>That interview with Achebe was an awful muddle, and the
>journalist who wrote it was a ditz.
She's a novelist, not a journalist.
>So she's probably not a very good conduit for Achebe's
>thinking, which may very well be more subtle and nuanced
>than she makes it seem.
That could be. There's lots more to work with though. Achebe first wrote about Conrad in 1975.
>Yeah, everybody was a racist in those days,
As Micheal Pollak pointed out yesterday, that ain't necessarily so.
>But if she's rendered him right, he seems to have two big
>points:
I think the big point is this bit I posted yesterday:
>Conrad was a seductive writer. He could pull his
>reader into the fray. And if it were not for
>what he said about me and my people, I would
>probably be thinking only of that
>seduction,...Those who want to go on enjoying
>the presentation of some people in this way
>they are welcome to go ahead. The book is there.
>... I simply said, 'Read it this way,' and that's all I have done.