/~bencollver/log/2024-07-09-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain-by-james-baldwin on tilde.pink

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	# 2024-07-09 - Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

	A friend recommended that i read this book as an introduction to
	James Baldwin's writing. I checked it out from the local library
	and read it while camping. Now i want to read more.

	This book has been described as a coming of age story. It is
	interwoven with stories from two generations. It strikes me as
	tales of struggle to overcome deprivation. To "move through" as the
	book puts it in its final part 3.

	This book is overflowing with religious references and imagery. The
	protagonist's step-father was fanatical, but the backstories cast an
	extremely personal light on it. In my perception, the fervor wasn't
	really about God nor about religion, it was about the deeply personal
	and psychological conditions. If it had actually been about God
	then there would have been more space for compassion and love.

	In the end, the protagonist finds his own way to reconcile this gap
	without compromising his own well being. Drawing on his own
	integrity, he demonstrates redemption, both of himself and of
	Christianity itself.

	This book is described as autobiographical. No wonder it was such a
	powerfully alive experience for me to read it. It is real.

	What follows is a salient quote from early in the story.

	> That moment gave him, from that time on, if not a weapon at least a
	> shield; he apprehended totally, without belief or understanding, that
	> he had in himself a power that other people lacked; that he could use
	> to save himself, to raise himself; and that, perhaps, with this power
	> he might one day win that love which he so longed for. This was not,
	> in John, a faith subject to death or alteration, nor yet a hope
	> subject to destruction; it was his identity, and part, therefore, of
	> that wickedness for which his father beat him and to which he clung
	> in order to withstand his father. His father's arm, rising and
	> falling, might make him cry, and that voice might cause him to
	> tremble; yet his father could never be entirely the victor, for John
	> cherished something that his father could not reach. It was his
	> hatred and his intellect that he cherished, the one feeding the
	> other. He lived for the day when his father would be dying and he,
	> John, would curse him on his death-bed.

	author: Baldwin, James, 1924-1987
	detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Go_Tell_It_on_the_Mountain_(novel)
	LOC: PS3552.A45 G62
	tags: book,biography,queer,race

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