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Notes of a Native Son

James Baldwin,

Edward P. Jones (Foreword)

4.37 · Rating details · 15,143 ratings · 967 reviews

A new edition of the book many have called James Baldwin’s most influential work

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most ...more

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Paperback, 192 pages

Published November 20th 2012 by Beacon Press (first published 1955)

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Dec 28, 2011 Rowena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit, afrocentric, autobiography, james-baldwin

“Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.” - James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

James Baldwin was a fascinating and eloquent man, one who I would have loved to have had a conversation with. His insights into racial issues are truly phenomenal.

This is a collection of short essays about Baldwin's experience with race. In the first three essays Baldwin critiques various books and movies on black c “Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.” - James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

James Baldwin was a fascinating and eloquent man, one who I would have loved to have had a conversation with. His insights into racial issues are truly phenomenal.

This is a collection of short essays about Baldwin's experience with race. In the first three essays Baldwin critiques various books and movies on black culture that he believes do the race a disservice. In the 1950s when black representation was relatively low in both literature and film, I would assume that most black people would have been glad just to see themselves in print and on film;however, Baldwin talks about how misrepresentation is just as damaging as non-representation. I admire him a lot for that.

The other essays go into the black experience in the States and in Europe. One thing he said about his experiences in a small village in Switzerland was truly profound:

“I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know”

My favourite essay in this book was probably the titular one, Notes of a Native Son. It was heartbreaking and touching. I've read "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and I detested Baldwin's father. However, after reading this essay, my perception has changed a little. I still found the father unlikeable but now I'm appreciating how difficult it must have been for a black man, an authoritative one trying to raise his family in a society in which all his hard work accounts for next to nothing, a society in which he is the king at home and is considered a "boy" in the white world. I could tell that Baldwin was trying to understand and forgive his father, and let go of his anger; it was truly touching:

“… I did not want to see him because I hated him. But this was not true. It was only that I had hated him and I wanted to hold on to this hatred… one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.”

Very powerful essays.

...more

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Feb 28, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: essays, non-fiction, race-issues, african-american-lit, classics, biography-autobiography-memoir

This is my 3rd James Baldwin book this year. .....first time as an audiobook.

"Notes of A Native Son", is a great intro. into other books Baldwin has written.

These 'notes' are a collection of essays -- written when Baldwin was in his 20's
during the 1940's and early 50's. It was fascinating learning about Baldwin as a young man and his experiences being Black in America through the civil rights movement-- and steps forward.
His memories about unfairness is piercing. I felt his bitterness - then ...more

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Feb 05, 2017 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all.”

Better known for works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son (published 2 years later in 1955) is an important collection of essays which highlights issues Baldwin would continue to address. Subjects of his essays include his own home life, life in Harlem, the inequities of separate but equal treatment of blacks in 1940s and 50s America as we ...more

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Mar 11, 2018 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, recs

Powerful and precise as all of the essays are, Baldwin hits his stride with the titular piece, in which he embeds personal meditations on his father's death into a social analysis of the Harlem riot of 1943 and race relations in America. There's nothing else quite like it in the collection, though the essays about Paris in the third and final section are almost as brilliant. ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Nicole~ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography, african-american, nonfiction, cultural, race, still-revelant, baldwin

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time. So that the first problem is how to control that rage so that it won't destroy you.
- James Baldwin from "The Negro in American Culture", Cross Currents, XI (1961), p. 205

In his dramatic and provocative short piece Notes of a Native Son (1955) included in the ten essay volume of the same title, Baldwin connects a series of coincidental events, unifying them in a brilliantly conceived aest ...more

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Jan 11, 2015 Brian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Brian by: Rowena

Around this time last year friend Rowena and I did a buddy-read of this collection of Baldwin essays. It wasn’t the first Baldwin book that I’d read, but it was the first book of his non-fiction. It was also the first book that I’ve read that made me feel SHAME for being a white man. The full weight of my race’s mistreatment of African Americans became personal in the light of Baldwin’s writing. It doesn’t matter that I was born six years after the Civil Rights Act, that I never owned slaves or Around this time last year friend Rowena and I did a buddy-read of this collection of Baldwin essays. It wasn’t the first Baldwin book that I’d read, but it was the first book of his non-fiction. It was also the first book that I’ve read that made me feel SHAME for being a white man. The full weight of my race’s mistreatment of African Americans became personal in the light of Baldwin’s writing. It doesn’t matter that I was born six years after the Civil Rights Act, that I never owned slaves or participated in Jim Crow – there is plenty for which I’m responsible in that inheritance of malfeasance that is made manifest - many times without me even being aware it is happening.

