Reviews

Passing by Nella Larsen

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thefellowshipofthebooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional fast-paced

4.0

alyx's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

dinasamimi's review against another edition

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3.0

I'll preface this by saying I don't typically like books from this era. I also think it's tough to rate and examine this from a non-Black perspective in 2021. I suppose that it was groundbreaking and dangerous in the 1920s. The story is fast-moving and escalates quickly. The writing is fine, yet the influence of this book is probably the most profound thing about it. Passing and colorism are pretty prolific topics in literature now, in no small part because of this book.

reila's review against another edition

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informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

amyeluned's review against another edition

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4.0

great gatsby vibes

whataliciaisreading's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past — even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

The contrast, parallels, and interplay between these two women is what makes Passing so wonderfully constructed. Every choice is finely calculated. Their interactions are polite, but Larsen has a way of making the simplest observation feel like a prelude to some great catastrophe.

From the novel’s opening, race is slippery and unstable. Though Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel is understood to be a tragedy, it also exposes race to be something of a farce. But the moments of humour don't release the novella’s tension; rather, they only increase it. It is race’s instability that threatens the women at the centre of this novel.

Larsen enters into fiction the psychological dilemma of Du Bois’ double consciousness, 'two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body’. (Du Bois) Clare, in her frustration towards Irene, finds herself ‘caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her.’

Nella Larsen’s Passing is an incredibly underrated novel, and belongs on everyone’s reading lists.

Content Warnings