Reviews

Another Country by James Baldwin

trisjdavila's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

5.0

it’s just one of those easily perfect books. i want to read it again, and to meet them all for the first time. 

jalensera's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lauraborkpower's review

I'm putting this one down, too. It's not at all a bad book--in fact, in many ways, it's an excellent book. But it's slowly paced and character driven, and once I stopped listening for a while I couldn't really get back into it. I knew I was done for when I got really, really excited that I only had an hour left in the audiobook, and then I realized that I was only finished with part one and had another six hours to go. I just couldn't do it. I actually think that the prolonged love scene between Ida and Vivaldo really did me in. For the love of god, Baldwin, enough is enough. She's beautiful. And twenty minutes later, she's still beautiful. And I'm just bored.

I'm sure that someday I will pick this up in a hard copy and finish it. But not anytime soon.

iriz_viriz's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.5

pnwbibliophile's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Baldwin is a monolith of Black and Queer literature. His work warrants a read simply because he led US society to consider sexuality, racism, and interracial relationships in his novels at a time where these were contentious topics to much of the public. I thoroughly enjoyed this glimpse into the artistic community of Harlem/NYC at the time. The dialogue was also brimming with immersive colloquialisms and AAVE, which Baldwin captured brilliantly.

This was a fairly brutal novel and I didn’t love it, but I do appreciate it. Baldwin existed in a different time. Though it’s difficult to read the misogyny in this book, Baldwin was born decades before the Women’s Rights Movement while I was born decades after with the privilege of it’s lessons. While I was put off by all the violence and mysogynistic language inflicted on the female characters, this felt like an accurate portrait of New York City in the 1950s, even if my modern sensibilities elicited red flags left and right viewing a more flawed US on the cusp of the Civil Rights Era. It’s possible to not love something and still gain meaningful insights from it.

I’ll also be honest and say that I only passively engaged with this audiobook and zoned out for much of the last third so perhaps missed some things. This isn’t so much because Baldwin is a bad writer but because I often struggle to connect with literature pre-1970s. Glad I read it but would not read it again.

jaspevig's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

4.5

melofrank's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

beansrowning's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It's not really up my alley as a romance-driven novel (and as cis-gendered white male), but as a fan of Baldwin I read it with no prior research. 

Some of the themes were particularly challenging, bordering on the misogynistic. I think some of these more shocking depictions work well because they force the reader to consider the trials and tribulations of Rufus in the context of his life and the realities of a black man living in those times, and I found that my initial opinion had shifted as I read on, a great signal of a thought provoking novel. 

Unfortunately, there is still relevance today concerning white liberalism and LGBTQ acceptance. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Suicide, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Racism

tedney's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

daja57's review against another edition

5.0

Greenwich Village, New York ("that city which the people from heaven had made their home." - 3.2), late 1950s. Rufus is a black jazz drummer in a love-hate relationship on a downward spiral with a white girl from Georgia. Other characters include Rufus's sister Ida who wants to be a singer Vivaldo, a wannabe novelist of Italian extraction, Richard, an older novelist and his wife Cass, and Eric a gay actor with a French boyfriend. These artists live a bohemian life but at the bottom of it all they yearn for love; but love involves another person and that creates problematic power dynamics, especially when there is the complication of race.

A deeply troubling analysis of inner city life and the problems involved when a boy meets a girl (or a boy). Baldwin's other books include Giovanni's Room, a masterful treatment of repressed homosexuality, and If Beale Street Could Talk, a superb novel about racism. This novel seems to encompass both. His characters leap off the page in their brutal glory. His settings both shape and resonate for the characters. This is writing at its best.