Amazon.com
Writer James Baldwin earnestly championed the civil rightsmovement in both his fiction and nonfiction, a fact which, coupled withhis extraordinary writing talent, assured not only his historicalimportance, but also his place as one of the finest African Americanwriters of his generation. Collected Essays is a comprehensivecollection of his most memorable prose, including "Stranger in theVillage," "The Harlem Ghetto," and "Many ThousandsGone." Clear in voice and vision, the essays communicate theemotions of an entire historical movement. Combining politics,prophecy, and passion, Baldwin's essays are truly as thought-provokingtoday as they were some 30 years ago. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A must for the Serious Scholar's library
This collection of Baldwin's writings is priceless because not only is it a showcase of an agile and fertile mind, it also brings together in a single volume some of his most popular and more famous as well as some of his less formal writings and speeches.

Always well ahead of his times, Baldwin's essays remain fresh and as relevant in today's more quiescent racial times as they were during the more troubled times of his life.They remain fresh because they tell in Baldwin's own inimical and elegant way, the deeper truths about our troubled racial past and present.Most of all they reflect how Baldwin used his quick and restless mind to critique the social and artistic scenes of our troubled era:His strategy, reflected in this collection, was always to mine the substance from the subtext upwards. Those of us who try to mimic his techniques can learn a lot from this and the companion volume of his collected works.

At the same time, Baldwin's psychological analysis remains unerring and at least as sharp as, if not sharper than those of some of his French contemporaries, including his friends and compatriots in the struggle, Franz Fanon and Jean Paul Sartre, who also were both not only revolutionaries and revolutionary thinkers like Baldwin, but also a Psychiatrist and a Philosopher, respectively.

No library on the history of race in America or France is complete without this well designed and well-organized volume. Five stars.

Like Nothing Else You've Read
A lot of reviewers have talked about owning this book if you are distinctly interested in collecting works by black authors or in black studies. I think that this book is an essential element to anyone's library, in particular people interested in the craft of writing. Toni Morrison calls Baldwin the greatest essayist of the 20th century and I couldn't agree more.
In this collection of essays, it becomes clear that Baldwin has truly perfected the craft of the essay. Not only is Baldwin's content, his concepts of honesty and truth, of light and dark, right and wrong, of white and black, and much more straight up revolutionary, but he manages to have his content reflected in the craft and style of each essay, which should really be the goal of all writers.
More than anything, Baldwin has an exquisite ability to reveal a complex truth in a simple concise way. All of these essays, indeed all of Baldwin's works, have one common thread. And that is that TRUTH is found within contradiction, because contradiction is honest. I think anyone who browses this page should immediately try and at least check this out of their libary (though it's definitely worth owning, every time I reread it I discover new things) because it really will effect you in meaningful ways.

A great book -- A worthy part of a great series
I love James Baldwin--I think he's a tremendous writer, so Toni Morrison could hardly go wrong in selecting essays for this volume.All of the selections are excellent.Notes of a Native Son contains a touching eulogy for Richard Wright ("Alas, Poor Richard"), explaining the lonliness and problems Mr. Wright had at the end of his life.Baldwin displays his tremendous range as both a political commentator and a literary critic.The Devil Finds Work, in particular, is very insightful--and several parts humourous.

What I don't understand--and why I struck a star off this collection--is why Ms. Morrison did not include "Evidence of Things Unseen," Baldwin's analysis of the Atlanta child murders from the early eighties.Perhaps Library of America is planning later volumes of Baldwin's works--The companion volume to these essays is his "Early Novels," most notably "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Giovani's Room."I can't imagine that Library of America would not produce a volume including Mr. Baldwin's later works--especially "Just Above my Head."

This particular edition is well worth having--despite the price.First, this is a good collection of Baldwin's essays, many of which are difficult to find.Second, the Library of America really does a commendable job in paper quality and binding.This is not a leather bound edition on 50 pound paper, so stiff you can't open it and printed so the back binding looks impressive on your bookshelf--this is tightly bound, cardboard cover that lies flat, and is easy to read.The paper is not heavy--but acid free, and tear resistant.The Library of America series are good collections that are meant to be read many times, by many people--these books hold up very well.

I am afraid that Mr. Baldwin's works and opinions may fall by the wayside as time passes.The fact that Ms. Morrison--one of our best and most respected authors--put these collections together will certainly help keep Mr. Baldwin's works alive.But if you have any interest in what it means to be African American--in the twenties, to contemporary america--through even tomorrow--You need to read and appreciate Mr. Baldwin's insights.And you will also enjoy his clear, careful, and pointed writing.

review
This book was very interesting and i enjoyed the courage of a young black man to stand up for his rights.

A painful, powerful experience
In Egypt, I met an extraordinary American.
"I was born in New York, but have only lived in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city - on the Right Bank and on the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les miserables, and knew all kinds of people from pimps and prostitutes in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers in Nueilly. This may sound unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I found it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen," he said.
"The perpetual dealing with people very different from myself caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable."
His name is Mr. Baldwin, and I cherish this new acquaintance because his ideas have had such profound impact on my views of Egypt. I wanted to know the people, but as I reach out for them, sometimes, I'm shocked by what I see. I see people sleeping on the concrete patios along the Nile - many of them have migrated from the farmlands because they can make more money for their families if they work in Cairo. But desert nights can be bitter cold in January, and it cuts my heart. Yet, Mr. Baldwin's message is well heeded. The same problems of inner city growth that come with development in Egypt also came with development in Britain one hundred years ago. American inner city schools and slums still reflect this challenge.
Would I have walked into the slums of Chicago if I were there? Would I have strolled through the southwest side of Kansas City or east St. Louis? Would I have walked into the anti-developing city blocks of L.A. if I were in America? Of course not. So why is it that traveling abroad opens my eyes to poverty in America? Why couldn't I see it when I was there? I don't know why this happens, but James Baldwin was right - absolutely right when he said that this reassessment, which can be very painful is also very valuable.
I have been told that the housing shortage in Egypt provided the impetus for many people to move into the spacious mausoleums in the old city graveyard. The international visitors call it, "The City of the Dead," and tourists go there and gawk at poverty creating a makeshift freak show out of human suffering. Then I learned that the housing shortage in Los Angeles provided the impetus for many people to move into mausoleums, but no one goes to gawk at them. In fact, there seems to be a kind of American denial that such things could ever happen in the land of milk and honey.
As I hear of people talking about human rights violations in Egypt, I think of the title of James Baldwin's book: Nobody Knows My Name. I think of James Byrd who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck. I think of the threats of millennium violence that frightened black American families so much that they bought guns and stayed home for the New Year. I think of the tiny city in Texas who voted Spanish as their city's official language and then received death threats from all over the nation. Of course, if you asked any American about human rights violations, they would tell you that this is something that happens in China or Africa. It's a painful realization that it might happen in MY country. Growing up in the American school system, I came to idolize Abraham Lincoln's courage and George Washington's integrity. The universal ideas of human value and dignity that we believe to be inalienable are not, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so wisely told us, being applied universally in our country. These facts go against the ideals and values of our nation - they don't support the concepts of the free and the brave.
"It is a complex fate to be an American," Henry James observed. James Baldwin awakened me to that complexity in a way so subtle, so gentle and yet, so powerfully painful.
He awakened me to the hard realities of the American people, most of whom will never read or digest his work. They would dismiss him. But his vision is not to be dismissed. His writing illustrates that the responsibility of this future lies in the hands of blind people. People who refuse to see American neighborhoods and American people for what they really are. We can't improve until we accept the starting point. This lofty ideal of what we should be and blind obstinacy to what we are is killing us.
"Europe has what we do not have yet," Baldwin said. "A sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a new sense of life's possibilities."
Egypt has what we do not yet have - a clear and present sense of unity - an admiration for sacrifice for the whole of the group - the nuclear family, the extended family, the community. And we have absolutely nothing that Egypt needs, except, if you ask the younger generation: Nike shoes. In fact, this is precisely what Egyptians do not need. They do not need the destructive, greed-inspiring and greed-glorifying economic development of the West.

