In the beginning of White Boy Shuffle we see Gunnar as "the funny black kid" who pulls a lot of pranks, and cracks a lot of jokes. As the book progresses we see that the tone of the novel gets a little darker, and Gunnar seems to be in an almost depressed state.
When Gunnar writes a letter to his wife, Yoshiko, he says things like "I miss you so much it hurts." Although Gunnar is a poet, I never really took him as the hopeless romantic. He seems to assume this role when him and his wife move to Boston. Gunnar leaves his family and the gang behind, with the exception of Scoby, and attends one college class. He tries to join clubs to no avail. He seems to be cast as the "black guy." As Gunnar tries to discover himself outside of Hillside and basketball, he has many encounters with different people. Gunnar was made fun of in his English class until they knew who he was, then they worshiped him. He tries to fit in with a couple clubs, all of which are racially connected, and eventually he turns back to basketball. He goes back to his old nonchalant attitude, and he is no longer the star. Gunnar and Nick both get booed and things thrown at them. This really seem to effect on Nick. When writing to Yoshiko he says that she should make and appointment for Scoby to see a councelor, and half jokingly says that she should make one for Gunnar too.
As the book goes on it seems to get less funny. I think that this is not because of Beatty's writing, but because of Gunnar's thoughts and actions. Gunnar tends to crack less jokes, mess around less with the guys, and just hang around with Yoshiko. Beatty still tends to put in jokes, but overall it seems that Gunnar has lost interest in trying to be funny. I guess it could be said that he didn't need to try to be funny. Although ridiculed by fans, he was a great basketball player, and a writer that his whole class loved. He was getting a book of his works published, but he doesn't seem to care all that much.
After Gunnar's encounter with the Harvard recruiter, it seems like his view on basketball, especially Ivy League basketball, lowered. He doesn't want to have to deal with nasty, pushy recruiters, so he would rather spend his time in the library reading. Gunnar doesn't have the same drive he had in the beginning. I can't say that he had a lot of drive to be good at basketball, but he put a lot of effort into becoming a great writer and poet. When his chance comes to show off to the class, and be the superstar underground black poet, he denies it. He runs around campus naked to get away from them, instead of reveling in the fact that he was a known poet that people really like; including being his teacher's favorite poet.
I don't know if Gunnar is "made fun of" in his writing class (at first) so much as tolerated, as if the "cool, funny black guy" with the rebellious attitude can test all kinds of limits among these socially conscious white liberals, who are too scared to challenge him back. But then this nervous anxiety turns to adulation and even a violatory kind of worship very quickly, and things get ugly.
ReplyDeleteIt is striking that he doesn't even really entertain the idea of "performing" the role of the edgy "street poet" for his class. In this sense, he's less willing to compromise his poetry than his basketball.
Mr. Mitchell pointed it out in class that Beatty has a tendency to build up momentum in his books to where they just completely fly off the handle in the end, and White Boy Shuffle does just that. It starts off slow, and felt pretty realistic, then at the end it just goes crazy, with Gunnar running around BU naked followed by his adoring poetry class, Gunnar cuts off his finger, and finally Gunnar challenges the U.S to drop a nuke on him. It was like watching Gunnar slowly descend into madness except that his voice stayed clear and the same. Which was a striking contrast to the events going around him.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think this was Beatty's way of emphasizing Gunnar's evolution rather than trying to go from funny to serious. The turning point for me was the announcement of the Rodney King verdict. This was the first real time we saw Gunnar feel genuinely connected to his black roots and his actions really sold it.
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