by Richard Rodriguez
|
| List Price: | $14.00 |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $6.79 |
|
 |
|
Product Description
In his dazzling new memoir, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and the meaning of Hispanics to the life of America today. Rodriguez argues that America has been brown since its inception-since the moment the African and the European met within the Indian eye. But more than simply a book about race, Brown is about America in the broadest sense-a look at what our country is, full of surprising observations by a writer who is a marvelous stylist as well as a trenchant observer and thinker.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Very important for learning distinctions and non-distinctions, 2008-06-04
Richard Rodriguez is a very provocative thinker from a well thought out perspective that should be shared and understood. It works well in contrast to older writings by Robert Ardrey. We are a visual species who categorizes, and will always categorize the people, places, things, and ideas we encounter based upon their literal and figurative appearance. Mr. Rodriguez brings to question some of those things we define, and some of those things we mis-define. After over 100 years of scientific research on exactly what makes a breed of man and a society there is no longer any excuse for questionaires which attempt to undermine inequality by mixing culture and race. As he points out, Hispanic is not a race - but a culure, and should not appear in a list to be checked next to white, black, or American Indian - which again are inaccurate. The entire system of boxing into said categories fails both in accuracy and only reinforces the divisions of modern prejudices.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 trying to fit in and begging to be accepted, 2008-05-01
I made the mistake of buying this book because the introduction intrigued me. His word play and analogies seemed interesting, but it quickly grew annoying.
He rarely makes any sense, and it seems like he's making one inside joke after another with himself or with people his age. I don't 'get' his obscure cultural references from the 60s. I'm not kidding, read through a few pages and you'll see that it sounds like he was high off his a$$ when he wrote it. His writing style is literary masturbation, like he's getting himself off by coming across as an intellectual making a good point, instead of making a good point with a solid argument. The use of 'fluff' words and unecessary prose will be the first thing you'll notice ruining this book.
I'm not one to put down a book and stop reading it, but this is the first one in years. As a Chicano, I cannot identify with this man. Aside from the front he's putting on by trying to come off as an 'educated man', he makes several references that he should be on the same shelf as great 'white authors'. That he does not want to be "The Hispanic" on the shelf. What's wrong with that? Is he not proud of what he is? I don't hear black authors complaining like this, because they have self acceptance. What does it matter if he's the Hispanic on the shelf? Is it a negative connotation to the word that he has on the back of his mind that bothers him? Is he afraid he'll be judged by whites by label alone? It's almost like he's trying to prove that he 'can do it too' and it's the first proof in a long list of evidence that Richard Rodriguez desperately wants to fit in within white circles and is begging to be accepted. Someone on here commented that it seems like he has an inferiority complex, and I would have to say that hit the nail on the head. The vibe I get from this guy is that his "brownness" is the only thing holding him back from receiving full acceptance, and he's out to prove that he shouldn't be judged by that. It's almost like a self serving agenda he has, instead of showing the virtues and accomplishments of "brown people".
I will not finish reading this book, and I have now crossed his other books off of my "to read" list.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Love this book! The "inconvenient" truth revealed-, 2007-12-04
That inconvenient truth or understanding that America is more than what some would like to still believe. We are not black or white (or Hispanic - a nice made up word). We are brown. Black and white both imply voids that either absorb everything (like black) or contrast completely (like white). The truth is in America we are all mixed up. I know that's an ugly truth for many. The reason that it becomes a hang-up here and not so much as in Catholic countries (like Mexico) is that Protestant/Puritan values still live on strong. Be who you want, but don't try to blend lines or anything. Keep to your true pure self! Listen only to "your" type of music. Only eat "your" type of food (none of us is guilty of this one as obese as the country is). Only wear "your" type of clothes. Yes, you can have freedom in America, as long as you fit into your little niche. "You're African-American! You're supposed to listen to Hip-Hop. What are you doing liking Classical music?" Beethoven was the stuff! But anyway the only "race" that in America is tolerated to "cross the lines" in terms of cultural identity is whites (Is it because white pigment blends with other colors without the colors losing their essence?). And this whole "race" thing! Skin has only one color! "Shock"....I'm not speaking blasphemy. It's true. The color is called MELINAN. Actually it's a pigment. The difference in people is the amount you have. Young people today don't have the hang-ups about "race" like the older generations have. It takes a while to get rid of deeply entrenched ideas. This book had my mind spinning. Very insightful and complex. It's dense like others mentioned, but hey life is dense. Americans would like to think of life as uncomplicated with our little categories to put things. But as life (and history) shows us time and time again nothing is really black and white except divinity. And even that isn't as straightforward as some believe. Consider the fact that Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, the Prophet Moses, the Prophet Muhammad, Adam and Eve were brown. Think about it!
The human world (Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and etc.) is brown.
Post-Note: According to the Rodriguez, Brown also means complexity not just the color itself.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Rodriguez - Brown is All Cultures, 2007-01-08
Rodriguez has written an ambitious book: who else would be willing to take on the idea of "brown" and all it involves, from the many perspectives from which this writer sees? I teach a university course on Biography and Memoir and his is one of my favorite books to include. I love his attention to the role of the public library, schools, how religion divides and unites us. Increasingly we all live in a "brown" world and Rodriguez shows us how books and culture help us explore that world in its origins and awesome potential for good and for ill. His riffs are right-on target: Malcolm X as latter-day Puritan, Frederick Douglass on the same shelf with Benjamin Franklin in terms of writing memoirs that tell us how to live honestly in This America of Ours. The poetry of Rodriguez's language is not at all what we might come to expect from an analytical writer. His work is closer to poetry that looks back to the multiple historical origins of these Americas, asks about the originary moments of various races, cultures, religions coming together, and what has happened since. By writing evocatively, rather than cut-and-dry rants or analyses, Rodriguez does much to explore the structures that pervade and are promised in present-day America. Rodriguez is worth, will pay back in insights every bit of time you put into reading him. Maybe his identity isn't yours, maybe you will want to dismiss him, but if you read through, stay with this book, I promise - he will get under your skin.
2 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
 Bullsh*t, 2006-06-01
This guy is full of it and full of himself. Wants to sound sooooooooooooooooo educated. Comes off sounding like a pretentious overcompensating guy with a real inferiority complex. Obviously has not come to a point of self-acceptance. It is a pity. I got the book in hopes of finding some help with my own Mexican-American son's struggles to fit in to either the Mexican or the "white" sides of his heritage. This book is NOT one I will leave around for him to read. I wonder how he got published.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|