David Adams Leeming

4. James Baldwin : a Biography by David Adams Leeming
published: 1994
format: 420 page hardcover
acquired: library
read: Jan 1-19
time reading: 18 hr 3 min, 2.6 min/page
rating: 4

I read this to get me excited about reading Baldwin this year and learn more about what kind of person he was. And it did get me excited at first because Baldwin is fascinating. He was that kind of energetic personality that can never settle down. It seems he always felt to the need to be bold, and do something slightly show more unexpected, and somehow to hover on the edge of some kind of self-destabilization, while at the same time always craving a stability. When he wrote, it was from his life. It seems his personality, boldness and incisive self-analysis provided the power behind his fiction and essays. And, on top of all that, he was black and gay in an electric time and threw himself into the midst of the Civil Rights movement.

It curious because my view of Baldwin isn't as a prominent Civil Right leader, but as curious highbrow writer I didn't know much else about. It's not like I ever thought MLK, Malcolm X and James Baldwin in same formative way. And there was something different about him. He was raised in Harlem, became a preacher at 14 (significantly influencing his writing and speaking styles), but his life led him to a kind of bohemian 1940's Greenwich Village and then to a Paris of expats, hanging out with a more liberal and largely white crowd. He would be mocked as not being black enough, and it seems he was always writing to ear of the liberal white (and very Jewish) crowd. That is to say he was both prominent and on the edge.

(I should note I'm liberal, white and Jewish, so maybe I'm the right kind of reader.)

Leeming met Baldwin in Istanbul in the mid 1960's, at the height of his fame after [The Fire Next time]. He become close with Baldwin and his milieu in Istanbul, and later worked for Baldwin organizing his papers. So, he writes from some intimacy and knowledge about his writing and world, including some anecdotes on their relationship. After he wrote a letter to Baldwin complaining about how his lifestyle was hurting him and his writing, Baldwin wrote him back, where, paraphrased by Leeming, "He declared...I must understand that disorder was in a sense a necessary aspect of his life as a writer. He could not afford to be tamed." He draws a life of Baldwin through a collection of small details, not so much bringing his subject to life as letting the reader construct it from the information. Every book Baldwin published gets a chapter, and every moment in his and his various intimate relationships, many platonic, gets covered. Sometimes chapters end in what practically amount to lists of various people he met while in one city or another. It's treasure trove of compressed information and oddly works to construct this unusual personality. And, of course, it's a little overwhelming. Instead of rushing out to Baldwin's first book, I need a little break to recover.

Recommended to those interested in Baldwin and willing the put in the time this book may take.

2019
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I am glad that the Big Bang Theory comes early in the alphabet. That allowed me to abort this book before I had invested very much time on it. The book was strangely hard to get into, the creation myths recited with a dry style that didn't manage to capture my interest, and I was preparing for a long slog. Then I came to the Big Bang. The entry for this scientific theory was so awful, so extremely wrong, so uninformed, that I wondered how well the author had researched the myths. It was bad show more enough that Big Bang was presented as just another idea that some culture once dreamed up, with no indication of the amount of evidence that backed it up; I could put up with that in a book of this nature, if the information given had even resembled what the theory really says. Too bad. This book will go on the shelf and not come back off. show less

Mr Leeming has a deep knowledge of mythology and here he gives a quick overview of each mythology that existed in Europe continent and compare them using the most important themes also explored in Campbell's works. The book has two parts, first is a descriptive collection of myths stories from people that lived in Europe. It is break by region, and try to describe the intersections and influences each group has in the other. The second part is very interesting grouping myths themes and show more comparing how it developed in each region and in each mythology. It is good for those who already know several of these mythologies and want to get a grasp of how they interconnect. It is also interesting for those that do not know these myths and want to have a introduction that will serve as a starting point. show less

This was rather short and quickly read. Leeming was concise and yet, because I read it straight through over about three days, the text seemed somewhat repetitious. This was probably because the same gods keep appearing in slightly different guises among the various ancient peoples of the Middle Eastern area Leeming took as his territory. Then there was the tribal God of the nomadic Semitic people whose descendents are still squabbling over territory and over who is really the chosen people. show more And we get the Christians of various varieties whose religion also came from these lands. All in a very slim book. Leeming also makes it clear that he has very little time for fundamentalists of any description. As the other reviews note this book is not for everyone. show less