Sign After the X
By Marina Roy
Advance Editions/Arsenal Pulp Press 2001
Reviewed by Anne Borden
In the post-bellum South, “X” was used as a signature
by semi-literate tenant farmers to sign contracts with
white landowners, who misrepresented the content of
the contracts to establish a system of debt peonage.
Through this administrative sleight-of-hand, Southern
landowners effectively undermined federal postwar
land-reform programs, with devastating economic and
social consequences that persist today.
In this context the letter X symbolizes erasure,
absence, landlessness and homelessness. Malcolm
“Little” signified on the American uses of X when he
adopted the name Malcolm X. His last name was the
mathematical equivalent to an unknown, and also spoke
to the alienation (invisibility) experienced by
African Americans in the racial caste system of the
mid-century. Dropping the X later in his life, Malik
El-Shabazz chose a name that forged beyond the
consciousness-raising X to invent a new name and a
newer man, with a chosen name reflecting the strong
sense of identity that has historically run beneath
the “X”.
Opening Roy’s book, I anticipated an analysis of the
role of this grapheme in Western culture encompassing
the semiotic significance of the letter from a
historically rigorous position. But there was little
in-depth discussion of signing after Xs, signing with
X’s, appropriating the X, reclaiming and renaming. I
found instead a compendium of words that contain the
letter X, bounded by critical essays in post-modern
patois.
Roy opens a dialogue on the myriad uses of X, but the
book offers only teasing glimpses into the
significance of Xanadu, X-treme sports, Gen-X, sex
chromosomes, X-ratings, prefixes and suffixes. Roy’s
ideas are very compelling; it is the lack of narrative
cohesion that holds the reader back from making the
critical connections that Roy suggests.
Given the scope of the book’s project, it was more
than slightly unsatisfying to have to struggle through
the mire of semio-texty prose to get to the real
information and thought-provoking ideas held therein.
A great editor and more research would help to create
a cohesive work that will withstand the test of time
and speak to the broader audience which the subject
matter deserves.
Anne Borden lives in Toronto, where she works
as a writer and editor. |
