I am old enough to remember the 1950’s when “way out” was a beatnik term for great. It got so overused that on the “Dobie Gillis Show” in the early 60’s it was a term that Maynard G. Krebs would use for comic effect.
I read “Another Country” when it first came out, the summer before my first year of college and found it to be very powerful and Rufus such a memorable character, almost standing outside the covers of the book. It was the first best seller with strong homosexual content that you could discuss in mixed company, at a party or over coffee, without showing your hand. You could also use it to sense if some someone else might be gay (though that was not the word yet used to identify one’s sexual preference). I found my way to the book by way of the fairly positive review in Time magazine (June 29, 1962) - which I recommend as a way to see how it was regarded in its time or how reviewers were explaining it to themselves. Thanks for the great analysis of the opening (wonder who Baldwin was thinking of for the saxophonist).
I read chapter 1 yesterday, and now reading your essay I am doubly undone by Baldwin's vastness. I have a few times wondered whether I was physically up to seeing a film--never before been challenged this way by a novel. But how can I resist? I will eat my Wheaties, sit on my cushion, and carry on. Thank you. See you in April.
I'm grateful to be reminded of that ephemeral magic between performer and audience, a satisfaction for the artist that has to be conferred by another, like grace, unexpectedly and outside our control. I'll try to think of it as a relief from the anxious drudgery of promoting the written word and attempting to make something that lasts.
Which makes me wonder, Garth, what has been the most rewarding part of the recognition your books have achieved -- what makes you feel seen? Is it those performance moments or something else?
Astonishing close reading, as always from you! I wanted to get your opinion on another paragraph that I found to be incredibly moving and subtly shattering. I know that when it comes to memorable passages from Another Country the same goes for them as for the broken glass at the top of the high wall from Vivaldo’s dream – there are simply so many, gleaming and sharp, and capable of drawing sustained attention and plenty of blood; but I really wonder whether this one in particular proved piercing for you as well.
Ida, Vivaldo, Eric and Ellis are walking through the park and Ellis asks Eric about his experience in Paris as an actor: "Oh, I did a couple of things for American TV." Coming toward them, on the path, were two glittering, loud-talking fairies. He pulled in his belly, looking straight ahead. "And I saw a lot of theatre—I don’t know—it was very good for me." The birds of paradise passed; their raucous cries faded. [Followed by the following, one-sentence paragraph] Ida said, "I always feel so sorry for people like that."
Even though Eric is otherwise a character by far most accepting of his queerness of the New York bunch, his internalised homophobia is on painful display here. But besides that what gets me the most is a masterful description of the two unabashedly gay-acting passersby as the birds of paradise. Of course, any loud exotic bird with colourful plumage would do – except that only by comparing them to birds of paradise can it be felt that the world in which people could live their sexual and other identities so freely en masse feels as distant and unattainable as heaven. In the same breath, the most deep-seated prejudices holding a person down and the most exalted, soaring longing for a better tomorrow are being conveyed.
I am old enough to remember the 1950’s when “way out” was a beatnik term for great. It got so overused that on the “Dobie Gillis Show” in the early 60’s it was a term that Maynard G. Krebs would use for comic effect.
This was an intense and vivid interpretation if the characters in Baldwin’s novel. Very illuminating.
I read “Another Country” when it first came out, the summer before my first year of college and found it to be very powerful and Rufus such a memorable character, almost standing outside the covers of the book. It was the first best seller with strong homosexual content that you could discuss in mixed company, at a party or over coffee, without showing your hand. You could also use it to sense if some someone else might be gay (though that was not the word yet used to identify one’s sexual preference). I found my way to the book by way of the fairly positive review in Time magazine (June 29, 1962) - which I recommend as a way to see how it was regarded in its time or how reviewers were explaining it to themselves. Thanks for the great analysis of the opening (wonder who Baldwin was thinking of for the saxophonist).
I read chapter 1 yesterday, and now reading your essay I am doubly undone by Baldwin's vastness. I have a few times wondered whether I was physically up to seeing a film--never before been challenged this way by a novel. But how can I resist? I will eat my Wheaties, sit on my cushion, and carry on. Thank you. See you in April.
Love this and my favorite story: "Sonny's Blues"!
I'm grateful to be reminded of that ephemeral magic between performer and audience, a satisfaction for the artist that has to be conferred by another, like grace, unexpectedly and outside our control. I'll try to think of it as a relief from the anxious drudgery of promoting the written word and attempting to make something that lasts.
Which makes me wonder, Garth, what has been the most rewarding part of the recognition your books have achieved -- what makes you feel seen? Is it those performance moments or something else?
Astonishing close reading, as always from you! I wanted to get your opinion on another paragraph that I found to be incredibly moving and subtly shattering. I know that when it comes to memorable passages from Another Country the same goes for them as for the broken glass at the top of the high wall from Vivaldo’s dream – there are simply so many, gleaming and sharp, and capable of drawing sustained attention and plenty of blood; but I really wonder whether this one in particular proved piercing for you as well.
Ida, Vivaldo, Eric and Ellis are walking through the park and Ellis asks Eric about his experience in Paris as an actor: "Oh, I did a couple of things for American TV." Coming toward them, on the path, were two glittering, loud-talking fairies. He pulled in his belly, looking straight ahead. "And I saw a lot of theatre—I don’t know—it was very good for me." The birds of paradise passed; their raucous cries faded. [Followed by the following, one-sentence paragraph] Ida said, "I always feel so sorry for people like that."
Even though Eric is otherwise a character by far most accepting of his queerness of the New York bunch, his internalised homophobia is on painful display here. But besides that what gets me the most is a masterful description of the two unabashedly gay-acting passersby as the birds of paradise. Of course, any loud exotic bird with colourful plumage would do – except that only by comparing them to birds of paradise can it be felt that the world in which people could live their sexual and other identities so freely en masse feels as distant and unattainable as heaven. In the same breath, the most deep-seated prejudices holding a person down and the most exalted, soaring longing for a better tomorrow are being conveyed.