- African americans, fiction, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, general, African American families
In one of the greatest American classics, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin tells the story of the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Originally published in 1953, Baldwin said of his first novel, "Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else."
Log it
Sign in to log this.
Character
Earnest, grave, prestige and contemplative.
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
- unpretentiousprestige
- contemplativerelentless
- character-ledplot-driven
Who loves it, who doesn't
No profiled raters yet.
Ask the title
A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.
Reviews
No reviews yet.
About the book
- Author
- James Baldwin
- First published
- September 1993
- Pages
- 233
- Publisher
- Mass Market Paperback, Vintage International, Franklin Library
- Editions
- 66
- Language
- Italian, Spanish, English
- ISBN
- 9781101907610
Where to read
Libraries first: a card gets you most books for nothing. Each opens that service’s page for this title.
On Open Library, 23 have read it and 346 want to.
“Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father.”
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist. Most of Baldwin's work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century in the United States. His novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and homosexual well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups was improved.[1] Source and more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin_%28writer%29#Bibliography
Similar in taste
Closest on the same fourteen dimensions, from everything scored on Tastebuds Other media included when they land close.
Heart of Darkness 189985% alikeBoth grave, earnest, prestige.
Giovanni's Room 195682% alikeBoth earnest, grave, prestige.
The Scarlet Letter 180081% alikeBoth grave, earnest, contemplative.
The fire next time 196280% alikeBoth earnest, grave, character-led.
The God of Small Things 199780% alikeBoth grave, contemplative, prestige.
Wide Sargasso Sea 196679% alikeBoth grave, prestige, contemplative.
Beloved 198778% alikeBoth earnest, grave, prestige.
The Color Purple 197678% alikeBoth earnest, grave, prestige.
The Piano 199390% alikeFilm · Both grave, earnest, prestige.
Waiting for the Barbarians 201983% alikeFilm · Both grave, earnest, prestige.