The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Neil opened by explaining that his choice had been driven by an interest in reading the Booker prize winner most years, by his daughter’s recommendation, it having been one of the few books she has read recently, and the intriguing write-up that clearly suggested this was something a little out of the ordinary.  Overall Neil found it challenging but interesting and felt that the author rather let himself down with a terrible Prologue that really wasn’t the best possible introduction to the book despite the superb opening lines and the occasionally clever idea such as the idea of setting up a Tattoo service specialising in Latin text.  Indeed this often seemed to be the case that there were brilliant comic ideas in the novel, but that sometimes they didn’t always hang together neatly in a typical novel narrative.  Nevertheless, once the main story started, Neil found this quite entertaining.

Some of Neil’s favourite bits of humour included the way Me got Hominy’s slave beatings contracted out to a BDSM prostitute, the bull castration at the school job demonstration day and the day in the park when all the gangs got on because they were so stoned on his special marijuana and enjoying his watermelon too much.   At the same time, behind the humour the author had, in Neil’s opinion, managed to communicate some very important themes and messages, including the complete failure of de-segregation for many schools in America and the fact that racial segregation as a whole seems to be something that has happened anyway in America and will continue to without positive action taken to generate true equality.  These factors compensated Neil for the sometimes difficult language, absurdist storytelling and the heavily US context that sometimes required further investigation in order to understand their validity, such as the existence of the real Our Gang/Little Rascal  films which had indeed been a source of racial controversy for many years.

Chris W had also found the first 30 or 40 pages rather nonsensical, but admitted that once the main story started, he really enjoyed it. Although he felt that perhaps it was less a story as a theme and series of ideas. Chris was surprised to find that he found the book more interesting in many ways than something like Sunset Song because it was so contemporary and relevant.  He was one of two or three of us who had just been watching Miriam Margolyes’ new series on TV following her travels through the US and encountering people and places who might have come straight out of the book.  It certainly stirred up lots of reflective thoughts for Chris about the US and its issues.

Mark W had just finished the book and started by making it clear that he is no fan of the US in general as a country, race or culture which was therefore perhaps not the best starting point from which to be approaching the book.  He also found that reading it over the Christmas break maybe contributed to him finding it a hard, if worthy, book.   Mark is not bothered about the Booker prize, didn’t enjoy the narrative and didn’t identify with the characters.  He was perhaps most irritated by the stereotypical portrayal of black culture and doesn’t like the way the English language is subverted with all the swearing in the dialogue.  He found one redeeming feature in a little bit of irony at the end of the book as he feels this is something Americans don’t generally do.

Chris B found this harder to read than the Scottish book, of which he has just finished the complete trilogy.  He too was irritated by it.  There were too many references for him to localised things that he knew nothing about and couldn’t relate to.  He hadn’t finished the book (due to the Scottish trilogy being so enthralling) and was only just beginning to appreciate some of The Sellout as he got further into it.  He agreed with the “worthy” tag and acknowledged that there were some good pieces of writing when taken in isolation.

Steve thought this was an American book meant for Americans and wondered if authors ever thought about who would end up reading their work and modifying it accordingly.  Anyway, Steve found this rather alienating and the book as a whole somewhat “relentless”. He pointed out that sometimes sentences were more than half a page long and contained so many things that you could easily skip parts and not miss anything.  He did quite like the central character and his self-deprecation, such as the admission that he was “a shockingly poor lover”.  He admitted that the book was at times clever and thought-provoking, but he found it hard to have any affinity with.

Mark T found this easier to read that Sunset Song with its archaic Scottish and he too liked the main character.  He also hadn’t finished the book yet but was finding it quite accessible whilst not necessarily enjoying it. He liked some of the comic ideas, such as Foy re-writing Mark Twain to be less racist.  However, overall he thought it intriguing but hard-going in what he had read so far.

Richard emailed in to say that he had found the book distinctly underwhelming and that while the author was clearly knowledgeable and erudite, to him it felt as if he were listening to a very long rap song…not itself necessarily an issue, but a book-long rap song is too long for anyone.  He found the book to add up to less than the sum of its parts, even though some of the writing was quite lyrical. It took Richard ages to get into the book, let alone understand what it was all about.  He definitely didn’t find it laugh out loud funny, nor hilarious or profound.  A clever author perhaps who has written a no-doubt clever book, but Richard can read clever for work, he’d rather not for pleasure.