Luke's Reviews > Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
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Unlike many on this site, if one may judge from the reviews and most popular tags of this work, I did not encounter this in school. This is unfortunate, as exposure to this at a younger age may have made my frame of references less solidified, Moby Dick over here and slavery narratives of there and all the usual sorts of aborted cross-reference and false literary linearity. These days, I am not as suspect to being fenced in by required reading in academia, but there are some still some sickening traces of surprise at how a specific author was writing at a certain time that really does need to be gotten over. If there's one thing I learned from my concurrent reading of Dhalgren, it's that I have a very restricted view of how writing of "quality" comes to be that, ultimately, is very harmful indeed.

So, what constituted that elitist surprise? On the whole, it was the matter of how this read very much like a psychological bildungsroman with a wonderful sense of prose and a swift and easy manner of outer description and inner self. Frederick Douglass not only had a keen interest in presenting his own life, but also in how slavery continues to work itself into the framework of society and its social animals. The result is a piece which, if any white person at the time had wanted to write in a similar vein, would be comparable to a memoir that continually focused on the effects of US conceptual "freedom" on the memoirist's growth to maturity. While there's probably a few out there that come close to the mark (you can't step into the surface knowledge of the 1800's without squashing a few dozen names of physiognomic worth and solipsistic character), it's doubtful any achieve a comparable moral imperative. Being the person I am, that manner of thematic engagement matters a lot, so deal.

That does it for the general level. On the more specific level, passages of note include Douglass' analyses of holidays in lands of legalized slavery, his imbibed assumption that a society could not be well-off without the (overt) systematic owning of human beings, and his scorn for, in his words, the "upperground" railroad; or, Liberal White People Fucking Over Others With "Help" Since 1845. He remains as eloquent throughout this face-palm as he does in his fervent condemnation of the machine that controlled his upbringing, which reads well so long as once doesn't prescribe it in a fit of respectability politics to those who continue his efforts today. Things have changed since Douglass' day, and protests of a different nature are required for making this modern day public squirm.
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Reading Progress

November 16, 2013 – Shelved as: to-read
November 16, 2013 – Shelved
November 16, 2013 – Shelved as: reason-for-history-class
November 16, 2013 – Shelved as: authorness
November 16, 2013 – Shelved as: non-fiction
December 8, 2013 – Shelved as: person-of-everything
April 18, 2014 – Shelved as: shorty-short
February 27, 2015 – Started Reading
March 10, 2015 –
page 98
79.03% "I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one."
March 10, 2015 – Shelved as: 4-star
March 10, 2015 – Shelved as: r-2015
March 10, 2015 – Shelved as: r-goodreads
March 10, 2015 – Shelved as: reviewed
March 10, 2015 – Finished Reading
June 24, 2015 – Shelved as: antidote-think-twice-read
December 17, 2015 – Shelved as: antidote-think-twice-all

Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

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s.penkevich Yes! I always loved this one, and once considered getting a f.douglas tattoo. I just really enjoy how he puts literacy at the utmost importance. I did read it for school and my copy is full of self drawn cartoon versions of the scenes while in class with douglas always looking pretty ripped and scholarly looking, he'd be like a super hero where reading is his super power and that is something I can get down with.


Luke Ha ha! Would it be possible for you to post a picture of one of those wonderful drawings? Pretty please?


s.penkevich Aubrey wrote: "Ha ha! Would it be possible for you to post a picture of one of those wonderful drawings? Pretty please?"

Indeed!:

Also, though this one is not for all eyes but I assure you the stoned-out 19yr old me penned it with only pure respect and appreciation:
(view spoiler)


Kaion An American classic, tho it does feel sketchy how he erased over his wife in the narrative.


Luke s.penkevich wrote: "Aubrey wrote: "Ha ha! Would it be possible for you to post a picture of one of those wonderful drawings? Pretty please?"

Indeed!:

Also, though this one is not for all eyes but I assure you the st..."


Lovely to them both. Thanks for cooperating with my doodle-viewing whimsy.


Luke Kaion wrote: "An American classic, tho it does feel sketchy how he erased over his wife in the narrative."

Yes. That's the missing half star for me.


message 7: by Steve (new)

Steve I feel like I should read this if only to counteract James McBride's curiously negative portrayal of Douglass in The Good Lord Bird. As always, Aubrey, you've given us plenty to consider.

And to @S.Penkevich, dude, you're good!


Luke Thanks, Steve. And s.penki is good indeed.


message 9: by Jim (last edited Jun 03, 2015 08:23AM) (new)

Jim Off topic but responding to your profiled goal to read nobel laureates:

Einstein, Pauling, Feynman, Heisenberg come to mind. Also Madame Curie who won two Nobels (my mom was fond of mentioning that).

Looking in Wikipedia other famous names crop up - mostly from early 20th C.

Millikan (of his eponymous experiment), Bohr (hydrogen atom model), Schrödinger (but no mention of his famous half-alive Cat), de Broglie, Fermi, Pauli (of the exclusion principle), Planck (they named a fundamental constant after him).

Most of the other, more recent names, are obscure - relatively.

Feynman has proved to be very entertaining - one is a memoir: "Surely you must be Kidding, Mr. Feynman". You might be interested in that or another of his books.


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