Rhetorical and Literature-centric Response to Whose Canon is it Anyway?

  In this difficult and convoluted piece of writing, good points are being made, but they are shrouded by the wordiness of the piece. Gates could have taken some notes from Orwell, though  I suspect his last paragraphs may be somewhat telling. The piece is written like a mix between a persona journal entry and an SAT vocabulary practice test. Perhaps in compensation for his former follies and in desire to speak like his mother, the author allows the reader to become lost in what he is putting on the paper. He writes with powerful eloquence, but is overly illustrative to the point where it goes from 'pleasant to read' to 'confusing and frustrating.' At least for me. Now, I've spoken against Orwell's rules on writing in the past, but now I see an author who could benefit from the.

  In the first paragraph of Gates' piece I feel lost. It isn't clear to me what he's talking about, and by the end of the piece I was so frustrated with how he otherwise could have construed his message that I chose to talk about his writing rather than the subject. If I were to be cynical, I could even say that Gates is trying to emerge from a construct that dictates black men to be less literarily inclined. I don't think that's fair to say without having a conversation with the man, but it could certainly be hazarded. This man is a powerful writer, but this text is hard to follow, which is bad for a persuasive piece. I would like to know what he feels, not what he thinks. It seems like the process of writing didn't serve as a way to weed out the minutiae that comes from over thinking a subject. Writing is nice because it forces one to organize their scattered thoughts, but I think Gate's piece could serve to be revised further in order to be more concise.