A missed meeting on Baldwin’s Mountain

Seems I am on a run of readings books by authors whose other books became famous movies. This time it was James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, released in 1953, 20 years before his If Beale Street Could Talk, whose film adaptation is currently making the awards circuits. I have to say, this book was a bit of a slog for me. I totally get its historical and cultural importance, helping to give a voice to people who before then had none, but I found it tedious.

Semi-autobiographical, this books tells of a black family living in Harlem in the 30’s. Included is a strict minister, Gabriel, his adult sister Florence, and his wife Elizabeth and their children, including Elizabeth’s son from a previous relationship, John, who is the focal point of the book in the beginning and end. John seems to struggle to find his place in the family; Gabriel is openly hostile towards him, though others in the community see the well behaved John as the spiritual successor to Gabriel. Gabriel’s birth son Roy is a wild child. We learn later the reasons for Gabriel’s playing favorites. Gabriel himself was a problem child, only coming to God in his 20’s, and even after this, falling in sin and fathering a son outside his marriage to his first wife. He wasn’t there for this woman or his son, both of whom died before Gabriel came north from the south to meet Elizabeth and start over, and he wants to make up for his failure by saving Roy. Even in the end, when John experiences a religious awakening, Gabriel still rebuffs him.

Before this book I read The World According to Garp, which was written in a very direct and in-your-face way. If that book reads like a brick, this one reads like a flower. At times it felt more like poetry than a novel, which isn’t bad, but when whole pages were devoted to a feeling or an emotion, for me, it got to be a bit much. I’ll be the first to admit as a middle class white guy who never struggled like the author or the characters in this novel, I’m probably the last person Baldwin was trying to speak to.