Another Country by James Baldwin
Book Two: Any Day Now - Chapters 1, 2, 3 & 4
Book Two: Any Day Now - Chapters 1, 2, 3 & 4
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Exact reason I've not been active on the site.Mr. P wrote:job and been very busy
You're very tired, and the last thing you might need is a book that seems wearying at times--I get it. Looking at the back-cover blurb on my edition, I see the grimness of Baldwin's vision is hailed as" expos[ing] the American dream as a never-to-be-forgotten nightmare." Several other quotes stress the power and fierceness of Baldwin's portrait of our society at the time, such as the NYT's: "Searing...violent (!)...brilliantly and fiercely told." All of that is true, resulting in a novel in which simple happiness is almost absent (until the very end, really). Baldwin gives no quarter to our normal needs and expectations for a novel; I can't decide what to make of that, whether to credit him for being uncompromising and fearless, or to blame him for heavy-handedness and distortion. Well, I found the first long chapter on Rufus very compelling, but 300 more pages of alienation and urban misery were not easy to stay with. I guess Baldwin intended that as strong medicine. Does it tend to kill the reader?Mr. P wrote:Claustrophobic is an excellent descriptor. It's like the characters are being suffocated by their very existence. The city is absolutely an oppressor in this setting.
I am just on Ch 3 of book 2. I gotta pick it up. This new job is very busy and I am just mentally tired when I get home.