"In this endeavor to wed the vision of the Old World with that of the New, it is the writer, not the statesman, who is our strongest arm. Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have tangible effect on the world." - James Baldwin ... Read more

Book Description

Baldwin's Harlem is an intimate

portrait of the life and genius of one

of our most brilliant literary minds:

James Baldwin.

Perhaps no other writer is as synonymous with Harlem as James Baldwin (1924-1987). The events there that shaped his youth greatly influenced Baldwin's work, much of which focused on his experiences as a black man in white America. Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son, and Giovanni's Room are just a few of his classic fiction and nonfiction books that remain an essential part of the American canon.

In Baldwin's Harlem, award-winning journalist Herb Boyd combines impeccable biographical research with astute literary criticism, and reveals to readers Baldwin's association with Harlem on both metaphorical and realistic levels. For example, Boyd describes Baldwin's relationship with Harlem Renaissance poet laureate Countee Cullen, who taught Baldwin French in the ninth grade. Packed with telling anecdotes, Baldwin's Harlem illuminates the writer's diverse views and impressions of the community that would remain a consistent presence in virtually all of his writing.

Baldwin's Harlem provides an intelligent and enlightening look at one of America's most important literary enclaves.

... Read more

Book Description
"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their head above water. It may be the heroin that a down-and-out jazz pianist uses to face the terror of pouring his life into an inanimate instrument. It may be the brittle piety of a father who can never forgive his son for his illegitimacy. Or it may be the screen of bigotry that a redneck deputy has raised to blunt the awful childhood memory of the day his parents took him to watch a black man being murdered by a gleeful mob.

By turns haunting, heartbreaking, and horrifying--and informed throughout by Baldwin's uncanny knowledge of the wounds racism has left in both its victims and its perpetrators--Going to Meet the Man is a major work by one of our most important writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

TORTURED SOUL
James Baldwin is a tortured soul. He pours his whole soul onto every page. This makes him one of America's greatest writers. His word pictures take you into the church, on a picnic, into a country farm house and into the lives of all his characters. Long Live James Baldwin. In our hearts.

going to meet a young james baldwin
James Baldwin is one of the best writers
of all time.This semi-autobiographical
collection of short stories about different
male protagonists going to meet "the man"
which is different in every story is one
of the best story collections of all time.

Even today, after reading it, I could see
where there was a lesson to be learned from
each story.I wish James Baldwin was still
alive so I could tell him how much I love his
work. If you don't read anything else by James
Baldwin (although Giovanni's Room, Tell me how
long the train's been gone and Another Country
are also brilliant) read this, particularly Sonny's Blues.

Eight unforgettable stories of honest realism
James Baldwin is known primarily for his essays and his first two novels ("Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Giovanni's Room"), but I often tell readers that the place to start is with his first story collection, "Going to Meet the Man." Baldwin's short fiction is more straightforward and accessible than are his essays (which are indeed excellent); each of the eight stories presents a different aspect of Baldwin's worldview; and unlike his early novels, where racism is treated as one aspect in the lives of characters, several of these stories confront the "racial issue" full on.

Baldwin's short fiction may be easier to read, but it does not avoid uncomfortable truths. In fact, some of Baldwin's most heated writing can be found in this volume, which was first published in 1965. It contains work written over a 20-year-period, including "Previous Condition," the first piece of fiction he ever published (in Commentary Magazine in 1948). A fledgling actor is torn between the black world of Harlem ("perfectly in his element, in his place, as the saying goes") and the white neighborhoods downtown. He stays at a friend's apartment in lower Manhattan, but has to hide from the landlord and leave the building at odd hours to avoid being seen by the other residents ("Why don't you go uptown, where you belong?").

Each of the other stories is unforgettable in its own way, but my two favorites open and close the volume. "The Rockpile" is an early (yet different) version of an episode in "Go Tell It on the Mountain"; two of Baldwin's strengths are his ability to capture the memories of youth and to present the complexities of family life. The incendiary title story that ends the volume depicts a white police officer whose racial attitudes were formed by a lynching he witnessed as a child. Baldwin pits the very real horror of the police brutality experienced by a young man who attempts to register to vote against the officer's wholly imagined fear of the oversexed black stereotype.

This last story--indeed, much of Baldwin's later fiction--has been criticized (by biographer James Campbell, for example) for lacking "a neutrality which Baldwin was finding harder than ever to maintain" and an unwillingness to "concede that somewhere, somehow, this corrupted man might incorporate genuine goodness." Such comments seem unfair on two counts: the actions of some racists, while "pitiable," are still beyond redemption or "goodness," and (more to the point) I don't agree that it's a storyteller's responsibility to make lemonade out of every lemon.

So ignore the critics who argue that Baldwin's fiction lost its shine as he grew older and more cynical and less "neutral," and pick up this excellent collection of stories. I think you'll find that their bluntness and honesty and gritty realism make up for whatever stylistic faults the critics might point to.

Painful. Almost too painful.
I am slowly understanding why Mr. Baldwin elected to leave the United States for more than a decade in the 1940s and 1950s. He apparently is on record as saying that he needed to flee because his anger was going to destroy him if he did not seek a respite from American injustice.

