James Baldwin (1) (1924–1987)

If you have not already, you owe it to yourself to spend some time in 1950's Paris, in Giovanni's room.

James Baldwin's classic novel is a lyrical book both beautiful and frustrating. Beautiful for its language - the sentences just flow and I found it very hard to put this book down. Frustrating because it's the 1950's and so the love that the narrator David finds in Paris is hopeless, because David is a product of his time - oh so closeted and terribly selfish.

This book is full of small show more details while it carefully avoids getting too detailed about the heart of the story. Though it gets much closer in its depiction of love between two men (and for that matter love between a man and woman) than I would have thought possible for a book published in 1953, still it dances around it's main topic. David is a careful narrator, who does not want to admit to himself the love that he has found, and he makes a mess of things because of it.

Yes, the times and attitudes were different then, but there is something in this story that seems timeless to me. I hated to come to the end of this one, and I am sorry that I've never picked it up before now. Highly recommend. show less

I first read this when I was a kid. I'd taken the bus to the library on a Saturday as usual, but got bored with the kids' room offerings and started browsing books in the adult section, non-fiction. Found this and sat down among the shelves and read the whole thing. Reading it a second time almost fifty years later, it resonates as much as it did then, when it set up my own framework for thinking about race and history. Baldwin's thoughts and ideas are expressed as if you were listening to show more him over coffee, mulling over the differences between his beliefs and those of Malcolm X. His expression of the burden of being black in America is just brilliant. show less

Published in 1962, Baldwin was well ahead of his time in speaking the truth about America, and this is a work that is still searing in its relevance today. It’s fascinating to read of his life, his bouts with racist policemen as a kid, becoming a preacher as an adolescent, and the conflicted feelings he had about having dinner with Elijah Muhammed of the Nation of Islam. He was perceptive in that he saw behind the obvious racism of Jim Crow into deeper, more insidious forms of racism in show more liberal areas, and in how history was so white-washed that the majority of Americans were blissfully ignorant about the country’s historical sins. He also saw truths about humanity and its tendency towards incredible cruelty, and yet, the book is uplifting in its hope to evoke change.

Quotes:
“From my own point of view, the fact of the Third Reich alone makes obsolete forever any question of Christian superiority, except in technological terms. White people were, and are, astounded by the holocaust in Germany. They did not know that they could act that way. But I very much doubt whether black people were astounded – at least, in the same way.”

“The treatment accorded the Negro during the Second World War, marks, for me, a turning point in the Negro’s relation to America. To put it briefly, and somewhat too simply, a certain hope died, a certain respect for white Americans faded. One began to pity them, or to hate them. You must put yourself in the skin of a man who is wearing the uniform of his country, is a candidate for death in its defense, and who is called a ‘nigger’ by his comrade-in-arms and his officers; who is almost always given the hardest, ugliest, most menial work to do; who knows that the white G.I. has informed Europeans that he is subhuman…”

“…a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

“When Malcolm X, who is considered the movement’s second-in-command, and heir apparent, points out that the cry of ‘violence’ was not raised, for example, when the Israelis fought to regain Israel, and, indeed, is raised only when black men indicate that they will fight for their rights, he is speaking the truth.”

“The real reason that non-violence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes – I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether – is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened.”

I thought this was an interesting observation about Brown vs. Board of Education, particularly as I just watched the PBS American Experience show ‘The Blinding of Isaac Woodard,’ which describe the outrage of what happened to that returning African-America solider, how it shook Truman and led him to action, despite a very conservative background, and the tireless work of South Carolina Judge J. Waties Waring and his wife – all leading up to Brown v. Board of Education. This may be cynical from Baldwin, but I thought it was fascinating to consider:
“White Americans have contented themselves with gestures that are now described as ‘tokenism.’ For hard example, white Americans congratulate themselves on the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in schools; they suppose, in spite of the mountain of evidence that has since accumulated to the contrary, that this was proof of a change of heart – or, as they like to say, progress. Perhaps. It all depends on how one reads the word ‘progress.’ Most of the Negroes I know do not believe that this immense concession would ever have been made if it had not been for the competition of the Cold War, and the fact that Africa was clearly liberating herself and therefore had, for political reasons, to be wooed by the descendants of her former masters. Had it been a matter of love or justice, the 1954 decision surely would have occurred sooner; were it not for the realities of power in this difficult era, it might very well not have occurred yet.” show less

Decided this was worth going back and givng a re-read, particularly in light of current events. Have read and loved Ta-Nehisi Coates' literary letter to his son in "Between the World and Me." Coates work has a direct lineage back to James Baldwin and especially, his letter to his nephew in the first part of "The Fire Next Time." Both seek to school their young charges in what is required to grow up as a black man in the US. Baldwin's is the more lyrical of the two. One can easily pick up the show more oratorical flourishes Baldwin picked up preaching from the pulpits of his youth. I heartily recommend seeking out an audio version of this book (or perhaps the Youtube version), if only to get the full glorious force of Baldwin's cadence and strength of prose. Interesting is Baldwin's recitation of his dinner meeting with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. A candid view we rarely see. Baldwin's perspective has fully stood the judgement and passage of time. His indictment of racism and its insidious and malevolent force in our society is as important and relevant as ever. show less