Re: Earth Abides, by George R Stewart

"Mike Stone" <mwstone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:64h745F2bl9mlU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "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)
>


Thats what i was thinking.