For a book said to be about passing, there are many things that are overlooked or skimmed over. But it's worth noticing something Bookpossum posted on the first page:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
[...] Apparently Larsen originally intended to call the book Nig, but it was changed because the publishers were concerned about the outrange caused by a book they had published called Nigger Heaven. (This was in the Introduction by Emily Barnard in the Penguin edition.) The title she used was not as outrageous, but was just as much about racism. [...]
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There is quite a difference in the implications between "Nig" and "Passing", and the more I look at this book and the many (modern) assessments of it, the more I am inclined to think that it has become belatedly of academic interest because:
* The title is
Passing and it was written and set in 1920s Harlem,
* It is ambiguous, allowing a reader to impose almost any interpretation over the text that they want.
What a boon to modern academia, a book that can be "studied" that will support any intended purpose. It will not be the first book to have suffered (or benefited from) this. But I think a dispassionate look at the text shows that much of what has been attributed to the text has actually been imposed on it from the outside. By saying nothing the book can be said to be saying anything. (There is a corollary from science: a theory that can explain anything explains nothing.) In reality this short novella has many weaknesses and omissions, however you decide to interpret it, and is obviously an early work of a author; it is a book of unrealised potential. (Forgivably so, so early in her career, and so all the larger shame that she decided not to continue that career).