University of Northern Iowa

Mules and Men by Zora Neale HurstonReview by: Thomas Caldecot ChubbThe North American Review, Vol. 241, No. 1 (Mar., 1936), pp. 181-183Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25114715 .

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BOOK REVIEWS [ 181 ] ? his humanism ? but what higher reputation could a man

want than to be known far and wide as a great and noble hu man being?

C. HARTLEY GRATTAN

MULES AND MEN. By ?ora Neale Hurston. With an Introduc

tion by Frank Boas, Ph.D., LL.D. Lippincott, $3.00.

MORE

than a year ago a small novel, intriguingly titled

"Jonah's Gourd Vine" by a young negro woman

named Zora Neale Hurston, made its debut. That the critics

acclaimed it, is well known to every victim of that time-con

suming but not unpleasant drug-habit of reading the Sunday book reviews. That the reading public failed to make it a best

seller, I deduce from the fact that a copy I purchased recently was still a first edition. It so happens that the critics were

right, and the public made a mistake. As entertainment,

"Jonah's Gourd Vine" is a novel of the first order. As a study of a negro, and also of the negro, I not only know of no equal, but offhand I cannot think of any that is even near.

And it led you to wonder what the author would do in the

future, for surely the possessor of so fresh and honest a talent could not be the writer of but a single book. Not long ago we

had the answer. Under the most sacrosanct auspices, Miss Hurston produced another volume, "Mules and Men." It

purports to be sociological, and in the strictest sense it is, but not even that ponderous classification can spoil it. For if

"Jonah's Gourd Vine" is a story with a background of sociol

ogy, "Mules and Men" is a social study with gusto of a story. Indeed, it is hard to think of anybody interested in the negro

whom this new book will not delight. The southern raconteur

who justly prides himself upon his large store of stories about the colored man will here find himself beaten on his own

ground, but having gained a new supply of tales to tell. The student of folk-lore will find a well-filled source-book. And he

who loves the negro, or is amused by him, or burns for his

wrongs, or thinks he ought to know his place, will find, each of

them, as good a portrayal of the negro's character as he is ever

likely to see.

Not, either, a one-sided portrayal. The gaiety, the poetry,

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[ i82 ] THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

the resourcefulness and the wit are set down, but so also are

the impulsiveness, the shiftlessness, the living in the moment

only. Short of associating with the negro daily, there is no way you can learn more about him. Indeed, from Miss Hurston

you will find out many things that, even if you live surrounded

by negroes for a long time, you might never know. For as she

says, "the negro, in spite of his open-faced laughter, his seem

ing acquiescence, is particularly evasive." He tells the white man what he thinks the white man wants to know, or what he feels he ought to know.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with "Folk Tales" and the second with "Hoodoo." I find the second part interesting, but dare not judge it. I am aware that hoodoo plays a great part in the lives of certain negroes, but I have the teasing conviction that it has always been, and always will be over-emphasized because of those who like its appeal to

the romantically macabre. The first part, however, is magnifi cent. It is a collection of negro anecdotes, negro brags, and

negro folk tales. They are all rich and full. In the accuracy of their language, they are superior to "Uncle Remus"; and as

stories they average very nearly as high. Quite expectedly, most of these stories are humorous, and a

large part of what remain are fantastic; but there are a few

grim, a few ghostly and a few sardonic. Of the humorous

stories, the greater part deal with slaves who outwit "de ole

marster," or with animals, representing the negro, who outwit animals representing the white man. For I am sure everybody

must now realize that Brer Rabbit is "the brother in black," as

is also Brer Gopher when he outwits rather than outruns Brer

Deer. Such ugliness as there is, is mainly in the background. There you see the negro lusting, fighting, drinking coon dick

and living in such an atmosphere of squalor as would crush ?

as it has crushed on various occasions ? any less resilient

race.

And laughing as the escape therefrom. For laughing is the

negro's catharsis. It is what lets him keep his resilience ? as

Joel Chandler Harris possibly realized when he penned certain

cryptic words in his introduction to the first edition of "Uncle Remus" way back in 1880.

If I were to cite, let alone quote, all that seemed admirable

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BOOK REVIEWS [ 183 ] in this volume, my review would be nearly as long as the book, so I will point out but a single story.

Read on page 163 about the son who went to college. After

this "book-learnt" son has tied his father to the back of a

kicking heifer, to take the hump out of her back so that she will stand still long enough for the mother to milk her (because "dis cow kickin' is all a matter of scientific principle") it ends as follows:

De old lady tried to milk de cow but she was buckin' and rearm' so till de ole man felt he couldn't stand it no mo'. So he hollered to de boy, "cut de rope, son, cut de rope! Ah want

get down."

Instead of de boy cuttin' loose his papa's feet he cut de rope dat had de cow tied to de tree and she lit out de wood wid de ole man's feet tied under de cow. Wasn't no way for him to get off.

De cow went bustin' on down de road wid de ole man till

they meet a sister he knowed. She was surprised to see de man on

de cow, so she ast: "My lawd, Brother So-and-so, where you

going?" He tole her, "Only God and dis cow knows."

After you have read it, send a marked copy to Dr. Tugwell or to Secretary Wallace, or for that matter, if it be not lese

majeste, to someone even higher in the government. And then deny, if you dare, that even the untaught negro,

who was probably the original teller of this story, has a wisdom

of his own. Why not? For in the deep South, where, after

Africa, most of these tales had birth, he still lives close to the

red clay soil. The soil which is a god to paganism. And wisdom

cometh from the Lord. THOMAS CALDECOT GHUBB

AND GLADLY TEACH. By Bliss Perry. Houghton Mifflin, $3.00.

IS

IT an impossible ideal, this combination of qualities, this

union of the generous spirit of the amateur with the method

of the professional?" The author of these praiseworthy remi

niscences asked that question in an earlier book of essays.

Judging from this memoir, so gladly did he learn and gladly teach, that he has retained the zest of the amateur. In thirty nine years of teaching, interrupted only by a year of lecturing

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