La Croix de la Rédemption

by James Baldwin

À l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance de James Baldwin, l’une des figures littéraires américaines les plus brillantes et incandescentes du XXe siècle, les Éditions Stock publient un recueil de textes inédits, précédé d'une préface de Léonora Miano. Une lecture essentielle.

Réputé pour son engagement dans le mouvement des Droits Civiques, James Baldwin (1924-1987) n’a eu de cesse d’interroger et de décortiquer l’histoire et la société américaines. Dans ce recueil de texte – en France – nouvelle, essais, discours, conférences, lettres, – la clairvoyance et la force de la pensée baldwinienne scintillent à chaque page. L’auteur de La Chambre de Giovanni s’y interroge sur la possibilité d'un président afro-américain, dénonce le racisme étatique, la manipulation médiatique ; il analyse l'hypocrisie du fondamentalisme religieux, livre ses réflexions sur les relations entre Noirs et Juifs ; expose l’importance de l’engagement social (parité, éducation, etc.) ; partage ses impressions sur le blues et la boxe. Au fil des pages s’esquisse le portrait en creux d’un Baldwin tour à tour romancier, journaliste, militant, essayiste et ancien prédicateur.
La Croix de la Rédemption nous rappelle pourquoi nous aimons tant lire les œuvres de cet immense styliste. Ses phrases serpentent à travers les problèmes et en ressortent teintées de lumière, il sait nous emmener là où il veut et dévoiler ses cartes pour nous offrir une vue de l’Amérique du milieu du siècle dernier… mais aussi de celle d’aujourd’hui, toujours en proie à ses tourments et ses démons. Alors que l’on fête cette année le centenaire de sa naissance, ses textes n’ont rien perdu de leur acuité et de leur modernité. En refermant ce recueil, le lecteur ne pourra s’empêcher de se demander : « Mais qu’aurait donc écrit Baldwin aujourd’hui ? »

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Race, History, Politics, Literature, Philosophy

464 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2024

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.

James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.

He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.

In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.

James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.

Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.

From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.

Reviews

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading James Baldwin can be a very unsettling experience. This is not solely due to the rawness with which he writes, or the subject matter which is painful and often disturbing. No, what troubles me the most when I read Baldwin is how real and relevant it seems today. Essays written 30, 40, or 50 years ago continue to resonate here in the present and are perhaps even more topical today in a society that believes it has transcended race. If one reads a sentence of Baldwin, they will realize how clearly we have not.
Having read so many Baldwin essays, I really have little more to say about the power and urgency with which he writes in this collection. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay him is that were these essays written today in 2018 rather than in 1968, they would not seem at all dated or out of place. It’s testament to Baldwin’s skill while also a depressing commentary on how little has changed on some many fronts from race to government. For example, Baldwin’s describes the authoritarianism instinct of his day but could just easily describing America in 2018 when he writes:

“The actual, baffling, continuing, and wounding relations which obtain among human beings cause us to long for Authority as deeply as we long for water: and the personal authority surrenders to a larger one, which, if it cannot save us from death, can protect us from chaos.”

Or when asked about a Black president, answers with a far more prescient question:

“Bobby Kennedy recently made me the soul-stirring promise that one day, thirty years, if I’m lucky I can be President too. It never entered this boy’s mind, I suppose, it has not entered the country’s mind yet, that perhaps I wouldn’t want to be. And in any case, what really exercises my mind is not this hypothetical day on which some other Negro “first” will become the first Negro President. What I am really curious about is just what kind of country he’ll be President of.”

This is what makes Baldwin in a sense timeless, and so readable. He is like a conscience arisen from our past to try to set us on a different path all the while knowing that its exceedingly unlikely we will heed the warning.

[James Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baldwin rivals Camus as my patron saint for nonfiction writing. This collection is a jarring constellation of his inimitable voice.

[S.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a big fan of James Baldwin since I was a kid. Growing up in a Christian school and with religious grandparents, I attended Sunday service faithfully. It wasn't until I read Baldwin's essay, recounting his childhood experience at a revival sermon, that I found the words to express my experience (or lack thereof) in the black church.

I went on to read Go, Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, and my all-time favorite--If Beale Street Could Talk (a wonderful love story).

This collection of his writings reminded me of his non-fiction that I loved so much: the aforementioned essay on the black revival, Sonny's Blues, etc.

