Word: baldwin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Surely there has never been so large a cluster of egregious flops in the span of a couple of years," he declares in a sweeping judgment on the recent works of such eminent names as Katherine Anne Porter, Mary McCarthy, Bernard Malamud and James Baldwin. "There are various ways to declare the death of the novel: to mock it while seeming to emulate it, like Nabokov or John Barth ... or to explode it, like William Burroughs, to leave only twisted fragments of experience and the miasma of death...
Devoid of Christian references, even James Baldwin holds similar assumptions about white Americans. Baldwin would reconcile white and Negro as one would estranged lovers. He assumes they are able to love each other. Further, he admonishes whites: acknowledge the truth, what you really believe about Negroes, and thereby be free to love. But one fears Negro and white have been too long estranged. And even so, if truth must first be found someone will continue to ask, "What is the truth (?)" and numerous answers will be given. Apparently, it is not the presence or absence of truth, love, Christianity...
...this regard, James Baldwin is especially perceptive. In the process he is Comforter, Prophet, and the Angel who trumpets in the day of judgment. As Comforter, he counsels the tragic nigger--the no-smiling Uncle Tom transfigured into a saint by wisdom, but still a brooding, sorrowful man-boy with lowered eyes and a silent presence--who, according to Baldwin's humanism, is holy even though defeated. This holiness can only be attained through suffering and endurance. As Prophet, Baldwin warns Negroes that to believe they are niggers is the beginning of their destruction which may not end in Holiness...
...special disappointment of Blues for Mr. Charlie is that Baldwin has a fine intelligence capable of far subtler reflections on the color question and the universal fate of being human. The thaw in race relations permits Negroes to say how much they hate whites. The pity of it is that in the talky span of almost three hours, Baldwin says so little else worth saying...
...crashes that year. Other high-risk insurers paid off nearly $1,000,000 on the gas explosion under the stands at Indianapolis' State Fairgrounds Coliseum, and a host of companies are stuck with as much as $25 million in claims resulting from the bursting of California's Baldwin Hills dam last December...