Notes of a Native Son - James Baldwin - reading Maya+Sofia 13 May 2016

[Sofia]

Everybody’s Protest Novel

Many Thousands Gone

Carmen Jones

The Harlem Ghetto

Notes on a Native Son

Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown

A Question of Identity

Equal in Paris

Stranger in the Village

[Sofia]

https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/2...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005...

[Maya]

thanks, darling!
I'm going to read the articles with my morning coffee :)

also, I saw that the book has quite a long foreword and bio. are we reading them first or in the end?

[Sofia]

you decide :P

[Maya]

maybe in the end?
if they're analyzing the essays I'd rather not be influenced.

[Sofia]

Good idea, we'll do that :-)

[Sofia]

Everybody’s Protest Novel
(view spoiler)[
“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended.”

Baldwin as usual is able to say what I had difficulty finding words to. That a category, a label, dehumanises takes away from the full reality of the person, the human, who is a human being first and foremost. Let’s say I’m labelled ‘good’ or ‘pretty’ or ‘black’ then everything I do is judged against that label not against my being human. So if I wear an ‘unpretty’ dress than I would get, ‘huh isn’t she supposed to be pretty, ugh. Or if I’m black I would have to be a super good black so that I can enter the zone of human-ness, thus we get comments like ‘oh my neighbour is coloured but he is so quiet and industrious’ as if the fact of his colour takes away from the basic requirements of being human and we have to justify. (hide spoiler)]

I read this before work as it will be late when I get a break today.

[Maya]

Morning, i only read the articles in the links you posted above.
So, Hughes is praising Baldwin's work but suggests that he's a bit young i.e. naive?

The one in the Guardian is interesting too, explains why Leeming's book lacked personal information. But in general i agree with the law on this matter: the letters were not intended to be public so unless specifically approved by whoever owns the copyrights on them, they shouldn't be published. Sounded like the author of the article wasn't happy about that.

[Maya]

Sofia wrote: "Everybody’s Protest Novel
“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization a..."


Powerful!

Yes, i've also highlighted what he said about labeling:

Our passion for categorization, life neatly fitted into pegs, has led to an unforeseen, paradoxical distress; confusion, a breakdown of meaning.

Did you get the feeling that JB suggests that Stowe or Wright had motives to write their books like that or it was ignorance on their side? I am not sure. Not that ignorance would be any better.

I understand what JB is saying about the 'bleaching' of black characters, about the hypocrisy of he white people feeling better just because they are reading and publishing such books. But i think his cry is most powerful when he writes how the black people grow to believe - because of such books - that they are sub-human. He fought against these in all his fiction works that we've read so far.

[Maya]

one more essay tonight?

[Sofia]

I can do one more tonight.

I understood that Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to promote her cause - Abolition - however he says in using the stereotypes she ended up labelling, categorizing.

This becomes perfidious because the more they say it (even if the cause if right), the more it becomes the norm and so you (me) find myself doing it without even thinking about it because that's what we've been taught. For example here it is quite common to denigrate people coming from certain areas. And "Eventhough he comes from XYZ he is a quiet man." As if all the people of XYZ are automatically all trouble makers.

I still have to read the articles.

[Maya]

yes, agree.

do you remember in After the Parade, Aaron had a student from Mogolia (? I think) and he described what his expectations of this student were. And then he thought: wait, why the hell do i have stereotypes of a Mongolian person in my head when i've never even met one, can't remember where i read/heard this information of the people in this country, etc.

I think we all absorb whatever info floats around us, more often than not we don't question it because we just don't have time to think about it/it's not important to us at this point. So without knowing we have thousands of preconceptions and false stereotypes in our heads.

And of course, as in the case JB writes about, these ideas are not so innocently made public, there's an agenda behind them.

As for Uncle Tom's Cabin - i've read it as a child. The only memory i have of it was when the white girl died (which i guess says more about me than the book) but i've been under the impression that the book is oriented to young audience.

[Maya]

Many Thousands Gone

(view spoiler)[this one didn't grab me in the beginning but I thought the second half was very good.

Now I understand JB's criticism of Native Son (I've not read it) and I also understand his criticism towards those who praised it. Bigger it seems was written as a warning that: if there's no integration this might happen to you. Beware of the anger of the black people!

Has anything good ever come out of fear? Why feed the hatred and guilt of the white people.

What still bewilders me though is how Wright fell into that trap and dehumanized his character?

This was my highlight:
"... that Americans, who evade, so far as possible, all genuine experience, have therefore no way of assessing the experience of others and no way of establishing themselves in relation to any way of life which is not their own."

and "Community of phantoms" (hide spoiler)]

[Sofia]

I have not read it, only heard of it.

Your point of perceptions floating around us makes what Michael (ah) believes about black music effecting those kids more pertinent. Especially so since in the second essay Baldwin says that "only in his music has the Negro in America been able to tell his story."

Many Thousands Gone
(view spoiler)["We cannot escape our origins, however hard we try, those origins which contain the key - could we but find it - to all that we we later become."

This says so much.

