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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A collection of short stories focused on the black experience in the early 20th century. James Baldwin writes so masterfully it's hard to imagine this book wasn't written yesterday.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
To be transparent, I did not read all of the stories in Going to Meet the Man. But the ones I did read, I loved so much. It’s James Baldwin, so how could I not lol.
Lots of great insight in these stories of struggle—about race, yes, but about everything: “I couldn’t believe it: but what I mean by that is that I couldn’t find any room for it anywhere inside me.” I thought “Sonny’s Blues” towered above the rest, but I also loved the pained gay awakening in the double-entendre of a short story, “The Outing.”
The title story was, just wow. so graphic and so good but made you really disgusted with white supremacy.
"This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" was so well done too. (basically just listing the stories that hit me the most here).
"The Man Child" has a great narrative arc. And "The Rockpile", the hidden abuse that's not so hidden.
"This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" was so well done too. (basically just listing the stories that hit me the most here).
"The Man Child" has a great narrative arc. And "The Rockpile", the hidden abuse that's not so hidden.
Writer Joelle Monique says reading James Baldwin might save your soul and she's 100% correct. Short stories, novels, essays, grocery lists, it doesn't matter. These stories aren't all excellent and I'm not sure I would call any of them great. Even Sonny's Blues is a little overrated but they're all still really, really good. Homosexuality, alienation, addiction, interracial relationships, identity crises, he deals with it all here. The two standouts here for me are This Morning, This Evening, So Soon and Going to Meet the Man. The former being a variation on a life similar to Baldwin's own but different and the latter a brutal, inhumane story about the cruelty and barbaric depths of depravity man is capable of. It's a very different story for Baldwin and told from a perspective completely foreign to most of his characters. Even though these stories fall slightly short of greatness, reading Baldwin is always perfection.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
many thoughts. i had to let them marinate for a bit. obviously a five star read cus this is Baldwin but i was quite blown away. i've read "Sonny's Blues" before and it was amazing but i never got around to reading more short stories by him.
first thing: he is so good at writing homoeroticism and repressed gay sadness. sheesh. "The Outing" was so good and honestly i didn't expect the gayness so it was a pleasant surprise. with that one and "The Rockpile," i believe Baldwin drew from his own childhood and his strained relationship with his father (like Johnny, he was the eldest son, from his mom's previous 'days in sin' and his father had some resentment towards him for that) so the emotions in those two really felt real.
second thing: there were passages in this book that legit made me think, "why do people even still write about Black-white race relations in the US? everything that could be said has already been said by Baldwin or Morrison." and i know that sounds mean but like. truly. a lot of writing about race in the US that has come out in the past, like, 15 years just feels elementary to me because a lot of it has already been said and better. sorry 😭
between "Come out the Wilderness" and If Beale Street Could Talk, his representation of women doesn't WOW me so far. it's not bad but it's not perfect. "write what you know" was definitely Baldwin's strong suit...though Going to Meet the Man, which is in the perspective of a racist white deputy sheriff during the Civil Rights movement, was really powerful, so it really just might be that his women needed work. with the exception of the wife in "Going to Meet the Man," they're all quite neurotic and their interior lives are almost exclusively taken up by the men in their lives.
fave stories:
- The Outing
- The Man Child
- Sonny's Blues
- This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
truly always itching to read more from him!
first thing: he is so good at writing homoeroticism and repressed gay sadness. sheesh. "The Outing" was so good and honestly i didn't expect the gayness so it was a pleasant surprise. with that one and "The Rockpile," i believe Baldwin drew from his own childhood and his strained relationship with his father (like Johnny, he was the eldest son, from his mom's previous 'days in sin' and his father had some resentment towards him for that) so the emotions in those two really felt real.
second thing: there were passages in this book that legit made me think, "why do people even still write about Black-white race relations in the US? everything that could be said has already been said by Baldwin or Morrison." and i know that sounds mean but like. truly. a lot of writing about race in the US that has come out in the past, like, 15 years just feels elementary to me because a lot of it has already been said and better. sorry 😭
between "Come out the Wilderness" and If Beale Street Could Talk, his representation of women doesn't WOW me so far. it's not bad but it's not perfect. "write what you know" was definitely Baldwin's strong suit...though Going to Meet the Man, which is in the perspective of a racist white deputy sheriff during the Civil Rights movement, was really powerful, so it really just might be that his women needed work. with the exception of the wife in "Going to Meet the Man," they're all quite neurotic and their interior lives are almost exclusively taken up by the men in their lives.
fave stories:
- The Outing
- The Man Child
- Sonny's Blues
- This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
truly always itching to read more from him!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced