Not everything can be changed;but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
- James Baldwin, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," 1962
Like a moth to a flame I return to James Baldwin periodically, to nourish my soul and steel my backbone, and to emerge, not burned, but fired up both to live passionately in the pursuit of a more perfected reality and also to use this English language to express, deeply, indelibly, accurately, eternally.
And so it is again that I have returned to JAB - the "A" standing for "Arthur" - in this case through the impressive prism of the The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, an outstanding collection deftly edited and introduced by Randall Kenan. These writings, a diverse compendium of fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, profiles and letters, give us not only a sense of Baldwin's evolution, both personal and literary, but also of a journey through an elevated existence, one raised by the insight and unparalleled eloquence of this singular author and, really, writer.
In the Introduction of the book, subtitled "Looking for James Baldwin," Kenan marvels at the sheer range of his skill and craft: Baldwin wrote fiction (at both short story and novel length), he wrote non-fiction, he wrote book reviews (initially to give himself "discipline" in his writing), he wrote travelogues, he wrote (biographical) profiles, he wrote letters. He wrote.
And because he wrote we can all both see a different world as well as see the world differently....
Because of his profound gift, I am also inspired to attempt to record glimpses of my own journey, snapshots along the path, so to speak. I don't pretend to do so as inimitably as the great James Baldwin, but in his honor and inspiration: I write because, through him, I've come to understand and feel what writing can do, can mean and can evoke ... and so I write.
And I regret. I regret that I really (re-)discovered and began to appreciate Baldwin at mid-life, too engrossed in my own experience to be guided by his in my youth. I regret that I can only meet the man in his prose and a few videos and documentaries about his life: certainly he was even more in the flesh.
And I regret that, as he paid similar homage to Shakespeare, I will never write like Jimmy wrote ... but I'm so thankful for the inspiration to try. Not so much to write like he wrote - I'll never reach that unclimbable peak - but to discover my own singular voice and, in so doing, to share with the world my unique perspective. I'll never speak James Baldwin's language, but I can achieve greater mastery of my own....
I always have to recover after reading Baldwin, literally to take a break to give my mind and soul an opportunity to digest and recuperate. Reading Baldwin is like starving and then being given free rein at a banquet: invariably one overindulges and needs to be resuscitated, to take some time to come down from the sugar rush of incredibly savory fare (some of which itself can be based on topics most unsavory, actually) and to retreat back into the real world from that glimpse of the eternal one that one experiences in a Baldwin-induced thrall.
As he noted in the 1962 essay, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," "What the writer is always trying to do is to utilize the particular in order to reveal something much larger and heavier that any particular can be." And so it is with his own writing: through his gift, invariably we are moved to grapple with the "something much larger and heavier" and in so doing are both ennobled and enervated, raised and yet laid low, by the profundity of his observation, insight and prescription. I always emerge from Baldwin more passionate and committed ... and then I need to go lay down for a while to prepare for the reengaged and elevated battle....
A large part of the reason that I rest is to gain the strength to address the profundity of his observation and the eloquence of its elucidation. His framing of issues and opportunities is immaculate, and his address of them is raw, aching and naked such that we are left with indelible, timeless wisdom and reproach.
Cannot one hear the prescience of this 1964 indictment-as-observation resonating today?
Americans are the youngest country, the largest country, and the strongest country, we like to say, and yet the very notion of change, real change, throws Americans into a panic and they look for any label to get rid of any dissenter. A country which is supposed to be built on dissent, built on the value of the individual, now distrusts dissent at least as much as any totalitarian government can and debases the individual in many ways because it places security and money above the individual....
How incredibly this puts Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and so many other grass roots social movements in our contemporary society into a certain light and relief. As it did with the Civil Rights Movement and the nascent anti-war movement a half-century ago....
And the range of his piercing insight: so incredible as to be confounding. For example, in the same piece as that from which the above quote is taken, "What Price Freedom?," and in the very same paragraph, this:
I am trying to suggest that in order for me as a black citizen of this country to begin to be a free man here, in order for that to happen, a great many other things have to happen. I cannot be, even if I wanted to be, fitted into the social structure as it now stands; there is no possibility of opening it up to let me in. In the very same way, in the Deep South, Christian churches do not have many Christians in their congregations, and when I move into the congregation, and when the church itself embraces all Christians, the church will have had to change.
He did not describe himself as a "black gay man," but can we not hear in this trenchant plea a theme that survives to this day, that the Christian church will struggle to open itself fully and truly to all, including the poor, those of Color, to women (especially in sacramental roles) and to the LGBT community?
And as we draw to the close of what certainly has to be the most contentious presidential race in modern history, we are essentially called to choose between two very different visions of our future. Hence, it's prudent that we be mindful of what Baldwin observed so long ago:
Societies are never able to examine, to overhaul themselves: this effort must be made by that yeast which every society cunningly and unfailingly secretes. This ferment, this disturbance, is the responsibility, and the necessity, of writers. It is, alas, the truth that to be an American writer today means mounting an unending attack on all that Americans believe themselves to hold sacred. It means fighting an astute and agile guerrilla warfare with that American complacency which so inadequately masks the American panic.
In the glow of his legacy, perhaps we hear the echoes of his insight in the writings of Coates, Thurston, Whitehead and Mengestu, Danticat, Adiche, Smith and Gay, to name but a few of those of African descent, and many others who challenge the increasingly inequitable and unjust status quo through their writing. And yet none of them approaches our Jimmy....
So back to Baldwin I go, seeking to be appalled and amazed, alternately crushed and resurrected, by his piercing insight into his topics and his prose, respectively. And though tired, and occasionally haggard, I will emerge so much the better for it, emboldened both by the struggle and the possibility of liberation glimpsed through his writing, safe in the knowledge that, for me, the Book of Baldwin in my secular bible....
And yet one is compelled to recognize that all these imprecise words are attempts made by us all to get to something which is real and which lives behind the words. Whether I like it or not, for example, and no matter what I call myself, I suppose the only word for me, when the chips are down, is that I am an artist.
- James Baldwin, "The Artist's Struggle for Integrity," 1963
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