After we finished the tandem read Rowena asked me here on GR if I planned on writing a review. The story is that I did write a review (a couple of drafts, in truth) but after reading what I wrote everything just sounded to my ears like the tinny braying of a white man’s take on something he could never understand. So I ended up shredding those thoughts and posted nothing. Now, after a year reflection on the texts – and a background of tense race relations in the USA, I decided to pick this volume up again and give it another read. Baldwin’s words are iodine-in-wound necessary to those of us “privileged” to be born white, male, American and affluent. I didn’t get to choose the circumstances of my birth, just like Baldwin didn’t. So just what is my responsibility to that inheritance that feels like a lodestone? Here’s what Baldwin says in his preface to the 30th anniversary edition to this work:

My inheritance was particular, specifically limited and limiting: my birthright was vast, connecting me to all that lives, and to everyone, forever. But one cannot claim the birthright without accepting the inheritance.

Therefore, when I began seriously to write – when I knew that I was committed, that this would be my life – I had to try to describe that particular condition which was – is – the living proof of my inheritance. And at the same time, with that very same description, I had to claim my birthright. I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all.

That is beautiful – a sentiment written in 1984, three years before Baldwin’s death. I wonder what Baldwin would have to say, had he lived to be 90 and published a new preface in 2014 commemorating the 60th anniversary of this work - his country lead by an African American President (elected twice, no less) but also suffering through the shit-shows of Michael Brown and Eric Garner? Absent this, I’m happy to have this rich volume of essays that remind me many times the best thing is to just listen.
...more

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Nov 01, 2016 Brierly added it

Shelves: reviewed, non-fiction

Society, it would seem, is a flimsy structure, beneath contempt, designed by and for all the other people, and experience is nothing more than sensation—so many sensations, added up like arithmetic, give one the rich, full life.

I already know that I love James Baldwin's fiction (Giovanni's Room and If Beale Street Could Talk) so I am not surprised to feel similar about this collection of essays. But, this being a collection, of course there was an uneven appreciation as compared to a complete, c ...more

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Oct 30, 2014 Barry Pierce rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2014, 20th-century

This collection of essays is a rarity by the fact that every essay is as good as the previous one. There are no duds in this collection. This is by far one of the best collections I've ever read. Baldwin's prose is just so astoundingly beautiful. I may be premature in saying this but I feel that this may be Baldwin's greatest work. A collection so important, so accessible, so unforgettable that not reading this would be an injustice to you and your bookshelf. ...more

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Jul 13, 2017 leynes rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: black-writers

MY VIDEO ESSAY ON THIS BOOK: https://youtu.be/vFBHQEfsq1o

You might be surprised by the low rating but, unfortunately, I can't justify a higher one. James Baldwin is an author I deeply admire and look up to. He is an incredibly talented writer and I want to read his complete bibliography. I'm surprised myself that I didn't click with Notes of a Native Son. I was so sure that I would love it but alas! it didn't work for me.

The story of the Negro in America is the story of America – or, more pre

...more

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Oct 29, 2020 Gabrielle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american, non-fiction, own-a-copy, read-in-2020, mandatory-reading, reviewed, penguin-modern-classics

“I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

I don’t think I can say much about James Baldwin that hasn’t already been said. I love his work, even if it always seems to leave me heartbroken. I think we need to read him now more than ever, even if I find it infinitely sad that he is as relevant now as he was when his essays were fresh off the press. His writing is lean, insightful and angry. I kept look ...more

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Jun 19, 2020 Lucy Dacus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Greatest Of All Time

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May 19, 2017 Sebastien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Scorching per usual with Baldwin.

