This volume of biographical and critical essays on the life and work of Jean Toomer is, as its Preface suggests, a  comprehensive study.  Its forty-six essays by thirty-nine scholars attest to its wide scope, and the extensive bibliography by the chief editor will prove most useful for present and future researchers

Auser, Cortland P.

English

VCU Scholars Compass

What can be done? is a question that occurs as the reader turns from 
one essay to the next. There are no well-known, world-wide organizations 
devoted to rescuing cultural resources, comparable to the World Wildlife 
Fund or Greenpeace. In any case, such organizations will not suffice 
alone·-either for natural or cultural resources. Unfortunately, discusson 
of solutions to the problem is the least satisfactory aspect of this book, 
primarily because--according to this reviewer-the subj ect has been 
conceived in too narrow a way. Only one author, Jaime Litvak King, 
addresses the problem in perspective as but one aspect of a general global 
disaster: the egregious,  immoral and increasing imbalance between 
the world's  wealthy and its poor. Only with an analysis that sees the 
plunder of a civilization's historic and prehistoric heritage as but one part 
of the general issue of the on-going transfer of wealth from poor to rich 
can a solution to the particular problem begin to be envisioned. 
I n  the meantime, this book is essential reading for any person who 
buys,  sells,  owns,  looks at, or cares about the human record of the past 
and what is happening to it. 
-Helen Jaskoski 
California State University , Fullerton 
Thurman B. O ' D aniel ed. Jean Toomer: A Critical Evaluation. 
(Howard University Press, Washington, D.C. ,  1988) xxi, 557 pp., 
$2 1 .95. 
This volume of biographical and critical essays on the life and work of 
Jean Toomer is,  as its Preface suggests, a "comprehensive study . "  Its 
forty-six essays by thirty-nine scholars attest to its wide scope, and the 
extensive bibliography by the chief editor will prove most useful for 
present and future researchers . 
O 'Daniel died before its publication, but he had been compiling this 
collection for the College Language Association.  Fortunately, fine 
scholars such as Ann Venture Young and Cason L. Hil l  (editor of the CLA 
Journal) completed the work for publication. The volume stands as a 
permanent monument to the main editor's research, scholarship and 
selection. 
Nellie McKay's perceptive introduction serves well as an excellent 
prologue to the volume. Significantly, she points out early that Toomer 
had a vision of an "American race." Having many blood lines from 
different nations and cultures, he dreamed of being the prototype of a 
"true American" who transcended racial divisions. His quest for a 
harmony of his spiritual, physical, and emotional selves constitutes a 
search for identity throughout his public life.  These themes continually 
reappear in this volume in essays dealing with his life, his apprentice-
38 Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 1 0  (Summer 1 990) 
ship, his studies, and his fictional and poetic productions. 
O'Daniel 's plan to divide the anthology into sections dealing with 
various aspects of his life and work was a wise one; one will find that all 
the essays are consistently of high quality. This edition can accom­
modate the mature reseacher, the graduate student, and the specializing 
undergraduate. 
For the first main section, "Jean Toomer: Aspects of His Life and Art," 
O'Daniel draws on the expertise of no less than nine scholars. He himself 
includes a valuable interview with Mae Wright Peck with whom Toomer 
had been romantically involved. Other essays deal with his life prior to 
the publication of Cane, his study at Wisconsin, his marriage to Margery 
Latimer, and his ideas on the racial composition of America as expressed 
in his long poem, " Blue Meridian . "  The section closes fittingly with a 
piece written in 1 967 (after Toomer's death) by his biographer Darwin T. 
Turner. 
A section appropriately follows concerned with his literary relation­
ships with H art Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and Waldo Frank. Two 
selections focus on his friendship with Anderson. Another group of 
articles following (and appropriately transitional) ,  deal with Cane and 
its relationship with the ideas of the mystics Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. 
Alice Poin dexter Fisher 's  article  may cl arify for readers how 
