Gloriously Impure Language

There was one thing that managed to catch my attention in my stupor from an all-nighter was how not only job titles are a Western identity of status, but also speech. I, like most of the class, struggle with the vernacular. That being said, the speech whether it is high flatulent or chuck full o’ accents is very indicative of a person and their culture. A lot of writers reflect regional dialects through how they write a character’s dialogue. As a result, this technique purposefully slows down the reader’s pace in order for him/her to understand the character. What happens at an unconscious level is the reader will make judgments about this character as either intelligent or dull-witted. As people, we socially interact and we make decisions from our first impressions. We do this ALL the time and the same judgments are made about us when we converse with other people.

In class, I underlined a line on page 95 that just jumped out at me and it states, “But I tell you, man, I have seen more Life than that feller Shakespeare! Things happen to me with accents on ‘em.” I was struck by this line because it was so passionate in its fightin’ words against the guru of English literature, Shakespeare. This is one thing I like about this book is it undermines all of our hang-ups on being thoroughly knowledgeable on pieces of “greatness,” which let’s face it are 9 times out of 10 only comprehensible when you have a professor taking you through each passage and what it means and why it’s so important. Oh, and of course, handy-dandy Sparknotes. From the way Desani writes, he shows how we, the readers, see how provincial it is when someone puts on airs. I see Haterr falling prey to this phenomenon for his inserts of French language, which was the language of high end British society for a time.

However frustrating it may be, I like how Desani is so acutely in tune to the human condition and he realizes how unreasonable it is to quantify one person’s credentials to a single standardized criteria. It’s not so much what is more commendable, book smarts versus street smarts, but Desani is sneaky in how he contorts the reader’s expectations for this book. For me at least, I have to consciously put aside my own biases to know what Desani is communicating to me and for me to find the method in his madness.