted, the way they work, the way they live, the way they sometimes just about survives. The bistros and the bordellos are the main places where the story unfolds, full of people, music, different scents. You can really see and feel these places.
But as much as the crowd has a soul (in a way), the main characters in the story don't. Banjo and Ray aside, they all looked the same to me. They didn't have a purpose, they just seem to roam about, from a bistro to the next, leading quite an aimless life. I always hoped something would happen soon, but it never. And without the drive of a plot, I just read along with my waning interest.
It ended up being quite boring for me, just because nothing relevant ever happened. A shame, really.
The setting is very nice. It's a late Twenties Marseilles, were a varied humanity gathers in the zone of the port to make a living. The life of these people is vividly depicted, the way they work, the way they live, the way they sometimes just about survives. The bistros and the bordellos are the main places where the story unfolds, full of people, music, different scents. You can really see and feel these places.
But as much as the crowd has a soul (in a way), the main characters in the story don't. Banjo and Ray aside, they all looked the same to me. They didn't have a purpose, they just seem to roam about, from a bistro to the next, leading quite an aimless life. I always hoped something would happen soon, but it never. And without the drive of a plot, I just read along with my waning interest.
It ended up being quite boring for me, just because nothing relevant ever happened. A shame, really.
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