{"id":11102,"date":"2010-12-30T18:26:57","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T18:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11102"},"modified":"2013-02-26T03:13:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T03:13:20","slug":"the-lives-of-jean-toomer-a-hunger-for-wholeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11102","title":{"rendered":"The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for Wholeness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for Wholeness<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Louisiana State University Press<\/a>
\n1987
\n448 pages
\n6×9
\nPaper ISBN-13: 978-0-8071-1548-0<\/p>\n

Cynthia Earl Kerman<\/strong>, Emeritus Professor of English
\nVilla Julie College in Stevenson, Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Eldridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jean Toomer<\/a> (1894\u20131967) arrived on the American literary scene in 1923 with the publication of Cane<\/a><\/em>, a small, emotional book about southern blacks that is often seen as marking the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance<\/a>. But Toomer was much more than a fiction writer and poet dedicated to the pursuit of art. He was also a disciple and teacher of Georges Gurdjieff\u2019s<\/a> spiritual-mental-physical system for achieving wholeness, and later a religious leader among Quakers<\/a>. The many \u201clives\u201d that Jean Toomer led are unfolded in this comprehensive and fascinating biography by Cynthia Earl Kerman and Richard Eldridge.<\/p>\n

The authors describe Toomer\u2019s childhood and youth, tracing the influence of his grandfather, P.B.S. Pinchback, his peculiar isolation as a child even amid family and friends, the shock of his mother\u2019s death, his removal to the home of his grandparents, and his erratic ventures from there into formal and informal education. They tell the story of Toomer\u2019s sudden entry into, and as sudden exit from, the active literary world of New York in the early 1920s, and they follow Toomer\u2019s reluctant but eventual total commitment to the mystical Gurdjieffan movement. Kerman and Eldridge devote considerable attention to Toomer\u2019s subsequent involvement with Quakers in and around Philadelphia<\/a>. They also consider the final fifteen years of Toomer\u2019s life, when failing health and a diminished sense of achievement marked his withdrawal into a state of isolated invalidism.<\/p>\n

Kerman and Eldridge are careful to place Toomer\u2019s varied accomplishments in perspective. They seek to correct misapprehensions about Toomer\u2019s position on race and offer a thorough treatment of his concept of the \u201cuniversal man\u201d as one beyond racial demarcation.<\/strong> They also look closely at Toomer\u2019s penchant for mysticism. The authors find that Toomer\u2019s intense need to be perfect and whole gave focus to the many passions he embraced throughout his life.<\/p>\n

The Lives of Jean Toomer<\/em> is enhanced by the authors\u2019 extensive use of primary and secondary materials, particularly the voluminous Toomer papers, formerly at Fisk University and now at Yale, and by their interviews with various persons who knew Toomer. In style, content, and organization, in its depth as well as balance, The Lives of Jean Toomer<\/em> is a model biography, a fitting tribute to an important but often misunderstood individual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for Wholeness Louisiana State University Press 1987 448 pages 6×9 Paper ISBN-13: 978-0-8071-1548-0 Cynthia Earl Kerman, Emeritus Professor of English Villa Julie College in Stevenson, Maryland Richard Eldridge Jean Toomer (1894\u20131967) arrived on the American literary scene in 1923 with the publication of Cane, a small, emotional book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1245,11,8,17],"tags":[4920,4918,4919,1051,885,4921],"class_list":["post-11102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-books","category-media-archive","category-monographs","tag-cynthia-e-kerman","tag-cynthia-earl-kerman","tag-cynthia-kerman","tag-louisiana-state-university-press","tag-lsu-press","tag-richard-eldridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}