Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cartoonmicah
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
4.0
This book marks my first venture among the works of Ernest Gaines, and I can already tell that I am going to enjoy hearing more from him. He expresses depth and breadth in humanity that wins me automatically and wholeheartedly. He does not paint broadly over any aspect of the human condition, even when his subject matter is weighted heavily by a constant reflection on the systemic injustices of man against man. These things said, I think I will like his other works more than this one.
Jane Pittman tells a life story which can hardly be surpassed, both in length of time lived and in impact of events experienced. She shares distinct memories of plantation slavery and of being freed; of trying to escape the culture she came from and of living on in the darkest corners of rural Louisiana for a hundred years or more; and of endless suffering at the hands of cruel people and finally taking a last stand as a centenarian in the Civil Rights movement. She is a stubborn and tenacious character from birth, someone who someone manages to outlast nearly everyone she has ever known in spite of and perhaps thanks to her own surliness and tenacity.
This book is illuminating and expansive. It expands upon realistic experiences from pivotal periods of upheaval in American history. It details all sorts of personal relationships within and between racial divides and fleshes out every sort of character, in circumstances completely foreign to those we live in today. There are the stories you might expect - the tragic and heroic geniuses of African descent who are oppressed to the point of death, the hillbilly whites who find the easiest path ahead is to sell their souls to the devil in working to destroy their black neighbors, and the elite plantation owners whose complicity with systems of oppression leaves them in constant complacency toward the very people raise their children. But their are so many other and more complex stories here, of black and white characters who do not fit any mold that would make sense in a culture of oppression but who are nonetheless illuminating and very real. There are villains and heroes of unexpected race and motivation who provide a more robust and authentic perspective on what it is really like to live in the midst of such wild depravity. Life and the ways in which men react to the shock of living it are somehow complicated in explanation and easy to comprehend. Gaines shows us the complexities of human responses to lawlessness in a way that rings effortlessly true.
The pseudo-biography is not my favorite literary style. When one attempts to tell a life story, even a real one, it tends to meander without a plot. We live life believing there is a story; in retrospect, life meanders. This book is written well to reflect that, and thus it feels disjointed at times. Jane's voice is authentic and so time is skipped over without much reference to how it is passing. This long series of potent vignettes would have been more enjoyable to me as a collection of short stories or interviews between Jane and a narrator than it is as a single narrative that leaps across time.
Similarly, Jane glosses over characters without developing them. Again, this actually makes the story even more believable as a life reflected upon, but it doesn't make the story more engaging. The book is full of fascinating characters and a few of them are really complex through the implications of the stories told about them, but Jane Pittman's reflections are never intimate ones. Perhaps because of her gruff character or because of the difficulty of her existence or because of the distance of time, she never seems to have been especially soft or intimate toward even the more deep connections she reflects on.
I give Gaines the highest marks for his unflinching explorations of depravity and injustice, his insights into the complexities of living through such times, and his robust, authentic, and diverse characterization of men of all stature and social standing. I didn't love everything about the format, the voice, the timeline, and the narrator, but the illumination and reflection provided are a comfort that creates immediate brotherhood with the author across any divide of race or history.
Jane Pittman tells a life story which can hardly be surpassed, both in length of time lived and in impact of events experienced. She shares distinct memories of plantation slavery and of being freed; of trying to escape the culture she came from and of living on in the darkest corners of rural Louisiana for a hundred years or more; and of endless suffering at the hands of cruel people and finally taking a last stand as a centenarian in the Civil Rights movement. She is a stubborn and tenacious character from birth, someone who someone manages to outlast nearly everyone she has ever known in spite of and perhaps thanks to her own surliness and tenacity.
This book is illuminating and expansive. It expands upon realistic experiences from pivotal periods of upheaval in American history. It details all sorts of personal relationships within and between racial divides and fleshes out every sort of character, in circumstances completely foreign to those we live in today. There are the stories you might expect - the tragic and heroic geniuses of African descent who are oppressed to the point of death, the hillbilly whites who find the easiest path ahead is to sell their souls to the devil in working to destroy their black neighbors, and the elite plantation owners whose complicity with systems of oppression leaves them in constant complacency toward the very people raise their children. But their are so many other and more complex stories here, of black and white characters who do not fit any mold that would make sense in a culture of oppression but who are nonetheless illuminating and very real. There are villains and heroes of unexpected race and motivation who provide a more robust and authentic perspective on what it is really like to live in the midst of such wild depravity. Life and the ways in which men react to the shock of living it are somehow complicated in explanation and easy to comprehend. Gaines shows us the complexities of human responses to lawlessness in a way that rings effortlessly true.
The pseudo-biography is not my favorite literary style. When one attempts to tell a life story, even a real one, it tends to meander without a plot. We live life believing there is a story; in retrospect, life meanders. This book is written well to reflect that, and thus it feels disjointed at times. Jane's voice is authentic and so time is skipped over without much reference to how it is passing. This long series of potent vignettes would have been more enjoyable to me as a collection of short stories or interviews between Jane and a narrator than it is as a single narrative that leaps across time.
Similarly, Jane glosses over characters without developing them. Again, this actually makes the story even more believable as a life reflected upon, but it doesn't make the story more engaging. The book is full of fascinating characters and a few of them are really complex through the implications of the stories told about them, but Jane Pittman's reflections are never intimate ones. Perhaps because of her gruff character or because of the difficulty of her existence or because of the distance of time, she never seems to have been especially soft or intimate toward even the more deep connections she reflects on.
I give Gaines the highest marks for his unflinching explorations of depravity and injustice, his insights into the complexities of living through such times, and his robust, authentic, and diverse characterization of men of all stature and social standing. I didn't love everything about the format, the voice, the timeline, and the narrator, but the illumination and reflection provided are a comfort that creates immediate brotherhood with the author across any divide of race or history.