Go Tell It on the Mountain in Never too Late to Read Classics

Mar 05, 2025 Jeffrey rated it liked it

Shelves: religion-and-non-religion, modern-library-100

John is growing up in New York early in his teenage years in 1935 at a crossroads. His father is a Pentecostal preacher (and, like all fathers, a real asshole) and John is faced with the great decision that confronts everyone at that stage of life: to follow the path your parents push you toward or to strike out in the world. Race and religion and family are obstacles that he has to navigate on his journey into manhood.

This is largely a Bildungsroman in the spirit of Joyce’s Portrait of the Arti John is growing up in New York early in his teenage years in 1935 at a crossroads. His father is a Pentecostal preacher (and, like all fathers, a real asshole) and John is faced with the great decision that confronts everyone at that stage of life: to follow the path your parents push you toward or to strike out in the world. Race and religion and family are obstacles that he has to navigate on his journey into manhood.

This is largely a Bildungsroman in the spirit of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in that it’s apparently largely autobiographical. The fact that these characters struggle so much with religion and its ability to make you feel trapped in adhering to it or damned for turning your back on it.

“…John thought of Hell, of his soul’s redemption, and struggled to find a compromise between the way that led to life everlasting and the way that ended in the pit. But there was none, for he had been raised in the truth. He could not claim, as African savages might be able to claim, that no one had brought him the gospel. His father and mother and all the saints had taught him from his earliest childhood what was the will go God. Either he arose from this theater, never to return, putting behind him the world and its pleasures, its honors, and its glories, or he remained here with the wicked and partook of their certain punishment. Yes, it was a narrow way – and John stirred in his seat, not daring to feel it God’s injustice that he must make so cruel a choice.”

In Part Two, we get ‘Gabriel’s Prayer’ and a parallel choice John’s father had to make in his youth, feeling the same burden of faith crushing his sinful rebellion. Gabriel’s turn to religion isn’t a turn toward a path of righteousness though. Clearly, he is still a severe and self-centered man, but in his mind he is saved and therefore he is right and just. This only gives him more power over others who can look down upon. Baldwin does not want his readers to think, even for a minute, that accepting religion is to truly be saved in an earthly sense.

“’Folks,’ said Florence, ‘can change their ways much as they want to. But I don’t care how many times you change your ways., what’s in you is in you, and its not going to come out.’”

The writing was uneven, but that was intentional. It seemed that when Baldwin wanted to explore the more spiritual and religious side of things, he strayed into a more opaque manner of writing. I thought the book was best when he focused on the material world and the sins of the flesh. The ending felt incomplete to me, but that might have just been that it didn’t seem to give me the ending I felt entitled to. I can appreciate the importance of Baldwin in the grand scheme of American literature, but my appreciation of his writing has always lagged behind that deserved reputation.
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Sep 03, 2024 Caterina rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites

4.5

At the start of this book I wasn’t really in the mood to read a thematically heavy book. However, I’d heard a lot of praise for James Baldwin and just happened to be on a solo trip with a lot of free time on my hands, so somehow I just decided to go for it.
What an emotional roller coaster.
Baldwin’s lyricism that reads like a prayer (or a mantra, at times), together with the heavy and tragic stories for each of the characters left me needing a couple days to recover or think through what I’d r ...more

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Jun 01, 2018 Zuly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was enlightening in two ways: the role of fundamental Christianity in African American culture and the various meanings of that religion. There is much to tell on the mountain.

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Apr 08, 2024 Amy (literatiloves) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boxalls-1001-books, read-in-2024

This is my first James Balwin book and I love his writing. His writing is so rich and in this book, filled with religious symbolism. Parts of the story were really brutal and his characters had so much depth. I really felt for John as he struggled with the awakening of his own desires and the hypocrisy around him. I am looking forward to reading through all of Baldwin’s work.

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