Wright i think was one of his teachers if i remember correctly. I think by dissecting writing Baldwin finds a way to understand and to articulate his thoughts like how we do when we read and talk and try to understand. (hide spoiler)]

[Maya]

but as I understood it, JB linked the telling of the story only through a song to sentimentality so I thought he was saying that people are projecting and not really understanding that story.

Maybe we'll find out if Michael's theory had any grounds. So far I am left with the impression that he really 'hears' the music. It does not serve as entertainment to him, I think it's the form of art that he relates to the most, it's his attempt to choose the soundtrack of his life - from the exuberant disco, through the house music to the punk and ska and alternative and whatever he's listening to during the different periods.

[Sofia]

Just read your post - what's so evil about the whole thing is that "the dehumanizing" image is force-fed to the Negro as well, nobody is immune, so Wright could fall into that trap. And we only have Baldwins opinion. I do think that discussion is good though because it helps fight the "old" image. So both Wright's story and JB's criticism are part of that dialogue don't you think?

[Maya]

oh yes, we've not read the book itself or the arguments favoring it so we don't have the full picture. Although I've grown to trust JB's analytical mind.

Out of curiosity I just skimmed a few negative reviews of Native Son here and it seems it's a required read for students in the US, and the readers loathe the main character, even call him a sociopath.

[Sofia]

Baldwin did call him divorced from reality.

[Sofia]

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

My take on that :
White Americans view Negro music with sentimentality which keeps the music safe from attacks [if they had viewed it otherwise, they may have understood it more and I guess they would not have allowed it to flourish]. This 'protection' enabled the music to go on and the story be told. I think you have to remove sentimentality to get to the truth.

[Maya]

Did you read the next one? I'll read it tomorrow morning.

[Sofia]

I've read Carmen Jones - i only listen to bits and pieces of Bizet's opera and never watched this film so a lot of what JB said went over my head. But I sure wish I'm as eloquent and analytical as him in my reviews.

[Maya]

Reading Carmen Jones now but first I watched this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amQn9...
as I had no idea of the movie or the opera it's based on.

it seems to me he's talking again about another art? piece that's failed to reflect the authenticity of the black people and has twisted them to fit to their ideas.

[Maya]

ok, I must admit that despite the seriousness of the subject I found this very amusing. His sarcasm when he talks about what prudes the Americans are is great, really. His concern of the representation of black people comes through strong though.

[Sofia]

Haha l get what he means with falseness after watching that :D

Eventhough he was talking about something I have not seen I still lije reading him.

Do you have time for another today?

[Maya]

yes, I'm not reading anything else so I can read more of this one.

[Sofia]

Ok then I'll read more. I've also started Hexbreaker as some smiles are definitely needed.

[Sofia]

The Harlem Ghetto

(view spoiler)[ I already had an idea of the Harlem Ghetto from the books we've already read. But here we have more.

I ask myself why if the prices are higher in Harlem do the negroes,live there. I fear that they were not allowed to live elsewhere?

Was he referring to himself when he said that the Negro Press accused him of drawing unflattering portraits of the race?

There was a bit were he says that to survive a negro has to act, to lie his whole life. That would surely have anger, rage as a companion.

When he was talking about the Negro and the Jew and he said that oppression did not make the oppressed wiser, that struck a chord with me because I ask that question lots of time.

(hide spoiler)]

[Maya]

Sofia wrote: "The Harlem Ghetto

I already had an idea of the Harlem Ghetto from the books we've already read. But here we have more.

I ask myself why if the prices are higher in Harlem do the negroes,live the..."

Re the high prices: I don't know for sure but I'm guessing their logic would have been that if they wanted to keep the majority of the black people in the ghetto, the high rent would prevent them for spending their limited money elsewhere and this way they close the entire cycle of the black people's lives in this ghetto. Also, probably relying than not many of them are educated enough to research prices in other areas they'd keep paying. It's pure separatism.

I think yes, JB was referring to himself when he talked about the unflattering portraits.

This is what I've highlighted about the press:
"It is the terrible dilemma of the Negro press that, having no other model, it models itself on the white press, attempting to emulate the same effortless, sophisticated tone—a tone its subject matter renders utterly unconvincing. It is simply impossible not to sing the blues, audibly or not, when the lives lived by Negroes are so inescapably harsh and stunted."

and about the Jew vs Negro:
Here the American white Gentile has two legends serving him at once: he has divided these minorities and he rules.

[Maya]

Journey to Atlanta

I remember this one from the biography - it's about David and the music band he played in trip to Atlanta.

(view spoiler)[I am not surprised at all how they boys were treated or how careless the Progressive Party was.

It's pretty much the same now during political campaigns, including the buying of minorities' votes. We have the exact same situation here with the Romani who are only exploited during elections and then left in the same place they were before.

Most interesting was that white woman and her perverse belief she was helping the cause when she just used it to farther establish her authority and privilege.

Glad they were able to laugh about it later. (hide spoiler)]

[Sofia]

Journey to Atlanta

It's pretty much the same now during political campaigns, including the buying of minorities' votes. We have the exact same situation here with the Romani who are only exploited during elections and then left in the same place they were before.