Upon reading this collection, I think I am really beginning to understand what must have been going through his mind. Read "Previous Condition" where a young African American man keeps being thrown out of hotels and denied jobs simply because of the color of his skin. There is nowhere he can go without meeting the hostile glances and conspiratorial whispers of people on the street simply because of his skin color. And there is a moment where it all came into focus for me, standing in the kitchen of his Jewish friend's Jules' apartment. And I quote:

"Oh," I cried, "I know you think I'm making it dramatic, that I'm paranoiac and just inventing trouble! Maybe I think so sometimes, how can I tell? You get so used to being hit you find you're always waiting for it. Oh, I know, you're Jewish, you get kicked around, too, but you can walk into a bar and nobody knows you're Jewish and if you go looking for job you'll get a better job than mine!" (78)

It is deeply disturbing to think that a person has the suspicion and rage of the world cocked against their temple, but that was how it was (and still is). I have read much about the Civil Rights struggle and as a Jew myself, have listened to many stories from members of my family about prejudice but these stories, they uncover something. After seeing what happened in New Orleans with Katrina and listening to the empty discussionsof "good schools", No Child Left Behind and test score mania, it opens your eyes to the fact that performance, optimism and opportunity are perceptions that, when absent, can ruin lives in ways that are hard to qualify.

I highly recommend these stories but be prepared to become deeply uncomfortable because Baldwin had a powerful case to make about American hypocrisy and he makes it.

Inspirational
The first story I read in this was "Sonny's Blues" and I realized there was more to it than just a story- and that the blues is more than just b5ths but a greater understanding of life - highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable.  
  


For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. And everywhere there is the anguish of being black in a society that at times seems poised on the brink of total racial war. Overpowering in its vitality, extravagant in the intensity of its feeling, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone is a major work of American literature.   ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

James Baldwin's overlooked masterpiece about a man's juggling identities
If Giovanni's Room is an unresolved love story between two men, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone puts its protagonist in the center of social spotlight where ideals of ethnics, politics, and sex force him to put on a mask. Leo Proudhammer, a 39-years-old black man, suffers from a heart attack at the height of his theatrical career, forcing him to abort all ongoing performance and rehearsal. As he hovers between life and death, James Baldwin delineates a tapestry of human life that is terrifyingly vulnerable - through the meticulous choices that have rendered him enviously famous in theater, through the racial and gay covering that have split him into multiple identities.

There exists something edgy and cruel about a childhood riddled with braving the Harlem streets. Proudhammer often found him in the spotlight of eyes: eyes of children who outjocked him, eyes of the white cops toward whom he felt a rush of murderous hatred, and the tell-tale eyes of the older folks who suspected of his sexuality. The prose sustains a tincture of anguish, a tinge of paranoid, of being black in a society that at times seems poised on the brink of unstoppable racial war owing the ludicrous demands to cover stereotype associated with both race and sexuality.

The theatrical industry which Proudhammer desires throws him further in disguises. Ironically it is through the many disguises he wears that he comes to term with his means. Instead of fleeing from the truth, he is approaching the reality. Disguises in a sense help make the truth a quantity with which he can live. In the juggling selves, Proudhammer retains loyalty to a white woman and a young black man. At first he might be most intimidated by his color for he does not appear to know that he is colored. He is met with people's baleful exasperation as if he is possessed by some evil spirit. Then he begins to be intimidated (and confronted), far more grievously, by the fact of his sexuality. He is gripped with the realization that he has never, in the sexual context, arrived at an understanding of being bisexual or gay.

Written during a time in which racism and assimilation to white norms are horrifyingly rife, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone brings to vivid view a man struggling to become himself through identities of a black man, a bisexual man, and an artist. Various occasions demand him to cover one of more of these identities in order to fit in. The novel pieces together moments of a man's life that teach one the price of human connection. Trapped in the wrong time, at the wrong place, and with the wrong ambitions trapped in the wrong skin, Proudhammer's perseverance earns him a reward that redeems and justifies all that pain, stigma, and bewilderment he once experienced.

Excellent but not his best.
I bought Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone still swooning over Baldwin's Another Country.To my disappointment, this book did not have the same complexity, depth, nor energy that Another Country had.I found myself sticking to the book in some hopes that I would reach the same feeling of satisfaction and rapture that I found with Another Country, or Giovanni's Room.Not a complete waste of time, but not Baldwin's best.

Another masterpiece!
This is another of James Baldwin's literary triumphs. Here he weaves the deepest hopes, sorrows, fears and desires of the human condition into an unforgettable tapestry. The story centers around an actor named Leo Proudhammer and the choices he made in his life, the results that followed and the people he shared his life with. Here we read about Leo as a youngster growing up in Harlem, his struggles as a young man trying to break into showbiz amidst a multitude of obstacles and his successful rise to stardom. This is a very poignant and tender but, powerful and gripping story that will hold your attention. Also recommended: "Giovanni's Room", "Another Country" and "Going to Meet the Man".

Surprisingly Disappointed
I am a firm believer that any writer worthy of the ink expended in the pursuit of his creative genius should be able to hook a reader into his story within the first one hundred pages of the novel.I'm disappointed to say that this novel by Baldwin falls far short of my expectations of good writing and specifically my expectations of him.In most novels, the author uses the story as a means to make a point. Throughout the first hundred pages of this novel I couldn't help but feel that Baldwin was writing, instead, to prove a point. This would be understandable had the novel been written during the early years of Baldwin's career.During that period publishers showed little interest in the talents of Black writers.Relegating their work as inferior in comparison to that of white authors. However, this novel was published well into Baldwin's career, yet it appears to me that Baldwin is writing more so to prove his ability to write, than to tell a compelling story.The novel's pace is labored with the use of excessive language, creating complex sentence structures that distract from the rhythm of the story.The characters (at least those introduced in the first hundred pages of the book) are lifeless, uninteresting.If a writer can not establish a relationship with the reader through his characters within the first hundred pages why should the reader invest any more of his time?

My experience with some of Baldwin's previous works, specifically, Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time, was phenomenal. Although Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone falls short of my expectations, my overall experience of Baldwin's work thus far leaves no doubt that in my mind that he was an exceptional writer, worthy of all the acclaim bestowed him. For this reason, I'll continue to read his work, fiction and non-fiction, knowing that with all his greatness, he too like the rest of us, experienced times when he was not at his best.

Among Baldwin's most magnificent fiction
Does it sound trite in cold print to say that a book changed your life? In college in the 1970s, a friend suggested this novel to me, and it was my first exposure to James Baldwin. For the first time in my life, I felt Iwas reading about *me*. Baldwin's gift in writing about how people try tofind dignity and self-worth in a world not of their own choosing isbreathtaking and heartfelt. Anyone who has ever felt like an outsider willfeel great empathy with Baldwin's work. In Tell Me How Long the Train'sBeen Gone, Baldwin focuses onthe shifting relationships between a smallgroup of people trying to work out who they are and how they can be true tothemselves in an environment that's often uncaring. Over and over I wasstruck by the amount of raw experience Baldwin poured onto each page, andthe amount of pain that must have been behind each sentence. As the yearshave gone by, I've also found that you can reread Baldwin at differentstages of your life and see something different each time.