These essays, speeches, letters, and reviews among other writings are powerful. They will be a wonderful academic source for students and teachers, but also a source of inspiration for the casual reader. Baldwin is one of the best writers in American Literature.

If you, like me, have read his fiction and some of his non-fiction and are eager to read more of Baldwin's take on the artist's role in society, I highly recommend this book!

[Amy Neftzger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book prior to seeing the documentary I Am Not Your Negro. This is a collection of essays written by Jame Baldwin throughout his life, and these showcase more than his great writing skills: he was a master of rhetoric and philosophical argument. This is a large collection and while it's worth reading, I strongly recommend the documentary in which these writings are featured and placed into historical context. The film also includes clips of Baldwin and I am impressed by how well he could think on his feet and make a rebuttal to intellectual arguments. Most writers prefer pen and paper because they're thoughtful and take time to construct their prose. Baldwin was a strong intellectual who could hold his own. This country didn't treat him or his contemporaries well, but Baldwin is certainly a national treasure. We should not only honor him, we should heed his advice and take his points to heart because even after all these years - his points are still true.

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up only bc the book reviews section felt a little out of place

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The cross of redemption" had been flirting with me for a while from my bookshelf and one cannot avoid such a prolonged and insistent flirtation! So, last month, I decided to pick it up and read a text a day at home, no more than that. But after reading the first texts, I found myself taking it along with me on the bus trip back and forth from work (twice a week). What an experience.

Whereas today there is plenty of YA literature for all tastes and genres, it was nothing like that 3 1/2 decades ago. Actually, all this inclusive literature we see being published is very recent. I had James Baldwin and Pier Paolo Pasolini and David Leavitt books as my company in my teenage years, around 15 to 17. They felt like friends and somehow showed me the way of what I could be, but also of what I didn't want to. I was very lucky to have found second-hand copies of "Numa terra estranha" (Another country), "Giovanni" (Giovanni's room) and "Marcas da vida" (Just above my head). So, reading "The cross of redemption" was like meeting a friend again. A very dear one!

Regardless of Baldwin's son-of-a-preacher-man verboseness in the first texts, he is always very clear and goes to the point, pretty assured of what he needs to say and he says it. A great deal of these texts concerns the racial question, which he calls the white problem since it was created by the whites living in the "Republic of America" and not by the black people themselves. People are not commodities. "I'm not a nigger, I'm a man".

It comes with no surprise that the same old problems arise to this very day in countries like the USA and Brazil (the country with the second biggest black population after Nigeria). Reading this book only emphasizes it; Baldwin writes about them since the early 1940s. Communists, liberals, conservatives, religious, secular, there are no saints. And there seems to have little to no solution in view because there is no interest in it. As simple as that. It is clearly an institutionally eugenic solution that we want to close our eyes to.

Whenever, wherever one is treated as less than he or she is, then there is no ground to find a solution, simply because no man or woman shall be treated less than any other. We are a unique species and diverse ethnical and culturally. But these shall enrich each group, not enslave one to the other.

[Jeremy Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

a re-read. A meditation.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's tough to evaluate this collection, because on the one hand James Baldwin is awesome, and on the other this wasn't exactly curated, if you know what I mean. There are some really wonderful pieces here, but the nature of the work presented in The Cross of Redemption, and especially in the section devoted to essays and speeches, makes the work seem repetitive and didactic. Well, I guess James Baldwin is always going to be didactic-in-a-good-way, but because there was no organic organizing principle at work here (I mean, TCOR spans something like forty years of writing) then you're as likely to think "I don't know if you know this, James Baldwin, but there are women in the world, too" as you are to think "my, what a trenchant and depressingly relevant observation he is making here!"

If you are a completist or biographer, then by all means The Cross of Redemption is worth reading all the way through. But if you are not, then the "highlights" of this collection will be, trust me, immediately obvious by looking through the table of contents. Oh - but do read all the reviews (except the review of Eliza Kazan's novel - I am 100% certain there's a reason we haven't heard of it) because the unfavorable reviews are honestly some of the most delightfully mean things I've read.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greats of American writing

The last half of the book is more literary criticism but still worth reading if you haven't read the books he's writing about

No one writes about the deception of American culture better than him even half a century later

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Partially read. To return to.

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une collection inédites de textes de Baldwin, d'une puissance rare, comme celle qui parcourt toute son œuvre. Décrivant la réalité avec autorité, il invite à la réflexion, avertit sur notre monde déchiré qui, 50 ans plus tard, a peu évolué.
Baldwin est, hélas, toujours aussi indispensable, pour éclairer nos parts d'ombres, et nous aider à avancer.

