Blaze and it's sequel Flame represent the deep end of slavery lit, a genre that by its very nature is extreme and distasteful. Author Kenneth Roberts seems to have attempted to make these two books stand out from the Mandingo inspired pack by cutting straight to the pornographic jugular. Leading you to suspect that Kenneth Roberts was a pen name, since it's hard to believe that anyone remotely sane would use their real name on a pair of books like these.
Blaze shackles us in chains and frog
marches us back to the 1740s, a shameful period of American history, where a
male slave called Blaze is subject to an endless parade of indignities, racial
abuse and unwanted sexual attention. Blaze is initially sold to Von Schloss, a
bi-sexual Dutchman, who likes his slaves 'silent... monolithic and in priapic
splendor'. Josette, Von Schloss's wife, turns a blind eye to his homosexual
inclinations in return for allowing her to romp around with the black bucks he
owns. However, Von Schloss predictably insists on a front row seat to the mixed
combo action between Blaze and Josette. Blaze thinks he has landed on his feet,
by becoming the sexual plaything of a rich, swinging couple. However, he is
brought back down to earth when Von Schloss (literally) sells him down the
river, passing him onto two of his associates. Tommy Scott, about the only
decent whitey in the entire book, and Tommy's hard drinking brother Hugh, a no
good bossman with an unfortunate habit of getting raging hard-ons whilst
dishing out punishments to male slaves.
Roberts throws in all the elements -
whippings, castration, racial slurs and interracial sex- that slavery lit
loving audiences were crying out for back then. Roberts might have been a
little ahead of his time too, his hypersexual narrative and graphic
descriptions of sex acts anticipate the big screen 'porno chic' trend by a few
years. The sexual demands placed on Blaze's muscular shoulders include
servicing the black wenches owned by the Scott brothers for breeding purposes.
As well as more socially taboo affairs with 'respectable' women like Josette
and Miss Dolly, a randy Scouse trollop, fresh off the boat from Liverpool. All
of which leads Blaze to the weary conclusion "I's a walkin' pair o' balls,
nuthin' mo". A maxim repeated throughout the book, much to the amusement
of racist white characters.
What's really surprising for something
written in 1969, is how blatantly bi-sexual orientated this book is, with much
of the unwanted sexual attention in the book coming from sexually adventurous
white males. All of whom keep finding reason to play with Blaze's oversized
penis and heavy ballsack (physical attributes that Roberts never tires of
describing). It's not just whitey that Blaze has to fear, at one point Blaze is
tricked into being fellated by a fellow slave called Teach, who is masquerading
as one of the black wenches. Upon being discovered, Teach tries to sell Blaze
on the gay lifestyle by telling him "likin' it, wasn't yo? Buck's Jes's
good's a wench. Betta sometimes". The book pushes the homoerotic
undercurrent of the slavery lit genre to the forefront, thanks to Hugh's
lust/hate relationship with Blaze, which sees Hugh put Blaze through sadistic
hell due to his closeted desire for him...in this book, each man whups the
thing he loves. The tide begins to turn when Blaze realizes that his coveted
sexuality gives him power over both men and women. Ultimately, Blaze is an
uplifting story of how one man's endowment can be weaponized against racial
oppression.
Blaze was popular enough to warrant a
sequel, Flame (1970) put out by the publishing arm of Warner Brothers..no less.
This move into the big league didn't persuade Roberts to tone down the Blaze
formula one bit. If anything Flame is even further beyond the pale than it's
predecessor, with not even horses and children being spared Roberts' lechery in
the sequel novel.
Blaze is the kind of book that robs
you a little of your humanity and dignity, just by having read it. Your
enjoyment of the book will depend on how much you can block out the voice in
the back of your head from saying "you're a terrible person for reading
this". At the same time Blaze feels on the money in terms of historical
accuracy, being so entrenched in the dialect and social mores of the period,
that it ends up feeling like a book written in the 1740s, rather than a product
of the 20th century. A triumph in the field of wall to wall degeneracy, Blaze
is strong, dark meat.
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