James ’ s representative American , in the novel of that name , is called “ Christopher Newman ”, a fairly obvious signal of what he represents , and usefully referencing Columbus into the bargain . James ’ s great subject was the sometimes baffled , sometimes eye-opening collision of Old World and New , the tragicomic meeting of experience and innocence .
Generations of Americans were handed new identities at Ellis Island , usually because an immigration official couldn ’ t spell or simply misheard the German , Moravian , Dutch , Scandinavian and other names mumbled to them by weary travellers . Others quickly realised that the first step towards assimilation was to adopt a more American-sounding name . Nowhere did this seem more acute than in showbusiness . Choosing a new name , or having one assigned to you , was a way of shedding something less than euphonious but sometimes also too obviously marked as “ foreign ”, whatever that meant in a country of immigrants . It was also a sign that becoming an artist was to become quite literally a new person , whose “ past ” had yet to be made up by the publicity department . With a new name , you could also confect a whole new biography .
Sometimes the change was governed by less than worthy considerations . Jewish-sounding names often disappeared , though the entertainment business attracted so many individuals of Jewish formation that it became a cliché that music people were either black or Jewish ; scan the personnels of any big studio orchestra of the 1930s and 1940s and the names certainly point in that direction . Sometimes the change was simply to make a name more pleasing , easier to remember or to fit onto a marquee . One can sympathise , to a degree . Certainly with an MC who might have had to wander out into the spotlight and
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