Était-il libre ? Était-il heureux ? La question est absurde : si quelque chose n'allait pas, nous aurions certainement dû l'entendre. W. H. Auden

[Marta E C R · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not an easy book to read (I’d say it was more like I studied it), but contains so many astute statements that only James Baldwin could write. I really appreciated it, and wrote down lots of quotes as I read. Unfortunately, much of his writing is still very relevant (or perhaps even more relevant) in today’s world and especially today’s U.S. he saw things as they truly were, and never hesitated to tell those truths.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very short and long of it: Baldwin cares more about America than anyone.

[Amy Prosenjak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? I love Baldwin’s writings; I love his intellectual capacity. He wrote more on the concept of whiteness than I thought. His words are still relevant.

[Bryan Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give this five stars for the many moments of transcendent literary brilliance and historical insight that Baldwin delivers; alas, it probably deserves more like four stars as, as a book of "uncollected writings," it was always going to be somewhat uneven. The editor does a great job, however, of organizing and curating the various letters, articles, speech excerpts, reviews, etc. This book gave me so much new insight into the history that Baldwin lived through. It is shocking how much of his commentary on the state of the American experiment still holds up to this day. James Baldwin is an American icon for a reason and a piercing light that always cuts through the darkness of history to shed the kind of wisdom that can come only from a rich and well-observed lived experience.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every white person in this country-and I do not care what he or she says-knows one thing. They may not know, as they put, "what I want",but they know they would not like to be black here.
If they know that, then they know everything they need to know, and whatever else they say is a lie."

Can I give this more than 5 stars? 10?
For me, James Baldwin, more than any other writer, communicates and expresses himself in a way that is like hearing a whisper from myself. The tone, the emotion, the rhythm of his prose is harmonized with my own pulse. The words themselves seep under my skin. He is my brother. Our skin is not the same color but he is my brother.

“Now, one hears from a long time ago that "white is merely a state of mind." I add to that, white is a moral choice. It's up to you to be as white as you want to be and pay the price of that ticket. You cannot tell a black man by the color of skin, either. But this is a democracy.”

Although I have stated a very personal review in the preceding paragraph, his writing is universal, piercing, acute, and unflinching. And yes, it is also, unbearably intimate, generous and brave. His courage seeps through every line. His love, pain, rage, and despair available to all who read his work.

But mostly, Baldwin speaks to us who are willing to listen, as a Prophet. One who sees what others choose to deny or ignore. Our Cassandra. So I read his essays written in the early 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and see that nothing has changed. He was speaking to what right now, right here is happening. The truth doesn't have much currency, not then, not now. But I love him for speaking it, and in language that is like a choir of angels.

“Not a thousand years ago, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Not a thousand years ago, the Supreme Court decided that separate could not be equal. And today, as we sit here, no one is learning anything in this country. You see a nation which is the leader of the rest of the world, that had to pay the price of that ticket, and the price of that ticket is we're sitting in the most illiterate nation in the world. THE MOST ILLITERATE NATION IN THE WORLD. A monument to illiteracy. And if you doubt me, all you have to do is spend a day in Washington. I am serious as a heart attack.”

I am serious as a heart attack. My god.

Sometimes while reading these essays, I could feel the bile that was rising in his throat as he faced the hypocrisy that is white America. That he was willing to sustain that disgust and continue to speak for the dignity and freedom of every human, is gobsmackingly moving.

“The moral authority in the Western world is gone. And it is gone forever. It is gone, not because of the criminal record--everybody's record is criminal. It is gone because you cannot do one thing and pretend you're doing another! "

I recommend reading James Baldwin. Full stop. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to be a complete human being. He is clearly the answer to the old African proverb:
"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter."

James Baldwin is that Lion.

