Re: Earth Abides, by George R Stewart

"AJ" <torturedartist@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:47e35e0c$0$4059$9a566e8b@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:47e34bb9$0$93285$804603d3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> >
> >> "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
> >>
> >> >> I loved it too.
> >> >> With its treatment of ecological balance issues and sociological
> >> >> issues, it was way ahead of its time.
> >> >
> >> > On the other hand, notice its treatment of race.
> >> >
> >> Em was light-skinned black, and Ish didn't care.
> >
> > Sorry.  I was thinking of the Negro community Ish found, which he
found
> > uncomfortably deferential to him.  I don't think a novel written ten
> > years later would have had them treating him as a superior.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> I got more of "oh god the white man is back and gonna take all our stuff
and
> punish us." vibe from them.  It was written in 1949 after all.
>




Remember, they probably don't have much idea what's going on in the wider
world. Even Ish has to do quite a bit of exploring before satisfying
himself
that conditions are the same everywhere.

For all those people know, there may be quite a lot of white survivors in
various places, and Ish only the forerunner of a whole bunch of white
folks
arriving to restore the old status quo. So they tread warily. For Blacks
grown up in the pre-1950s South, that's probably just normal survival
instinct.

I doubt if Ish could really have maintained himself as "Massa" for very
long, once they became reasonably sure that there was only one of him. He
was sensible not to try it.

--

Mike Stone - Peterborough, England

Always drink upriver from the herd (song title)