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iseefeelings's review against another edition
3.0
✤"I always do as I want, preferring to kill myself in my own way rather than die of boredom trying to live according to somebody else's 'good advice'". // p.34
✦"I hate to be a professional quarreler, but what you guys on THE CRISIS do to poetry is a sin and a shame. You stick it off in far corners in a column next to the ads, and put it in small type that makes it harder than it naturally is to read, and you thus hurt the poets' souls. Poets like to be published in good spots, with lots of nice-looking margin around them that attracts the eye so somebody will look at what they have to say, otherwise they're likely not to get looked at at all..." //p.212
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Throughout this book, Langston Hughes appeared as a resilient person despite going through failure after failure to make a better living with his career, a great poet who mocked himself as nothing than a 'literary sharecropper', a simple man with a loving heart even though love from the loved ones were the only thing he couldn't get.
*
Even though I admire Hughes a great deal, I still skimmed so many pages and didn't find this book enjoyable.
I understand the purpose of these letters is to maintain relationships with his family members, peers, fans and acquaintances but most of the letters are for work and reveal very few details of his personal life (rarely any love letters as well). The book is fairly monotonous as compared with other writers' letters I've read so far. Regarding the effort of the publisher in curating and editing, I still consider it as a book worth reading for any fan of this literary icon.
✦"I hate to be a professional quarreler, but what you guys on THE CRISIS do to poetry is a sin and a shame. You stick it off in far corners in a column next to the ads, and put it in small type that makes it harder than it naturally is to read, and you thus hurt the poets' souls. Poets like to be published in good spots, with lots of nice-looking margin around them that attracts the eye so somebody will look at what they have to say, otherwise they're likely not to get looked at at all..." //p.212
≈≈≈≈≈≈
Throughout this book, Langston Hughes appeared as a resilient person despite going through failure after failure to make a better living with his career, a great poet who mocked himself as nothing than a 'literary sharecropper', a simple man with a loving heart even though love from the loved ones were the only thing he couldn't get.
*
Even though I admire Hughes a great deal, I still skimmed so many pages and didn't find this book enjoyable.
I understand the purpose of these letters is to maintain relationships with his family members, peers, fans and acquaintances but most of the letters are for work and reveal very few details of his personal life (rarely any love letters as well). The book is fairly monotonous as compared with other writers' letters I've read so far. Regarding the effort of the publisher in curating and editing, I still consider it as a book worth reading for any fan of this literary icon.
melanie_page's review against another edition
2.0
Langston Hughes is a gorgeous, thoughtful, talented poet. He traveled the world,and thus experienced many cultures. The introduction to this particular book explains that Hughes was terrible at writing back to people in a timely fashion, but he pretty much always wrote back. The letters would pile up on his bed and in his dresser drawers. When a group (I can't remember the name) wants to begin preserving African American culture for posterity, Hughes is happy to give up the mountains of letters to which he's responded because he never throws them away. So now, a huge chunk of Hughes's life is kept and recorded. The editors of this book aimed to find letters that would capture Hughes's life and not just the best letters or a certain time period or correspondence with a certain person. The result is obviously from a huge, tedious effort.
I couldn't get into the book. There are so many footnotes to explain Langston Hughes's references in his letters: people, places, events, projects on which he is working, etc. The footnotes destroy the feeling of reading an intimate letter, and it's true that not all of them are intimate. I was excited to read on the back cover that Zora Neale Hurston was in this book, but there was only one letter to her, and the footnotes revealed that apparently she took a play that she and Hughes were working on and had it produced without his knowledge--or his name on the credits. That made me feel terrible, as I love Hurston and had to think of her as a cheat.
Truly this book is a gold mine for graduate students writing a paper or thesis on the poet, but for the average reader, it's too detailed to simply sit and enjoy. Because I don't feel like the correct audience for this book (not at this point in my life, anyway), I'm not giving it any starts.
