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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
"I had forgotten all the tricks on which my life had once depended."
James Baldwin's writing is raw and real. The stories will break your heart and make you mad.
This book is not here to pander or soothe your feelings. It tells about the African American experience in the time before and during the civil rights movement. Where interracial or same sex relationships could lead to death. Where generational trauma leaves pain that does not heal. It tells about how racism is taught and passed down.
I could write a whole academic analysis on the social commentary of this book.
More than 60 years since this was first published and just as relevant today as it was then.
James Baldwin's writing is raw and real. The stories will break your heart and make you mad.
This book is not here to pander or soothe your feelings. It tells about the African American experience in the time before and during the civil rights movement. Where interracial or same sex relationships could lead to death. Where generational trauma leaves pain that does not heal. It tells about how racism is taught and passed down.
I could write a whole academic analysis on the social commentary of this book.
More than 60 years since this was first published and just as relevant today as it was then.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As a whole, this collection of eight stories is well-crafted and insightful. Some of the stories are too wordy in parts; the one with a female protagonist (‘Come Out the Wilderness’) rather unmemorable.
Anyone who has read [b:Go Tell It on the Mountain|17143|Go Tell It on the Mountain|James Baldwin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348424233s/17143.jpg|1027995] will recognize the characters in the first two stories. ‘The Rockpile’ is tense in its conciseness as the family waits for the father to arrive home; ‘The Outing’ felt a bit lengthy with its church service aboard a ferryboat, but was intriguing with the teenage character of David who isn’t in Go Tell it on the Mountain.
‘The Man Child’ illustrates to great effect how entitlement is bred and I didn’t foresee at all its surprising ending. The 1948 ‘Previous Condition’, which in many ways is a story that could be of today, reminded me of [b:Another Country|38474|Another Country|James Baldwin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353255131s/38474.jpg|1427427]. In ‘This Morning, This Evening, So Soon,’ Baldwin has a character speak these prescient lines: "I cannot help saying that I think it is a scandal--and we may all pay very dearly for it--that a civilized nation should elect to represent it a man who is so simple that he thinks the world is simple.”
The title story is chilling in its historical accuracy, bringing to mind the events I read of in John Lewis’ [b:Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement|27550|Walking with the Wind A Memoir of the Movement|John Lewis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403186088s/27550.jpg|28164], as well as my visit to The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, with its documentation of a certain lynching. It’s a story that wasn’t previously published, so either it was too graphic for any of the magazines or Baldwin wrote it specifically for this collection (or, as my friend Howard said, both are probably true).
‘Sonny’s Blues’ is the masterpiece of the bunch with its great writing and illuminating insights into how insidiously racism acts upon the individual (also see ‘Previous Condition’ in particular for the latter). Its final section is pure brilliance.
*
Entering this title on Goodreads, I see that [a:William Makepeace Thackeray|3953|William Makepeace Thackeray|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1204650429p2/3953.jpg] wrote a short piece called [b:Going to see a man hanged|41012863|Going to see a man hanged|William Makepeace Thackeray|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|63992293]. That can’t be a coincidence.
Anyone who has read [b:Go Tell It on the Mountain|17143|Go Tell It on the Mountain|James Baldwin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348424233s/17143.jpg|1027995] will recognize the characters in the first two stories. ‘The Rockpile’ is tense in its conciseness as the family waits for the father to arrive home; ‘The Outing’ felt a bit lengthy with its church service aboard a ferryboat, but was intriguing with the teenage character of David who isn’t in Go Tell it on the Mountain.
‘The Man Child’ illustrates to great effect how entitlement is bred and I didn’t foresee at all its surprising ending. The 1948 ‘Previous Condition’, which in many ways is a story that could be of today, reminded me of [b:Another Country|38474|Another Country|James Baldwin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353255131s/38474.jpg|1427427]. In ‘This Morning, This Evening, So Soon,’ Baldwin has a character speak these prescient lines: "I cannot help saying that I think it is a scandal--and we may all pay very dearly for it--that a civilized nation should elect to represent it a man who is so simple that he thinks the world is simple.”
The title story is chilling in its historical accuracy, bringing to mind the events I read of in John Lewis’ [b:Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement|27550|Walking with the Wind A Memoir of the Movement|John Lewis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403186088s/27550.jpg|28164], as well as my visit to The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, with its documentation of a certain lynching. It’s a story that wasn’t previously published, so either it was too graphic for any of the magazines or Baldwin wrote it specifically for this collection (or, as my friend Howard said, both are probably true).
‘Sonny’s Blues’ is the masterpiece of the bunch with its great writing and illuminating insights into how insidiously racism acts upon the individual (also see ‘Previous Condition’ in particular for the latter). Its final section is pure brilliance.
*
Entering this title on Goodreads, I see that [a:William Makepeace Thackeray|3953|William Makepeace Thackeray|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1204650429p2/3953.jpg] wrote a short piece called [b:Going to see a man hanged|41012863|Going to see a man hanged|William Makepeace Thackeray|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|63992293]. That can’t be a coincidence.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Honestly, the narrator was a man and for some reason I have a harder time tuning in to a male voice than I do with women narrators. So I prob didn't catch every single thing. But it's Baldwin, he's a master author.
I did recognize a lot of similarities between this and his other novels, which I fuck with. Yes, give me American in France every time, yes give me a musician who needs to be understood by his older brother.
I did recognize a lot of similarities between this and his other novels, which I fuck with. Yes, give me American in France every time, yes give me a musician who needs to be understood by his older brother.
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I can only say that we, humans, are the most terrible of all creatures created on this planet.
Baldwin's writing is so masterful, it almost reads like poetry. Every sentence is can be read and re-read to find new meanings and admire the beauty of it. The stories themselves are engaging, plot-wise, and very insightful. I particularly enjoyed "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon." The final story, "Going to Meet the Man," was pretty hard for me to read--it just made me feel sick, which I guess is the mark of a good artist, but it still was difficult.