[Maggie]

60 - I mean, I walk into a room and everyone there is terribly proud of himself because I managed to get to the room. It proves to him that he is getting better. It's funny, but it's terribly sad. It's sad that one needs this kind of corroboration and it's terribly sad that one can be so self-deluded.
113 - Lorraine Hansberry to Bobby Kennedy: "But I am very worried," she said, "about the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman's neck in Birmingham."
115 Malcom: If you are a citizen, why do you have to fight for your civil rights?
"They needed us for labor and for sport. Now they can't get rid of us. We cannot be exiled and we cannot be accommodated."
183 And they were there because the life on that stage said something to them concerning their own lives. The communion between the actors and the audience was a real thing; they nourished and re-created each other. This hardly ever happens in the American theater. And this is a much more sinister fact than we would like to think.
202 I think that mankind can do better than that, and I wish to be a witness to this small and stubborn possibility.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being labeled as "bill-paying work" (Los Angeles Times), the items collected here provide an illuminating portrait of the writer and his times, but the fragmented nature of the material poses its own set of problems: several critics faulted these pieces as uneven, repetitive, and at times pompous and histrionic. Nevertheless, this wide-ranging collection underscores Baldwin's passion, intellect, and the moral force with which he lived his life. Baldwin's legacy is his writing, by which "we hit the jackpot -- all of us -- anyone interested in engaging in candid albeit stakes-changing debate, anyone who had an investment in equity, humanity and its future. We gained tremendously from the variegated prism through which he viewed and translated the world" (Los Angeles Times). This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Bob Gustafson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first work of Baldwin that I have ever read. It was a poor first choice. I had heard Baldwin speak in interviews and had read a lot about him. It was time that I read what he had written. As the title suggests, this is a collection of works not previously included in other anthologies, and therefore the least good, but still very good, which means that I should put works like "Native Son" on my reading list.

A sad part about reading the works from the 1960's and 1970's, is that they could have been written last night with the names changed.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clarity of Baldwin's writing is still undiluted, and his frankness and economy of words refreshing. And, sadly or no, he remains timely.

This is mainly a collection of works unlike most, where there are collections of things he wrote about sport and about other things than the Black condition. Evocative, very interesting, and frank in his use of words, this is a must for anyone who wants to read the man as a more rounded writer than just a few of his books.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for my thesis too late into the game, and if I had a chance to do it over again I would definitely write a thesis on Baldwin.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Baldwin was an extraordinary writer. There is nothing better than reading his works.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! Baldwin had such a gift for writing and an amazingly deep well of eloquence and strength. This is my second book of his, and it just increases my respect and admiration for his talents.
This book clearly shows Baldwin's range with what is presented. Only one selection - the final short story - is fiction, the remainder are essays, book reviews, letters, and speeches. I was amazed at the surety and erudition (and harshness!) of the book reviews, as they were written when he was barely into his 20's. Some have said his talent was otherworldly and just sprang into being, and while I can agree with the former, I feel the latter diminishes the struggle of Baldwin's work, and his supreme attention to writing to whatever was happening in the world, adapting as he grew older and more "of the world", more famous, and more worn down by the racism and lies of the USofA. Baldwin never stopped being an activist, he wrote scathing pieces, continually, about the horrible treatment of the Black Man in America and how racism and White Supremacy said less about the Black Man as inferior and more about the White Man's insecurities. He fully believed there is no such thing as race, but the White Man, specifically the American White Man, created the Black Man when he brought slaves to the "New World" (yes, he speaks on THAT notion too...) and needed some way to justify/rationalize human bondage with "White christianity" (yep, he writes about THAT too...). Baldwin is at his best in the selections when he tears apart the lies and suppositions America was built upon, never wavering from his insistence the re is no "Negro Problem", it is a White Man problem. Baldwin is an intellectual, not just an amazing writer, and he uses his skills to pull you in and truly understand, as much as possible, how we got where we are and how we might be able to get back out. It is sad for me that these same things could be written right now, in 2020, and it would be impossible to disagree with him, still. America is racist to its core, and for Baldwin, this presages the end of things if it is not remedied.
Yes, I could go on and on about how much I LOVE Baldwin's writings, and, more importantly for me, how much I share his attitudes and beliefs about the fucked up idea of "America" and all the ideals it supposedly stands for. Lies, lies, all damned lies. I love how intelligently he argues his points, and how beautifully he states them.
Highest possible recommendation, though I would probably not read this book as an introduction to Baldwin, though his talents are in full bloom throughout. Baldwin the Man is part of all of his writing, but some readers may enjoy how he utilizes his talents in his fiction, as that allows them a buffer of make-believe when the hard truths of his characters' lives are laid bare.

[Jane Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drawing inspiration from the GOAT again, and my thoughts are all over the place.

This book, as any non-fiction that I've read of Baldwin, has once again provided me with the space to reflect upon myself.

