Go Tell It on the Mountain

After Giovanni’s Room, I never intended to read another piece of long fiction from James Baldwin. I despised that book so much, it convinced me that he just wasn’t cut out for this medium. Man, am I glad I didn’t stick with that vow. Go Tell It on the Mountain is a really, really solid piece of writing. The characters are, for the most part, fully developed, complex, and interesting. And though it’s not a plot-driven novel, the inflection points of the plot did hold some real stakes for me as a reader. Moments like John’s ecstatic rebirth, Florence’s long-awaited confrontation of her brother, Gabriel’s fall from grace (in his own eyes, at least), the story of Elizabeth & Richard, etc.—they’re each so poignant, and so show more well written. I was captivated, time and again. I have a feeling I’ll be re-reading this, rare as that is for me, and I kind of can’t wait. show less

This is at least the 2nd, if not the 3rd time I've read this painful book by James Baldwin. His writing and word choice are amazing, and I would have rated it higher if it had been easier to know who was narrating. Most of the major characters were not multi dimensional, as it was necessary for them to constantly display a certain viewpoint. This book is more than 60 years old, and unfortunately, the systemi racism encountered by Blacks is still very much a part of the fabric of the U.S. Even though this is only semi-autobiographical I was very interested to learn how the Grimes (Baldwin) family progressed. This is similar to many books where the characters are constantly aware of their Black skin and the white gaze, although it was not show more written for a white gaze. show less

Beautiful and crushing, this novel is filled with fraught family relationships. A preacher named Gabriel is a cruel and selfish example to his children. We meet them as they struggle under his reign. Then we travel back to see how Gabriel's sins, his sister Florence's heartbreak and the women in Gabriel's life have shaped the world in which the children are raised.

It reminded me so much of a new play called, "The First Deep Breath". You can tell much of the work was inspired by this patriarch preacher and his relationship with his sons. Baldwin captures the pain in their world while telling their story with such passion and poetry.

“The rebirth of the soul is perpetual; only rebirth every hour could stay the hand of Satan.”

“His show more mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man's descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom—bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him.”

“Looking at his face, it sometimes came to her that all women had been cursed from the cradle; all, in one fashion or another, being given the same cruel destiny, born to suffer the weight of men. show less

This book takes place in the 1930s and is an exploration of Black lives as the first generations experience "freedom" and the possibility of movement. John is a teenager trying to find his way to adulthood in New York. His family is complex and their experience forms the bulk of the novel, showing how much family life and complexities influence the path of children.

John's father Gabriel (well, stepfather) is a troubled Pentecostal minister and the book is almost overwhelmed with his ideas of sin and hell and being born again. Despite his strong views (or maybe because of!) he sins again and again with women, blaming them for his sins and leaving fatherless children along the way. John's mother, Elizabeth, had been involved with a man show more who ended up falsely accused of robbery and who is beaten badly by the police and commits suicide. Because John is born out of wedlock, Gabriel considers Elizabeth a fallen women and treats her as such, though he does marry her and raise John. Gabriel's sister, Florence, has also escaped the South and is living in New York. Her sad, troubling story is revealed as well.

This book was a mixed bag for me. The character's stories were powerful and real. That part of the book was very meaningful to me. And Baldwin's writing is lyrical and confident and memorable. The religious diatribes, though, really put me off. Even knowing that Baldwin himself was making commentary on the damaging nature of this sort of extreme Christianity didn't help. It was painful and annoying to read. I'm glad I persevered though, because in the end this is an important and powerful book that is sadly still relevant today. I'm looking forward to reading more of Baldwin's writing.

Original publication date: 1953
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle purchase
Why I read this: off the shelf, 1001 books show less

I am the son of a preacher, so, forgive me if I tend to view books and stories in the context of man’s struggle for salvation. Part of my concept of salvation includes the battle to recognize one’s true self, both our darker and better natures, and the fight to repel the former while giving rein to the latter. This seems to be one of life’s universal truths, a common experience shared by all in the human journey. Hundreds of world religions and denominations share this concept and thousands of secular writers have penned books on it.

In one of my favorites on the subject, Steinbeck’s [East of Eden], the principal characters discuss the story of Cain and Abel from the fourth chapter of Genesis. After Cain slays Abel, God tells show more him that sin is at his door and that he must deal with it. But how the passage is translated from the Hebrew, whether God commands Cain to master sin or whether he presents Cain with a choice, can change the meaning drastically. From [East of Eden]:

“Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”

James Baldwin’s [Go Tell It on the Mountain] takes up this same discussion. John Grimes, an adolescent at the crossroads of manhood, opens the book examining his life. His very family name, Grimes, suggests the mark of sin and, as he shares his mind, we see the turmoil in his spirit, tempted by the base things of the world while struggling for the pure. His father, Gabriel, a preacher and a deacon harboring a murky pas, rules the household with fear and violence. His terminally tired mother, Elizabeth, appears to have even forgotten John’s birthday, marching through her oppressive daily routine. The battle for John’s life and soul plays out over the course of one day and one gathering at their church. As the assembly worships, Gabriel and Elizabeth and John’s Aunt Florence, a woman whose lost her faith, all offer prayers to God, examining the course of their lives. Each of them agonize over the choices they’ve made, the opportunities they faced to either act with their better nature or give in to their selfish side.