Ouspensky's Tertium Organon provided a philosophy for Toomer (who 
read it in 1 922) and ideas how man may reintegrate his spiritual and 
racial elements and how he may attain an inner harmony. 
Six perceptive interpretations of Cane touching on such matters as the 
design and movement of his work and on its unifying images follow. The 
variety of approaches serves as stimulus for any student of Toomer's 
work. Another series of essays pays special attention to Toomer's short 
stories; four of them dealing with his characterizations of women and the 
others, with life in the North and Chicago. There follows a section on his 
poetry. Especially noteworthy are treatments by H arry L. Jones and by 
Bernard W. Bell on his vision of the transcendence of race in "Blue 
Meridian." The last section of this general grouping on his writing in 
different genres is on Toomer as a playwright. It is left for Darwin T. 
Turner in a fourth article to explain his failure as a playwright. 
Selections such as "Women and Male-Female Relationships in Cane" 
supplement earlier prose examinations of Toomer's creations: Karintha, 
Becy, Fern, Avey, and E sther. 
Before Nellie McKay's appropriate epilogue-essay, and rounding out 
the many examinations of his work are articles on images of celebration 
in Toomer, his use of Biblical myth, and his relationship to the 
surrealists. For example, Louis Bradwell feels that his term "poetic 
realist" parallels Andre Breton's definition of "surrealism." Benj amin F. 
McKeever makes an excellent survey of how close Toomer's lyricism is to 
the blues. 
The last work is Nellie McKay's "Jean Toomer. The Artist-An 
Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 10  (Summer 1 990) 39 
Unfulfilled American Life:  An Afterword ."  Her overview provides the 
reader finally with sharp insights covering Toomer's quests. She stresses 
importantly his aspiration to be regarded simply as an American in "the 
family of the human race," eschewing all stereotypical racial tags. She 
closes by indicating how Cane among other works, shows the " gift and 
genius of an artist." 
-Cortland Pell Auser 
Yorktown Heights, NY 
J ames Officer. HispanicArizona, 1536-1856. (Tucson: University 
of Arizona Press, 1 987) viii, 462 pp., $45.00. 
One of the glaring gaps in Southwestern historiography has been the 
lack of a modern scholarly interpretation of the Spanish and Mexican 
presence in Arizona. Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the North 
Mexican States and Texas and John F. Bannon's The Spanish Border­
lands Frontier, 1513- 1821 have been the best sources for the study of 
pre-American Arizona, but these works treat the history of this region as 
a subtopic of a larger story. With the publication of Hispanic A rizona, 
scholars now have a thorough, detailed and scholarly study that is 
entirely devoted to the history of northern Sonora and southern Arizona.  
J ames Officer's book is strongest when discussing the interaction 
between Indians and Hispanics on the frontier. The Yuman, Papago and 
especially the Apache peoples have been an integral part of this region's 
history. They have both helped and hindered the advance of Hispanic 
settlement. The hundreds of campaigns against the Apaches influenced 
the political affairs of the Hispanic frontier settlers. The book details the 
political intrigues and civil w ars that Sonora experienced while  
constantly on guard against further Indian attacks. 
Much of Arizona's Hispanic history is linked to that of Pimeria Alta, 
later called Sonora. The book succeeds in convincing us that Tuscon and 
Tubac, the two principle Hispanic settlements in Arizona, were mostly 
appendages of the settlements further south. Sonoran military and 
political developments dominate the history of Arizona until the 
Y ankees' appearance in the 1 850s. 
This book is a chronicle, written in the traditional style of a political 
history. Solidly based on primary sources, it is obviously a labor that took 
many years to complete. Periodic discussions of Spanish and Mexican 
land grants and the genealogical histories of various prominent Sonoran 
and Tucson families give some social and economic dimensions to this 
study as does his description of early American attitudes (negative) 
towards the Mexicans of the region. 
If  there is a weakness in the book, it is in the plodding prose, especially 
40 Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 1 0  (Summer 1990) 


