classic (Harlem Renaissance)
You can buy it here:
Quicksand (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)
Quicksand By Nella Larsen
Quicksand
Summary:
Helga Crane is a young woman, the daughter of a Scandinavian woman and an African American man. As the novel begins, she works as a teacher at an all black school, but she is highly dissatisfied. We follow her through her life with all its ups and downs and on her way through the world.
My thoughts:
I despise Helga Crane. Maybe it was the re-reading I had to do for a paper, but after a while I got really tired with Helga's indecisiveness. She up and runs from one place to the next, hoping everything will be absolutely perfect there. At first she appears content, but after a while she decides that this life is not what she wants and leaves again, for another place and another life. This seems to be a recurring theme in the novel. Nonetheless, Quicksand is a wonderful (if incomplete) portrayal of the life of African Americans and people of mixed heritage between the 1920s and 1940s. It catches the flair of the time and of the life in Harlem in those days wonderfully.
Rating:
2/5
FTC: I bought this
2 comments:
I remember reading this one in school, and I really enjoyed it. I may need to reread it now...
Please let me know how you liked it the second time around! :)
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