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Sasha's Reviews > Go Tell It on the Mountain
Go Tell It on the Mountain
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It's been 70 years since the mighty James Baldwin published this, his first and most autobiographical novel, and its audacity is still shocking. Baldwin sets himself here to argue with God Himself, to come to terms with God as a black man and as a guy who also sortof wants to wrestle shirtless with his fellow youth pastor. He comes out on top - God shouldn't have messed with James Baldwin - becoming a successful Pentecostal Minister while still in his teens and then abandoning God altogether when he's just 17. This book doesn't cover that part, though - this is the debate itself.
It's unmistakably gay, but that's not the main point. Baldwin's next novel, Giovanni's Room, is more explicitly about gay love; of course it caused a total ruckus when it came out in 1956, and it's my favorite of his books.
Baldwin is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Here, he's already in full control of his story and his prose. His climactic awakening is one of the great visions of God ever put down, which is sortof funny considering that he'd already stopped believing when he wrote it. His clarity about the characters of his family - particularly his shitty, abusive, hypocritical stepfather - is brilliant.
Baldwin was ahead of his time - he's still ahead of this time - and look, I'm not saying he's the best writer of the 20th century. I'm just saying there isn't anyone better.
It's unmistakably gay, but that's not the main point. Baldwin's next novel, Giovanni's Room, is more explicitly about gay love; of course it caused a total ruckus when it came out in 1956, and it's my favorite of his books.
Baldwin is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Here, he's already in full control of his story and his prose. His climactic awakening is one of the great visions of God ever put down, which is sortof funny considering that he'd already stopped believing when he wrote it. His clarity about the characters of his family - particularly his shitty, abusive, hypocritical stepfather - is brilliant.
Baldwin was ahead of his time - he's still ahead of this time - and look, I'm not saying he's the best writer of the 20th century. I'm just saying there isn't anyone better.
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Reading Progress
March 23, 2017
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Started Reading
March 23, 2017
– Shelved
March 27, 2017
– Shelved as:
2017
March 27, 2017
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Finished Reading
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Jenni
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rated it 4 stars
Apr 03, 2017 04:20PM
Your review got me to pick up this book (which, btw, happens not infrequently) and I am LOVING it.
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Oh wow, that makes me feel good. Thanks, Jenni!
Alex, I enjoyed your commentary on the early Baldwin novel. However, I don't recall noticing a pronounced indication that the main character was gay, though of course Baldwin was. Rather, I felt that the boy in the story was still attempting to put himself into a context that differed from his father, breaking away from family, neighborhood & even the black community as he knew it early on. It is a remarkable book! Bill
Thanks for the feedback, Quo! I agree that the gayness wasn't front and center, but I did think there were a couple passages about that fellow youth pastor that are pretty hard to explain any other way.
You are probably correct about some of the passages, with Baldwin's main character in the novel still "in transition" as it were, still coming to grips with who he was as a person. I think that James Baldwin almost always felt like an outsider, within his own family, the African-American community & elsewhere, though perhaps less so in Paris. Perhaps this provided him with a perspective on life he might not otherwise have had & caused him to write in the way he did. Bill
