Scan barcode
A review by psalmcat
I Wonder as I Wander by Langston Hughes
5.0
I don't think I even realized Hughes wrote anything besides poetry. I had no idea how itinerant he was, either. This was a revelation to me on many levels.
The main reason I picked it up was Ian mentioning that Hughes traveled around Tashkent/Samarkand in the 1930s (what was then, and when I was there in the 1980s, Soviet Central Asia). He didn't only travel around there: he lived in Moscow for awhile, also Mexico--he spoke fluent Spanish!--France, Carmel-by-the-Sea (California), and visited Spain for several months during the war there.
Staying with Central Asia for a moment, I really had to stop and think about all the changes that came about in the 50 years between his visit and mine. Those years forcibly brought a very 'backward' area of the world up to the 20th century in a very quick manner. I suspect the last 15 has perhaps meant quite a lot of backward movement, but the descriptions of the people, the mores, the practical problems of the area struck home.
His time in Spain was similarly poignant. Even at the time, he seemed to see that the war in Spain was just a tryout for the Big War coming up next. The machinery of war, that financed by Germany anyway, changed regularly, where the defense had to make do with the same options. It's no surprise that Franco won, really. One incisive comment I remember clearly is how people fighting against Franco were primarily NOT communists. In fact, he says, he saw almost no Russians during the entire time he was there.
There is a longish bit about traveling in the South reciting poetry to black audiences, bringing them face-to-face with the possibility of change. This was during the Scottsboro Trial, where everyone in the South--blacks and whites--knew the men on trial were innocent. Most people elsewhere knew so too. And yet... Yes, and yet. Hughes' observations on racial issues are primarily dry asides in the face of outrageous unfairness. Perhaps this is why he travelled so much; he had fewer problems and was treated more like a human everywhere he went outside the United States.
This is also, of course, a first-rate travelogue complete with fleas, starvation, fine food, political tightrope-walking, weird sexual practices, and lots of long, boring train trips. Some things haven't changed at all.
The main reason I picked it up was Ian mentioning that Hughes traveled around Tashkent/Samarkand in the 1930s (what was then, and when I was there in the 1980s, Soviet Central Asia). He didn't only travel around there: he lived in Moscow for awhile, also Mexico--he spoke fluent Spanish!--France, Carmel-by-the-Sea (California), and visited Spain for several months during the war there.
Staying with Central Asia for a moment, I really had to stop and think about all the changes that came about in the 50 years between his visit and mine. Those years forcibly brought a very 'backward' area of the world up to the 20th century in a very quick manner. I suspect the last 15 has perhaps meant quite a lot of backward movement, but the descriptions of the people, the mores, the practical problems of the area struck home.
His time in Spain was similarly poignant. Even at the time, he seemed to see that the war in Spain was just a tryout for the Big War coming up next. The machinery of war, that financed by Germany anyway, changed regularly, where the defense had to make do with the same options. It's no surprise that Franco won, really. One incisive comment I remember clearly is how people fighting against Franco were primarily NOT communists. In fact, he says, he saw almost no Russians during the entire time he was there.
There is a longish bit about traveling in the South reciting poetry to black audiences, bringing them face-to-face with the possibility of change. This was during the Scottsboro Trial, where everyone in the South--blacks and whites--knew the men on trial were innocent. Most people elsewhere knew so too. And yet... Yes, and yet. Hughes' observations on racial issues are primarily dry asides in the face of outrageous unfairness. Perhaps this is why he travelled so much; he had fewer problems and was treated more like a human everywhere he went outside the United States.
This is also, of course, a first-rate travelogue complete with fleas, starvation, fine food, political tightrope-walking, weird sexual practices, and lots of long, boring train trips. Some things haven't changed at all.
I, too, sing America.Many things haven't changed. Hughes' writing stands the test of time. The man simply knew how to put a picture on paper with words, whether poetic or prose.
I am the darker brother.
They send me
To eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
and eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow
I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see
How beautiful I am
And be ashamed.
I, too, am America.