Quotations # 1 : The Quest

Sadly, I`ve not had time to write any book reviews for this blog, though I hope to soon. In the meantime, here`s a quote from  Dr Du Bois.  Not one of the ones most commonly quoted, but the opening paragraph from one of his novels, The Quest of the Silver Fleece ;

"Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The tall pines lost their slimness and stood in wide blurred blotches all across the way, and a great shadowy bird arose, wheeled and melted, murmuring, into the black-green sky."

`The Quest` was published in 1911, his first novel if I recall correctly. Arnold Rampersad comments in his Foreword to the 1989 edition, "In writing this book, Du Bois brought almost all his significant experiences to bear on his subject. Set both in the South and in the North, [it] reflected graphically the historical and philosophical tensions between the cultures of New England and the Suth, both white and black. The book attempts to depict not only the larger social and economic forces impinging on blacks but also the more intimate aspects of African-American culture".