The first essays feature criticism/analysis of the arts, quite interesting but not my favorite part of the book.

The essays on his father (particularly devastating, sad, insightful) and living in France were my favorites. Deeply powerful, moving essays.

His experience with the French justice system (l'affaire du drap de lit) is completely surreal but believable, the epitome of kafkaesque. It is terrifying, he gets sucked into the blackhole of the French prison sys Scorching per usual with Baldwin.

The first essays feature criticism/analysis of the arts, quite interesting but not my favorite part of the book.

The essays on his father (particularly devastating, sad, insightful) and living in France were my favorites. Deeply powerful, moving essays.

His experience with the French justice system (l'affaire du drap de lit) is completely surreal but believable, the epitome of kafkaesque. It is terrifying, he gets sucked into the blackhole of the French prison system because he is wrongly suspected of stealing... a bed sheet. Baldwin weaves in some brilliant humor into this essay, although he is always making serious points through out. Maybe as a French person I found his observations even funnier, but they struck me as pretty accurate and interesting. Plus Baldwin has a great knack for interweaving comedic jabs into his serious observations/ideas. The matter of fact observation pointing out the old man permanently standing next to the communal toilet eating camembert struck me as particularly hilarious because it was so dryly noted and I was like that is so ridiculous it has to be true. Can't get us Frenchies away from our damn camembert even in the vortex of prison.

Baldwin writes with power, precision, perception, coupled with brutal honesty. He crafts and explains his ideas and thinking so well, I love his imagery and flips of language and turns of phrase. His writing is never showboaty although it is extremely finely crafted, no matter how fancy he gets it always serves his purpose in getting a point across (his skill allowing him to zero in on the heart of his themes/ideas with highest degree of nuance and perception). He drills deep down on subjects, amazingly perceptive and startling ability to unravel the complex.

It's sad to know how much pain he suffered, he alludes to the monumental fury and anger he tried to keep tamped down because if he allowed that dam to burst those things would have destroyed him from the inside out. The anger is counterbalanced by his high degree of wit and razor burning sarcasm.

His on point observations on race, identity, white supremacy, the human condition, cultural/societal analysis remain highly relevant to our age.

Cannot wait to read more of his work. ...more

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Jun 18, 2019 Mikey B. rated it liked it

Shelves: abandoned

I simply could not relate to the writing style of this book. I found it pedagogical, overly verbose, and repetitive.

I found James Baldwin nihilistic (i.e. depressing). I know there are good reasons for this (racism). Also, I found the writing impersonal, being lectured to from on high.

I have not read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” but as the book was written so long ago it stands to reason that it would be anachronistic. I have read “Native Son” by Richard Wright and found the analysis by James Baldwin ove ...more

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Jul 02, 2020 Lee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Sublimely eloquent pieces, as usual. I slightly prefer the fiction but Baldwin's is an indispensable voice in all guises.

'(My father) was, I think, very handsome. I gather this from photographs and from my own memories of him, dressed in his Sunday best and on his way to preach a sermon somewhere, when I was little. Handsome, proud, and ingrown, “like a toe-nail,” somebody said. But he looked to me, as I grew older, like pictures I had seen of African tribal chieftains: he really should have bee Sublimely eloquent pieces, as usual. I slightly prefer the fiction but Baldwin's is an indispensable voice in all guises.

