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jwells's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
The reviews connected to this volume seem to refer to different books, so I'll specifically say that I read Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room out of the library's omnibus "Early Novels & Stories." At this point I want to switch over and read some of Baldwin's essays rather than more fiction, so I don't think I'll finish the volume.
These two short novels were powerfully written and also very different from one another. Baldwin is an amazing writer. In Go Tell It on the Mountain, I first thought that it must be autobiographical, because of how completely we were immersed in the point of view of this young boy. But then, I felt like Baldwin was equally at home in each new point of view, regardless of the character's gender or age. He inhabits the new character with the same natural sensitivity, and makes their thoughts and emotions just as vivid. Each new character's point of view adds new depth to the story. I ended up thinking about how little they understand one another, despite being each other's closest loved ones. And is the same true for all of us? Not an encouraging thought.
Go Tell It on the Mountain is about a black family who migrate from the American south to New York, and focuses on themes of family and religion (with perhaps the slightest hint of homoeroticism, unacknowledged by the characters, or was that just me?). Giovanni's Room, by contrast, takes place in Paris among white ex-pats and Europeans, in a bohemian or artsy subculture within which gay men are out, but not accepted in the larger culture. The major theme is the impossibility of building a life as a gay person, without living a lie.
Giovanni's Room is a more focused story, with only one point of view, and it is an emotional page-turner. Early on we get a glimpse of the doom awaiting these characters, and the slim number of pages count down all too quickly as we see them hurtling towards it. I really tried to sympathize with the protagonist, David; it's obviously not his fault that he lives in an impossibly unfair time and place when his sexuality is unacceptable. But wow, does he come up with the worst ways to treat people.
I went into this story suspecting that the women characters existed only to serve as the wrong choice, and it was therefore amusing that David's poor fiancee is named Hellas. Clearly the marriage would have been Hell for both of them. There's also a nice link to the French word "hélas!" (alas!) which is used by Jacques at one point to make sure we think of it, so a doubly bad connotation. Poor Hellas.
These two short novels were powerfully written and also very different from one another. Baldwin is an amazing writer. In Go Tell It on the Mountain, I first thought that it must be autobiographical, because of how completely we were immersed in the point of view of this young boy. But then, I felt like Baldwin was equally at home in each new point of view, regardless of the character's gender or age. He inhabits the new character with the same natural sensitivity, and makes their thoughts and emotions just as vivid. Each new character's point of view adds new depth to the story. I ended up thinking about how little they understand one another, despite being each other's closest loved ones. And is the same true for all of us? Not an encouraging thought.
Go Tell It on the Mountain is about a black family who migrate from the American south to New York, and focuses on themes of family and religion (with perhaps the slightest hint of homoeroticism, unacknowledged by the characters, or was that just me?). Giovanni's Room, by contrast, takes place in Paris among white ex-pats and Europeans, in a bohemian or artsy subculture within which gay men are out, but not accepted in the larger culture. The major theme is the impossibility of building a life as a gay person, without living a lie.
Giovanni's Room is a more focused story, with only one point of view, and it is an emotional page-turner. Early on we get a glimpse of the doom awaiting these characters, and the slim number of pages count down all too quickly as we see them hurtling towards it. I really tried to sympathize with the protagonist, David; it's obviously not his fault that he lives in an impossibly unfair time and place when his sexuality is unacceptable. But wow, does he come up with the worst ways to treat people.
I went into this story suspecting that the women characters existed only to serve as the wrong choice, and it was therefore amusing that David's poor fiancee is named Hellas. Clearly the marriage would have been Hell for both of them. There's also a nice link to the French word "hélas!" (alas!) which is used by Jacques at one point to make sure we think of it, so a doubly bad connotation. Poor Hellas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Violence, and Abandonment
Warning for use of n-word in Go Tell It on the Mountain.aughust's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
scottpnh10's review
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ploganiv's review
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
smfields's review
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
ashbask's review
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
5.0
What can one say about Baldwin that hasn't already been said?
The two most famous works in this collection - Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room - rightfully deserve their place in the canon. The lesser, and the term is relative, two - Another Country and Going to Meet the Man - are interesting in part because Going to Meet the Man comes across as a character study in part.
All the stories are meditations about sexuality and race as well the effect that the racism in society has upon relationships. There is no lecturing in Baldwin - angry, of course; loads of sorrow - but no lecturing. He wants the reader to think, and he wants the reader to feel, and to do so he takes the reader with him along the pathways of thoughts and questions.
The two most famous works in this collection - Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room - rightfully deserve their place in the canon. The lesser, and the term is relative, two - Another Country and Going to Meet the Man - are interesting in part because Going to Meet the Man comes across as a character study in part.
All the stories are meditations about sexuality and race as well the effect that the racism in society has upon relationships. There is no lecturing in Baldwin - angry, of course; loads of sorrow - but no lecturing. He wants the reader to think, and he wants the reader to feel, and to do so he takes the reader with him along the pathways of thoughts and questions.
skitch41's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Suicide, Racism, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Homophobia
johnaggreyodera's review
4.0
Reviewing Baldwin puts you in that weird zone where you are implicitly outcasted if your review is anything but an additional voice in the sea of universal acclamation. But at risk of this outcasting, I thought it was a perfectly alright book, not mind blowing and not positively mediocre. That said, perhaps the weight of it lay in the subject Baldwin decided to tackle - homosexuality - and seeing as I live in the second decade of the twenty first century, where being gay is thankfully seen as a normal variation in how people lead their lives (like the different clothes they wear or the different accents they have) and not in the 1950s - when Baldwin was writing this, and when being gay was classified as a mental illness according to the DSM - or even in the 1980s, when the AIDS crisis ravaged the gay community, and they were even further outcasted by straight society, perhaps this is why I don’t appreciate the book as much.
I also found it interesting that Baldwin decided to make the protagonist a white man. I later read in an interview that Baldwin himself claimed that to tackle two giant targets of American discrimination- queerness and blackness- would be too much to do in one novel. But because “intersectionality” is in everyone’s minds right now, I can’t help but wonder whether the point is just that Baldwin didn’t think that the nexus of queerness and blackness, was, perhaps for primarily economic reasons (one reason why we write books is to sell them after all) a good selling point. Was it that if it the book had been about a black, queer man (I.e. Baldwin himself) black people wouldn’t have bought it because of their homophobia and white people because of their racism??
I also found it interesting that Baldwin decided to make the protagonist a white man. I later read in an interview that Baldwin himself claimed that to tackle two giant targets of American discrimination- queerness and blackness- would be too much to do in one novel. But because “intersectionality” is in everyone’s minds right now, I can’t help but wonder whether the point is just that Baldwin didn’t think that the nexus of queerness and blackness, was, perhaps for primarily economic reasons (one reason why we write books is to sell them after all) a good selling point. Was it that if it the book had been about a black, queer man (I.e. Baldwin himself) black people wouldn’t have bought it because of their homophobia and white people because of their racism??
abby's review
5.0
This is the kind of book where you think: if I could just convince everyone to read this book, the world would be a better place