Baldwin may bebetter known for his essays than his fiction, but I've always found hisfiction more powerful. This novel, and Just Above My Head, are two of themost beautiful works I've ever read. ... Read more

Book Description
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions--sexual, racial, political, artistic--that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. In a small set of friends, Baldwin imbues the best and worst intentions of liberal America in the early 1970s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (39)

Homosexuality and Interracial relationships in a not so friendly time
I had to read this book for one of my classes in college and I was glad I was assigned to it.It touched basis on all political and talked about issues that still occure even to this day, even though it was written around 40 years ago.Bravo to the author and it's a good read with a nice plot.

Sex and race in the American bohemia
In an essay criticizing the works of Richard Wright, James Baldwin surveyed the field of African American literature and found much violence, but very little sex. As biographer James Campbell notes, "Another Country" is Baldwin's attempt to fill that perceived void; it has plenty of "sex" (from lust to romance), and it explores in particular an era in which the intersection of sex and race was increasingly capturing the public's attention.

The storyline concerns six people who are in some way connected to Rufus Scott, a jazz drummer whose suicide affects their lives in unpredictable and emotional ways. There are a straight white couple (the novelist Richard and his wife Cass), a mixed-race couple (Rufus's sister, Ida, and the writer Vivaldo), a gay couple (Eric and Yves), and an unexpected affair between two of the six friends.

The opening chapter in particular is one of Baldwin's most potent, combining both the violence of Wright's novels and the sex Baldwin felt was missing. The rest of the book is a rollercoaster of emotional highs and everyday life. The prose sours when Baldwin describes both the frayed lives of his characters and the steamy streets and seedy watering holes of Manhattan. And the lyrical treatment of Eric and Yves's relationship is especially affecting. The book was a huge best-seller when it was published, and I imagine it's this cutting-edge blend of controversy and passion that appealed to readers in the mid-1960s

But then there's the sex. By today's standard's, the descriptions are hardly explicit. Yet, unfortunately, these passages are so appallingly bad it's hard to believe that Baldwin wrote them: "He felt the bed throbbing beneath them, and heard it sing." "He began to gallop her, whinnying a little with delight, and, for the first time, became a little cold with fright...."--well, I'll spare you the rest.

It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss the book because of these scenes. The characters are both believable and unforgettable, the racial and sexual tensions are recognizably human, and the social milieu is still familiar to anyone who has lived near or in the bohemian neighborhoods of America.

Interesting, Intense, Involving, Intelligent, Insightful, etc...
I just finished this novel and I have to say that I was blown away by Baldwin's writing.I disagree with one of the reviewers who wrote that this should be required text for high school or jr. high students.For one thing, the subject matter is way too mature for their brains to digest at such a young age.This is a novel for intelligent adults with an open mind.If you are a homophobe or have any racism residing in your heart then don't read this novel, because you will not enjoy it whatsoever.If I would have read this before the age of thirty I would not have liked it and probably wouldn't have finished reading it(this is unequivocally a very adult novel).That being said, you will be hard-pressed to find a more gritty, brilliant, fiercly told story than this one.I personally believe that the dialogue between the main charactiers is excellent and very real.As complex, flawed, and often times even repugnant the main characters are, you still can't help but to care about each one of them as if they were your friend or loved one.This is the beauty of this novel in my opinion - Baldwin's ability to really develop each character.This is definitely a novel that is character-driven and upon finishing the novel you can't help but feel a bit disheartened knowing that your time spent with them is now over.It leaves you yearning for more!

This is my first novel by Baldwin and I am off to the bookstore (sorry Amazon, I just can't wait) to purchase a few more (Go Tell It On A Mountain will be my next).He was such a brilliant, brave, unique writer who displays so much courage in his prose that it's impossible to not admire the man.Also, I really enjoy reading authors like this who paint a completely different picture of Americana than we are typically accustomed to (i.e. Kerouac, Bukowski, Vonnegut, etc...).

Overall, the book was great.Once you get into it (for me it started on page 1) it's very difficult to put down no matter how heavy and often times disturbing it can be.However, racism is always disturbing no matter how you slice it.Baldwin just doesn't slice it in thin easy to digest pieces that's all.So if you want to read a 'nice', 'sweet' interacial love story don't purchase this.However, if you want to challenge yourself and allow your mind to expand and actually THINK, then by all means this is the perfect book for you.

Self-indulgent reiteration of what Baldwin's stated several times already
If you follow the trajectory of James Baldwin's writing, you'll see that he established certain themes, then reiterated them in a variety of settings.His themes are pertinent and show great insight, but if you were to read two or three of his books, by the time you got to the third, you'd say, "O.k., I get it already."
Such is the case with Another Country.If you've read any Baldwin, thematically it's nothing you haven't heard before.But, his earlier novels were clearly stated, concise, and powerful as a result.This novel is an unbelievably bloated mess which easily could have been half the length and still gotten its points across.Every single scene goes on way too long, the dialogue between the characters is interminable and pedantic, and there is an element of melodrama better served in soap operas.
Baldwin has said that this was the novel that meant the most to him, which is further proof that artists aren't necessarily the best judges of their work.Go Tell It On The Mountain is a masterpiece and most indicative of Baldwin's considerable literary powers, and I would recommend you read that or Giovanni's Room, which is less powerful, but eloquent and substantial.Another Country is a slog that doesn't repay in substance the efforts necessary to get through it.

Another Country
I just finished reading Another Country.This book should be required reading for Jr. High or High School students.I was born in 1970 and didn't witness the civil rights movement.Many of my generation feel that racism is not a serious issue anymore. Though this book was written before I was born, some of the same thoughts and ideaology mentioned are still prevalent today.As an African American man, I know that racism still excist today as it did in the 60's.With Blacks, at times, as the perpetrators.This was the case with Ida.A black woman in a relationship with a white man.She new that this man loved her.She loved him, but the racial hatred that she had been exposed to in her life prevented her from seeing anything other than the color of Vilvado's skin.