Too often people saddle religion and faith with unfair sentiments, ones which leave the blame at God’s door rather than ours. Oh, for a dime for all the folks who’ve told me they can’t truck with organized religion. Who do you think ‘organized’ religion, anyway? We don’t seem to have the same problem with any other activity organized by humans. I mean, most of us go to jobs and join clubs and participate in political organizations on some level. But we rarely hear complaints about organized employment or organized politics. No, the trouble is always us, the fallible human. Baldwin, along with Steinbeck, correctly identifies the human element of faith, showing it to be a conscious and deliberate choice, one which we don’t always live up to. But the idea of “Thou mayest,” that we may make better choices and live better lives, that’s where hope lives.

Bottom Line: A beautiful morality tale examining the lives of one family and the struggle against one’s darker nature. show less

Gutting, painful, agonizing, true, important and beautifully written. Page after page of perfectly constructed bits of language linked into perfect passages. Language that is haunting and poetic and lovely until it registers that the pretty words are conveying things so horrible and rank and hideous it hurts to read and understand them. The hand of God is in this writing. Not the shiny happy God, the unforgiving, cruel God. The God who made Abraham drag Isaac up the mountain believing he had to murder he whom he loved most, but this God never stopped that act.

This addresses all the big subjects. Race is front and center, but the oppression of women is right there next to it tied with the minimization of those who are not heterosexual show more and on the gender binary. And then there are subjects like love and sex and faith and secrets and the unremitting anger and fear that alter your genetic code. Everyone is in pain, in pain all the damn time until they are so broken they die or lose the capacity to feel. I know things now, after reading this, that I did not know, and they are true. I do not doubt their truth for a moment. Part of me did not want to know what I know now, but I needed to know. Everyone should read this book. I would actually like to strap down the current US President in a sort of Clockwork Orange scenario and make him listen to the audiobook (I am not convinced DJT can read text) over and over because this is transformative writing with the potential to change all whom it touches. show less

Summary: An account of John Grimes fourteenth birthday, centering on his brother Roy’s stabbing, his estrangement from his father, and the Saturday night “tarrying service” at a pentecostal church, revelatory of the lives of those around John and his own “salvation.”

It is John Grime’s fourteenth birthday. He’s the well-behaved older son who can never please his father Gabriel, who struggles with his awakening sexuality, a deep sense of both sin, and resentment of his father’s religion. After doing his chores, his mother gives him some money to spend on his own birthday gift. He goes to the movies. When he returns, he finds his younger brother Roy has been cut up in a knife fight. His father is so angry he takes it out on show more his wife Elizabeth and John before he finally whips Roy, until Gabriel’s sister Florence restrains him. John slips out to clean the church with his older friend Elisha for the evening “tarrying service,” a pentecostal prayer service on Saturday night before the Sunday service.

The second part centers around the prayer service, and the three prayers of Florence, Gabriel, and Elizabeth, with flashbacks to their earlier lives. Florence, to get away from the town where three white men raped a girl, Deborah, but even more, from her brother Gabriel, always favored, moves to New York, marries Frank who never settles down, leaves her for another woman, and dies in the war. She’s the worldly wise Aunt who sees through her brother’s spiritual facades. Gabriel starts out living a wanton life, then is “saved” and becomes a great preacher. Deborah, the raped woman prayed for him and supported him at his lowest. He marries her in an act of both gratitude and condescension, as no one else will have her. It is a childless marriage and grows cold. Gabriel’s affair with Esther leads to a child. She goes away to have the child with money stolen from Deborah, dies in childbirth, as does the child in his youth–the first Roy (for Royal), named by Esther remembering what Gabriel said he wanted to name his son. Gabriel lives with deep guilt for what he has done and the deaths that resulted, and his deception of now-deceased Deborah. Elizabeth’s prayer recalls the loveless aunt who rescued her from growing up in a brothel, parting her from her father, her flight and affair with Richard who gets her with child, then commits suicide after being arrested for being Black at the wrong place and time. Through Florence she meets and marries Gabriel, who sees the marriage as a kind of atonement for his sin. But he never loves Elizabeth’s child, John like their own son, also named Roy.

The third part begins with John on the floor experiencing a vision that recalls the hostility of his father toward him, his hatred of his father’s religion and struggle with the weight of his sins, and finally, “going through” to blessed salvation, bringing rejoicing from all the saints, and brotherly comfort from Elisha. But Gabriel is yet harsh and disbelieving. One cannot help if he resents the grace he sees in John’s experience that he has never certainly known for himself, for he could never live with Elizabeth joyfully, but only oppressively. There is a lot of guilt here, that centers around Gabriel, but also may reflect the version of Christianity Baldwin experienced. Much of that guilt is experienced around sexuality, even the awakening desires both Elisha and John experience. The alternatives seem to be ecstatic release in prayer at the altar, rebellion via a flight to the secular city, or a stern and censorious form of religion.

One wonders where all this will end up for John, who seems a younger version of the author, caught between the angry step-father and the caring older “brother” (is he more than that, reflecting Baldwin’s homosexual orientation?). Baldwin never takes us beyond that single day in John Grimes life, yet it appears that the day is the first step into a greater freedom that Gabriel can only resent but never know. show less