[Review of] Thurman B. O\u27Daniel, ed. Jean Toomer: A Critical Evaluation

What can be done? is a question that occurs as the reader turns from one essay to the next. There are no well-known, world-wide organizations devoted to rescuing cultural resources, comparable to the World Wildlife Fund or Greenpeace. In any case, such organizations will not suffice alone·-either for natural or cultural resources. Unfortunately, discusson of solutions to the problem is the least satisfactory aspect of this book, primarily because--according to this reviewer-the subj ect has been conceived in too narrow a way. Only one author, Jaime Litvak King, addresses the problem in perspective as but one aspect of a general global disaster: the egregious,  immoral and increasing imbalance between the world's  wealthy and its poor. Only with an analysis that sees the plunder of a civilization's historic and prehistoric heritage as but one part of the general issue of the on-going transfer of wealth from poor to rich can a solution to the particular problem begin to be envisioned. I n  the meantime, this book is essential reading for any person who buys,  sells,  owns,  looks at, or cares about the human record of the past and what is happening to it. -Helen Jaskoski California State University , Fullerton Thurman B. O ' D aniel ed. Jean Toomer: A Critical Evaluation. (Howard University Press, Washington, D.C. ,  1988) xxi, 557 pp., $2 1 .95. This volume of biographical and critical essays on the life and work of Jean Toomer is,  as its Preface suggests, a "comprehensive study . "  Its forty-six essays by thirty-nine scholars attest to its wide scope, and the extensive bibliography by the chief editor will prove most useful for present and future researchers . O 'Daniel died before its publication, but he had been compiling this collection for the College Language Association.  Fortunately, fine scholars such as Ann Venture Young and Cason L. Hil l  (editor of the CLA Journal) completed the work for publication. The volume stands as a permanent monument to the main editor's research, scholarship and selection. Nellie McKay's perceptive introduction serves well as an excellent prologue to the volume. Significantly, she points out early that Toomer had a vision of an "American race." Having many blood lines from different nations and cultures, he dreamed of being the prototype of a "true American" who transcended racial divisions. His quest for a harmony of his spiritual, physical, and emotional selves constitutes a search for identity throughout his public life.  These themes continually reappear in this volume in essays dealing with his life, his apprentice-38 Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 1 0  (Summer 1 990) ship, his studies, and his fictional and poetic productions. O'Daniel 's plan to divide the anthology into sections dealing with various aspects of his life and work was a wise one; one will find that all the essays are consistently of high quality. This edition can accom­modate the mature reseacher, the graduate student, and the specializing undergraduate. For the first main section, "Jean Toomer: Aspects of His Life and Art," O'Daniel draws on the expertise of no less than nine scholars. He himself includes a valuable interview with Mae Wright Peck with whom Toomer had been romantically involved. Other essays deal with his life prior to the publication of Cane, his study at Wisconsin, his marriage to Margery Latimer, and his ideas on the racial composition of America as expressed in his long poem, " Blue Meridian . "  The section closes fittingly with a piece written in 1 967 (after Toomer's death) by his biographer Darwin T. Turner. A section appropriately follows concerned with his literary relation­ships with H art Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and Waldo Frank. Two selections focus on his friendship with Anderson. Another group of articles following (and appropriately transitional) ,  deal with Cane and its relationship with the ideas of the mystics Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. Alice Poin dexter Fisher 's  article  may cl arify for readers how Ouspensky's Tertium Organon provided a philosophy for Toomer (who read it in 1 922) and ideas how man may reintegrate his spiritual and racial elements and how he may attain an inner harmony. Six perceptive interpretations of Cane touching on such matters as the design and movement of his work and on its unifying images follow. The variety of approaches serves as stimulus for any student of Toomer's work. Another series of essays pays special attention to Toomer's short stories; four of them dealing with his characterizations of women and the others, with life in the North and Chicago. There follows a section on his poetry. Especially noteworthy are treatments by H arry L. Jones and by Bernard W. Bell on his vision of the transcendence of race in "Blue Meridian." The last section of this general grouping on his writing in different genres is on Toomer as a playwright. It is left for Darwin T. Turner in a fourth article to explain his failure as a playwright. Selections such as "Women and Male-Female Relationships in Cane" supplement earlier prose examinations of Toomer's creations: Karintha, Becy, Fern, Avey, and E sther. Before Nellie McKay's appropriate epilogue-essay, and rounding out the many examinations of his work are articles on images of celebration in Toomer, his use of Biblical myth, and his relationship to the surrealists. For example, Louis Bradwell feels that his term "poetic realist" parallels Andre Breton's definition of "surrealism." Benj amin F. McKeever makes an excellent survey of how close Toomer's lyricism is to the blues. The last work is Nellie McKay's "Jean Toomer. The Artist-An Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 10  (Summer 1 990) 39 Unfulfilled American Life:  An Afterword ."  Her overview provides the reader finally with sharp insights covering Toomer's quests. She stresses importantly his aspiration to be regarded simply as an American in "the family of the human race," eschewing all stereotypical racial tags. She closes by indicating how Cane among other works, shows the " gift and genius of an artist." -Cortland Pell Auser Yorktown Heights, NY J ames Officer. HispanicArizona, 1536-1856. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1 987) viii, 462 pp., $45.00. One of the glaring gaps in Southwestern historiography has been the lack of a modern scholarly interpretation of the Spanish and Mexican presence in Arizona. Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the North Mexican States and Texas and John F. Bannon's The Spanish Border­lands Frontier, 1513- 1821 have been the best sources for the study of pre-American Arizona, but these works treat the history of this region as a subtopic of a larger story. With the publication of Hispanic A rizona, scholars now have a thorough, detailed and scholarly study that is entirely devoted to the history of northern Sonora and southern Arizona.  J ames Officer's book is strongest when discussing the interaction between Indians and Hispanics on the frontier. The Yuman, Papago and especially the Apache peoples have been an integral part of this region's history. They have both helped and hindered the advance of Hispanic settlement. The hundreds of campaigns against the Apaches influenced the political affairs of the Hispanic frontier settlers. The book details the political intrigues and civil w ars that Sonora experienced while  constantly on guard against further Indian attacks. Much of Arizona's Hispanic history is linked to that of Pimeria Alta, later called Sonora. The book succeeds in convincing us that Tuscon and Tubac, the two principle Hispanic settlements in Arizona, were mostly appendages of the settlements further south. Sonoran military and political developments dominate the history of Arizona until the Y ankees' appearance in the 1 850s. This book is a chronicle, written in the traditional style of a political history. Solidly based on primary sources, it is obviously a labor that took many years to complete. Periodic discussions of Spanish and Mexican land grants and the genealogical histories of various prominent Sonoran and Tucson families give some social and economic dimensions to this study as does his description of early American attitudes (negative) towards the Mexicans of the region. If  there is a weakness in the book, it is in the plodding prose, especially 40 Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 1 0  (Summer 1990) 

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1495&amp;context=ess

[Review of] Thurman B. O\u27Daniel, ed. Jean Toomer: A Critical Evaluation

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