One of my favorite things about reading Ntozake Shange’s adolescent novel, Betsey Brown, was her writing. The words flowed together so smoothly that I finished the book before I knew it. Her writing is absolutely poetic one of my favorite passages can be found on page 179 “Vida patted her heart and thought on her Frank, who was the last one to give her flowers so long ago. The melody of her romance waltzed through her soul: Frank and I would get together, when the music got ta playin… once I went to a roadhouse and danced on a dime… me and that handsome Frank of mine.” Shange has a lot of inner rhyming and rhyming at the end of sentences. I really liked that part of the book because not only does Shange provide imagery but she also creates a melody with her choice of words.
Another part of the book that I enjoyed was how raw yet believable it was. There have been many times in my family that it has been complete chaos in the house and how Shange wrote it, I could relate to it on many levels. Another ingenious use of words by Shange was how the Browns would sometimes forget to use proper English but they were not scolded for it until Jane came back from her absence. Just like any child and even adult every now and then we use words in the wrong tense or all together in the wrong context. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Betsey Brown, at first I was a little shocked by the sort of obscene language used while describing the puberty and sexual scenes but I got past that and was pleasantly surprised by Shange's beautiful writing.
Learning in the Age of the Trigger Warning
11 years ago
I agree to just about everything you said regarding the language in the book. It was very beautifully written. I liked the use of slang in the story. It wasn’t like Jim in Huck Finn, where you have to keep re-reading to understand. It was simple enough to relate to. I found humor in Jane correcting the improper English when she came back from her “vacation” because my aunt does that to me all the time, despite the face that not one person I know ever uses English properly. I did find some irony in the fact that not only would the characters improperly use words but also Shange would narrate in slang and the text still was still very poetic like. For example, in the beginning of chapter 13:
ReplyDelete“Just after midnight, when the spirits roam freely with the moon as their guide, Jane opened the door to her house, her husband, her home. She relaxed gainst the closed door, near to wrenching throbs in her chest, her palms sweating like dew.”
Despite the slang use of against, this is gracefully written. Her language depicts imagery very well. Like you said you can relate to the chaos of the household. I felt that too. I would read and feel so overwhelmed by the words that I would feel like I was there and I want to start screaming at everyone to calm down and not do this or that. In the selection I quoted above you can even feel the intensity of how Jane feels from the beautiful words and imagery depicted in just those two sentences. I did however think this imagery was a bit much at times, like you mentioned, when the girls were anatomically exploring themselves and one another. But generally I thought it was an easy read and I liked it too.
I agree Liz. The book was a great read and once I started I couldn’t put it down. It seemed to flow so well and it kept me interested through the entirety. I think the way that Ntozake Shange wrote this novel was very true and I could easily relate to many of the incidents with the family and siblings arguing. We have that at my house and it seems like complete and utter chaos. Then when everyone has their two senses in, everyone is fine and calmed and get along just great. It seems that you thoroughly enjoyed this novel and especially fell in love with Shange’s writing skills and how she portrayed everyone in the novel and kept you interested at all times.
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