false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166804459m/17143.jpg 17143 16 First published in 1953 when James Baldwin was nearly 30, <I>Go Tell It on the Mountain</I> is a young man's novel, as tightly coiled as a new spring, yet tempered by a maturing man's confidence and empathy. It's not a long book, and its action spans but a single day--yet the author packs in enough emotion, detail, and intimate revelation to make his story feel like a mid-20th-century epic. Using as a frame the spiritual and moral awakening of 14-year-old John Grimes during a Saturday night service in a Harlem storefront church, Baldwin lays bare the secrets of a tormented black family during the depression. John's parents, praying beside him, both wrestle with the ghosts of their sinful pasts--Gabriel, a preacher of towering hypocrisy, fathered an illegitimate child during his first marriage down South and refused to recognize his doomed bastard son; Elizabeth fell in love with a charming, free-spirited young man, followed him to New York, became pregnant with his son, and lost him before she could reveal her condition. <p> Baldwin lays down the terrible symmetries of these two blighted lives as the ironic context for John's dark night of the soul. When day dawns, John believes himself saved, but his creator makes it clear that this salvation arises as much from blindness as revelation: "He was filled with a joy, a joy unspeakable, whose roots, though he would not trace them on this new day of his life, were nourished by the wellspring of a despair not yet discovered." <p> Though it was hailed at publication for its groundbreaking use of black idiom, what is most striking about <I>Go Tell It on the Mountain</I> today is its structure and its scope. In peeling back the layers of these damaged lives, Baldwin dramatizes the story of the great black migration from rural South to urban North. "Behind them was the darkness," Baldwin writes of Gabriel and Elizabeth's lost generation, "nothing but the darkness, and all around them destruction, and before them nothing but the fire--a bastard people, far from God, singing and crying in the wilderness!" This is Baldwin's music--a music in which rhapsody is rooted anguish--and there is none finer in American literature. <I>--David Laskin</I> 1027995 1952 Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) total:2635|5:749|4:1097|3:629|2:130|1:30| 2635 10310 3938 193 4 5 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 27 13:20:23 -0700 2007 Wed Jan 09 12:40:47 -0800 2008 Go Tell It on the Mountain, an autobiographical novel first published in 1952, is a beautifully written exploration of religious experience in African American life, both North and South. The primary narrative covers less than 24 hours and is focused by the central character's 14th b...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Sep 21 00:00:00 -0700 2000 Thu Feb 21 01:26:33 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 21 01:26:33 -0800 2008 Reading this, years ago, I was struck by something I didn't think I'd be struck with.

Recognition!

I was reaised religious, not in anything close to the kind of religiostity he describes- visceral, pummeling, hyperintense- but pretty far-reaching and existential in my own...more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 27 04:40:14 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 27 04:47:44 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Fri Jan 11 16:34:11 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 16:37:54 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Dec 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 09 18:50:37 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 18:37:26 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Nov 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 20:24:43 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 13:13:51 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jul 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 19:38:34 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 12:18:23 -0700 2009 The n...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 23 07:33:00 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 29 13:26:20 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 09:03:53 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 11:25:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sat Jul 18 11:38:22 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 18 11:42:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jul 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 16:39:39 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 06:26:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 08:42:02 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 08:48:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 09:24:49 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 09:30:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 03 08:43:48 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 08:52:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jun 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 20:07:04 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 20:11:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 13:06:40 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 17:33:20 -0700 2009
Tho...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 17:18:01 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 17:18:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed May 21 13:56:15 -0700 2008 Wed May 21 13:57:34 -0700 2008 1 0 false true Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Apr 20 20:23:56 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 12:37:42 -0700 2009
Let me just clarify and say that I like James Baldwin. There's a reason this book has critical acclaim, James Baldwin is talented. He has a knack for prose and cha...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed May 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 11:41:46 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 11:44:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=17143