Same here - everybody is courted during the political fervour then everybody is forgotten.

Most interesting was that white woman and her perverse belief she was helping the cause when she just used it to farther establish her authority and privilege.

"Doing good" gives it's own kind of high - a person gets built up like that.

[Maya]

Notes on a Native Son

I loved how familiar it felt reading this because of the biography - the death of his father, the time in New Jersey and the incident in the restaurant, the funeral and the riot, etc. But most of all his words about the destructive force of hatred and the need of acceptance. I think it was absolutely the right decision for him to leave the country shortly after that. I can't imagine how he would've been able to keep his heart away from the hatred otherwise. Emotions usually are stronger than logic.


His analogy with the amputation and the gangrene was very good.

[Sofia]

This was a great to read for me as well. I know it was very familiar, and I love that now I'm able to compare and contrast. I remembered the hamburger incident, the church. I don't think we ever read about the funeral or the riots. I think it was a triumph for him to have kept the faith after seeing all the background of hate.

The amputation analogy reminded me of Michael and the pills

[Sofia]

Are you going to read another today?

[Sofia]

I read the first review - the one by Langston Hughes

He seems to be suggesting that JB will be great when he shed's his 'blackness' am I right?

And how would that be JB being true to himself, being a witness and if he doesn't write about that what should he write about 'white' matters.

[Maya]

Sofia wrote: "Are you going to read another today?"

i don't think i'll have the time. going out for dinner after work and then i may read a bit from the other book.

We have 4 essays left. How about 2 tomorrow and 2 on wednesday?

[Sofia]

yes ok - I'll read my other book :D

Happy dinner!

[Maya]

Sofia wrote: "I read the first review - the one by Langston Hughes

He seems to be suggesting that JB will be great when he shed's his 'blackness' am I right?

And how would that be JB being true to himself, bei..."

the way I understood it LH suggested that JB still struggles with his identity and that's reflected in his work. But he's optimistic for JB's future work.

[Maya]

Sofia wrote: "yes ok - I'll read my other book :D

Happy dinner!"

thanks, I had good time.

Read two chapters from The Disappearance Boy this afternoon - the one on the rails and the one when he's 23 yo in London.
I'm intrigued, want to know more about Reggie.

[Sofia]

Good :D

For a boy whose job is to disappear Reggie does reel people in. Well he did reel me in. That gives scene really sets the stage. It's no wonder that Bartlett was knighted for his theatre work.

[Maya]

Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown

It seems i have a memory of pretty much everything in JB's biography because this text was very familiar.

(view spoiler)[not a very interesting essay for me but i assume it was an important one. The cultural difference between the Africans and the Negro and his analysis how the identity of the Negro is related to the whites again are things that have stuck into my mind from the bio.

I don't know if i've read another author who so (seemingly) effortlessly presents his personal experience as something that is without a doubt the truth. (hide spoiler)]

[Sofia]

going to read this soon.

Maya - if you want to do one today to get to your other book, it's ok with me.

[Maya]

no, I'd like to read the second, it's short.
Will you have time?

[Sofia]

Yep I'll do two - have some work to finish up first

[Sofia]

Maya wrote: "Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown

It seems i have a memory of pretty much everything in JB's biography because this text was very familiar.

not a very interesting essay for me but i assum..."

I remember Leeming talking about it, the difference. That bit about how Europeans look at Americans touched a chord. I've noted the difference between my image of America from the media and the image I get from American friends here.

[Maya]

A Question of Identity

(view spoiler)[- or why are black Americans studying in Paris

so these are the two extremes according to JB:
"the student who embraces Home, and the student who embraces The Continent"

The first one is not interesting - romanticized ideas of Paris & Europe fall apart and they run back home.

The second group however is quite interesting. I've also been thinking how some people seem to easily adapt to the life in another country, they keep praising everything about it while at the same time reject everything back home. But JB reveals the hollowness behind this, the fakeness.

"Hidden, however, in the heart of the confusion he encounters here is that which he came so blindly seeking: the terms on which he is related to his country, and to the world. This, which has so grandiose and general a ring, is, in fact, most personal—the American confusion seeming to be based on the very nearly unconscious assumption that it is possible to consider the person apart from all the forces which have produced him." (hide spoiler)]

[Sofia]

What I got:

The place you come from and the past matter because they are part of what you are, denying them would be like denying yourself. Thus the running back or the fakeness. Roots matter. It is what also makes the difference between the black and the brown.

Going away help you see what you left behind. "From the vantage point of Europe he discovers his own country."

[Sofia]

I notice the fakeness in certain people who return here from living years abroad. About how great that place was, how much money they made, how clean, hiw beautiful, how wide the streets. Can't dig deeper, not enough depth.

[Maya]

yep, totally agree with your thoughts in your two comments above.

Good night from me :)

[Maya]

oh wow!
Stranger in the Village - i think that's the best of JB i've read so far.

[Sofia]

I started Equality in Paris this morning - the sheet incident. Then I had to get to work and I'm still at it. Will read as soon as I get home and relax a bit :D