'(My father) was, I think, very handsome. I gather this from photographs and from my own memories of him, dressed in his Sunday best and on his way to preach a sermon somewhere, when I was little. Handsome, proud, and ingrown, “like a toe-nail,” somebody said. But he looked to me, as I grew older, like pictures I had seen of African tribal chieftains: he really should have been naked, with war-paint on and barbaric mementos, standing among spears. He could be chilling in the pulpit and indescribably cruel in his personal life and he was certainly the most bitter man I have ever met; yet it must be said that there was something else in him, buried in him, which lent him his tremendous power and, even, a rather crushing charm. It had something to do with his blackness, I think—he was very black—with his blackness and his beauty, and with the fact that he knew that he was black but did not know that he was beautiful. He claimed to be proud of his blackness but it had also been the cause of much humiliation and it had fixed bleak boundaries to his life. He was not a young man when we were growing up and he had already suffered many kinds of ruin; in his outrageously demanding and protective way he loved his children, who were black like him and menaced, like him; and all these things sometimes showed in his face when he tried, never to my knowledge with any success, to establish contact with any of us. When he took one of his children on his knee to play, the child always became fretful and began to cry; when he tried to help one of us with our homework the absolutely unabating tension which emanated from him caused our minds and our tongues to become paralyzed, so that he, scarcely knowing why, flew into a rage and the child, not knowing why, was punished. If it ever entered his head to bring a surprise home for his children, it was, almost unfailingly, the wrong surprise and even the big watermelons he often brought home on his back in the summertime led to the most appalling scenes. I do not remember, in all those years, that one of his children was ever glad to see him come home. From what I was able to gather of his early life, it seemed that this inability to establish contact with other people had always marked him and had been one of the things which had driven him out of New Orleans. There was something in him, therefore, groping and tentative, which was never expressed and which was buried with him. One saw it most clearly when he was facing new people and hoping to impress them. But he never did, not for long. We went from church to smaller and more improbable church, he found himself in less and less demand as a minister, and by the time he died none of his friends had come to see him for a long time. He had lived and died in an intolerable bitterness of spirit and it frightened me, as we drove him to the graveyard through those unquiet, ruined streets, to see how powerful and overflowing this bitterness could be and to realize that this bitterness now was mine.' ...more

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Nov 17, 2015 Sofia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eagerly-read, non-fiction, br, 2016, shorts-anthologies

I was racking my brains trying to come up with the words that will show you who Baldwin is, what he writes. Then I said, “You’re silly my girl, you can of course let him speak for himself”.

What he has to say on seeing reality and working with it. How the present is a result of the past and how by denying the past, we deny the reality of us.

It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance,

It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one’s own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one’s strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.

“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster”

“Or, to put it another way, my inheritance was particular, specifically limited and limiting: my birthright was vast, connecting me to all that lives, and to everyone, forever. But one cannot claim the birthright without accepting the inheritance. Therefore, when I began, seriously, to write—when I knew I was committed, that this would be my life—I had to try to describe that particular condition which was—is—the living proof of my inheritance. And, at the same time, with that very same description, I had to claim my birthright. I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all.”

His observations of humanity are spot on and humanity does not change that much that his observations become irrelevant. This is what he said on his 1984 preface about this book which was published back in 1949.

"It is not pleasant to be forced to recognize, more than thirty years later, that neither this dynamic nor this necessity have changed. There have been superficial changes, with results at best ambiguous and, at worst, disastrous. Morally, there has been no change at all and a moral change is the only real one. “Plus ça change,” groan the exasperated French (who should certainly know), “plus c’est le même chose.” (The more it changes, the more it remains the same.) At least they have the style to be truthful about it."

And I will end with quoting Lessing a quote Baldwin chose to end his preface with:

“And,” says Doris Lessing, in her preface to African Stories, “while the cruelties of the white man toward the black man are among the heaviest counts in the indictment against humanity, colour prejudice is not our original fault, but only one aspect of the atrophy of the imagination that prevents us from seeing ourselves in every creature that breathes under the sun.”

Another stop in my Baldwin Journey with Maya.

...more

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Aug 21, 2017 Joshua Rigsby rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, essays, literary, history

The titular essay in this collection is phenomenal, one of the best I've ever read. It deals with race (as nearly everything from Baldwin does), but also the severely personal and complicated relationship that Baldwin has with both his father and his own identity. Everything is stirred into this smoking wok of anger and regret that is unlike anything I've ever read. It is amazing.

The rest of the pieces fail to reach the height of "Notes of a Native Son." Many of them are cultural criticism that ...more

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Jun 03, 2020 Michael Livingston rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a wonderful collection - smart, funny, incisive cultural criticism; long, thoughtful pieces about being a black American in 1950s Paris and a some stunning essays about the US (although all of the essays are fundamentally about race in America). The title essay in particular is spectacular, but the whole book is really great.

