Ben Siems's Reviews > Native Son
Native Son
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My older brother Larry, who is extremely well-read, recently came to town for a visit. He had with him a copy of Native Son. I asked what prompted him to re-read it. He explained that he had actually never read it before, which he confessed was really odd, given that the book is an undisputed classic.
Well, here is Larry's two-word review of the book:
Holy shit.
I concur.
Those who have studied the Harlem Renaissance know that Richard Wright was a passionate, angry man, the writer about whom other African American writers of his era would say, "Well, I'd never write THAT, but I'm glad someone did." Native Son is a brutally frank look at the racial divide of the America of the 1930s, and the relevance to today is positively painful.
There have been many profound and moving stories, both true and fictionalized, of young black men wrongfully accused of crimes. This book dares to tell the story of a young black man who, in a moment of panic, commits a horrible act. That makes the way the man is treated thereafter so incredibly present and real. You can't read this story from a distance. You're in it, you feel it so palpably.
I think Native Son is one of the most powerful and important American books ever written.
Well, here is Larry's two-word review of the book:
Holy shit.
I concur.
Those who have studied the Harlem Renaissance know that Richard Wright was a passionate, angry man, the writer about whom other African American writers of his era would say, "Well, I'd never write THAT, but I'm glad someone did." Native Son is a brutally frank look at the racial divide of the America of the 1930s, and the relevance to today is positively painful.
There have been many profound and moving stories, both true and fictionalized, of young black men wrongfully accused of crimes. This book dares to tell the story of a young black man who, in a moment of panic, commits a horrible act. That makes the way the man is treated thereafter so incredibly present and real. You can't read this story from a distance. You're in it, you feel it so palpably.
I think Native Son is one of the most powerful and important American books ever written.
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December 26, 2007
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Brooke
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Apr 16, 2009 08:29PM

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That's for sure. I only wish I felt that the percentage of Americans who have read the book had substantially increased since then.













Yes! This book is particularly outstanding.
I鈥檓 70 years old and have read a lot of fiction including all of Dreiser. I say that because it is easy to get blown away by any book if one doesn鈥檛 read and that An American Tragedy is an earlier novel that kept coming to mind. It is basically the same kind of story with the exact authorial intent. Basically, 鈥渋t ain鈥檛 the guy, this compelled by circumstance individual, at blame here. It all of us for letting these exploitive and maddening socioeconomic systems drag on.
Dreiser鈥檚 novel is from 1925 and written by a Midwest German immigrant type. Native Son 1939 by a black souther with that horrible background. Native Son on one level reads as a hard core crime novel like the other that emerged from The Great Depression, Dreiser brutal scenes are more polite the rough 30s stuff was just in short pants still, and pop was working.
I came to this via Algren鈥� Morning Never Come which is really great as well. They were Chicago CP comrades.