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martinbihl 's review for:
Years ago I read Wright's Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy and The Outsider, and even waded through a long biography of him - but I never could find a copy of Lawd Today, his first work, which remained unpublished until after his death.
What a pleasant surprise, then, to find it here. And even more pleasant, and frankly, surprising, was how good it was. Yes, there are places where it drags (I'm thinking of the play-by-play description of the Bridge game in part one for example - I don't play Bridge, so I have no idea what's going on here), and yes there are places where it feels like Wright is placing his words into his characters' mouths (some of the free-form conversation in the post office in part two feels a little forced) - but these are sins that young writers often commit. And they are more than compensated for elsewhere.
For example, if all Wright did here was pull back the covers on what the urban work experience was like in the 30s, the book would be worth reading. Seeing how, for example, the Post Office functioned - from the view point of a day laborer - is as fascinating (and well done) here as Steinbeck's use and description of rural work in the thirties. But Wright also experiments with form - you can clearly see the influence of Dos Passos - which adds energy and perspective to his tale in a way that his later works might have benefited from.
Clearly this was a book that should have been published in its time, and yet, one can see why it wasn't - the portraits of blacks are far more complicated than any one on the right or left, or anyone in power who was black or white wanted to admit. As a result, the description of race relations similarly does not fit into neat pigeonholes. And while one finds this in almost all of Wright's work, it was probably easier for northern liberals to tolerate when he was writing about southern atrocities (Uncle Tom's Children) or creating isolated case studies (Native Son) or even relating his own biography (Black Boy) than to see that the story in their own backyard was more nuanced and contradictory than they had time to parse out.
Lawd Today is definitely worth reading - especially if you're interested in Wright, black lit, lit of the thirties, or urban lit.
What a pleasant surprise, then, to find it here. And even more pleasant, and frankly, surprising, was how good it was. Yes, there are places where it drags (I'm thinking of the play-by-play description of the Bridge game in part one for example - I don't play Bridge, so I have no idea what's going on here), and yes there are places where it feels like Wright is placing his words into his characters' mouths (some of the free-form conversation in the post office in part two feels a little forced) - but these are sins that young writers often commit. And they are more than compensated for elsewhere.
For example, if all Wright did here was pull back the covers on what the urban work experience was like in the 30s, the book would be worth reading. Seeing how, for example, the Post Office functioned - from the view point of a day laborer - is as fascinating (and well done) here as Steinbeck's use and description of rural work in the thirties. But Wright also experiments with form - you can clearly see the influence of Dos Passos - which adds energy and perspective to his tale in a way that his later works might have benefited from.
Clearly this was a book that should have been published in its time, and yet, one can see why it wasn't - the portraits of blacks are far more complicated than any one on the right or left, or anyone in power who was black or white wanted to admit. As a result, the description of race relations similarly does not fit into neat pigeonholes. And while one finds this in almost all of Wright's work, it was probably easier for northern liberals to tolerate when he was writing about southern atrocities (Uncle Tom's Children) or creating isolated case studies (Native Son) or even relating his own biography (Black Boy) than to see that the story in their own backyard was more nuanced and contradictory than they had time to parse out.
Lawd Today is definitely worth reading - especially if you're interested in Wright, black lit, lit of the thirties, or urban lit.