I couldn't get into the book. There are so many footnotes to explain Langston Hughes's references in his letters: people, places, events, projects on which he is working, etc. The footnotes destroy the feeling of reading an intimate letter, and it's true that not all of them are intimate. I was excited to read on the back cover that Zora Neale Hurston was in this book, but there was only one letter to her, and the footnotes revealed that apparently she took a play that she and Hughes were working on and had it produced without his knowledge--or his name on the credits. That made me feel terrible, as I love Hurston and had to think of her as a cheat.
Truly this book is a gold mine for graduate students writing a paper or thesis on the poet, but for the average reader, it's too detailed to simply sit and enjoy. Because I don't feel like the correct audience for this book (not at this point in my life, anyway), I'm not giving it any starts.
melanie_page's review against another edition
2.0
Langston Hughes is a gorgeous, thoughtful, talented poet. He traveled the world,and thus experienced many cultures. The introduction to this particular book explains that Hughes was terrible at writing back to people in a timely fashion, but he pretty much always wrote back. The letters would pile up on his bed and in his dresser drawers. When a group (I can't remember the name) wants to begin preserving African American culture for posterity, Hughes is happy to give up the mountains of letters to which he's responded because he never throws them away. So now, a huge chunk of Hughes's life is kept and recorded. The editors of this book aimed to find letters that would capture Hughes's life and not just the best letters or a certain time period or correspondence with a certain person. The result is obviously from a huge, tedious effort.
I couldn't get into the book. There are so many footnotes to explain Langston Hughes's references in his letters: people, places, events, projects on which he is working, etc. The footnotes destroy the feeling of reading an intimate letter, and it's true that not all of them are intimate. I was excited to read on the back cover that Zora Neale Hurston was in this book, but there was only one letter to her, and the footnotes revealed that apparently she took a play that she and Hughes were working on and had it produced without his knowledge--or his name on the credits. That made me feel terrible, as I love Hurston and had to think of her as a cheat.
Truly this book is a gold mine for graduate students writing a paper or thesis on the poet, but for the average reader, it's too detailed to simply sit and enjoy. Because I don't feel like the correct audience for this book (not at this point in my life, anyway), I'm not giving it any starts.
I couldn't get into the book. There are so many footnotes to explain Langston Hughes's references in his letters: people, places, events, projects on which he is working, etc. The footnotes destroy the feeling of reading an intimate letter, and it's true that not all of them are intimate. I was excited to read on the back cover that Zora Neale Hurston was in this book, but there was only one letter to her, and the footnotes revealed that apparently she took a play that she and Hughes were working on and had it produced without his knowledge--or his name on the credits. That made me feel terrible, as I love Hurston and had to think of her as a cheat.
Truly this book is a gold mine for graduate students writing a paper or thesis on the poet, but for the average reader, it's too detailed to simply sit and enjoy. Because I don't feel like the correct audience for this book (not at this point in my life, anyway), I'm not giving it any starts.
miguel's review against another edition
5.0
Selected Letters is a tremendous and lovingly curated volume filled with fascinating correspondences with some of Hughes's most storied interlocutors. Whether it is currying favor with W.E.B. Du Bois after the publication of Famous Negro Music Makers (1955) or disagreements with James Baldwin after Hughes read the galleys of Nobody Knows My Name (1961), these letters and their careful editorial footnotes bring life to these letters.
One of the most fascinating through-lines of the text is Hughes's correspondence with Blanche Knopf, Maxim Lieber, and others involved with bringing Hughes's various writings to market. Though a comprehensive study on Harlem Renaissance patronage has yet to appear, Hughes's letters are a great part of that story.
But these conversations are just the tip of the iceberg. Hughes is as strong in his letter writing as he is in the best of his work. This is a wondrous time capsule and represents many untold stories of Hughes and his contemporaries.
One of the most fascinating through-lines of the text is Hughes's correspondence with Blanche Knopf, Maxim Lieber, and others involved with bringing Hughes's various writings to market. Though a comprehensive study on Harlem Renaissance patronage has yet to appear, Hughes's letters are a great part of that story.
But these conversations are just the tip of the iceberg. Hughes is as strong in his letter writing as he is in the best of his work. This is a wondrous time capsule and represents many untold stories of Hughes and his contemporaries.
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