Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Posted on November 14, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Notes of a Native Son is a 1955 collection of James Baldwin’s essays and articles, all previously published elsewhere as I understand it. Their subjects range over books, movies, personal history, and social commentary; what each piece has in common is a consideration of race relations in the United States. He is concerned with the American “Negro” (this is no longer considered the right word, but I’m tempted to use it here, because he did) and the relationships amongst Americans, white and black. A persistent question he ponders is that of the black man’s search for identity in a nation that variously rejects him, resents him, or feels guilt over its treatment of him, made more difficult by the loss of his own personal history pre-slavery.

There are some heavy bits here, unsurprisingly. While not exactly academic, some of it is definitely on the philosophic side of things. When Baldwin dives deeply into literary criticism, he loses me (I guess I’m rusty on literary criticism; I used to find such articles much easier to read!): “Everybody’s Protest Novel” and “Many Thousands Gone” nearly made me quit the collection. In “Carmen Jones: The Dark Is Light Enough,” he discusses a movie, and actors, so unfamiliar to me that I was only reading on the surface – where I rather enjoyed the essay, it is true, but where I certainly failed to understand fully what he had to say. On the other hand, “The Harlem Ghetto” struck me as intelligent, occasionally amusing, and relevant today. And as you know, I am always thrilled to make connections across seemingly unrelated books I’ve read or historical figures I’ve studied. Before I was halfway through this book, I’d seen mention of Lillian Hellman (see a recent biography, one of my favorite books of the year) and the Patterson family (another), not to mention of course threads that take me back to The Warmth of Other Suns, which is how I got to this book in the first place. Ah, the circularity of things: it amazes and thrills me.

My favorite pieces in this collection were the autobiographical ones. I like Baldwin’s voice very much: he is wry and funny even when discussing the serious and the tragic. And I was most interested in learning more about him. My edition begins with a “Preface to the 1984 Edition” followed by “Autobiographical Notes,” both of which set the bar high. The titular essay comes about midway through and is also excellent. But my very favorites were the last two. “Equal in Paris” relates Baldwin’s experience being arrested in Paris and tried for possessing a bedsheet from the wrong hotel. It was hilarious, and ended chillingly. And “Stranger in the Village” covers his time spent in a tiny Swiss village where the residents had never seen a black man before, and is where I felt he made his most sweeping and hopeful statements about our present and our future. It was tragic, but forward-looking.

I really enjoyed Notes of a Native Son, although there were a few moments where I got bogged down. Baldwin’s voice charmed me. I recommend him.

Rating: 7 blocks in Harlem.

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Teaser Tuesdays: On Extinction by Melanie Challenger

Posted on November 13, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

On Extinction has been out in the UK for a year or so now, but is just coming to the US in December. Its subjects are several, but I find the nature writing to be some of the loveliest parts.

Above me, the skies were blue but for the tightrope of the horizon balancing a giant rhombus-shaped raincloud. The scuffing of the waves across the riveted stone of the cove was like a dare.

Don’t you agree?

And what did the waves dare her to do? Stay tuned!

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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selected quotations from Walden, with a qualification

Posted on November 12, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a highly quotable and oft-quoted book. I found myself marking passages rather more often than usual, sometimes because I was charmed and wanted to share a line with you later, and sometimes because I noted the origin of a maxim I was familiar with, whose author I hadn’t known before. I’ve already reviewed Walden, and now I want to share a selection of quotations with you too. But first, a qualification.

A friend & coworker sent me this article, which chiefly makes the point that Thoreau was a very complicated man who wore many hats (figuratively. who knows, maybe literally as well). The author notes the danger of quoting Thoreau: so many people know him through his reputation and these handpicked quotations, while rather few have read his work; and his work being so many things at once, so contradictory, handpicked quotations can be a dangerous tool. In other words, many of us may be thrown off by the quotations alone without reading the work. I’ve now read Walden, but the man was so terrifically prolific that I am hardly any closer to knowing Thoreau than I was before! So, fair warning. But I will now share my quotations just the same.

In order of their appearance (page numbers come from my pocket-sized red Barnes & Noble Collector’s Library edition). The book opens:

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbour, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labour of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilised life again. (7)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. (12)

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. (28)

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. (42)

…a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (88)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (98)

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. (98)

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. (98)

My house never pleased my eye so much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it was more comfortable. (256)

The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. (269)

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness – to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. (334)

I will not try to improve upon this. Good day.

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movie: The Shining (1980)

Posted on November 9, 2012 by pagesofjulia

The 1977 novel by Stephen King which I just reviewed was made into a movie by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. Husband and I planned to watch it on Halloween (as I’d just finished the book) but we couldn’t even wait that long.

I struggle to retain a little perspective as I write this review. I loved the book very much. Movies made from books are often disappointing, and I keep reminding myself, this is not because they are less good, only different. The format requires that they compress the action, often curtailing development of characters and plot, to fit into two hours or so. Interior thoughts and motivations are often lost (see recent discussion). None of which means that movies can’t be good; they just can’t be books.

As you’re already gathering, this movie disappointed me in that it wasn’t just like the book. In fact, they have relatively little in common. Both are about the Torrance family: Jack, Wendy, and Danny. Jack is still a recovering alcoholic, still takes the caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel. Dick Hallorann still befriends Danny, although their friendship is much less profound. My first great let-down was in Hallorann: I found him sort of bumbling in the movie, less developed, certainly less capable and fun, less someone I want to hang out with. For that matter, my earliest warning was in the character of Ullman, the hotel manager: a real creep in the book, he was an oily but not exceptionally unpleasant nonentity in the movie… I guess these are the sacrifices we make to time restraints. And of course, the monsters are reduced in number and in detail, again presumably because of the time limitations. Most damningly, a certain key character meets an entirely different ending in the movie, which I have a hard time forgiving. I have to keep reminding myself, these are different stories.

But the real departure from book to movie, it seems to me, is in the source of the evil. As I noted, in the book, Jack is an essentially good – flawed, but human – man, husband, and father. The Overlook Hotel is an evil entity that preys upon his weaknesses and takes him over. Jack as man is redeemed somewhat. In the movie, though, Jack goes insane and tries to kill his wife and child. No redemption there.

But how was the movie as just a movie, without these unrealistic comparisons to the book? Okay, I’m trying. As a movie it was indeed spooky. It created atmosphere. The scenes with Danny riding his Big Wheel through the halls alone were powerful. For that matter, the images were all powerful – and absolutely iconic today. (I could have identified all of the images in this post for you before I saw the movie. And I am a pop culture dunce.) Stanley Kubrick did his Stanley Kubrick thing. I think it would have been an enjoyable and impactful movie experience, had I seen it first. Clearly, however, the book ruined me for it. Which is so often the case. However, I also think that the movie would have ruined me for the book. Scatman Crothers’ portrayal of Hallorann was not at all what I’d pictured, and I like my conception of him better. So there’s a conundrum. If you have to pick one format, kids, I recommend the book.

Rating: 5 advantages taken.

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Massachusetts and Vermont travel report

Posted on November 8, 2012 by pagesofjulia

I shall try to keep this brief for you; but I want to at least list the things I saw and did on my trip up north in late October. With pictures.

I flew to Boston on a Friday night after work to join my parents where they were house-sitting for a month in a lovely home belonging to family in Concord. We spent Saturday in Boston, walking the Freedom Trail there, which exhibits historical landmarks like cemeteries, churches, and monuments (and starts and finishes in Boston Common – lovely). We had lobster for lunch (out) and swordfish for dinner (in) and it was an exhausting, but exciting, first day.

greenhouse in our Concord home


Granary Burying Ground in Boston


Sunday we spent in the Concord area, starting with Walden Pond, which was lovely – you will recall a picture I posted recently. We took a sampling of the Concord town sights, including the Concord Museum, the Emerson House, the Wayside, and the Orchard House. Clearly this was a breakneck pace, less than ideal to take everything in. The guided tour my mother and I took at the Wayside was great and I recommend it; hopefully the others offered similar quality but I didn’t have the time to explore.