Baldwin was certainly ahead of his time and Another Country is just as timely today as it was in the 60's and 70's. ... Read more

Amazon.com
First published in 1953 when James Baldwin was nearly 30, Go TellIton the Mountain is a young man's novel, as tightly coiled as a new spring, yettempered by a maturing man's confidence and empathy. It's not a long book,and its action spans but a single day--yet the author packs in enough emotion,detail, and intimate revelation to make his story feel like amid-20th-century epic. Using as a frame the spiritual and moral awakening of 14-year-old JohnGrimes during a Saturday night service in a Harlem storefront church, Baldwinlays bare the secrets of a tormented black family during the depression.John's parents, praying beside him, both wrestle with the ghosts of theirsinful pasts--Gabriel, a preacher of towering hypocrisy, fathered anillegitimate child during his first marriage down South and refused torecognize his doomed bastard son; Elizabeth fell in love with a charming,free-spirited young man, followed him to New York, became pregnant with hisson, and lost him before she could reveal her condition.

Baldwin lays down the terrible symmetries of these two blighted lives asthe ironic context for John's dark night of the soul. When day dawns, Johnbelieves himself saved, but his creator makes it clear that this salvation arisesas much from blindness as revelation: "He was filled with a joy, a joyunspeakable, whose roots, though he would not trace them on this new day ofhis life, were nourished by the wellspring of a despair not yet discovered."

Though it was hailed at publication for its groundbreaking use of blackidiom, what is most striking about Go Tell Iton the Mountain today is itsstructure and its scope. In peeling back the layers of these damaged lives,Baldwin dramatizes the story of the great black migration from rural South tourban North. "Behind them was the darkness," Baldwin writes of Gabriel andElizabeth's lost generation, "nothing but the darkness, and all around themdestruction, and before them nothing but the fire--a bastard people, farfrom God, singing and crying in the wilderness!" This is Baldwin's music--a music in which rhapsody is rooted anguish--and there is none finer in American literature. --David LaskinBook Description
"Mountain," Baldwin said, "is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else." Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (82)

If you can get past the religious aspect, you might grow to like this book
James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain
deals with a lot of issues that are explored
in all of his works.The themes of religion,
identity and sexuality, which were themes
that were very taboo at the time and in some
ways still are.I think most of the bad
reviews on here are either people not sure
of their own religious beliefs.I will agree
though that this is not Baldwin's best work;
that is conferred upon Going to Meet the Man,
Giovanni's Room and Another Country, which
deal with the religious themes subtly. Still,
if you are are a history buff, read it for
the fascinating details of Harlem life in its
heyday. Baldwin is one of those writers whom
you have to read over and over again.Each time,
you discover something else wonderful about him
that you missed before. I guess I'm biased though,
as I love most of his books.

Not one for the skeptics
Go Tell It On The Mountain is a very bold book. In an era when "Ebonics" had not been coined yet, when being black was not every white kids style, James Baldwin stayed so true to the African-American colloquialism. James Baldwin has written with complete truthfulness and self-questioning this parable of finding yourself, finding your belief, finding your God. Are these even different things, or is it one? It is this honesty which keeps you engrossed. Whether you'll end up loving this book or not probably depends on your personal equation with the Supreme Being, but what you will definitely admire and carry forward is his honesty, honesty about the lives of African-Americans, honesty which is also echoed in the language.

Go Tell It On the Mountain is a biblical story of a youth dealing with his personal demons with regards to religion at an age where sin has not manifested itself in any form whatsoever in him. John finds himself in the difficult position of questioning his faith. John's mental turmoil in separating the men of god from god itself and paving a religious path for himself is very touching. This mirroring of thoughts which are timeless in nature, pulls you into the story. You find yourself questioning along with John, praying along with his mother Elizabeth and feeling betrayed by his father Gabriel.

James Baldwin delves into each characters personal quest to achieve a place next to God. He frankly describes the African-American homes, the depth to which they are influenced by Christianity. So much so that at times you find it disconcerting. The two-facedness, the fake righteousness of the sanctified men makes you cringe with discomfort, followed by skepticism. Which is why, when John ends up being saved, I felt deceived. What brings about John's confirmation to the faith? Is it the hope to be freed from suffering that is passed on to him from generations? Is it to assuage the curiously skirted guilt of homosexuality? Could it have to do with the evangelist nature of African-American church services, where the charged up atmosphere, the childhood influences, the trance-like energy which may make one forget all inhibitions, insecurities and embrace that which is core to one and all, an eagerness to believe.

That this is a story of a different era is not to be forgotten. The depth to which James Baldwin writes about the African-American psyche, their hope in being freed from their suffering, their expectant belief in their faith, gives you reason to half-heartedly agree to the biblical end to the story.

This book, makes me curious of the role that guilt, fear and a hope for change, plays in bringing people closer to their god. Yes, signs of a true skeptic, but maybe in one of my trance-like states caused by certain unmentionable substances that might change and make me a believer.

[...].

God Help Us
This is a well written story of the lives those working out their salvation amid poverty, hardship and seeking a strong spirituality.

have mercy
The power of God, the power of Satan, the power of love (or lack of it) and, almost above all, the power of language.This is a breathtaking thing. Read and remember who wrote it - then remind people about one of the most underrated masters of American life.

I Would Give this 6 Stars If I Could [39][36][T]
Sometimes, when you finish a book, you look up and take a deep breath and say, "Wow." This is one such novel.

The descriptive and intricate prose is woven so tightly and consciously that Baldwin amazingly delivers prosemasterfully without having to use complex language - this book will never send you to the dictionary.Some courtier designers need fine fabric to make quality attire.This designer can take rags and sew them into gowns with only his sewing skills - Baldwin is an artist of words.

Overlapping the life stories of John's mother (Elizabeth) and stepfather (Gabriel), together with Gabriel's alienated sister (Florence) against the backdrop of John's 14th birthday, reveals to us the soul and character of the individuals and how their torments and incredible journeys affect and play upon John's coming-of-age manhood rite - which in this case is an out-of-body experience/revelation to the Lord before the congregation at Gabriel's church.

John's 14th birthday will and should never be forgotten by he or the congregation. And, we readers, who are delivered into the secret realms of the tortured pasts of Elizabeth, Gabriel and Florence, can better appreciate and, in turn, should better remember the moment the young John emerges as a man.

In the end, as a less-than-religious person, I asked myself whether Baldwin's constant references to the Bible (the story of Noah and Ham plays a large part in the end in contrast to the tortured relationship between Gabriel and John) and religious revival experience of John are meant to employ others to follow their lead, or to dispel their self-proclaimed truths because of the contradictions between religion and the religious which we have been permitted to learn about in Gabriel and others.But, I would have to conclude that Baldwin leaves that decision to you - but allows you to make the decision knowingly or after having learned about how what Gabriel preaches is not synonymous with what Gabriel lives.

