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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
James Baldwin. He grabs you and he doesn’t let go. His dialogue flows and his prose cuts with a precision unmatched. You forget you are reading a story written by a singular person, because he cultivates his characters with such humanity and grace and rage that you think they are real. His thoughts on race in America is just as important now as it was then. Read Baldwin, as if America depended on it. And then act.
( read only the short story “going to meet the man” for uni )
too graphic and violent for my taste...
too graphic and violent for my taste...
This had some of my favorite of Baldwin's writing in it that I've read so far. Many of these stories are excellent. The title story is horrifying and fantastic.
I enjoyed the majority of this! looking back at each of the stories after finishing the collection, I'm reminded how rich Baldwin's work is (and how rewarding it is to think about his work all together)
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
From my Litsy post: There‘s a long path of Baldwin‘s life in this short story collection, capped, easily, by the magnificent Sonny‘s Blues. Baldwin does some lovely, beautiful gently-created characters and tears them up. The last story, the title story on going to see a lynching, hovers over everything else. These stories are about racism even when they‘re not.
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40. Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
published: 1965
format: 193 pages inside [b:Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man|38456|Early Novels & Stories Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347568539l/38456._SY75_.jpg|38223]
acquired: December
read: Aug 16-28
time reading: 7 hr 15 min, 2.3 min/page
rating: 4½
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40. Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
published: 1965
format: 193 pages inside [b:Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man|38456|Early Novels & Stories Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347568539l/38456._SY75_.jpg|38223]
acquired: December
read: Aug 16-28
time reading: 7 hr 15 min, 2.3 min/page
rating: 4½
An unsettling collection of stories that make you confront the role that race plays in producing rage, humiliation, and suffering.
Everyone should read something by James Baldwin. This is a lovely place to introduce yourself. Baldwin does a fantastic job of drafting surface-level simplistic stories that emotionally creep up on the reader. The themes and subjects within the collection are none to take lightly. "Sonny's Blues" and "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" are my personal favorites. Couldn't recommend James Baldwin enough!