Jazz

Jazz serves to continue our discussions about expression and experience in a unique way.  As with other novels we have read, it discusses through a specific focalization, a specific microcosm of society that others can only read about.  Like the Great Gatsby, this is an investigation into the the 1920′s Jazz era in American history.  Actually, just writing and thinking back to our discussion in class today, these two novels share several key similarities, even though they are addressing totally different subjects.  Both novels take place in 1920′s New York.  Both novels feature main characters retreating from the midwestern United States to the heart of America’s booming east coast cities in order to find work.  Both took place during the height of prohibition, so the illegal drinking/party scene is prevelant in both novels.  Also, both novels use infedelity as a central crux from which the other constituent events spin off.  While offering similar  and often complimentary views of the same time period, the novels differ in that The Great Gatsby, and for that matter every other novel we have read thus far, has been written as a contemporary novel.  Toni Morrison’s Jazz wasn’t published until 1992, making Morrison a full generation removed from her subject matter.  It will be interesting as we continue to read whether Morrison will be able to reign in her insight (product in the form of a novel) after an entire generation of speculation has passed.  I am skeptical whether someone trying to write a novel about a time period, several years after the fact could be neer as insightful as one written in that time.