Banjo

Author - Claude McKay ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from The X Press was reviewed on 12-Dec-2008.

Search ISBN:1902934040 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Banjo Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Literary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General AAS General Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General AAS Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Pa . Click the following link to view the cover of Banjo.

Related topics: Contemporary. Subjects. Books. Literary. Subjects. Books. General AAS. General. Subjects. Books.

1) Paperback Book Banjo by The X Press. 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.¤

2) Paperback Book Banjo by The X Press. I named this tranquility because I ordered "Banjo" by McKay I got it in a few days and it was in perfect condition. Therefore I didnt have to worry a second thankyou peppiep@centurytel.net¤

3) Paperback Book Banjo by The X Press. A comic-tragic fictional assault on the `niggeratti` and black

respectability.As controversial as it is entertaining, Claude McKay`s BANJO caused an outcry amongst the black middle classes when it was first published in the 1940s. For McKay is the black master of satire, and this time the joke was on them. Seen through the eyes of a group of hard-drinking, loud-singing, fist-fighting black sailors stranded in Marseille waiting for their ship to come in, BANJO is a hilarious look at how people change as they climb up the social ladder. The book finds the black petty bourgeois trying to run as far away from their roots as possible, trampling over their hard-working poorer `brothers and sisters` in the process.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 9-Jan-2009, 19029340409781902934044, 070-530-110-040-170-491-401-8

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