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mrsdoubtflyer's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
not easy read, but an important one. Amazing in its scope, from the literarily critical to the personal to the philosophical to the political. It can feel in excessively referential at its start, if one isn’t versed in Richard Wright and Harriet Beecher Stowe. But the payoff is enormous. Never has there been a more honest soul, about the world or himself, nor one with a higher standard in mind for both, and for each and all of us.
arkwen452's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
Second Baldwin read this year and it was an audiobook again 😭. Have to remember to get an ebook so I can annotate better. These are my immediate thoughts after reading this book.
Like most people, I always find Baldwin's work to be deeply reflective descriptive and poignant to the time when he writes these pieces and our present day. In the beginning, it felt like he was drawing parallels to not only pieces of literature and society, but also to the Points of his young adulthood, and his time in Paris. I found that he expresses his shifts in perspective and motivations very clearly in this book when it came to how he was realizing, and set instances how the white world perceived him; and also how his father perceived him.
I feel like the relationship between him and his father is a continuous theme in his writing as Baldwin expresses that their relationship wasn't the best, and in some instances is described as if they didn't have a relationship at all.
I liked how described his chapter in Paris, and part three of the book where it was as if he was rediscovering his position in a white society, but it was from the perspective of him being simply an American in Paris, rather than an American black man. As an American black man, he knew the role he played or the role he was expected to play as opposed to being in Paris, and being locked up for the simple small crime of being a possession of a stolen item that he didn't even steal himself.
Part one when he was talking about the parallels between literature, and how black Americans are seen in society, or perceived in society as these devilish, dirty and subhuman categories, he decisively constructs the identity of the black American, as being something so on known to the white American, besides the stereotypes that they made up of them.
And it's clear that those stereotypes still exist today; in the sense that there is a notion that we are certain way, when it comes to how we act how we live, how we talk, how we laugh, and how we perceive situations. Instead of really accepting the fact that our reactions Are usually the results of our environment and how society particularly the white American society perceives us. And something still very powerful and present in today's society when it comes to politics that I really appreciate when drawing attention to was how the black American becomes important when it comes to politics because of our numbers, and if they are allowed or able to influence us to support them, then that gives them , a lead in the polls.
But in the same time they make these false empty promises just to get our vote but it's not in the sense that they actually care for us or that they intend to hold up their end of these promises it is simply the matter of using us to meet their ends.
**A not so book related rant: Especially today in 2024 where I believe more than half the world is going to be at this intense voting when it comes to politics there has been this very strong pool to get that only black American votes but also other minority votes to swing in a specific Direction. It's just that it's clear that politics has not caught up to what society these communities actually want to see from his politicians.
Like most people, I always find Baldwin's work to be deeply reflective descriptive and poignant to the time when he writes these pieces and our present day. In the beginning, it felt like he was drawing parallels to not only pieces of literature and society, but also to the Points of his young adulthood, and his time in Paris. I found that he expresses his shifts in perspective and motivations very clearly in this book when it came to how he was realizing, and set instances how the white world perceived him; and also how his father perceived him.
I feel like the relationship between him and his father is a continuous theme in his writing as Baldwin expresses that their relationship wasn't the best, and in some instances is described as if they didn't have a relationship at all.
I liked how described his chapter in Paris, and part three of the book where it was as if he was rediscovering his position in a white society, but it was from the perspective of him being simply an American in Paris, rather than an American black man. As an American black man, he knew the role he played or the role he was expected to play as opposed to being in Paris, and being locked up for the simple small crime of being a possession of a stolen item that he didn't even steal himself.
Part one when he was talking about the parallels between literature, and how black Americans are seen in society, or perceived in society as these devilish, dirty and subhuman categories, he decisively constructs the identity of the black American, as being something so on known to the white American, besides the stereotypes that they made up of them.
And it's clear that those stereotypes still exist today; in the sense that there is a notion that we are certain way, when it comes to how we act how we live, how we talk, how we laugh, and how we perceive situations. Instead of really accepting the fact that our reactions Are usually the results of our environment and how society particularly the white American society perceives us. And something still very powerful and present in today's society when it comes to politics that I really appreciate when drawing attention to was how the black American becomes important when it comes to politics because of our numbers, and if they are allowed or able to influence us to support them, then that gives them , a lead in the polls.
