Well, it's been a good while. I've been finding it a little difficult to write lately, but I've been wanting to get back to it. So here goes...
James Baldwin is becoming a favorite of mine. I've been slow to discover him - I read Sonny's Blues in high school, then it took me fifteen years to discover Giovanni's Room & Go Tell It On the Mountain. What I most admire about him is his willingness to examine, and follow his thoughts where they take him. That's been true of all his works that I've read, but it was especially true of this book.
Go Tell It On the Mountain is a coming-of-age story and semi-autobiographical of Baldwin. It's about origins, about the people you are born of and how their story, preoccupations and troubles can consume your life before it even begins. John Grimes is the central character, he is a fourteen year old boy living in Harlem in the 1920's. His father, Gabriel Grimes, is a preacher and his mother, Elizabeth, is a homemaker. John has three other siblings.
The book begins with John's perspective (called "The Seventh Day"). It's his birthday, and he has to spend it doing his Saturday morning chores. He feels defeated and stifled by a house that never really gets cleaned and by an abusive, overlord father. He thinks his mother forgot his birthday and is angry with her. While he's sitting in the kitchen with her he begins to criticize her in his mind - to him, she is looking old, worn-out and has relinquished the best parts of herself to a dominating husband. His thoughts are very keen, and he is able to disregard most emotional attachment. Although I liked seeing so much maturity and willingness to put aside childish things in such a young child - the scene alienated me a little from John as a realistic narrator. There's nothing more challenging than learning to objectively criticize your family of origin.
But his mother does remember his birthday, and gives him a handful of change to get whatever he'd like. What follows is one of my favorite scenes in the book and, at risk of making this too long, I'm going to describe it a little. John comes out of Harlem and enters Central Park. He acts like an unleashed creature, and runs excitedly down a hill, bumping into an older man. John's scared because the older man is white. But the older man just smiles at him. He walks along the outer edge of the park along 5th Avenue. He watches the horse and carriages go by with their passengers. He thinks about racism and about his father's fear of white men, while fervently establishing how he doesn't want to live in the same way.
He thinks about how there are two worlds : the white world and the black world. The latter is aware of suffering but the former exists oblivious to many of the world's realities. He doesn't want to languish in the black world where people suffer for no gain. Even if the white world is hollow, he wants to walk among it because of its luxuries. He walks east towards 3rd Avenue where some movie theaters are and buys a ticket. He selects a film noir featuring a femme-fatale. John realizes that he doesn't dislike the woman at all. He likes her for her boldness, he thinks her contempt of others is truthful. She is herself and doesn't put on airs. He realizes he admires her, and becomes fearful of what that means about his own character. It's a wonderful scene of trying to find your way as a young person, of discovering your identity even if some of it scares you. John mixes with the world around him, yet his thoughts remain private. Not only is this scene really well-written and evokes a lot (especially if you've spent time in New York City), it establishes a lot about John who really is the story's main character.
The book changes course after that. Oddly enough it forgets its protagonist completely. It goes backward in time and focuses on a character who's only been briefly mentioned thus far: John's aunt, Florence. Florence is sister to John's father. We learn of her struggles to leave home, and to be regarded for her skills/intelligence rather than as no more than a woman. We see how much she tries to over-compensate for being treated as merely a buoy to bolster up the lives of men around her. She does this by speaking out about everything - she tells her truth without fail and consequently alienates men who could be potential partners, but even women friends. She's a know-it-all, too proud & very stubborn but Baldwin wants you to see these traits as part of her attempt to overcome the deprivations of her young life. Considering that will not change her fate, she is an older woman and alone & Baldwin suggests that will not change for her.
The next section focuses on Gabriel, John's father. This section is too dense to touch upon, you'd simply have to read it. But very basically it's about a young man trying to find something to dedicate his life to and the desire to have children. As with Florence, Gabriel must work to find his way.
Then comes Elizabeth's prayer - she is John's mother. The background of who John has descended from continues to be painted in and the reader begins to see how much pressure John is under. This pressure is do to things that happened before he was even born, decisions that his parents made. It makes it all the more important that John begin to be his own advocate & to differentiate himself from those who bore him. The book continues it's strong writing and depiction of violent, racially motivated events in this family's life.
The final section is called, "The Threshing Floor." I didn't know what a threshing floor was - if the same is true for you, you can go here. Essentially, this is the process by which humans manually separate grain from the chaff (pre-machine days). Not to get too lodged in the world of metaphor, but I do think that Baldwin's content in this part of the book is meant to be thematically exploring how what is of value is extracted from what is dead weight/superfluous. In this section, questions of religion in John's life are answered. Will he find God? Will he be delivered from his past into a future worth living?
This final section can make for difficult reading. John has a religious epiphany accompanied by esoteric visions that can be difficult to understand (especially for a literal-minded reader). It remains a well-written story, but definitely gets tougher to read towards its end.
So basically, if you like coming of age stories, do not mind stories that have a religious aspect to it & like good writing than this book is recommended. If not, you should pass.