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Feb 08, 2017 Jesse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir-and-autobiography, authors-of-color, 1950-s, cultural-theory-and-criticism, essays-and-interviews

Read with a group of friends in conjunction with a viewing of the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro . Experiencing both film and essay collection in tandem, what kept coming to mind over and over was Jan Kott’s influential phrase “Shakespeare, our contemporary,” which forwards the idea that every generation discovers some aspect of the Bard that seems to speak specifically and almost peculiarly to them, making him feel continuously contemporaneous. Well, I couldn’t get the revis Read with a group of friends in conjunction with a viewing of the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro . Experiencing both film and essay collection in tandem, what kept coming to mind over and over was Jan Kott’s influential phrase “Shakespeare, our contemporary,” which forwards the idea that every generation discovers some aspect of the Bard that seems to speak specifically and almost peculiarly to them, making him feel continuously contemporaneous. Well, I couldn’t get the revised phrase “James Baldwin, our contemporary” out of my mind, as thirty years after his passing his work continues to thunder with the blistering, clear-throated immediacy as if being issued this very moment from twitter or a blog.

Certainly, some of the specific topics of analysis are specifically of its era, and the terminology is very much of its time as well. But Baldwin was an intersectional thinker—able to recognize how race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, etc are all inextricably intertwined—long before the term became a term to toss about in internet think pieces, lending a suppleness to his ideas that allow them to be easily, often uncannily transposed to our current moment. The appearance of Raoul Peck’s long-awaited documentary at the end of 2016 couldn’t have occurred at a more apt moment: we need Baldwin more than ever.

I still generally prefer Baldwin the fiction writer to Baldwin the essayist, but just as a large source of the power of his novels lie in their autobiographical inflection, it is the pieces in this collection that are most autobiographical that were for me the strongest (my favorites being title essay, “Stranger in a Village,” and “Journey to Atlanta”). Trying to think through larger social/political/cultural issues by offering up one’s subjective experiences as a lens is nothing new in critical writing, and has become more or less ubiquitous now, but few have ever been able to it as convincingly or with as much intricacy or nuance as Baldwin.

Was essential then, is essential now.

“One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.”
...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars -- Mind blown. What an intellect! Baldwin lit my brain, and these essays are STILL powerfully relevant. He defined things I've struggled to understand since attending a "desegregated" high school decades ago. Boy, did I appreciate this read. And what an appropriate preamble to America's upcoming MLK Day and Black History Month. ...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Miroku Nemeth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I just finished James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" yesterday. Published in 1955, it has lost none of its relevance on many levels, and one of these is his argument that the representations of African Americans in and through literature and in movies and the role in which devices such as the "protest novel" are used to assuage liberal guilt and really do not bring about true societal change and instead foster a false sense of understanding and identification that still maintains the "otherne I just finished James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" yesterday. Published in 1955, it has lost none of its relevance on many levels, and one of these is his argument that the representations of African Americans in and through literature and in movies and the role in which devices such as the "protest novel" are used to assuage liberal guilt and really do not bring about true societal change and instead foster a false sense of understanding and identification that still maintains the "otherness" of the group whose problems or issues are addressed in the work. Baldwin sometime goes on tirades that are not always perhaps balanced but he interrogates issues so passionately and thoroughly and unconventionally that he really makes you think deeply about the gap between professed understanding and experienced reality.

I think of this because I teach many African American works of literature to predominantly non-African American students whose backgrounds vary in understanding of issues of race, class, etc. And there is also the issue of racism itself--not as a personal issue alone, for almost all Americans can repeat the platitudes and provide anecdotes as to why they are not racist--but few truly understand institutional racism. Their minds go blank when you make the shift in discourse and you can see it on many white people's faces. And so it is with many issues of social justice and oppression that do not conform to the conventional model of discourse.

I say this because it is actually a struggle to try and teach on these issues in all their complexity and basic reality, perhaps even more so now that Obama is president because this phenomena is misunderstood so deeply on many sides of the racial divide.

Just some reflections prompted, in part, by this reading. I think it is instructive to look at Malcolm's position relative to white liberals--while he felt that it was better that the "conservative" wolf at least told you who he was straight up, the liberal "fox" should be seen as just as dangerous. This said, he saw great potential in young white college students and others who sincerely wanted change, and he mentions this clearly in his Autobiography.

