Scan barcode
A review by jlkenneth
Another Country by James Baldwin
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Don’t look at me, people of the internet 🙈 Deepest apologies for giving this beloved book only 3 stars cause WOW I know people who really love this one! There were just a lot of things that didn’t work for me about this novel.
I really, really wanted to love this more than I actually did. Baldwin’s writing is stunning and elaborate, there’s no doubt about that - however, he lost me about halfway through when it came to the plot, and I never felt like the book recovered after that. I think I would have like this a lot more if it had been about 150 pages shorter but this was just so meandering.
My biggest gripe, though, is Baldwin’s treatment of women. It took me most of the book to realize that we’re dealing here with another gay man with a deeply ingrained sense of misogyny, and one that clicked I had a really hard time taking any of his commentary on race or sexuality seriously. We know from Baldwin’s interview with Audre Lorde that he was unwilling to look at the ways black men often make life more difficult in turn for black women, and he considered that being born a black man was the most difficult thing that could happen to a human. While I won’t discount the novel’s nuanced discourse when it came to race in America, there was so much interrogation of patriarchal norms that the book just refused to engage in. I found myself frustrated again and again that often, the growth and character development of male characters came at the expense of the female characters.
I can’t deny that Baldwin was a terrific intellectual and that he did so much for the cause of queer folks and African Americans. For me, though, his views on women soured the whole thing to point that I had trouble enjoying any of it.
I really, really wanted to love this more than I actually did. Baldwin’s writing is stunning and elaborate, there’s no doubt about that - however, he lost me about halfway through when it came to the plot, and I never felt like the book recovered after that. I think I would have like this a lot more if it had been about 150 pages shorter but this was just so meandering.
My biggest gripe, though, is Baldwin’s treatment of women. It took me most of the book to realize that we’re dealing here with another gay man with a deeply ingrained sense of misogyny, and one that clicked I had a really hard time taking any of his commentary on race or sexuality seriously. We know from Baldwin’s interview with Audre Lorde that he was unwilling to look at the ways black men often make life more difficult in turn for black women, and he considered that being born a black man was the most difficult thing that could happen to a human. While I won’t discount the novel’s nuanced discourse when it came to race in America, there was so much interrogation of patriarchal norms that the book just refused to engage in. I found myself frustrated again and again that often, the growth and character development of male characters came at the expense of the female characters.
I can’t deny that Baldwin was a terrific intellectual and that he did so much for the cause of queer folks and African Americans. For me, though, his views on women soured the whole thing to point that I had trouble enjoying any of it.