Another Country – James Baldwin
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: [from the dustjacket] Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, “Another Country” is a novel of passions — sexual, racial, political, artistic — that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, Blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.
Expectation: A gorgeously written astute commentary of mid-century American life.
Reality: All of the above, but incredibly depressing and a tad too long.
Recommended For: Fans of recent classics and those discovering James Baldwin later in life (like me).
Why I Read It: The author’s “Giovanni’s Room” was my favorite read of 2020 and I was ready to take another journey with him.
My Take:
I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed “Another Country,” mainly because not a single character is sympathetic — except maybe Yves, and you worry the other characters will destroy him — but I never thought about not finishing it, because James Baldwin was a master of his craft, and the whole intention of this book was to challenge and disrupt.
Mission accomplished.
Unabashedly bold, emotionally raw and frequently crass, Baldwin doesn’t pull any punches in how he presents an America on the cusp of revolution, both racially and sexually.
It’s still jarring to read some of the language today, so imagine what it was like in 1962. Baldwin exposed situations and conversations that were largely taboo and relegated to closed doors and hushed conversations — multiracial relationships, homosexuality, adultery, feminism, racism and police brutality.
Told in three parts, he masterfully draws parallels between each of the six main characters’ lives and experiences, purposely juxtaposing views to keep the reader off-balance.
In this booze-soaked New York City, everyone is looking for atonement for their sins, but without putting in the work to do so. I found all the characters — Rufus, Vivaldo, Cass, Richard, Eric and Ida — to be morally corrupt, but also, largely, victims of circumstance – some of their own making and some not.
Even not being able to root for a character, I was oddly intoxicated by the story, because of Baldwin’s writing. Still, the novel began to feel too long, and near the end I grew tired with some of the author’s flourishes (for example, a whole page of text was one long sentence with every form of punctuation imaginable).
There are few writers that can so expertly use words as weapons of love and hate as well as Baldwin and reading how he observed the world is always worth the time. Here are three sentences that stuck with me:
“It’s not possible to forget anybody you’ve destroyed.”
“They do not believe there can be tears between men. They think we are playing a game and that we do it to shock them.”
“We’re getting old, he thought, and it damn sure didn’t take long.”
“Another Country” is a classic for a reason, and whether or not you try this novel or another by Baldwin, he is a writer everyone should read at some point in life. Personally, I’d steer people to “Giovanni’s Room” before this, however.
Rating (story): 4/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Formats: eBook (library loan)
Dates read: February 22 – March 4, 2022
Multi-tasking: N/A
