Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin
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Read in August, 2008
Harrowing.
Not an easy read, but worth it for Baldwin's sharp insights and rage. Baldwin cuts to the quick here, and then he pulls out the hydrogen peroxide and starts jabbing that in too. It's much needed medicine, even if it does sting like nobody's business.
I have a feeling that Baldwin would think that the absolute worst thing to say, having read this book, would be "Oh, but things are much better now" much in the way white readers dismissed Uncle Tom's Cabin in his d...more
Not an easy read, but worth it for Baldwin's sharp insights and rage. Baldwin cuts to the quick here, and then he pulls out the hydrogen peroxide and starts jabbing that in too. It's much needed medicine, even if it does sting like nobody's business.
I have a feeling that Baldwin would think that the absolute worst thing to say, having read this book, would be "Oh, but things are much better now" much in the way white readers dismissed Uncle Tom's Cabin in his d...more
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Read in December, 2007
A series of essays about the life of a black American in the 1940s and 1950s, from Harlem to a small Swiss village.
The first three essays are Baldwin's critiques of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Native Son," and a movie that hasn't survived the ages, "Carmen Jones." He makes some interesting points, but by and large these essays are over written and hard to get through.
The rest of the book, by contrast, is filled with moving and thoughtful writing. Baldwin wr...more
The first three essays are Baldwin's critiques of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Native Son," and a movie that hasn't survived the ages, "Carmen Jones." He makes some interesting points, but by and large these essays are over written and hard to get through.
The rest of the book, by contrast, is filled with moving and thoughtful writing. Baldwin wr...more
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This is a great collection of Baldwin's essays. It's only semi-autobiographical, because he seems to veer away from the specifics of his home life a little bit, at least in the beginning (which was pretty damn rough). It's definitely not a memoir, as it's advertised (at least not in our current sense of the word). All of his essays have a point about race relations in America, so anything that he writes about his own experiences in Europe eventually end up back to why American blacks and whit...more
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Read in March, 2008
He can go off on wild tangents sometimes and has a pretty preachy tone (makes sense - he used to be a preacher).
It's good to have such a vibrant account of growing up in Harlem, however little I can relate to it, and his account of being a Black student in Paris is enlightening for anyone searching for an identity, and it's also kind of hilarious.
The obvious corner stone of the collection is the essay "Notes of a Native Son", and I pretty much skipped all of the essays before t
It's good to have such a vibrant account of growing up in Harlem, however little I can relate to it, and his account of being a Black student in Paris is enlightening for anyone searching for an identity, and it's also kind of hilarious.
The obvious corner stone of the collection is the essay "Notes of a Native Son", and I pretty much skipped all of the essays before t
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Baldwin's writing is truly great.
One thing I learned: I didn't know Baldwin spent the year 1942 working in defense plants in NJ, as he recounts in the essay "Notes of a Native Son":
"That year in New Jersey lives in my mind as though it were the year during which, having an unsuspected predilection for it, I first contracted some dread, chronic disease...."
One thing I learned: I didn't know Baldwin spent the year 1942 working in defense plants in NJ, as he recounts in the essay "Notes of a Native Son":
"That year in New Jersey lives in my mind as though it were the year during which, having an unsuspected predilection for it, I first contracted some dread, chronic disease...."
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It's interesting to read this when Obama is in a position to possibly become president and everyone is talking about how my generation is post-racism. Apparently many people in Baldwin's time were saying the same things. So maybe we're being overly optimistic with our views on race. On the other hand, we have progressed a lot since Baldwin's time.
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The essay form works well here. You can digest and absorb Baldwin in bits. An important read for understanding the writer with his later works. Baldwin was made larger than life by his contemporary critics - in retrospect, he deserved it. An important American writer.
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Read in January, 1999
recommended to Angela by:
University of Chicago Social Sciences Core
James Baldwin has a lot of experience to share with us modern Americans... You'll learn so much about race from this book. I read much of it while working in a blue-collar, south-side Chicago workplace... Very worthwhile.
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Thoughtful and passionate essays, many still revelant. Best of the bunch is Baldwin's takedown of emotional cliches and sentimentality in art, which he defines as an inability to feel genuine emotion.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Everybody
Daniel, I owe my reading of this to you. A very nuanced look at race in America, in New York, in the South during the mid-20th century. I was especially embittered by the essay Journey to Atlanta.
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Best quote from this book: "I think the reason people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense that once they let go of their hate, they will be forced to live with the pain."
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recommends it for:
white people
It is amazing to read literature so palpably imbued with anger. Several pages into each essay, one realizes that one is standing amidst the flames of a vivid and engaging spirit.
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Read in April, 2008
Every once in a while, you read a book that's just thrilling.
Baldwin's ideas dazzle, and they hold true today, no
matter how much has changed since the 1950s.
Baldwin's ideas dazzle, and they hold true today, no
matter how much has changed since the 1950s.
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Read in November, 2007
The title essay is brilliant, unassailable, and unstoppable. The rest of the book can't quite live up to that, but Baldwin is always perceptive and eye-opening.
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when i finished it, i missed reading it so much that i watched james baldwin interviews on youtube.
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This is the sort of book that makes you feel so grateful for having the ability to read.
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Read in March, 2008
can't say exactly why, but every so often I have to go back to these essays...
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 4.28 (416 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.15 (27 ratings) number of reviews: 20popular shelves
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quote
"In overlooking, denying, evading this complexity--which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves--we are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves. It is this power of revelation that is the business of the novelist, this journey toward a more vast reality which must take precedence over other claims."
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