I would give this 6 stars if I could. Few books have touched me as much as this book has. ... Read more

Book Description
Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

More Notes of a Native Son
Bearing the subtitle "More Notes of a Native Son," "Nobody Knows My Name" is a follow-up to Baldwin's earlier, more famous book. Originally published in national magazines between 1954 and 1961, these essays are more mature, if less biting, than his first collection--and they are certainly just as witty. With one notable exception, they are timeless and trenchant commentaries on racial and cultural issues.

The first group of eight essays focuses on the political and social divides in the United States. The opening article reiterates the discovery he made in "Notes of a Native Son": that by living in Europe he paradoxically discovered what it means to be an American. Others examine the despicable inhumanity of a Harlem public housing project ("cheerless as a prison"), the success of the student movement and the rise of Muslim power in black politics ("a very small echo of the black discontent now abroad in the world"), and the first efforts to integrate Southern public schools ("the entire nation has spent a hundred years avoiding the question of the place of the black man in it"). The two most memorable essays detail the daily bravery, trauma, and humiliations of a schoolboy who is the first black in an all-white school and respond to Faulkner's despicable remarks on race (which were made when Faulkner was seemingly drunk and which were later repudiated when he was atypically sober).

The only disappointing essay is "Princes and Power," an account of Le Congres des Ecrivains et Artistes Noirs (Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists). The internal disputes and lofty goals of this gathering--convened to consider "the history of Euro-African relations" and the postcolonial "cultural inventory"--did not lack for interest, and Baldwin ably relates the tensions between and cross-purposes of American blacks and Africans. But, overall, he seems to be just phoning it in, muffling the obvious passions of the conference participants and highlighting instead the abstract academic tone.

The second and final group of five essays highlight cultural subjects. He follows a speech detailing the outline for an imaginary novel with biographical appraisals of Andre Gide, Ingmar Bergman, Richard Wright, and Normal Mailer. His eulogy for Wright, initially composed and published in three disparate parts, simultaneously expresses regret for Baldwin's youthful criticism of the older author that resulted in the irreparable destruction of their friendship and recounts Wright's sad social decline: "he had managed to estrange himself from almost all of the younger American Negro writers in Paris ... [who] had discovered that Richard did not really know much about the present dimensions and complexity of the Negro problem here, and, profoundly, did not want to know."

But the gem of the collection is "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy," Wright's tongue-in-cheek account of his friendship with Normal Mailer, written both as not-so-subtle payback for Mailer's criticism of Baldwin in the self-indulgent "Advertisements for Myself" and as a tribute to Mailer's talent and "responsibility" as an artist. After sending off a number of barbed (yet good-natured) repartees, Baldwin acknowledges not only Mailer's importance as a "very good friend" but also his worth as a writer. Baldwin's assessment of that career serves at as fitting coda to Baldwin's own essays: "His work, after all, is all that will be left when the newspapers are yellowed, all the gossip columnists silenced, and all the cocktail parties over, and when Norman and you and I are dead."

Nobody Knows My Name Is Timeless
For my humanities class I was instructed to read an autobiography of my choice. Through shuffling through the library for an autobiography that I can actually read and appreciate I stumbled across this great James Baldwin title. Nobody Knows My Name is a collection of his writing while he was self exiled in Europe. I opened the book with excitment and urgency. As the words regestired in my head I began to realize that the experiences he described articulated exactly how I feel as a black man in American society.
Each essay discussing another aspect of society or the life of a black man in the world I grasped with utter enthusasim. His observations and theories were articulate critical and insightful. James Baldwin's tales of another continent are intising and informative of where our society was and how it is still the same in many ways.
If you are interested in Baldwin's previous writings or African American authors and perspective I know you will enjoy this combiation of essays.

Great esssays from one of America's best authors
This collection of essays show James Baldwin as he strives to figure out who he is as a writer, as an American and as a black man.Beginning with his self-imposed exile to Paris in the 1950's, he calls his own identity as both a black man and an American into question.The Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists which met in 1956 showed him just how different Europeans and Africans viewed cultural identity and hinted at ostracizing the American contingent.And he felt distinctly American in that crowd.Through his essays about returning to Harlem, his criticisms of William Faulkner ("Faulkner and Desegregation"), his review of a work by André Gide, his dealings with author Richard Wright, his friendship with author Norman Mailer ("The Black Boy Looks At the White Boy"), and his interview with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Baldwin displays his own feelings at finding his own identity as both man and writer in a world that tries to both accet and to reject him at the same time.

Powerful essays from one of America's best authors.

Honest, Critical, Sincere, Moving, Black, Human!!!
what i love about baldwin is that he does not have delusions of grandeur about himself - unlike many blacks in the public sphere.this book of essays on society and his personal experiences in the US and abroad is majestic b/c baldwin has a way of writing about complexities of people and societal issues in an introspective yet practical way.although i was impressed with every essay, his essay on richard wright was mindblowing.BUT YOU HAVE TO READ IT FOR YOURSELF!i think it is a great book for black and latin men to read.in doing so many bruhs - if they are honest - will find that they are as similar baldwin as we like to believe are are to malcolm x.either way, you do not go wrong as both were great human beings.in short, i was totally edified by this text.It will easily make my top 10 list - which is very, very, very difficult. ... Read more

Book Description
The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience.  Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work.  Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

One of my favorites
This is one of my favorite Baldwin novels. Only someonle with Baldwin's background could so poignantly express who Arthur was and how he felt about his music. An excellent piece and a must read!

Best Baldwin
This book is the best book I have ever read in my life.Its emotionally naked grappling with what race and violence has done to our country is painfully acute and brutally honest.Every American should read this.

A reader
From the moment I read the first page, I have loved this novel. I have read it several times and each time the characters come to life and I find myself caring about them. Hall has to deal with so many issues--least of all, is Ruth the woman he truly loves or should he be with the evangelist? Arthur-the gay gospel singer who sometimes would just as well have a drink or a man than sing the gospel, but who sang it so well when he chose to. Then there are the complex lives of their friends and parents that seem so real and yet so tragic. Baldwin created a masterpiece!

An artist of words
Probably one of the more underappreciated novels in American literature.It is unfair to charecterize Baldwin as merely a social critic of the civil rights era.He stands alongside Dickens as one of the great writers of any era, with the ability to articualte an understanding of human nature that trancends any era and stands second to none.

