***Books To While Away The Class Struggle By- James Baldwin’s “Going To Meet The Man”- Come Ready, Brother, Come Ready
A "YouTube" film clip of "James Baldwin: The Price Of The Ticket."
Book Review
Going To Meet The Man, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1995
I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, the play “Blues For Mr. Charlie”, “Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone”, and “The Fire Next Time”. Those works, well written and powerful reminded me of why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. I do not recall then having read any short stories by Baldwin, at least none that were memorable like one of the stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, in this “Going To Meet The Man” compilation.
Now great writers, and I hope at this point in our common American literary experiences no one need argue James Baldwin’s place in the canon, sometimes are capable of writing both great novels and short stories. Baldwin seems to be in that category, although off of this selection it may be a bit premature to make that judgment because most of the material appears to have been “first drafts” of later, full novelistic treatments. For example, “The Morning, The Evening, So Soon”, the subject matter of which is the fame of a expatriate black actor-singer who despite that fame is still subject to all the racial taunts and tensions of a stay-at-home performer. (I originally wrote this review just after the passing away of the pioneer black singer/actress/black liberation fighter, Lena Horne.) That subject gets fuller treatment in "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone."
Other subjects that get a preliminary workout here are the deep religious experience of Baldwin’s fundamentalist Protestant youth, “The Outing” that will get a full-blown treatment in “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” Of course, the subject of homosexuality, and bi-sexuality, are obliquely presented in several stories, Baldwin, along with Gore Vidal being something of American literary pioneers, if not honored as such at the time, on the subject. And of course, as with all of Baldwin serious work, we are treated to various manifestations of the ever present “race” question; interracial sex and marriage; degrees of blackness; white racism; black attitudes toward white racism; and the purposeful insularity of the white world in dealing, or nor dealing, with these questions, then and now.
What you want to get this particular compilation for though, as I mentioned above, is for “Sonny’s Blues”. Now it is almost impossible to find any writer, any American writer at least, worth his or he salt who came of literary age in the 1950s who was not influenced, even if only around the edges, by “be-bop” jazz. Baldwin was no exception, although his race is not the only reason for that statement. The rhythm of the cool, abstract, high white note “be-bop jazz” that sent audiences into a frenzy of delight are a simple companion to the sparser, less lyrical literary beat of 1950’s writing. Mailer, Kerouac, and most of the New York intellectual crew feasted, and feasted well, on that inner sound. But, nobody got it righter than James Baldwin in “Sonny’s Blues.”
What seemingly starts out as another one of Baldwin’s epistles on, literally, brotherly love; that of two brothers, one, Sonny, several years younger than the other, who “grew up” in Harlem, grew away from each other by choice or circumstances,, reunited when now famed jazz pianist brother, Sonny, got caught up trying to reach that “high white note” via the “horse” (heroin) drug connection that also has been associated with bop, turns into one of the best expositions of what jazz meant to the listener, and to the artist struggling to find his inner voice, that I have ever read.
The last several pages, in counterpoint to the first several, are truly lyrical as Baldwin puts in words on the printed page what a struggle it was for Sonny, and his fellow band members in New York cafe society, to “make the gods listen." And to make the heavens cry out for the high side of the human experience. You or I could try to write such lines for two hundred years and we could not get it right. Kudos, James.
Book Review
Going To Meet The Man, James Baldwin, Vintage International, New York, 1995
I have been, as is my wont when I get “hooked” on some writer, on something of a James Baldwin tear of late, reading or re-reading everything I can get my hands on. At the time of this review I have already looked at “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, the play “Blues For Mr. Charlie”, “Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone”, and “The Fire Next Time”. Those works, well written and powerful reminded me of why I was crazy to read everything that Baldwin wrote when I was a kid. I do not recall then having read any short stories by Baldwin, at least none that were memorable like one of the stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, in this “Going To Meet The Man” compilation.
Now great writers, and I hope at this point in our common American literary experiences no one need argue James Baldwin’s place in the canon, sometimes are capable of writing both great novels and short stories. Baldwin seems to be in that category, although off of this selection it may be a bit premature to make that judgment because most of the material appears to have been “first drafts” of later, full novelistic treatments. For example, “The Morning, The Evening, So Soon”, the subject matter of which is the fame of a expatriate black actor-singer who despite that fame is still subject to all the racial taunts and tensions of a stay-at-home performer. (I originally wrote this review just after the passing away of the pioneer black singer/actress/black liberation fighter, Lena Horne.) That subject gets fuller treatment in "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone."
Other subjects that get a preliminary workout here are the deep religious experience of Baldwin’s fundamentalist Protestant youth, “The Outing” that will get a full-blown treatment in “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” Of course, the subject of homosexuality, and bi-sexuality, are obliquely presented in several stories, Baldwin, along with Gore Vidal being something of American literary pioneers, if not honored as such at the time, on the subject. And of course, as with all of Baldwin serious work, we are treated to various manifestations of the ever present “race” question; interracial sex and marriage; degrees of blackness; white racism; black attitudes toward white racism; and the purposeful insularity of the white world in dealing, or nor dealing, with these questions, then and now.
What you want to get this particular compilation for though, as I mentioned above, is for “Sonny’s Blues”. Now it is almost impossible to find any writer, any American writer at least, worth his or he salt who came of literary age in the 1950s who was not influenced, even if only around the edges, by “be-bop” jazz. Baldwin was no exception, although his race is not the only reason for that statement. The rhythm of the cool, abstract, high white note “be-bop jazz” that sent audiences into a frenzy of delight are a simple companion to the sparser, less lyrical literary beat of 1950’s writing. Mailer, Kerouac, and most of the New York intellectual crew feasted, and feasted well, on that inner sound. But, nobody got it righter than James Baldwin in “Sonny’s Blues.”
What seemingly starts out as another one of Baldwin’s epistles on, literally, brotherly love; that of two brothers, one, Sonny, several years younger than the other, who “grew up” in Harlem, grew away from each other by choice or circumstances,, reunited when now famed jazz pianist brother, Sonny, got caught up trying to reach that “high white note” via the “horse” (heroin) drug connection that also has been associated with bop, turns into one of the best expositions of what jazz meant to the listener, and to the artist struggling to find his inner voice, that I have ever read.
The last several pages, in counterpoint to the first several, are truly lyrical as Baldwin puts in words on the printed page what a struggle it was for Sonny, and his fellow band members in New York cafe society, to “make the gods listen." And to make the heavens cry out for the high side of the human experience. You or I could try to write such lines for two hundred years and we could not get it right. Kudos, James.
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