THE FLAGELLANTS

by Carlene Hatcher Polite ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 1967

Our beings goad us into assuming the role of whip wielder. Our ignorance oppresses us, hammers us back into our assaulted root. Causality flowers us into penitent switches. Violence is the fruity thrill."" In an apocalyptic hip, this projects the subjective condition of being a Negro chiefly through a duelogue between Ideal (""I cook slop keep a dirty house, wear hand-me-down clothes"") and Jimson, her Messiah who says he will flagellate her Mind not her body. Ideal is from somewhere in the South called Black Bottom; now she's in New York, the Village, where Ideal and Jimson assail and assault each other (emasculating ""Mammy"" vs. castrated little Daddy). Much passion, much protest, much pain although very little of a more rational nature takes place. Miss Polite's first novel, originally published in Paris, is written in an awkward (""the taboo restrained in its slither"") undisciplined and often unintelligible prose, part tomtom primitive, part bongo beat. In her more simply stated preface, she says ""Some doors never open for colored people....The door chooses its own knockers. It opens upon the word."" Which word? And whatever happened to the mot juste?

Pub Date: June 19, 1967

ISBN: 0374526567

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION