Nella Larsen, a mysterious figure in the Harlem Renaissance, had a complex life and a short but impactful writing career.

As a literature student in college, I first read her works during a Harlem Renaissance class. Last year, after reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, I picked up The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen.

Nella was of mixed ancestry, with a Black father in America and a White mother from Denmark. This complex position is often reflected in her fiction.

Her writing is very interior, with the action taking place inside the minds of her heroines. In Quicksand, Helga Crane feels caught between two worlds, too Black for the White society of her mother's family and too White among people of color.

In Passing, Clare passes as White, married to a racist. The story shows the isolation and fear that come with passing, as well as the disdain of the Black community.

Larsen's characters are complex, with both admirable qualities and personality defects. Her writing highlights the limitations of being an upper-middle class woman of color in the 1920s and addresses the intersectionality of racism, sexism, and classism.

I think Larsen's writing was ahead of her time, and she does a wonderful job of showing the contradictions and difficulties of navigating upper-middle class Black society as a biracial woman.

Although her writing career was short-lived, Nella Larsen's works continue to be studied and admired for their depth and complexity.

Passing 5/5:
I read this book as part of a mini-book club with a friend, and it was truly a great experience. The characters of Irene and Claire were both captivating. As the story unfolded, I found myself identifying more with one and then switching back and forth. Irene is a complex character. She's not what one would consider a "good" person, but that's what makes her so realistic. I could relate to her jealousy and hypocrisy.

Nella Larsen does an excellent job of painting a vivid picture of how mixed-race black people in the 1920s had different views and connections to their blackness. The contrast between Irene and Claire in how they看待 "passing" and yet their similarity in using it as a tool was fascinating. In today's society, passing has lost much of its power, but while reading this book, I was so immersed that I saw it as a kind of secret power. There were many quotes that I highlighted, but one that my friend and I really liked was, "It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”

Quicksand: 3.5/5
I read Passing first and then Quicksand, and I'm glad I did. Seeing the archetypes of Irene and Claire first helped me better understand Helga's character. Compared to the mixed characters in Passing, Helga seems a bit more scattered in her views of the black race. Maybe it's because her views seemed more disjointed, but I didn't enjoy her as much as Irene or Claire. I loved the Denmark part of the book the most. I could really relate to it since I also live in a foreign country and know what it's like to initially feel flattered by all the attention and then soon grow bitter about always being seen as a spectacle just because I'm "different."
The ending of Quicksand is really unsettling and seems to come out of nowhere. While Passing had a dramatic ending that felt justified, Quicksand was more like "wait what?" However, the title is very appropriate. The ending isn't quick at all but still manages to be surprising, just like quicksand.

Sanctuary : 3/5
This story and the controversy that followed, which led to Larsen quitting writing, is such a shame because she was such a talented writer. I really enjoyed the story itself, but reading about the alleged plagiarism put a damper on my enthusiasm.

Freedom: 2/5
I didn't like the protagonist from the start, but I don't think I was supposed to. I just didn't really care about him, and I hated how he talked about women. It was just okay for me.

The Wrong Man: 2.5/5
This story is so short that there wasn't really enough time to get invested by the time the ending came. It's not a bad story by any means, but it just doesn't quite measure up to her other works.

Nella Larsen, a writer of the Harlem Renaissance, had a tragically short literary career. She published two novels, Quicksand and Passing, which are considered masterpieces. However, she also had some setbacks, including accusations of plagiarism.

Her early life was filled with challenges. She was biracial and faced discrimination. Despite this, she managed to become a nurse and later a librarian. She married Elmer Imes, but their marriage was troubled.

Larsen's writing was influenced by her own experiences. Her novels explored themes of race, identity, and sexuality. Quicksand tells the story of a biracial woman who struggles to find her place in society. Passing is about two mixed-race women who take different paths in life.

Although Larsen's writing career was short, her work had a significant impact. Her novels are still studied and read today. They offer a unique perspective on the Harlem Renaissance and the experiences of biracial people in America.

Overall, Nella Larsen was a talented writer who left a lasting legacy. Her work is a reminder of the importance of diversity and the power of literature to tell the stories of those who are often overlooked. [4★]

I constantly find myself reflecting on "Quicksand" and "Passing" in my daily life. Nella Larsen's writing has a truly haunting quality that lingers in my mind. It makes me want to delve deeper and explore her work more thoroughly. The themes and characters she presents are so complex and thought-provoking. I am eager to spend more time analyzing and understanding the nuances of her stories. Each time I think about these novels, I discover something new and fascinating. Larsen's ability to capture the essence of human nature and the struggles of identity is remarkable. I look forward to continuing my exploration of her work and uncovering the hidden gems within.

PASSING:

What an abundance of pain there is in this short novel! Published in 1929, it is a truly riveting story, told in a captivating way that makes us quickly sense that things are not going to have a happy ending. Set in New York Harlem and a bit in Chicago, among well-to-do blacks, Larsen is said to make fun of or criticize the pretentious social life of the black bourgeoisie. There are indeed numerous parties, tea parties, and shopping trips. Clare, who chose to pass as white and marry a white bigot, remarks, "I haven't any proper morals or sense of duty, as you have, that makes me act as I do... Why, to get the things I want badly enough, I'd do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really, I'm not safe." Irene, despite having known Clare well in childhood, never truly grasps the truth of this and does not take Clare seriously. We learn that it is a significant moral quandary for blacks: when one of their number chooses to pass, the others all feel obligated to "keep the secret" and maintain the pretence around whites. Irene, on page 258, "for the first time in her life wished she had not been born a Negro. She suffered and rebelled because she was unable to disregard the burden of race. It was enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, without having to suffer for the race as well." The most crucial thing to Irene was security. She believed that if only she could continue to keep everything - her husband, her children, her life - under control, she would remain safe. As stated on page 254, "In that second she saw that she could bear anything, but only if no one knew that she had anything to bear. It hurt. It frightened her, but she could bear it."

A few weeks after watching the movie Passing on Netflix, which I really liked but didn't think about the origin of the story at all. Later, I happened to come across a reference somewhere about the author of the novel on which it was based. The novel was published in 1929 and written by a relatively unknown biracial writer named Nella Larsen. Larsen, who also had a very successful long-term career as a nurse, had a short career as an author before it was ended by a scandal in 1930. I decided to look for the novel and found it as part of An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen. Sadly, the “collected fiction” only consists of three short stories and two novellas, one of which is Passing.

Coincidentally, I have recently been watching Jazz, a PBS music history series by Ken Burns. The early parts of it touched on the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and ‘30s, which was really fascinating! These episodes provided insights into the attitudes of many comfortable middle-class blacks towards the rest of the African-American community who were enjoying a lively popular culture that included the new musical form jazz. In some circles, jazz was considered rather vulgar and unrefined. These episodes of Jazz gave a great and enriching context to Passing and the other novella in this volume, Quicksand.

Both novels center around mixed-race women who are ambivalent about their origins and native community. They show a restlessness and sense of conflict that disrupts their lives. While they want to reject their black identity due to the oppression and degradation it represents for blacks in America, especially during the era of Jim Crow, they find it's not that easy to escape the comfort and familiarity of their shared heritage and community.

The three short stories are also good. The first two each have a bit of a twist. The third, “Sanctuary,” led to accusations of plagiarism that ended Larsen's writing career. However, it seems that it was never clearly proven that its similarity to someone else's story was intentional.

From the foreword by writer Marita Golden: “The political and social debates of the period, the texture of the Harlem Renaissance, the specific fabric of Negro life, be it urban or rural, are captured with an eye for detail that is almost surgical. While always delicate and often poetic, Larsen is tough-minded and scathing in her critique of black bourgeois manners and obsessions.”

It's a pity that Larsen couldn't publish more of her work. Her storytelling skills and prose style are very good, and I like her characters' internal monologues that allow the reader to closely follow their conflicts and mental state. “Show, don't tell” has never been an absolute rule for me. When handled skillfully, an internal rumination, along with appropriate action, can reveal a lot about a character's world and illuminate a reality that is very different from mine, which is always a good reason to read.

Real Readers Book Club (Jen) - June 2019

The Real Readers Book Club, led by Jen, had an exciting month in June 2019.

Members gathered to discuss a diverse selection of books that ranged from thrilling mysteries to heartwarming literary fiction.

The club provided a platform for passionate readers to share their thoughts, insights, and interpretations of the books they had read.

Jen, as the club leader, did an excellent job of facilitating the discussions and ensuring that everyone had a chance to contribute.

The meetings were filled with lively conversations, debates, and even some laughter.

Not only did the club members gain a deeper understanding of the books they read, but they also formed new friendships and connections with like-minded individuals.

The Real Readers Book Club in June 2019 was truly a memorable and enriching experience for all involved.

It served as a reminder of the power of books to bring people together and spark meaningful discussions.

Looking forward, the club members are eager to see what new literary adventures await them in the coming months.

Woop woop! I've just completed my first book for Black History Month. Technically, this bind-up edition contains five full works. I'm extremely happy that I chose Nella Larsen as my author for this very special month.

Nella (1891 – 1964) was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. She worked as a nurse and a librarian and published two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), along with a few short stories. Despite her limited literary output, she was recognized by her contemporaries. Since the late 20th century, there has been a revival of interest in her writing as issues of racial and sexual identity have been studied.

Quicksand was out of print from the 1930s to the 1970s. It explores both cross-cultural and interracial themes. The novel is semi-autobiographical as there are direct ties between Nella Larsen's life and that of the fictional Helga Crane. Like Larsen, Helga has a mixed racial background, which causes psychological problems as she fails to create a sense of self that fits into the community. She finds this process alienating and her only comfortable identity is as an outsider. Due to this, Helga Crane has a peculiar relationship with happiness, not knowing what it is but knowing she doesn't have it.

Set mainly in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s, Passing focuses on the reunion of two childhood friends, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield, and their growing fascination with each other's lives. The title refers to the practice of racial "passing", which is a key element of the novel. Clare Kendry's attempt to pass as white for her husband, John Bellew, is the most significant depiction in the novel and a catalyst for the tragic events.

The Wrong Man and Freedom were published in 1926 in Young's Magazine. Under the surface narrative, both short stories show that marriage is often a precarious balancing act, especially when spouses haven't been honest with each other and have hidden aspects of their former selves. Both stories lack any racial commentary, no doubt because of the magazine in which they appeared.

Sanctuary was published in Forum in January 1930. The power of Larsen's story is undeniable. Race is the strongest tie that binds people together. Even though Jim killed her son, Annie will protect him because he is Black. Nowhere else in her published work did Nella Larsen make such an emphatic statement about Blackness. The story is concise, direct, and totally convincing in its use of dialect.

All in all, my heart is full after reading Larsen's complete work and learning a bit more about her personal life and the Harlem Renaissance as a whole. It's tragic that false charges of plagiarism for her story, Sanctuary, basically ruined her literary career. She completed three other novels in her lifetime, but all were rejected. Unfortunately, those stories are lost to us forever.

Nella Larsen is definitely undervalued. She deserves more love and attention, which is why I can't wait to review all of her work on my channel.

The short stories are truly excellent despite their brevity.

They manage to pack a powerful punch within a limited number of words.

Take "Quicksand" for example. The link provided, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., leads to a review that likely delves into the depth and beauty of this short story.

It may explore the themes, characters, and the unique narrative style that makes "Quicksand" stand out.

Similarly, "Passing" is another remarkable short story. The review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... probably offers insights into its significance and literary merit.

These short stories prove that great literature doesn't have to be long and drawn-out.

They can capture the essence of a story and leave a lasting impression on the reader in a concise and impactful way.

Whether it's the mystery and intrigue of "Quicksand" or the thought-provoking nature of "Passing", these short stories are definitely worth exploring.

Nella Larsen was an extremely significant writer during the "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1920s. Besides three rather unmemorable short stories, this book includes Larsen's two published novels. (A third later novel was unfortunately rejected by the publishers and seems to be lost.) One of my Goodreads groups will be reading Passing next month, and I will review that separately in the Norton Critical edition. This review will center on her other, somewhat less well-known novel, Quicksand.

The protagonist, Helga Crane, like Larsen herself, has a mixed Danish and Black ancestry. Her Black father abandoned her white mother, and she and her white second husband were embarrassed by Helga's existence. In addition to the objective rejection of Helga as a mixed-race child, a theme already common in Black literature, Larsen reveals the psychology of the girl herself. She internalizes her parents' dislike, making it impossible for her to identify strongly with either race for a long time. She despises the educated Black elite she initially belongs to for their attempts to imitate white behaviors, yet also looks down on uneducated Blacks as vulgar.

Reading this a month or so after reading Colin Whitehead's Underground Railroad, my initial impression was that there was a similarity in the structuring of the two books. Although Whitehead's book is deliberately ambiguous in chronology, showing many different periods simultaneously, while Larsen's novel realistically deals with a specific period of history (the 1920s), both utilize geography to explore the diverse aspects of Black experience.

Quicksand starts with Helga as a teacher in a Black "Uplift" school, which reminded me of Whitehead's "Charleston", a "liberal" institution that tries to "elevate" Blacks to a higher but still subordinate position in white-dominated society. Rebelling against that, she moves to Harlem, where Blacks live separately with a certain freedom to be Black, yet are bounded by poverty and the discrimination of the surrounding white city. Her third move is to Copenhagen, where she is more or less put on display as an exotic figure; not regarded as inferior but definitely as different, and her uniqueness is still defined by her racial identity rather than her personal identity. She then moves back to the United States and ends up in a small Southern town where she attempts to fit into the mold of uneducated Black society (and traditional domestic and religious life). With each move, she becomes more deeply trapped, hence the title. I found the love theme and the Alabama ending to be somewhat weakly motivated and not of the same caliber as the earlier chapters. Overall, however, this was a very good novel and one that I would highly recommend.

This piece of writing contained some of the more graceful and powerful expressions that I came across in the Harlem Renaissance course that I took. Larsen had a rather short and strange career in the field of writing. She spent a significant portion of her life working as a nurse and a librarian. She initially wrote one highly successful novel, namely "Quicksand", which was followed by another well-received novel. Additionally, she published a couple of short stories. However, after that, her career took a downward turn. She was accused of plagiarism, and a couple of her novels were rejected by her publisher. Consequently, she pretty much ceased writing after that. This volume includes "Quicksand" and "Passing" (her second novel) along with a few stories.

"Quicksand" is an outstanding short novel. It is extremely well-written, brimming with emotional intensity and concise, hard-hitting observations. At least to some extent, it is autobiographical. It tells the story of Helga Crane, a young mulatto woman who travels from the black American South to Chicago, then to New York, and finally to Denmark in search of herself. However, she finds herself feeling trapped no matter where she goes. She is overly intelligent and abrasively independent, which sometimes works against her. She is too perceptive and quick to notice the hypocrisies and nonsense that people accept as the cornerstones of their lives. Ultimately, she ends up as the wife of a preacher and the mother of several young children.

"Passing", from my perspective, was a less engaging read. It讲述了一个名叫克莱尔·肯德里的年轻女子“冒充”白人并嫁给了一个种族主义者的故事。主角是艾琳·雷德菲尔德，她是哈莱姆区一位医生的端庄、受人尊敬的妻子。[剧透警告]随着故事的发展，原来克莱尔与艾琳的丈夫有染。最后，悲剧发生了，克莱尔的丈夫冲进一个派对，指责他的妻子是个“黑鬼”，然后她从窗户跳下身亡（或者是被艾琳推下去的？）。这本书的某些部分有点难以让人接受，而且它根本没有“Quicksand”那样的叙事力量。

Disappointing.

Larsen writes splendidly. Her characters are finely drawn and seem to breathe with a life of their own. They are vivid and engaging, making the reader initially invested in their stories.

However, the stories, despite their promising beginnings, eventually get bogged down. They fall into repeating patterns of mundanity and oddness. As the stories progress, they lose their momentum and direction. At the end, they simply expire without a clear point or message.

Even if the mundanity is supposed to be the point, it is entirely wrapped up in the frustrating acts of the main characters. This makes it difficult for the reader to understand and appreciate the intended message.

With the exception of Passing, there are no real lessons here or anything truly memorable. Despite the snippets of everyday life in a bygone era, the stories become a slog to get through.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because this obscure author remained lost for so long. The Harlem Renaissance writers deserve all the recognition and appreciation we can give them. Larsen's work may have its flaws, but it is still an important part of literary history.