_chaoticbooknook 's review for:

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

5.0

emotional inspiring medium-paced

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First five star read this year! And first Baldwin! I picked it up because it kept being referenced in the Black female artist anthology I read last month, I KNOW WHAT THE RED CLAY LOOKS LIKE, and w o w I am so so glad I picked it up. I felt like I highlighted a majority of the book. 

 

This slim book contains two essays: a letter from Baldwin to his nephew, and an essay where Baldwin is grappling with religion and race. This is a short book, but I implore you to take your time with. I read it in 2-3 sittings, which was perfect because it allowed me to savor his ideas and words. 

 

I am in awe and floored by how much Baldwin leads with love and wholeheartedly believes that our best selves cannot be one that comprises our soul, our dignity to justify the ends. And when Baldwin talks about love, he means: “I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth”. 

 

I absolutely loved Baldwin’s dissection and take down of the [white] Christianity and colonialism, and the hypocrisy of the way religion is used to justify racist means and ends. It was cutting, poignant, and shared in a way he was grappling with his own identity. 

 

My main critique is that Baldwin’s writing in the second essay was a bit harder to follow. Namely, his sentences were long and winding, which forced me to constantly flip back and forth between pages. I didn’t mind TOO much because I was fine going at it slowly, but it sometimes did get frustrating constantly trying to figure out what each clause was referring to in his long sentences. 

 

I cannot recommend this powerful read enough. I felt pain, I felt joy, I felt heavy, I felt hope. This is depressingly still relevant today, but it makes his words feel all the more poignant.