Status
Checked out
Genres
Publication
Touchstone (1996), Edition: Reissue, 221 pages
Description
"The groundbreaking Harlem Renaissance novel about prejudice within the black community Emma Lou Morgan's skin is black. So black that it's a source of shame to her not only among the largely white community of her hometown of Boise, Idaho, but also among her lighter-skinned family and friends. Seeking a community where she will be accepted, she leaves home at age eighteen, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to New York City, where in the Harlem of the 1920s she finds a vibrant scene of nightclubs and dance halls and parties and love affairs ... and, still, rejection by her own race. One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, and the first novel to openly address prejudice among black Americans, The Blacker the Berry ... is a book of undiminished power about the invidious role of skin color in American society"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member CutestLilBookworm
Poor Emma Lou, so naive and self centered....this woman's got issues! Thurman paints a complex portrayal of a dark skinned African American woman who is so caught up in anxieties surrounding the color of her skin that she attributes everything that goes wrong in her life to just that. Granted, her
Thurman tells the story of Emma Lou's journey for acceptance which leads her from Boise, Idaho to Southern California and then on to a hustling and bustling Harlem in New York City in the 1920's. Not only are you able to see a clear picture of the various characters and the different settings, but Thurman is superb at revealing the inner thoughts and the 'why' behind each characters behavior. This was a really good read!!
Show More
mother planted these seeds of self doubt as she lamented her daughters skin tone and expressed pure resentment of Emma Lou's also dark father, but she really goes to the extreme and blames every negative encounter with others as a consequence of not being fair skinned enough. Is Emma Lou totally at fault for feeling the way she does? Not entirely, because there is definite validity to her thought process because unfortunately dark skinned African American's were/are often mocked and ridiculed not only by whites but by other African American's. Thurman does a great job at allowing the reader to see the world through shifting realities...sometime what Emma Lou imagines to be true is true, but other times, she mistakenly attributes actions towards her due to her color when it's really just due to her naivety and her own prejudices.Thurman tells the story of Emma Lou's journey for acceptance which leads her from Boise, Idaho to Southern California and then on to a hustling and bustling Harlem in New York City in the 1920's. Not only are you able to see a clear picture of the various characters and the different settings, but Thurman is superb at revealing the inner thoughts and the 'why' behind each characters behavior. This was a really good read!!
Show Less
LibraryThing member Rascalstar
This book is classic black America, written in 1929 -- well-written for its time and subject. Emma Lou was educated and had lived in Idaho. Her problem was her skin color, not just black but dark. It mattered then and I suspect it still matters today. The book is still timely because of the
Show More
unexplainable prejudices people have against each other for preposterous reasons. Emma Lou tried to escape the pettiness of her small town at college and in big cities but her color mattered everywhere. This is also a lesson to parents and others -- how a child perceives herself is shaped a good deal by how the child has been treated at home and by all she comes into contact with. Show Less
LibraryThing member noveltea
For me the most interesting thing about this novel is its publication date. Nella Larsen's Passing was also published in 1929, and George Schuyler's Black No More came out in 1931. (Maybe that interests me primarily because I prefer the writing in those two novels. I've remembered characters from
The novel isn't subtle. Its protagonist, Emma Lou Morgan, is explicitly only skin-deep. The darkness of her skin is what defines her, inside and out. She's treated badly because she's so dark, but it's strongly implied that she's so self-conscious she doesn't understand that her treatment isn't always as bad as she imagines, and we're shown that she in turn values others according to the lightness or darkness of their skins. Though we're told that she was raised in a way that made it almost inevitable she'd internalize such an attitude, there's never any suggestion that anyone other than Emma Lou needs to or can do better. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Most of the characters in this novel need to do better. Almost a century later, Emma Lou's whole country still needs to do better.
Show More
Passing longer than I'll remember any of these characters, and it's hardly surprising I'd enjoy a satire like Black No More more than a book that isn't meant to be fun for its readers or its main character.) They were concerned with Black characters who choose to "pass" as white, or who opt not to. As its title suggests, The Blacker the Berry is about darker skin.The novel isn't subtle. Its protagonist, Emma Lou Morgan, is explicitly only skin-deep. The darkness of her skin is what defines her, inside and out. She's treated badly because she's so dark, but it's strongly implied that she's so self-conscious she doesn't understand that her treatment isn't always as bad as she imagines, and we're shown that she in turn values others according to the lightness or darkness of their skins. Though we're told that she was raised in a way that made it almost inevitable she'd internalize such an attitude, there's never any suggestion that anyone other than Emma Lou needs to or can do better. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Most of the characters in this novel need to do better. Almost a century later, Emma Lou's whole country still needs to do better.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JMSiperly
Really liked the premise but not sure about the storytelling. Managed to jump all over the place.
Moved hurriedly through a lot of instances so it was hard to understand characters’ reactions or handlings of situations.
I’m still not sure why Emma Lou was so into Alva. I got nothing out of their
Very heavy-handed.
Not a lot of growth with Emma Lou. Sure, she got a decent job. But she seemed to complain a lot about people. People who supposedly talked about her and behind her back. But I never got any sense that she tried to befriend these people. She just liked to harp on the fact that she wasn’t the same shade of color as them. It got old real fast.
Moved hurriedly through a lot of instances so it was hard to understand characters’ reactions or handlings of situations.
I’m still not sure why Emma Lou was so into Alva. I got nothing out of their
Show More
relationship. Very heavy-handed.
Not a lot of growth with Emma Lou. Sure, she got a decent job. But she seemed to complain a lot about people. People who supposedly talked about her and behind her back. But I never got any sense that she tried to befriend these people. She just liked to harp on the fact that she wasn’t the same shade of color as them. It got old real fast.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1929
Physical description
221 p.; 5.25 inches
ISBN
068481580X / 9780684815800
Similar in this library
For colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow is enuf : a choreopoem by Ntozake Shange