Go Tell It on the Mountain in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Sep 27, 2007 Christy rated it really liked it

Shelves: african-american-lit-and-history, readinglist1

James Baldwin's 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 birthday and religious conversion experience. The book is divided into three sections: "The Seventh Day," which focuses on John Grimes, our 14-year-old protagonist, and his decision to turn away from h James Baldwin's 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 birthday and religious conversion experience. The book is divided into three sections: "The Seventh Day," which focuses on John Grimes, our 14-year-old protagonist, and his decision to turn away from his father's religion; "The Prayers of the Saints," which takes place during a revival style church service and includes the prayers, pasts, and current experiences of John's aunt Florence, his father Gabriel, and his mother Elizabeth; and "The Threshing-Floor," in which John is taken by the spirit and is saved.

Baldwin's use of religion in this novel reveals the ways in which religious experience and ideology can make a life in this oppressive world even worse. The adults we meet in the novel have all sinned and fallen short, sometimes as a direct result of their social position and inability to carry on a fully human life in the face of racial prejudice and oppression, but there is no acknowledgment of these racial and class difficulties in their religious beliefs or practices. Their God holds them to the same high standard that middle-class or upper-class whites are held to. How much harder to obey strictures against theft when you cannot get and hold a job, when you cannot go into any store you like, when you cannot buy what you need? How much harder to obey strictures that insist that sex is only for marriage when marriages collapse because of these financial strains--or cannot even begin because of them? Religion thus serves to make hard lives even harder by providing internal oppression to complement the external oppression they face, even while it provides an emotional and social outlet in the services, music, and transcendent experiences.

Baldwin does not make one explicit argument about religion or about the African American experience. He is not writing a political novel in the way that Richard Wright's Native Son is a political novel (Baldwin in fact was quite critical of Wright's Native Son, arguing that it lacked realistic characterization and was too broad and heavy-handed); instead, Baldwin provides an examination of the black experience through religion and shows the different ways that religion fits into a larger sense of what it meant to be black in this America by focusing on a few individuals and their experiences, showing, further, how it feels to live these lives.

In the end, John's religious experience is not the end of the story, but the beginning. Baldwin leaves the reader with an ambiguous vision of John's future. Will he be able to use this religious experience to help raise himself up, become a better person, escape the oppression of racism? Or will he fall into sin, as humans do? But it is even more complex than that: Will he use religion to become a better person or will he merely, as others have done before him, use religion to bolster his ego? When John's conversion follows the hypocrisy and flaws of his father, a preacher, even religion isn't enough to guarantee John's future. ...more

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Aug 23, 2014 Grace rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: new-york-books, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, race-in-america

Oh man, what a writer. Baldwin makes some of the most real characters I've ever read. And at the same time he writes about humanity, that big picture of humanity. I could read his books forever. ...more

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May 16, 2021 Peggy rated it really liked it

Magnificent. Truth in every word. Maybe it’s taken me this many years to sit with James Baldwin because I wasn’t ready before this. Maybe my heart wasn’t open enough until now. But I am so glad to be reading him now.

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