There is, essentially, a very difficult problem in determining who "speaks" for a "people" and what the true limits of that speech are--many, many voices are disconnected from the grass roots, while still others, sometimes as demagogues, shape them. ...more

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Feb 23, 2021 Lata rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, 2021-read, bipoc-actor, bipoc-author

Each of the short essays in this collection made incisive comments on American culture and its relationship with race. I wanted to highlight particularly trenchant statements (or paragraphs) but realized that much of this book would be marked up. So much of what Baldwin said in these essays is depressingly still current, in many cases.

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Oct 31, 2018 G. rated it liked it

3.5/5
My first Baldwin nonfiction. Fitting, since Notes of a Native Son was his first nonfiction. There's no denying that Baldwin was an exceptional writer and an insightful thinker. That said, Notes of a Native Son was a bit more of a mixed bag than expected. ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 Michael McLellan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm not a very good book reviewer and could do James Baldwin's essays no justice by attempting one here.
I will say that I'm of the opinion that this book should be required reading for every American high school student. If you haven't read it, please do as soon as possible. ...more

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Mar 20, 2019 Daniel Chaikin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

16. Notes of a native son by James Baldwin
published: 1955
format: 129 pages inside Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays
acquired: December
read: Feb 26 – Mar 9
time reading: 5 hr 57 min, 2.8 min/page
rating: 4

From Litsy: Having trouble putting thoughts together on this. His autobiographical essays are pretty powerful, especially the title essay about his 19th birthday spent dealing with his fa ...more

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Nov 06, 2015 B. P. Rinehart rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-stuff, un-decade-african-descent, film-criticism, literary-criticism

"When I was told, 'it takes time,' when I was young I was being told it will take some time before a Black person can be treated as a human being here, but it will happen. We will help to make it happen. we promise you.

Sixty years of one man's life is a long time to deliver on a promise, especially considering all the lives preceding and surrounding my own.

What has happened, in the time of my time, is the record of my ancestors. No promise was kept with them, no promise was kept with me, nor can "When I was told, 'it takes time,' when I was young I was being told it will take some time before a Black person can be treated as a human being here, but it will happen. We will help to make it happen. we promise you.

Sixty years of one man's life is a long time to deliver on a promise, especially considering all the lives preceding and surrounding my own.

What has happened, in the time of my time, is the record of my ancestors. No promise was kept with them, no promise was kept with me, nor can I counsel those coming after , nor my global kinsmen, to believe a word uttered by my morally bankrupt and dishonest countrymen.

'And,' says Doris Lessing, in her preface to African Stories, 'while the cruelties of the white man toward the black man are among the heaviest counts of the indictment against humanity, colour prejudice is not our original fault, but only one aspect of the atrophy of the imagination that prevents us from seeing ourselves in every creature that breathes under the sun.' Amen. En avant." - Introduction to 1984 edition.

This is year two of the United Nations Decade for People of African Descent. Here is a report from the Working Group of Experts on the People of African Descent (hopefully you can access it): https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/U...

This one part examination one-part autobiographical confession of James Baldwin is amazing and I finished reading it right on time. It is an examination of his early career and it offers his take on everything from racism in Harlem, his views on Richard Wright and his novel Native Son, certain movies, the life and death of his father, and his early years in France and first encounters with Algerians. It is amazing to see how well large parts of his analysis holds up, and the European section is not only interesting in a somber way, but funny. I ought to have more to say, but I think, as the above section shows, Baldwin can say it better than me. So I recommend this as a good introduction to James Baldwin's non-fiction and will let Mr. Baldwin have the last word.

"The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. No road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking on me as a stranger. I am not, really, a stranger any longer for any American alive. One of the things that distinguishes Americans from other people is that no other
people has ever been so deeply involved in the lives of black men, and vice versa. This fact faced, with all its implications, it can be seen that the history of the American Negro problem is not merely shameful, it is also something of an achievement. For even when the worst has been said, it must also be added that the perpetual challenge posed by this problem was always, somehow, perpetually met. It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today. This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again." - "Stranger in the Village." ...more

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Jul 20, 2017 Elizabeth A rated it it was amazing

Shelves: essays, non-fiction, 2017

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."

