spoiler alert. maybe a mod can change it for me?

>I had come back in this post and saw the subject then hit the
>back button.
>
>technically his claim has to be that Baise is the author not
>the narrator though right? I mean it's a first person
>narrative, in all time periods.
>
yes. even though that's a strange distinction, but i "get" / know what you mean


>he either spills the beans or slips up on page 257
>
>"I don't understand Mama Lara. If we changed the future, how
>come I'm still here? How come you look the same in 2013 that
>you did in 1985? Say something. ****Why would my mama and
>daddy still have me if we changed the future?**** It just
>doesn't make sense."
>
>Two sentences later she calls *him* City.
>
not a slip up. he claimed on multiple pages he litters clues about it. It's also, in retrospect, why when I read it i'd get confused at some of the language or POV

>HAving gotten spoiled I immediately read that as City is Baize
>in some weird overlap of time thing. But I don't know.
>
>Really enjoyed the prose, and City and Baize as characters.
>There are some amazing scenes in it as well. But if I'm being
>me there's something off that just keeps me from saying it was
>great. It's partially that I don't think he got a full grasp
>of his time, or at the least wasn't able to bring it all
>together.

what does that last sentence mean? 'cause without details it's a strange critique

Meaning there's a complete loop that could have
>been made which would have been awesome, but the whole blank
>pages and keep on writing felt almost like a cop out.

that's not what he was trying to do IMO. in interviews i've linked in other posts Kiese talks about those last pages, and says if we are with him then it's very difficult to accept what happens with those kids.

again, MO is that those kids, Black kids, have turned their back on the world and are going back in time to save themselves (or maybe the world), or that Baize got killed by time before she actually got to finish the book.

Then I
>just don't think he handled violence too well, except for the
>kick in the back. There's some serious violence that happens
>in the book, and it just sort of happens.

agreed

With a character
>like City I'd have expected more to be said about those acts.
>It felt like there were the start of some really great other
>characters but none of them really became anything more than
>anecdotes. Even Shalaya.
>
ehh, LeVander, and GMa, and the lil' white girl, and the Sentence tournament, and Baize, and Shalaya all owned the page as much as City for me, even though he's the "focus"/POV character

>Again I still think it is really good, but I was waiting for
>an aha moment that never really came.
>

that's cool, glad you enjoyed it. i thought the 1964 scenes were the weakest and I really hated the church scene: I wish he never went there. but i get it, he's a Black southern church dude

>█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
>Big PEMFin H & z's
>"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1
>thing, a musician." � Miles
>
>"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."