Growing up is the process of seeing, understanding, and resisting what lies the society has told and is continuing to tell about you. It is realizing that the world does not live by the standards (whether for success or beauty or intimate relationships) that have victimized you for the longest time.

It took being in solitude during college to make me realize how the popular kids at high school do not define what is ‘cool’ or ‘lame’. It took standing on my own two feet and being away from my parents to make me fully comprehend how I am not the unambitious, simple-minded, obedient and selfish child that my parents made me believe. It took three years of navigating an intimate relationship with a person for me to thoroughly understand what works out for you is entirely between you and that significant other, and not whatever the society deems as the norm. It took bearing witness to friends struggling with depression and coping in their own time and pace to make me realize that life is not a race to ‘graduate by 22’, ‘get married by 25’, or ‘have children by 30’.

And though Baldwin was debating on matters relating to racial injustice in America when he spoke of everyone eventually having to "pay our dues", its truthfulness resonates deeply with me as I deal with, or try to deal with, my personal issues of growing up.

Perhaps what I really want to figure out is the mighty question of “Who am I?” And this question is so hard to answer that most of us resign to answering instead: “Who I am certainly not”, or “Who I hate to be”. The reason I think this is dangerous, is that when I turn to answer those questions, I am denying the possibility of the coward in me that would very likely surface when I am driven to the edge of despair. I cannot say "I am certainly not a thief/bully/oppressor", because I could very well be that person someday, if I’m ignorant enough to deny my cowardice and all the other vices of human nature. It is the same logic as when Baldwin wrote “I do not become better by making another worse”. It is not right to justify oneself by degrading others. Creating yourself does not necessarily require creating an enemy.

Now back to the question of “Who am I”. I am an individual who is seeking for happiness in life. I want to have real human connections, I seek out to love and be loved, hear and be heard, see and be seen, forgive and be forgiven. I hope to survive out of this life, to have my theories perpetually tested against all the possibilities in life, and however painful it may be, to make an effort and change my ways when I am proven wrong.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldn't start here with Baldwin--the collection of material into chronological essays, profiles, letters, book reviews, and a short story keeps the book from having the unified power of The Fire Next Time or Notes of a Native Son. And I will say that Baldwin's conscious effort to replicate the rhythms of jazz in his late '60s and '70s essays (in particular) is harder to follow and (I would argue) less powerful than his earlier writing--even the book reviews from the '40s hit more directly than (for example) his essay "The Uses of the Blues"--to my mind, that is. What do I know?

But on the other hand, this is a brilliant book full of indispensable thinking. Even an essay that seems (to me) not to gel will have a passage, or a paragraph, or a sentence that knocks you over. And most of these pieces have much more than that. My favorite things in the book are the very late (1987) essay, "To Crush a Serpent"; the very early (1950) story "The Death of a Prophet"; and the 1963 profile of Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson. And my favorite quotes are everywhere:

People who have had no experience suppose that if a man is a thief, he is a thief; but, in fact, that isn't the most important thing about him. The most important thing about him is that he is a man, and, furthermore, if he's a thief or a murderer or whatever he is, you could also be.... ("The Uses of the Blues")

...and I, of course, since I had forced myself to expect so much more, found it very difficult to forgive them for the nightmares of tolerance I endured at their hands. ("Review of Views of a Nearsighted Cannoneer by Seymour Krim")

It is neither a politic nor a popular thing to say, but a black man facing a white man becomes at once contemptuous and resentful when he finds himself looked upon as a moral problem for that white man's conscience. ("Review of Color and Conscience by Buell G. Gallagher.")

...it is worth observing that whereas Americans profess not to know what the Negro wants, they always know what to promise him whenever they need his body. ("Review of The Negro in New York edited by Roi Ottley and William J. Weatherby")

But rarely is the Prisoner someone who has managed to embezzle, say, two or three million dollars. Rarely is it someone who has managed to bankrupt the public trust: rare and spectacular it is that the Prisoner has been dragged from the seats of power. ("This Far and No Further')


Read James Baldwin.

[Adam Bregman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one has interest in James Baldwin's take on civil rights and racism, this posthumous collection has as much fury and passion as any of the collections that came out when he was alive. Some of the essays are for forgotten political publications and in these Baldwin rips into racist America like Malcolm X. However, the most staggering essay, one of his masterpieces, is As Much Truth as One Can Bear, perhaps the definitive piece about American literature, originally published in the New York Times. I read it twice. Some important writer may have penned something comparable on the subject, but I'm not aware. Also, I'm don't know if it was published in any of the other essay collections that came out when Baldwin was living, so read it in this book or online.

