James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room
Here's a cracking re-evaluation of Giovanni's Room, Baldwin's classic novel set in France. Caused something of a rumpus when it was published. Harpreet Singh Soorae, the latest recruit to Spike's legion of stalwart reviewers, explains why. Welcome on board Harpreet!
I wrote my MA dissertation on James Baldwin, so he has a special place in my heart. It was also sparked my first author interview, having a conversation with Baldwin's affable biographer James Campbell. Baldwin was a terrifically uneven writer - some of his later novels are intensely turgid - but essay wise, he was amazing. I recommend his collected writings, "The Price Of The Ticket" and, of course, "The Fire Next Time", which is a vital book - and short, too. What's peculiar about Baldwin is that during the 60s he was hugely visible in the States, almost on a par with Martin Luther King: The Fire Next Time was a massive bestseller and Baldwin an acknowledged force for social change. By the 90s, when I was writing my dissertation, Baldwin's impact had almost wholly disappeared from view: he was not a writer often cited as either a significant figure in American or Afro-American literature. I found this deeply bizarre and my dissertation attempted to reinvestigate his work and reinvigorate wider interest in it. It failed, frankly, broken under its own weight of awkward prose and acquiesence to critical theory. But its central premise - and the theme of Baldwin's work that kept resurfacing again and again, for all his outward attempts to disassociate himself from it - was that for all the differences that divide us (racial, sexual, cultural, religious) there are eternal and immutable similarities which would draw us far closer if we recognised them.
Sadly all my Baldwin books are in Plymouth, six thousand miles away. Now I've written that, I'd like to go and leaf through them again.
More on James Baldwin:
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I like Splinters, and the overhaul of it in general, but why do you only show the last five entries? It’s intensely annoying for anyone who doesn’t drop in every day or so to find unread entries linked to singly at the foot of the page.
Yeah, Chris, I think we could safely triple the amount of messages. Especially now that it’s not just you and Steve going the posting…
BTW, I have a teeny tiny dyslexic problem: Ds become Gs, and vice versa.
“going the posting”…
Dog gamn!
It’s only 5 posts because otherwise the page gets very loooong.
You could subscribe by RSS. Or you could subscribe by email (http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/splinters_blog/) ( I really need to promote that more)
Or you could come back every day…
What does everyone else think? Do you want 10 entries on the front page? It can be done with the flick of a switch…
I say yay. I don`t think ten entries is too long.
I’ve been a woolly liberal and compromised on 8. Nice.
The third way! A dangerous precedent….No having looked through I think eight is exactly right, gor blessyer squire
It’s heartening – and a little spooky – that swopping to Blogger comments engenders the longest conversations we’ve had here for years. I don’t want to write any more posts for fear of pushing these comments off the page!
You too?