Love, Black, Gay and Providence
This novel is a testament in a way, the testament of a man who has lived long and well, too much even and too hard, in the world. A testimony too. Every single event in this novel about a black man who became a gospel singer and then a blues singer is the crystalisation of the whole history of Afro-Americans in the USA, the whole history of each character that is living the event through, the whole past and future of a present that is both crooked and promising. That is the very dilemma of this book, a dilemma that we feel and sense everywhere, on every page. Each moment in the life of these characters is the condensation of the cosmic, historical and human past of the individual and the sublimation of all possible wishes, desires, potentialities that this individual has developed in his situation and with his heritage. The novel may appear as very pessimistic because one cannot evade their heritage. But it is tremendously optimistic because one can always choose to realize their dreams, even if the situation around limits the possibilities and the chances to succeed. The aim of life is not to succeed, but it is not to fail, hence to move forward a few steps, and that one can always do it, even if it entails a lot of suffering and a lot of pain. Baldwin is also very optimistic about the world, about human beings, about Afro-Americans because he believes and tries to demonstrate that this forward progress of the pilgrims we are is fuelled by the happiness one gets from life, and that happiness comes from one's effort to accept what may provide happiness, no matter what that is, and the first thing to accept is love, no matterwhat form it may take. Yet there is a limit for Afro-Americans, a limit and a contradiction : they have great difficulties thinking in other terms than racial terms. They have been the victims as a « race » of deportation, slavery, discrimination, in a word a holocaust, and they cannot differenciate between the whites who are responsible for that fate, those who have made a direct profit out of it, even if many others have been able to enjoy some improved conditions thanks to the exploitation of black slaves, and the whites who have no responsibility in this historical process. How can we put on the same level, in the same boat the slave owners, the slave traffickers on one side, and the serfs that could only survive between famines, and the workers who were exploited too in the factories, and still are ? How can we put in the same bag the pharmaceutical firms that let Africans die because they don't want generic drugs to be produced and the workers of these pharmaceutical firms who are exploited just the same, even if in another way : the research and the patents the bosses want the poor to pay at the highest price, and in this very case most of these firms are American in the world, have been produced by workers who should be considered as the owners of their work and are, too often, paid a pittance when compared with the riches their bosses get out of this work. That's James Baldwin's dilemma. He hardly can discriminate between the white corn and the white chaff, and the white chaff is the workers, those who create the riches of the white corn. Some chapters become extremely poignant when this issue is brought up here and there and when Black Arthur cannot accept to love and be loved by white Guy, just because Guy is white and considered by principle as an accomplice of what the lords of the white « race » have done in history. And one of James Baldwin's concluding thoughts is : « To undo the horror, we repeat it ». And not to repeat the horror of the killing of a black man by some whites (like Peanut for instance), Baldwin makes his Arthur die in London, in a pub where he is the only black man, and by falling in a state of amazed drunkness on the stairs leading to the restrooms in the basement, at a moment when love had been slightly roughened by life into a distance that could have been avoided if love had not gone through a storm in what appears like nothing but a glass of water, the glass of water of everyday life.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU ... Read more

Product Description
with illustrations ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A MASTERFUL PORTRAIT OF AN ENIGMATIC GENIUS

His stepfather made fun of his eyes, and called him "the ugliest child he had ever seen."This was a two-pronged insult because James Baldwin had his mother's eyes.

As long as he lived, Baldwin would retell an incident related to that memory that he said changed the course of his life.When he was perhaps five or six-years-old, he was amazed to see on the street an old woman with large eyes and lips.He ran upstairs, called his mother to the window, and said, "You see?You see?She's uglier than you, Mama!She's uglier than me!"

The significant aspect of seeing that face on the street would take Baldwin many years to articulate.He learned that his physical appearance did not necessarily have an effect on what he would do in life, "that if his mother was `ugly," then even ugliness could be beautiful."

And this unattractive, intellectually precocious boy became the man who would write like no other, chronicling America in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.He gave us the novels "Go Tell It On The Mountain," "Giovanni's Room," and "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone."

Baldwin used to say to white audiences, "I've been here for 350 years and you've never seen me."That sense of alienation is evoked in the titles of his collections of essays, "Nobody Knows My Name" and "No Name in the Street."Undoubtedly, students of sociology yet unborn will pore over these words to better understand America in the 20th century.

Other biographies have been written about James Baldwin - none as personal, revealing and poignant as this.David Leeming, Baldwin's associate for four years and friend for a quarter of a century has produced a masterful portrait of one of our country's most enigmatic geniuses.

- Gail Cooke

Baldwin fan? Read this for the info., not the writing.
I haven't read many biographies, but I have read lots of Baldwin -- both essays and novels. I came away from this book wishing that it was as compelling as its subject -- that Leeming had contributed his insights to the efforts of a writer closer to Baldwin's caliber -- and that the book had the benefit of a better editor. There is a sense that perhaps Leeming reveres Baldwin a bit too much. It's hard to communicate a true sense of intimacy with your subject when he's so high up on a pedestal! Overall, a disappointment. ... Read more

Book Description
This edition of a classic work by one of America's premier writers offers a new Foreword by Derrick Bell (with Janet Dewart Bell) to the 1995 paperback edition, and is as meaningful today as it was when it was first published in 1985. In his searing and moving essay, James Baldwin explores the Atlanta child murders that took place over a period of twenty-two months in 1979 and 1980. Examining this incident with a reporter's skill and an essayist's insight, he notes the significance of Atlanta as the site of these brutal killings-a city that claimed to be "too busy to hate"-and the permeation of race throughout the case: the black administration in Atlanta; the murdered black children; and Wayne Williams, the black man tried for the crimes. Rummaging through the ruins of American race relations, Baldwin addresses all the hard-to-face issues that have brought us a moment in history where it is terrifying to to be a black child in white America, and where, too often, public officials fail to ask real questions about "justice for all." Baldwin takes a time-specific event and makes it timeless: The Evidence of Things Not Seen offers an incisive look at race in America through a lens at once disturbing and profoundly revealing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Disappointed
Very disappointed with this - partially my fault as I didn't realise it was an essay.
Had no idea who the author was.
basically vitriolic politics - but a necessary work for anyone research the Atlanta Youth murders.
Not wanting to appear racist but I was offended but a variety of comments.
Being white and English is obviously not a good thing in Baldwin's eyes.
But everyone is entitled to an opinion.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen

Searing, insighful essays written by a genius mind with a
writing style so filled with grace that it evokes tears.
Recognition fills every page. These essays should be
required reading in every American school. Anyone
interested in what a writer is, should be, can be, should
experience this Baldwin.

disappointing
I was hoping for a factual/investigative account of the tragedy of the Atlanta child murders.Instead, this book seemed to be an essay written on the problems of racial injustice and ignorance in Atlanta, America, and the world.Nothing wrong with that, but then I take into account that the essay was written in a most meandering and disjointed fashion, full of incomprehensible references, with an overwhelming tone of arrogance.Baldwin is right, everyone else is wrong and to blame.Not persuasive, just a waste of time.

