Cane

by Jean Toomer 1923

Cane is not really a novel by any measure, more a collection of poems and short stories that capture a certain sentiment about the rural south at the turn of the 20th century.  Cane is a short book, only about a hundred pages, but by no means light reading.  There are many stylistic elements, poetic and dramatic, fused together here.  The book is divided into three parts, with the short vignettes and little poems comprising the first two sections and a 35-page story as the third.  Toomer is considered part of the Harlem Rennaisance movement, although he is known only for this one book, and his style is unique and personal.

The poetry in Cane is beautiful and tragic.  Slave spirituals are a strong influence on the rhythm and repetition, and the subjects are one with the setting.  The cane in the fields and the Negro slaves working the land are "dark purple ripened plum[s], Squeezed and bursting in the pinewood air... Caroling softly souls of slavery."  There is an abundance of imagist transformation in these poems, between nature and bodies, and the language is vivid and rich.  But this is juxtaposed with the harsh conditions that the author has observed.  For example, here is a short and haunting poem in its entirety, Portrait in Georgia:

Hair—braided chestnut,
           coiled like a lyncher's rope,
Eyes—fagots,
Lips—old scars, or the first red blisters,
Breath—the last sweet scent of cane,
And her slim body, white as the ash
            of black flesh after flame.

Cane's greatest success, I think, lies in these poignant and painful images, a cri de coeur for the South, still reeling from a painful and deeply entrenched history that will not die.  Toomer expresses himself with a strong racial identity in Cane, though in reality his life was much more complicated.  He was born of mixed race, and only as a teenager became aware of the harsh cultural dichotomies that were constructed in American culture between Black and White.  He sought to transcend being pigeonholed as a 'Negro' voice in the arts, championing a new American race, disdaining the characterization of unique individuals by such limiting terms.  For all his vision, we know all too well today how elusive a 'post-racial' America is.  Toomer was never able to achieve his goal of recognition in a way that was not tied to his race, though his Romantic temprament is evident in some of the poems here, where he seeks peace with nature.  In the poem 'Beehive' he depicts a "black hive" with a flurry of activity, bees buzzing and passing, escaping, returning, while "I, a drone, Lying on my back... Getting drunk with silver honey, ...Wish that I might fly out past the moon And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower."  The speaker doesn't exactly sound eager to be a part of his own racial community.

In the end, Toomer is a loner.  He feels acutely the pain of his subjects, but also his subjects are never fully human; they are at times objects or symbols and at others simply caricatures.  This is the greatest shortcoming of Cane on the whole.  Some of the stories can become tedious, and the characters blur into a miasma of figures struggling to maintain dignity and hope, beaten and bloodied, seeking joy. There are no truly memorable characters in this book, for all the sensitivity with which they are portrayed.


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