I'm giving this collection four stars (four and a half), rather than five, because there is a fair amount of repetition and there are some pieces that Baldwin would likely have wanted forgotten. Another section, though, that is Baldwin writing unsparingly are the book reviews, most of which were published before his first novel. In a style that doesn't much exist anymore, Baldwin's reviews are harsh, like Oscar Wilde's, but without the sarcasm. He calls one writer's work "repellent." It's not until much later, when Baldwin is a well-known author that he writes positive reviews including one of a novel, The Arrangement, by his friend, the director, Elia Kazan. Both the scathing and the glowing reviews are Baldwin just going off, not at all your typical book reviews. The introduction to this collection by Randall Kenan, who is also the editor, is worthy of the author.

I may be reading too much into them, but in the short letters section, it seemed to me that perhaps Baldwin was coming up with multiple excuses not to go to Africa, as he was writing from Europe. It feels like it was something expected of him and he had some unspoken trepidation. I imagine he went, but I haven't read any biographies, so I'm not sure.

[Jonathan Krauss · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are very cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are. And we cannot possibly become what we would like to be until we are willing to ask ourselves just why the lives we lead on this continent are mainly so empty, so tame, and so ugly.”
“You must decide all over again whether you want to be famous or whether you want to write. And the two things, in spite of all the evidence, have nothing whatever in common.”
“We were not transformed when we crossed the ocean. Something else happened. Something much more serious. We no longer had any way of finding out, of knowing who we were.”
“The bulk of this country’s white population impresses me, and has so impressed me for a very long time, as being beyond any conceivable hope of moral rehabilitation. They have been white, if I may so put it, too long; they have been married to the lie of white supremacy too long; the effect on their personalities, their lives, their grasp of reality, has been as devastating as the lava which so memorably immobilized the citizens of Pompeii.”

“It is impossible to claim salvation and also believe that, in this life or in any life to come, one is better than another.”
“I think that America may be the most dangerous country in the world for artists…the nature of the society isolates its artists so severely for their vision; penalizes them so mercilessly for their vision and endeavor; and the American forms of recognition, fame and money, can be the most devastating penalty of all.”

[Fahad Qazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are the generation that must throw everything into the endeavor to remake America into what we say we want it to be. Without this endeavor, we will perish. However immoral or subversive this may sound to some, it is the writer who must always remember that morality, if it is to remain or become morality, must be perpetually examined, cracked, changed, made new. He must remember, however powerful the many who would rather forget, that life is the only touchstone and that life is dangerous, and that without the joyful acceptance of this danger, there can never be any safety for anyone, ever, anywhere.
What the writer is always trying to do is utilize the particular in order to reveal something much larger and heavier than any particular can be. Thus Dostoevsky, in The Possessed, used a small provincial town in order to dramatize the spiritual state of Russia. His particulars were not very attractive, but he did not invent them, he simply used what there was. Our particulars are not very attractive, either, but we must use them. They will not go away because we pretend that they are not there.
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced. The principal fact that we must now face, and that a handful of writers are trying to dramatize, is that the time has now come for us to turn our backs forever on the big two-hearted river.”

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of essays and book reviews with plenty of Baldwin’s prowess as a writer on display. I didn’t always agree with his analysis (he is certainly not correct that Jews didn’t believe in their religion in 1961!) and given the wide range of topics, probably most people will find things both to agree and disagree with in this collection. However, I usually find Baldwin a deep thinker — on race, religion (the essay “To Crush a Serpent” was brilliant) or any other topic he tackled.

I recommend reading this a few essays at a time so as to absorb them properly, rather than trying to read the book straight through in a few days.

Brilliant final sentence from book review of “Best Short Stories by Maxim Gorky” in 1947:

If literature is not to drop completely to the intellectual and moral level of the daily papers, we must recognize the need for further and honest exploration of those provinces, the human heart and mind, which have operated, historically and now, as the no-man’s-land between us and our salvation.

An incredible roast in the review of “The Moth by James M. Cain” 1948:

Not only did he have nothing to say, but he drooled, so to speak, as he said it.

I’m always impressed at how sharp James Baldwin was from his earliest days as a writer.