Can People of Color Be that Cruel...?
This is a difficult read because Baldwin's thoughts come across like a man too perplexed to ask "Why?". And so there are many crosscurrent thoughts, parentheticals that are not in parenthesis, and sheer rage. The question: who could be murdering the children in Atlanta? And has the years of systematic oppression and racism made it possible for a black man to be become that cruel? Has the oppressed become the oppressor?

And I can understand Baldwin's great perplexity...he wants to point the finger at the American way of life. How years and years of being considered not human has affected the mindset of the average person of color. And of having to come through identity crises, legal crises, social crises to be confronted with who...? A person who is this insane enough to be killing innocent kids? Why have we struggled so much, Baldwin seems to be asking, to create this monster?

And so, it is another probing we received from the always philosophical, questioning, always provocative Baldwin.

Why read the book now? Well, although this murderer has been found and given punishment based on the fullest extent of the law, the questions remains.

How have we come to this? ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (6)

The 3rd Eye of James Baldwin
Let me qualify my review by first telling you that I have read EVERY SINGLE PUBLISHED WORK by James Baldwin with the exception of one and that is because it is a first edition that I can't stand to crack along the spine.James Baldwin was and still is prolific- to say the least.He has the ability to distinguish both his objective and subjective observations in a single essay.He is the proliferation of the duo consciousness in America.His observations of social and political mores is nearly unparalleled for their relevance both yesterday and today. This is an outstanding compliment to the author but sad commentary on the state of US world, racial, environmental, social and sexual politics in 2007.The Price of the Ticket is an absolute must read!

If They Take You In the Morning
I remember the first time I realized that James Baldwin was a genius. I picked up one of Angela Davis's autobiographies. I found one of the most beautifully crafted letters ever exchanged from one writer to another.

And with one five page letter, I fell in love.

I am certain that The Price of the Ticket must be one of the greatest collections of essays ever bound into a single volume. If someone would like to challenge that, please be my guest. And, I believe that James Baldwin is probably the second most widley quoted African American writer in epithets, speeches and dedications after Martin Luther King. I admit, I have no statistical data to support these claims. I have no quantitative proof. Just keep your eyes and ears open and you will understand what I mean. Whether it was the text Many Thousands Gone I read in An African History course on Slavery, or the article entitled The Price of the Ticket that I discovered in my Art History course. Baldwin has left an indelible mark on history.

James warned us that, "It is very nearly impossible, after all, to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind." (The Can't Turn Back)

He proved to us that, "freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be." (Notes for a Hypothetical Novel)

Long before Morrison & Cose explanation of the Envy of the World we knew, "alas, that to be an American Negro Male is also to be a kind of walking phallic symbol: which means that one pays, in one's own personality, for the sexual insecurity of others." (The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy)

Before Mumia reminded us Baldwin informed us, "What passes for identity in America is a serise of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free." (A Talk to Teachers)

And years later we still have not grasped the fact that, "Guilt is a luxury we can no longer afford." (Words of a Native Son)

Perhaps Genovese was smiling when Baldwin wrote, "We won our Christianity, our faith, at the point of a gun, not because of the example afforded by white Christains, but in spite of it. It was very difficult to become a Christian if you were a black man on a slave ship, and the slave ship was called "The Good Ship Jesus."

Perhaps the scarriest thing that Baldwin has showed us, is how seldom things change.

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. Talent is not to be ignored. Dreams are to be followed, Challenges are to be faced and Art is to be created.

Baldwin's Legacy
This is a collection of nonfiction from James Baldwin's illustrious career: essays, book excerpts and movie/book reviews. I have read it many times and never get tired of it. What more can I say?

Incredibly heartfelt essays
Baldwin was a great writer, not only because he told a compelling story, but because he wanted his work to change the world he lived in and, on some levels, it did.No other example of this intention is more apprant than Baldwin's non-fiction work.His essays are timely (even now), filled with biting intelect, and brimming with his trademark ability to wind around an issue.

This book is all the more relevant because it saves you time: it collects his 3 book-length essays ("Fire Next Time", "No name In The Street" and "The Devil Finds Work"), as well as a ton of other pieces.It's almost totally comprehensive in this respect.Revealing and a more than trustworthy look at the man from his own mouth, and over the years.

Best American essayist
With the possible exception of Tom Paine and Gore Vidal, Baldwin is the finest essayist. Most of his non-fiction is here, including his groundbreaking essay "Fifth Avenue, Uptown," the best single essay I have ever read. Of special interest, as one who enjoys movie criticism, is the entire book "The Devil Finds Work," in which Baldwin happily takes apart a number of American classic films. I was never wild about Baldwin's fiction, but no one could top him as an essayist. If you are buying one American non-fiction book, this should be the one. ... Read more

Amazon.com
A novelist, essayist, playwright, and public intellectual,James Baldwin's writings on the subject of race in America undeniablymade him one of the greatest African American writers of the 20thcentury. As the civil rights movement gained momentum in the twodecades following World War II, Baldwin landed squarely in the publiceye, and his prose communicated the hope and frustration of the fightfor racial equality. In James Baldwin: Early Novels and Stories,editor ToniMorrison draws heavily on Baldwin's early work, including his firstnovel Go Tell It on theMountain, as well as Giovanni's Room, whichwas praised by the New York Times for its "unusual candor ... and intensity." As pertinent today as it was some 30 yearsago, the fiction found in this collection is powerful, eloquent, and afitting tribute to a consummate writer.Book Description
With burning passion, the authority of experience, and a sharp, epigrammatic wit, these essays articulate issues of race, democracy, and American identity. This edition--the most comprehensive gathering of Baldwin's nonfiction ever published--presents the complete texts of the landmark collections "Notes of a Native Son" (1955) and "Nobody Knows My Name" (1961); "The Fire Next Time" (1963), a classic analysis of America's racial divide; "No Name in the Street" (1972); and "The Devil Finds Work" (1976); and 36 more essays, including nine never before collected. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A valuable edition of some of the best writings on race.
The Library of America is engaged in publishing definitive texts of the best-known writing in the U.S.Including James Baldwin in this series - and having Toni Morrison edit these volumes - has generated considerable critical review.It is remarkable that James Baldwin can still exercise so much hold over us.Both the fiction and the essays have a kind of raw power: it makes us realize how sensitive the nerve of "race relations" still is."Go Tell It on the Mountain" - one of the early autobiographical stories - has already become an American classic.Baldwin's homosexuality and his ambiguous feelings towards the white establishment makes this a painful coming-of-age novel.There is no easy access to some one so at-odds with himself and his society - and no greater rewards for anyone interested in the literature of self-discovery.These are fine volumes.They are well worth owning and belong on the shelves of anyone interested in American literature.Not all collections are worth having.The Library of America - and these Baldwin volumes - are worth owning, and they are certainly worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1902 edition by the Macmillan Company, New York. ... Read more

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