There are several remarkable things about [Go Tell It on the Mountain], the most impressive of which is Baldwin's ability to make the experiences of the story immediate and definitive. He achieves this end through the use of his facile way with words and the oratorical flourish of the preacher. The immediacy is more strongly felt when we realize that Baldwin himself is preaching to us, not only in the way he knew as a boy preacher, but also as a persuasive writer reaching out to an audience. Also, his use of the flash-back technique without halting the action of the conversion is a formidable achievement especially for a first attempt in the novel. It would not be too much to compare Baldwin's success at narration with Conrad's success in Nostromo, though the latter is a far more ambitious and creative work. There is also the success of "sounding the sense" of the language of the novel; because the novel is about a religious experience, Baldwin's style moves with the poetic freedom of certain parts of the Old Testament and with the restraint of the New. His portrayal of the Negro is as honest as it is sympathetic, never falling to that type of sentimental bathos that characterizes so much of the description of Negroes in other stories. Baldwin's great mistake, however, was to believe that his characters could be regarded as Negroes "only incidentally." For the experiences of the novel are those of the Negro and cannot be confused with the experiences of any other racial group. That the characters appear Negro and act as Negroes is not a disadvantage and does not make the experiences less appealing. Baldwin wished to believe this. Because of this, I am led to believe that Baldwin had wanted to write about the Negro's American experience while, at the same time, he hoped to make the characters Everyman. His inability to understand the possibilities of such an endeavour suggests the first major problem that faced Baldwin as a writer. It seems to represent an inability to come to terms with his Negro-ness and with his obligations as a writer. One feels that he is not yet sure that the Negro experience is a valid one and he wishes to believe that as an author he can successfully objectify Negro experience to take on the garb of universality. Yet, there is no evidence of this dilemma in the novel; the roots of the struggle are within the man as Negro and artist. (pp. 386-87)
It seems evident [in Notes of a Native Son] that Baldwin is not merely criticizing the erroneous conceptions of the Negro held by white America, but also suggesting that Americans should make the past more meaningful to the present. For the past of the American Negro is inextricably tied to the past of white Americans and vice versa, and a knowledge of this fact will help all Americans to better understand their unique experience in the New World. I am suggesting here that there is far more to this volume of essays than a Negro's criticism of his country or of the racial conditions there. It is a plea from one man for Americans to accept the challenge that the ideal has imposed upon American history and American society; in short, it is the right for all Americans to be honestly and faithfully involved in the country's destiny. (p. 390)
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