But in the same time they make these false empty promises just to get our vote but it's not in the sense that they actually care for us or that they intend to hold up their end of these promises it is simply the matter of using us to meet their ends.
**A not so book related rant: Especially today in 2024 where I believe more than half the world is going to be at this intense voting when it comes to politics there has been this very strong pool to get that only black American votes but also other minority votes to swing in a specific Direction. It's just that it's clear that politics has not caught up to what society these communities actually want to see from his politicians.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Violence, and Racism
Minor: Death of parent
lsparrow's review against another edition
4.0
such an amazing thinker! enjoyed this set of essays on various books, movies and also on life.
still has so much relevance on issues of race and american culture/history.
i feel like every time i read this I am left thinking about new things.
thinking again about disconnection/connection to anscestors and also about sentimentality vs compassion.
still has so much relevance on issues of race and american culture/history.
i feel like every time i read this I am left thinking about new things.
thinking again about disconnection/connection to anscestors and also about sentimentality vs compassion.
guilherme_bicalho's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
halfextinguishedthoughts's review against another edition
First published in 1955, James Baldwin began writing these essays as early as the 1940s spanning years into the beginning of the 1950s.
I began reading these last month and at the pace of about a day, I finished last week. As a companion, this book does not disappoint. Tough at times, frankly honest, and funny as hell at other times, this book is all of these and more.
What a diverse set of essays. It has essays analyzing books (I’ve come to appreciate even more how funny Baldwin is while reading his comments) and movies. There are essays about Harlem, Atlanta, and Baldwin’s life growing up. And the last section takes a broader look at Baldwin’s time in Paris. It goes into his experiences in Paris as an African American man and how that ties into what it means to be black and what it means to be black in America.
As the novel goes on we see different places and people through Baldwin’s eyes. We see his home of Harlem, the South through stories told by his brother, we venture to Paris and see their government and the common people, and in the last story, we travel with Baldwin to a “tiny Swiss village” and get a taste of what it’s like there.
Baldwin exposes himself with great strength and skill to show us his experience as an African American and what that means in his personal context and the greater context beyond that. He lends his own journey to us and there is a sort of solidness that comes, a decidedness of who Baldwin is throughout. In an interview with a Chicago radio station, he said, “You have to impose--in fact, this may sound very strange--you have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you and not this idea of”
The novel encapsulates this. It’s a sort of coming to grips with what it means to be Black and how our (American and world) history is entwined with Blackness and Whiteness. It’s grappling with who Baldwin is in the face of what other people want him to be.
There’s a big pull between Baldwin and home that runs through the essays.
In an interview with Maya Angelou, she asks “What kind of response do you have inside yourself? (to coming home from abroad)” Baldwin states this:
"I miss that. When you say my home, it's not exactly my home. It's a kind of asylum. It's, um it's a place where I can work. I have a lot of work to do. And if you are in the situation whe- where you're always resisting and resenting, it's very hard to-“
[Maya Angelou]: "It takes too much energy."
[Baldwin]: "Well you can't write a book."
[Angelou]: "No."
[Baldwin]: "You can't write a sentence."
[Angelou]: "No."
You can feel his energy pointing home even as he writes about other countries. The passages about his family, his siblings, father, and mother all stay with him decades and miles away. It’s in these more personal essays that I connected the most. The emotions are complicated and scathing, yet the rage brings clarity and strength to the story.
It is these more personal essays that made the most impact for me. While the essay critiquing protest novels, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has some hilarious and poignant lines, I wished I had read them for more context.
This book benefits from a slow, deliberate read. At times they are dense and rely on historical events and pop culture moments so I found it good to stop and look up what I needed to. Essays that stuck out to me were (and I’m sure the next time I flip through others will catch my eye): Everybody’s Protest Novel, Journey to Atlanta, Notes of a Native Son, Equal in Paris, and Stranger in the Village
I’m forever a fan of James Baldwin.
While published in 1955, the truth to them still rings today. I said before that this should be required reading, and that so many of my courses in high school and college would have benefited from reading some of these essays.
Sources:
danthompson1877's review against another edition
4.0
The last essay is my favourite.
'There is a great deal of will power involved in the white man's naivete'.
'There is a great deal of will power involved in the white man's naivete'.
kobusu's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
James Baldwin is a master of the craft, so much so that his documentation and writing of the civil rights movement is as enthralling as it is informative. Brilliant.