I’m a blogger because, first and foremost, I am a reader. So it’s a given that I read a lot of books. I read a lot of good books. Well written books. Books from an eclectic mix of genre. Books from gifted, talented authors. Though I confess that I’m often looking for “literature“. But what is literature? I tried to answer that question for myself in a blog post several months ago. If you’re interested I’ll pop the link here.
https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-is-literature.html
I don’t find literature very often. That sounds as if I’m being critical, it’s not at all. For a book to satisfy my criteria of literature it has to be pretty special. They only come along every once in a while. I believe that Robert Jones Jr’s The Prophets is one of those books. A book that will in time prove to be vitally important on several levels.
The writing was exquisite. Lyrical prose. When the blurb suggested it was reminiscent of Toni Morrison I laughed. Surely that wasn’t possible? But it is. A fusion of both the physical and emotional sweeping through your very soul with depth and intensity. So what is it about The Prophets that renders it a book in a class of its own. I’m not sure I can adequately express it! It’s one of those books where you feel that whatever you write it won’t be enough.
Ostensibly it’s a story about two gay teenagers. Nothing new in that is there? But these are two black, gay teenagers. Two black, gay teenagers on a cotton plantation from a past century. So they are slaves. And that leaves you pondering whether the concept of slavery goes beyond a physical incarceration, to people as slaves to themselves? You might think that loyalty and solidarity might go hand-in-hand amongst the “inmates“ on a southern plantation. But here Isaiah and Samuel are betrayed by one of their own.
And so we have a book that is fiction, yes, but it’s also historic fiction. With chapter headings that invoke the Bible on many occasions religion is never far from the surface. Throughout history people have sought to find ways and means of understanding the situations they are in and those things that they witness without truly understanding. This book examines a time and a place where the love that dare not speak its name didn’t even dare to show its face.
Jones’ historical research is impeccable. But there have been many historical novels. There have been many historical novels about slavery. What Jones does is inject emotion into the history. So full of soul. Humble. Beautiful. Love weaves its threads around Samuel and Isaiah and lets those threads dangle carelessly for anyone to catch hold of and understand the depth of feeling within their hearts. For some it will inspire, for others it will conspire to force them onwards to that cataclysmic conclusion that will prompt the volcano in your reader heart to erupt. The broader aspects of the cruelty of slavery never fail to reach their mark. But they contrast with the dignified intimacy of our two protagonists who understand the unstated predicament they are in.
As characters Isaiah and Samuel are wonderful creations, The paradox of the human condition. The yin and the yang. So full of dignity yet also full of human frailty. Struggling to understand themselves and each other. That struggle created from the situation they are in.
Thematically it’s also a novel about survival. However you interpret survival to be. A physical survival. An emotional survival. A mental survival. A spiritual survival. Or some fusion between the all of them, which is surely what we all aspire to?
Is it one of those books where you’re better off spending your time reading the book itself rather than reading reviews about it!
My thanks to Quercus Books for a gifted proof. A proof in the truest sense of the word. Proof that literature is alive and well.
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