Rapid post. Be back for edits post-dinner if needed …
I first read James Baldwin’s Another Country two summers ago and fell completely in love with him. I gave my own mini review in this post a while back. His writing left me breathless. Since then, after moving to BK, I devoured every full length novel that he has written in a span of about 4 months, finishing two days ago with his first novel Go Tell it on the Mountain. It usually takes me a few chapters to get really involved in the characters (which often results in me going back as soon as I’m done and reading the first few chapters over again. I attribute this partly to my despair at having finished the book–more on that in a second), but soon after I am hooked and can sit and read them for hours without even noticing that time has gone by.
His characters are intricate and written with the perfect amount of intimacy, depending on their story and their purpose in the novel. When I was reading Just Above My Head, I contemplated putting it down without finishing it because the character I was falling in love with was the same one who died on the first page of the novel! Also, a lot of his books finish before there’s a definite end to the narrative: main questions left unanswered, problems unresolved, lives unexplained. But that’s part of the beauty of his work. The purpose isn’t always in the story itself, but the pieces, side trails, and minor (as well as central) details that create such a scathing critique of American problems. It’s political fiction at its best: clear and powerful without being preachy or cliché.
Every time I got towards the end of one of his books (besides Giovanni’s Room, though I still enjoyed it), I didn’t want to continue because that meant it would be over. And now I’m out of books period. Short stories and essays are next, though fiction novels have been my preference lately.
So yeah, I’m in love. This is a quote I found online (while trying to feel productive yet avoid my school work) that caused me to catch my breath in personal recognition and beauty of prose. Probably only my sister and oldest brother will really get why this would make me pause for longer than the average reader, but here it is:
“And it seemed to me, too, that the violence which rose all about us as my father left the world had been devised as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son. I had declined to believe in that apocalypse which had been central to my father’s vision; very well, life seemed to be saying, here is something that will certainly pass for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along. I had inclined to be contemptuous of my father for the conditions of his life, for the conditions of our lives. When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in a new way, to be apprehensive about my own.” (from Notes of a Native Son, 1955)
2 Comments
January 27, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hmm. Maybe the love affair doesn’t have to die. You should let me borrow another one, that way you can at least share your wisdom/remember good books.
I’d have to read more/re-read to figure out if I agree that he leaves things fundamentally unresolved; my current impression is that seeing which stuff gets resolved is an important clue to central themes. Some things get resolved. Kind of. Hmm.
January 27, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Yes, I agree completely. It definitely points to the main themes of his book, but I get really drawn into (what Danny Hoch refers to as) the “A story” of the book: the main narrative strand that guides you through the reading/meaning (which you often find through the “A story” but also the “B” and “C” story; Baldwin pours meaning into each of these strands). The characters really come alive as I read them, and I want to find out what happens to them. The book that sticks out in my mind the most in this respect is If Beale Street Could Talk. Sadly, my copy is three months overdue at the library, so I will have to loan you a different one (or return it so you can check it out, lol).