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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
Well it seems I haven’t met a Langston Hughes piece of work that I didn’t love. But it’s true. Yet another beautiful work by the literary great.
Not Without Laughter is a novel about Sandy – a young boy living with his family in small town Kansas in the 1910’s.
It is a powerful novel that addresses racism, segregation, and slavery. Hughes has such a way to bringing the reader into the story he’s painted; becoming one of the characters. It’s a gift he has.
A few chapters into this book, I realized Sandy’s grandmother must have been old enough to be a freed slave. When I made that realization, it hit me hard. I don’t feel like 1910 was *that* long ago. And yet people living in that time, were slaves.
As a white American it’s easy to think that slavery and segregation was something that happen “a really long time ago” but in reality, it wasn’t. And as we witness daily, racism hasn’t gone anywhere.
Reading these stories are important.
Brining these characters to life is important.
And I am so grateful for Hughes and his words.
There is still so much to learn. So much to do. So much change to be a part of.
Not Without Laughter is a novel about Sandy – a young boy living with his family in small town Kansas in the 1910’s.
It is a powerful novel that addresses racism, segregation, and slavery. Hughes has such a way to bringing the reader into the story he’s painted; becoming one of the characters. It’s a gift he has.
A few chapters into this book, I realized Sandy’s grandmother must have been old enough to be a freed slave. When I made that realization, it hit me hard. I don’t feel like 1910 was *that* long ago. And yet people living in that time, were slaves.
As a white American it’s easy to think that slavery and segregation was something that happen “a really long time ago” but in reality, it wasn’t. And as we witness daily, racism hasn’t gone anywhere.
Reading these stories are important.
Brining these characters to life is important.
And I am so grateful for Hughes and his words.
There is still so much to learn. So much to do. So much change to be a part of.
After reading a poetry collection and short story collection by Langston Hughes my next pick was his semi-autobiographical novel Not Without Laughter which follows Sandy through his childhood in Kansas until his move to Chicago in his teens. The warmth and closeness of his family and community was well-captured as were the divisions among them, often centred around what was perceived as acceptable behaviour. Seeing Sandy lose his childhood innocence - the sled he longed for that he knew his mother and grandmother couldn’t afford to buy for Santa Claus to give to him or the carnival that advertised free admission to children but then denied entry to Black children- through juggling the competing demands of study vs fun with friends, to the realisation that while some white folks were nice they wouldn’t let Black people get ahead was all poignantly captured.
Between tears and missing my stop on the train for the first time, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, love the writing style, and everything inbetween.