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Rosh's Reviews > Another Country
Another Country
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by
It took 15 years for Baldwin to complete this novel. He travelled all across from Paris to Turkey in poor health, depressed, and feeling that he had lost sight of his aims as a writer. On the brink of suicide, this novel had almost killed him. And while reading this you can sense Baldwin's sense of despair, torment and rage.
This would not be a Baldwin novel if he did not deal with social issues such as race, class, and same sex relationships. Baldwin has a way of eloquently showing people's ugly core as they deal with such issues. He doesn't allow any character to simply get by but he makes them face and confront their weaknesses and lies.
A large and relevant piece of America can be inspected here. I hesitate about stars. I certainly don't 'love' the book on 5 star level. Do I 'like' it enough for 4? Does respect and tempered admiration justify 4?
This would not be a Baldwin novel if he did not deal with social issues such as race, class, and same sex relationships. Baldwin has a way of eloquently showing people's ugly core as they deal with such issues. He doesn't allow any character to simply get by but he makes them face and confront their weaknesses and lies.
A large and relevant piece of America can be inspected here. I hesitate about stars. I certainly don't 'love' the book on 5 star level. Do I 'like' it enough for 4? Does respect and tempered admiration justify 4?
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Quotes Rosh Liked
“He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“Perhaps now, though, he had hit bottom. One thing about the bottom, he told himself, you can't fall any further. He tried to take comfort from this thought. Yet there knocked in his heart the suspicion that the bottom did not really exist.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“All for the first time, in the days when acts had no consequences and nothing was irrecoverable, and love was simple and even pain had the dignity of enduring forever: it was unimaginable that time could do anything to diminish it.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“Terrifying, that the loss of intimacy with one person results in the freezing over of the world, and the loss of oneself! And terrifying that the terms of love are so rigorous, its checks and liberties so tightly bound together… Their relationship depended on her restraint… The premise of their affair, or the basis of their comedy, was that they were two independent people, who needed each other for a time, who would always be friends, but who, probably, would not always be lovers. Such a premise forbids the intrusion of the future, or too vivid an exhibition of need.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“I don't give a damn if there's any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can't figure out whether I'm human or not. If they don't know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
“He wished he could rescue her, that it was within his power to rescue her and make her life less hard. But it was only love which could accomplish the miracle of making a life bearable -- only love, and love itself mostly failed; and he had never loved her. He had used her to find out something about himself. And even this was not true. He had used her in the hope of avoiding a confrontation with himself which he had, nevertheless, and with a vengeance, been forced to endure.”
― Another Country
― Another Country
Reading Progress
January 14, 2019
–
Started Reading
January 14, 2019
– Shelved
January 14, 2019
–
17.86%
"I feel I am being pulled along by the momentum of a massive boulder, languid but merciless, to wherever its destination may be. Wow"
page
80
January 16, 2019
–
49.11%
"Unsurprising that James Baldwin, of all people, is really good at describing the mental trials of gay men back in the days. Unsurprising but still amazingly good."
page
220
January 20, 2019
–
Finished Reading
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Leenaa
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Jan 22, 2019 01:24PM
Seems like you aren't sure about your rating. It's really powerful how much the man had endured and his endurance had motivated him to create more.
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Leenaa, Not unsure just frustrated for what this book could have been. Because for a while there it came very close to being the best and bravest book ever written by an American.
Baldwin was certainly ahead of his time and Another Country is just as timely today as it was in the 60's and 70's. Thank you for letting me know the struggles and the pains he had to go through writing this book.
Would you judge me if I say I love the character of Rufus?
Sree, Sree, It is sad to see how little has changed with many aspects of race relations in the US. For, one can easily imagine this same story being penned contemporaneously in 2017 as it was in 1962.
Erik, honestly as a feminist I feel ashamed of myself for not completely demonizing him for actions instead sympathizing with him. He is a tortured black man, some would say most black men are tortured in the United States, and he falls for a white woman who he physically abuses. Rufus is a creative genuis that could have been a better man, but instead he lived in a time where he was just seen as another black man.
Good one, Rosh. Haven't tried Baldwin before. Should I get a taste of Baldwin with this one?