Thoreau’s cabin site at Walden Pond


Monday we drove to Salem to see a few sites related to Nathaniel Hawthorne: the Custom House (of The Scarlet Letter) and the House of the Seven Gables (of the novel of the same name). We also visited the Witch Trials Memorial, a sober reminder of the history of this town, which was overrun in late October with plasticky, touristy, “fun” witchiness which was a little less respectful, methinks.

statue of Nathaniel Hawthorne in Salem


And later in the day, Pops and I headed back into Boston for a quick pub tour. He had it narrowed down for me to a favorite three, and I may as well give them the free advertising here for what it’s worth. We started and finished at Redbones, a barbecue (!) spot with great beers and a comfy atmosphere. I would like to have that place within walking distance. The beers at John Harvard’s were good, not world-class, but it was in a neighborhood I had to see. And the Druid seemed a fine example of the Irish pub I’d been hunting – and Pops is still raving about the oxtail soup.

I was scheduled to head to Vermont on Tuesday – Pops driving me up there, isn’t he a peach – but we took the morning first to revisit the Battleground Road between Lexington and Concord, again at a faster-than-ideal pace. We had stopped off at the Old North Bridge, where the American Revolutionary War began, on Sunday evening. It made an impression. And we had glimpsed the Old Manse from without – I regret not finding time for a tour of the interior. Now we visited a few stops along the Battleground Road (think Paul Revere, “the British are coming”).

statue of a colonial soldier at the Old North Bridge: they put down their plows and they took up their muskets…


And then we started out for Vermont, where Pops had time for a short walk with Molly & her family & I before he headed back to Concord. Bye, Pops.

Wednesday I had a fairly lazy day on the farm in Vermont, which felt well-deserved after the busy days in Massachusetts. I was reuniting with my old friend Molly, who moved here with her husband and new baby this summer, and is now just 100 yards away from her parents.

Molly and I on the deck


Thursday we took a hike up nearby Whiteface Mountain…

green and mossy


And Friday was mostly another lazy day. I held a baby.

look how he’s grown!


And Saturday was a full travel day Houston-bound. Happy to be home, as always! I missed Husband and the dogs, and they missed me. But I also miss those lovely views.

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The Shining by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on November 7, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Another masterpiece by Stephen King! Probably my favorite yet. Spellbinding.

I suspect the storyline of The Shining is familiar to us all, so I will sketch it very briefly. Jack Torrance is a recovering alcoholic; his family has been made unstable, financially and otherwise, by his drinking. He takes a job at the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado mountains as winter caretaker, which involves moving his wife Wendy and son Danny in for some 6 months, for most of which they will be snowbound and cut off from the world. Danny has a unique gift for seeing things: the past, the future, dead people. The Overlook has a uniquely grotesque history.

The Shining is a masterful book in several ways. Perhaps the most obvious is the atmosphere: King’s pacing, building of tension as the story unfolds, and foreshadowing, are precisely designed to spook his reader. Danny’s gift – his “shine” – provides the perfect vehicle for this foreshadowing. The character development is finely done as well. Jack is a conflicted character; he loves his wife and son and wants to do well by them, but he battles inner demons, particularly alcoholism, and this internal conflict is well done. He feels like a real person. Wendy, too, struggles with what’s right for her family; she has considered leaving Jack before and continues to deliberate. And Danny is a sweet child, not inappropriately aged (the way gifted children sometimes are in fiction) – at least not to my limited childless knowledge. He can see more than he can understand.

The hotel has a will of its own and is a character unto itself. Place, or building, as willful force of evil is a device we’ve encountered before, Rebecca being one of the best examples. The Overlook is another. I love how Jack’s research into the hotel’s history seems to feed its power to harass him. I love that the Overlook preys on Jack’s weaknesses. It is truly, deeply creepy in the most delicious way.

