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A review by samanthaardenlockheart
Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin
3.0
• Written by James Baldwin
• Narrator is worried for Sonny.
• Something troublesome is in the newspaper.
• James Baldwin's Writing is very sensorially descriptive, eloquent, flowing, and beautiful.
• "A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream. This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done" (page 17).
○ Similie, personification, metaphor, dominant impression.
• He does not want to face the idea that Sonny had been found out in a raid for peddling and using heroin.
• These words make the reader feel very compassionate for Sonny, but there is also a feeling of disconnect.
• "I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn't have been much older than these boys were now. These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone" (page 18).
• This writing engages the senses.
• "He turned toward me again, patient and calm, and yet I somehow felt him shaking, shaking as though he were going to fall apart. I felt that ice in my guts again, the dread I'd felt all afternoon; and again I watched the barmaid, moving about the bar, washing glasses, and singing" (page 21).
• The author reveals that he is seven years older than Sonny; he is very descriptive when describing his little brother (closeness mixed with an underlying sense of distance and melancholy). He goes onto tell stories from his childhood.
• "It's always at the hour of trouble and confrontation that the missing member aches" (page 25).
• "But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folks will remember the children and they won't talk anymore that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The child knows that they won't talk anymore because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll know too much too soon, about what's going to happen to him" (page 27).
• His mother reveals that his father's friend was killed a horrifically by white men driving a car, which caused him great trauma. His mother wants to make sure he will be able to look out for Sonny and be there for him, even if he can't stop terrible things from happening.
• Sonny wants to pursue a career in jazz, which is not what James feels is the best thing for him to do. Sonny feels upset when his older brother does not immediately support this career choice as being sustainable.
• "The music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first condition, while dreaming of their last" (page 39).
• Sonny reveals that the feeling of being on heroin is like being in control, but the author is very apprehensive of this.
• The descriptions still are very descriptive. The two brothers talk about suffering in a very deep way. Sometimes people like to give meaning to their suffering so it feels more bearable. The narrator tells Sonny, "I don't want to see you—die trying not to suffer."
• "All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours" (page 45).
• Scene where Sonny and Creole are playing the Blues song is a powerful, symbolic metaphor for suffering in this world.
○ "And yet I as aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky" (page 48).
• Narrator is worried for Sonny.
• Something troublesome is in the newspaper.
• James Baldwin's Writing is very sensorially descriptive, eloquent, flowing, and beautiful.
• "A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream. This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done" (page 17).
○ Similie, personification, metaphor, dominant impression.
• He does not want to face the idea that Sonny had been found out in a raid for peddling and using heroin.
• These words make the reader feel very compassionate for Sonny, but there is also a feeling of disconnect.
• "I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn't have been much older than these boys were now. These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone" (page 18).
• This writing engages the senses.
• "He turned toward me again, patient and calm, and yet I somehow felt him shaking, shaking as though he were going to fall apart. I felt that ice in my guts again, the dread I'd felt all afternoon; and again I watched the barmaid, moving about the bar, washing glasses, and singing" (page 21).
• The author reveals that he is seven years older than Sonny; he is very descriptive when describing his little brother (closeness mixed with an underlying sense of distance and melancholy). He goes onto tell stories from his childhood.
• "It's always at the hour of trouble and confrontation that the missing member aches" (page 25).
• "But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folks will remember the children and they won't talk anymore that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The child knows that they won't talk anymore because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll know too much too soon, about what's going to happen to him" (page 27).
• His mother reveals that his father's friend was killed a horrifically by white men driving a car, which caused him great trauma. His mother wants to make sure he will be able to look out for Sonny and be there for him, even if he can't stop terrible things from happening.
• Sonny wants to pursue a career in jazz, which is not what James feels is the best thing for him to do. Sonny feels upset when his older brother does not immediately support this career choice as being sustainable.
• "The music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first condition, while dreaming of their last" (page 39).
• Sonny reveals that the feeling of being on heroin is like being in control, but the author is very apprehensive of this.
• The descriptions still are very descriptive. The two brothers talk about suffering in a very deep way. Sometimes people like to give meaning to their suffering so it feels more bearable. The narrator tells Sonny, "I don't want to see you—die trying not to suffer."
• "All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours" (page 45).
• Scene where Sonny and Creole are playing the Blues song is a powerful, symbolic metaphor for suffering in this world.
○ "And yet I as aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky" (page 48).