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woodslesbian's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This is an absolutely beautifully written, emotionally moving, thoroughly researched history book examining the lives of young black people migrating to the cities in the early 1900s. This text both sheds light on a group of people often forgotten by history and weaves a deeply compelling, intimate narrative about their lives and experiences. The text pays special attention to the way that desire and methods of intimacy that were often condemned at the time--common law marriages, young women's sexual needs, same-sex relationships, etc. were not just beautiful and captivating, but were a necessary tool for pushing back against a racist and classist society that placed rigid expectations on these young people. While told in a largely narrative style and inventing dialogue without direct records to achieve this goal, Wayward Lives indicated direct quotes with italics and has an extensive sources section as well. This was an incredibly valuable read that I very much recommend!
sam_bizar_wilcox's review against another edition
5.0
Saidiya Hartman draws attention to archival gaps, to the figures in history standing in the margins of the camera's gaze. The intellectual project of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments is one that is terrifically unlike any other work of criticism I'd encountered before. It's an intellectual project that offers the reintroduction of art to the academy, leveraging the argumentative power of narration in a non-fiction text. Hartman writes as an explosion of potentiality, opening history as a source of possibility and rich experience, her subjects becoming the protagonists of the novels that might have been.
To read this book is to rejoice. It is a book that exhumes from the forgotten memories of the past the lives of brilliant individuals, re-storied here in a form of triumph. Fin de siècle New York and Philadelphia here are rendered with such detail and color, one feels as if history and present are intrinsically entwined. And indeed, with the contemporary resonances of police brutality, systemic racism, and deep-rooted income inequality, the past reads as present, horrific and gorgeous as all that implies.
The central project of Hartman's book seems to be not just interrogating who writes history, but how writes history. What becomes a text from literary studies becomes a historiography, showing how reconciling with narratives, and the loss of narratives, transcends disciplinary boundaries. And yet, as the text consistently directs attention to what lingers beyond the page, what is left out of the text, the book too carves space for imaginative resistance and imaginative movement within the academy. Potentiality not just as practice, but potentiality as expressed for itself, in itself.
To read this book is to rejoice. It is a book that exhumes from the forgotten memories of the past the lives of brilliant individuals, re-storied here in a form of triumph. Fin de siècle New York and Philadelphia here are rendered with such detail and color, one feels as if history and present are intrinsically entwined. And indeed, with the contemporary resonances of police brutality, systemic racism, and deep-rooted income inequality, the past reads as present, horrific and gorgeous as all that implies.
The central project of Hartman's book seems to be not just interrogating who writes history, but how writes history. What becomes a text from literary studies becomes a historiography, showing how reconciling with narratives, and the loss of narratives, transcends disciplinary boundaries. And yet, as the text consistently directs attention to what lingers beyond the page, what is left out of the text, the book too carves space for imaginative resistance and imaginative movement within the academy. Potentiality not just as practice, but potentiality as expressed for itself, in itself.
lsparrow's review against another edition
2.0
i loved the idea of this book and also how it tried to tell the stories of lives that have often been untold. But I just felt that they were only quick snap shots and I wanted a bit more. It also felt that it jumped around too much. I wanted more of a cohesive story.
lavenderwitch's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
oliviawilsson's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
4.5
A revelation of archival work that I have been wanting to read for years. I wish there were markers for the endnotes (reading this in a digital edition would be impossible).
docturman's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0