And while we’re discussing characters – how about my very favorite, the hotel’s summertime cook, Dick Hallorann? Hallorann befriends Danny, shares his strange gift (although it shines more strongly in Danny), puts the name “the shining” to it for him, and comes to the family’s aid late in the book. Dick is a lovely, colorful character, full of personality and, again, very human conflicts. I like him very much.

The Overlook Hotel’s evil finds an outlet through Jack Torrance. His struggle with alcoholism and growing cabin fever make him a good target; but it remains clear that Jack is an essentially good man. Even in the worst of times, he experiences some personal growth. Wendy, too, learns about her son and their relationship is left looking stronger than ever as the story comes to a close.

I found this book exciting; suspenseful; rich; engaging; filled with people I cared about. Oh, and the audio! Campbell Scott’s narration is divine. I loved his voices for all the characters, and he contributed significantly to the atmosphere which is probably The Shining‘s finest quality. If you haven’t enjoyed this book yet, I strongly recommend that you get the audio book read by Campbell Scott if at all possible! This has been one of my most enjoyable audio reads this year to date.

Rating: 8 roque mallets.

Movie review to come. Briefly: not as good as the book (who’s surprised?), and really only vaguely related to it. EDIT: movie review here.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Posted on November 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

In this striking collection of essays by James Baldwin, I found several noteworthy passages, truths, maxims; but I chose this one especially for you, because of its unique and arresting imagery. He’s describing various categories, by age, of the inmates he encounters in a Parisian prison.

And men not so old, with faces the color of lead and the consistency of oatmeal, eyes that made me think of stale cafe-au-lait spiked with arsenic, bodies which could take in food and water – any food and water – and pass it out, but which could not do anything more, except possibly, at midnight, along the riverbank where rats scurried, rape.

If that doesn’t paint a picture and send a shiver up you, I don’t know what to say.

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Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Posted on November 5, 2012 by pagesofjulia

my charming little copy of Walden


I have been thinking this review over carefully. Walden is an “important” book. I had some troubles with it, particularly about midway through, when I stalled for several days and was sure I was going to give up. This was while visiting Concord and Walden Pond, no less! I think I owe my father credit: he recommended that I just read it through, with less attention to note-taking and interpretation at every page along the way. And on my long travel day home, I got back into it.

What is it that made this book a little difficult for me? Well, the language is somewhat dated, and the sentences tend to be long and rambling. Picture several long clauses strung together, and then having to look back up half a page to see what the subject was that this verb, finally, is acting upon. That will slow a person down. And the subject matter, the thoughts being communicated, are often quite dense. When Thoreau writes descriptions of his natural surroundings, I can settle into the imagery and the poetry, and float along pleasantly. But when he philosophizes, I am often in trouble. Large ideas are presented here, regarding our relationship with the natural world, politics, and religion. Thoreau jumps around between these subjects. Perhaps this begins to help you understand my trouble.

The first chapter, “Economy,” is lengthy. In my edition it occupies 80 pages, of 350. And no later chapter runs longer than 20 pages. I enjoyed “Economy”: I sympathize with the points Thoreau makes therein. But maybe I was wearied by it. It wasn’t until 200+ pages that I stalled badly. And once I got back into it, I enjoyed it again. I can’t entirely explain that pattern, and I’m sure yours was/will be different. I think the biggest help I got was visiting Walden Pond. This is obvious, no? When my mother and I toured The Wayside, our park ranger/tour guide quoted Nathaniel Hawthorne (and I wish I could find the quotation) on visiting authors’ homes. The gist was that visiting the home of an author is the best way to better understand his or her work, and my (limited) experience visiting authors’ homes certainly backs this up. In this way, walking around Walden Pond enriched my appreciation of Walden and renewed my interest in it.

Walden is a memoir; a political tract; a geographical study; a fine piece of nature writing; and a poetic rambling by a unique sort of Renaissance man. I found it rather effortful reading, but worth it in the end. For those who enjoy thought-provoking, challenging, lyrical writings (and longish sentences), it should be a big hit. For those who find these characteristics a little daunting, but are interested in the legacy of Henry David Thoreau, I recommend giving it a go just the same. I’m glad I did. And go see the place in question if you can, too!

