ravi wrote:
>
> - i am asking questions, such
> as the meaningfulness of saying "jazz is american" in a particular
> context (one of pride: america gave the world jazz).
>
America gave the world the heroism of Geronimo. America gave the world Juan Bosch's insight into trusting the U.S. America gave the world the tale of the Middle Passage. America gave the world Che. This would be an interesting game to think of all the good things America gave the world.
>From following this thread I'm beginning to think America should be
classified with Ottoman Turkey or the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Not a
nation at all but sort of high-class prison of a miscellany of peoples.
That would explain why the U.S. has no fiction I know of that dramatizes
and very deep feeling for "a people." My standard here is a French short
story -- I forget both author and title -- about an Alsatian school
teacher, on the last day (after 1870) when French will be the language
of the school he teaches in. The next day the official language will be
German.
I can't imagine such a story being written by an American.
Carrol