I don't recall the last book I read that gave me such a mental workout. It took me a while to read this one as I had to stop and ponder what the man said, and much of my copy is highlighted. I would have loved to read this one in a classroom setting, so was delighted that my GR pal Elizabeth agreed ...more

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Nov 03, 2017 Aloke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, new-york, history, france, non-fiction, religion

Very well written and powerful. And worth rereading. The introduction by Edward jones, a well-known author in his own right, was also good. I want to read his The Known World.

My only criticism would be that I found Part I slow going and would recommend casual readers come back to it later. Although touching on Baldwin's usual themes they revolve around the books "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "Native Son" and the movie "Carmen Jones" and I haven't read/seen these so I didn't understand a lot of what he wa ...more

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Mar 02, 2015 Nathan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: deserves-a-re-read, short-stories-or-essays, nonfiction

Most people are not naturally reflective any more than they are naturally malicious, and the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him to thus preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors. He is inescapable aware, nevertheless, that he is in a better position in the world than black men are, nor can he quite put to death the suspicion that he is hated by black men therefore

Most people are not naturally reflective any more than they are naturally malicious, and the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him to thus preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors. He is inescapable aware, nevertheless, that he is in a better position in the world than black men are, nor can he quite put to death the suspicion that he is hated by black men therefore.

Go to Amazon, go to Goodreads, go to any site where people review writings on the diversity and depth of racism, and you will see people say the term "white hating" all the time. Try having an honest conversation about white privilege, and ten times out of ten, you'll get backlash from those who seem to believe that the white man is really the most persecuted minority in America. Take, for example, this recent Buzzfeed article The article wasn't really in depth(it's Buzzfeed), but the whole point was that the publishing industry is still pretty skewed toward John Cheevers and John Updikes. It's an effort to make a statement, and to learn more about the different range of people in the world. Of course, since there was an anonymous comment section, it provoked such comments as:

"Completely and utterly racist, it would be racist for me to say that I’m not going to read a book by a black woman, yet its okay gor her to say something like this??"

"I don’t see how this is diverse in any which way. You’re excluding white males which means it’s less diverse. The prerogative should be to read books from all authors regardless of race. Foolish."

"I cannot believe this is actually a thing. These people trying to fight for “equality” don’t seem to understand that includes every race and sex. Here’s a different idea: a book list full of good books and who give two fucks about who wrote them. Then again, that won’t line up with Buzzfeed’s feminist agenda."

I'm reminded of a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quote: “Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.”

Baldwin is fantastic, because he makes it easy to empathize. This book should be required reading for every single one of those false equivalent writing tools in that previous comment section.Particularly when he says " It was only that I had hated him and that I wanted to hold on to this hatred. I did not want to look on him as a ruin: it was not a ruin I had hated. I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain."I know this is a little cliche and tacky, but Baldwin helped me to realize many of the facets of systematic racism I have had the luxury of never addressing. Every time I open another of his books, I learn something, which is why he's swiftly becoming one of my favorites. ...more

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Oct 30, 2019 Joanka rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: immigrant-themes, men, non-fiction, usa

In Notes of a Native Son Baldwin discusses mainly the problem of race and judging from many contemporary texts from US, the one thing that has changed is mostly the nomenclature. Most of the issues presented are still up-to-date and I would risk a statement that they are not restricted to race, but to most minority groups. Baldwin writes also a lot about identity as such, being a stranger in a society, his own life, Paris and European mentality versus American one, finally family relations. Note ...more

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Jun 16, 2020 Abby rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, american-lit, nonfiction, african-american-lit, essays

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

As timely as ever.

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About James Baldwin

James Baldwin

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.

James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and '60s. He was the eldest of nine children; his stepfather was a minister. At age ...more

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“The American ideal, after all, is that everyone should be as much alike as possible.” — 48 likes

“I don't like people who like me because I'm a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright. I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” — 47 likes

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