Rating: 6 fallen leaves.

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movie: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Posted on November 2, 2012 by pagesofjulia

In case you haven’t been around here much, I’m not a big movie watcher. I didn’t watch a lot of tv as a kid; am not real strong on pop culture; and horror movies were never my top choice. Also, my parents hadn’t yet met in 1968. So this movie was altogether new to me when Husband and I sat down on Halloween and watched Night of the Living Dead, the original 1968 black and white movie in which a group of strangers gathers in a farmhouse to defend themselves against …we would now call them zombies, although that term isn’t used in the film. In the film, they’re called ‘ghouls.’

Barbra


In the opening scene, Barbra and her brother Johnny are visiting their father’s grave (and Johnny’s being a real pill about it, by the way) when a ghoul approaches and… goodbye Johnny. Barbra runs to a farmhouse, chased by the undead, and holes up, soon to be joined by a stranger named Ben. Ben keeps his calm and has a plan to board up and defend the farmhouse, while Barbra becomes hysterical and then catatonic. It turns out that they have company: another group of frightened (living) people were already hiding in the basement. There’s a young couple, and an older married couple with an injured daughter. The movie covers just the one night, in which the zombies, I mean ghouls, mill about outside and the people inside make plans to escape. The radio and television inform them that there is an epidemic of ghouls ravaging the country, killing people and eating them.

‘ghouls’


Cinematographically, this film struck me favorably. I am no student of this art form, especially in black and white, but the few black and white films I’ve seen have impressed me with their use of light and shadow – necessarily, since that’s the big visual contrast they have to work with. Certain aspects of the movie were woefully dated: pacing is always the first I notice with older movies, since we have such short attention spans these days; the dialog felt stilted and abrupt; the acting was overly dramatic; and can I just gripe about Barbra for a moment? What a worthless weak female figure, and how disgusting is that? I imagine her portrayal took some heat in 1968, too! But just as I started to scoff at these faults, I’d jump in my seat. Despite the dated aspects, that fine use of light & dark and the suspense, the surprises, and let me say, the terror of the undead eating people is still scary. I can see why this movie was a hit and why it still draws a following. I can see why some consider it a classic.

yep. still scary


I do have one final complaint, relating to how the movie ends. I won’t articulate it here, in case you want to go discover it yourself. I will only say, I have a certain James Dean movie in mind, which did it better.

I enjoyed this movie far more than I expected to at about 20 minutes in. Touché, old movies. Happy Halloween.

Rating: 6 groans ‘n’ moans.

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The Longest Race: A Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance by Ed Ayres

Posted on November 1, 2012 by pagesofjulia

An ultramarathon, run by a master of the sport, becomes a metaphor for the race for human sustainability we are all running.

Ed Ayres has been running competitively for more than half a century. On a professional basis, he’s also studied climate change, sustainability and a variety of issues facing the future of the human race and our planet. The Longest Race is the story of his 2001 run at the JFK 50 Mile, the United States’ oldest ultramarathon. As Ayres attempts, at age 60, to set a new age-group course record, he contemplates the relationship of human endurance to the sustainability of human life in a fast-changing world.

Ayres’s recollections a decade later are heavy on metaphor. The ultramarathon is a symbol not just for his life, but for any man or woman’s life, and ultimately for the lifespan of humanity. The attributes that work toward sustainability at an individual level are equally valuable in a large society, Ayres says, and today’s “sprint culture” would do well to reconsider the concept of pacing. He also touches on the atom bomb, human evolution, the U.S. crisis in physical fitness and the reasons for following a vegetarian diet. But for all its peripatetic allegory, The Longest Race is always the story of one epic 50-mile race in all its technical and visceral elements, and also a celebration of the sport of running and of our ability to keep running in changing times. For those readers inspired by his story, the appendix offers practical advice to the aspiring ultrarunner.

This review originally ran in the October 19, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 miles to go.

EDIT: See also my father’s glowing review of same.

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