Reviews with content warning for Racism - Going to Meet the Man

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

15 reviews

bibliorama's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

James Baldwin is a great writer and he makes it easy to fall into the narrative of each short story. You know it's interesting when it has me googling articles for the summaries and meanings to each story like I'm back in school. I can tell this one will get better upon rereads.

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elchivovivo's review against another edition

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challenging dark inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

Beautiful mid XX century american prose.

Baldwin’s plots move forward like a river, and also like a river, they plunge into depths, pausing like whirlpools into the souls of character or into deep insights contained in the scenes.

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asililydying's review against another edition

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3.75

Sonny's Blues and Previous Condition are my favorites, Going To Meet The Man itself as a story may be the most disgusting thing I have ever read.

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micha_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

The first couple of stories were pretty slow and I had trouble connecting with the religious themes. The other stories were quite different, with complex and conflicted characters. Really happy to have gotten such a wide sampling of Baldwin's work as I had only read two of his novels before.

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oddreads_nicolestins's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wonderful collection. Short but heavy!

My favorites were:
The Outing
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
Come Out the Wilderness
Going to Meet the Man (destroyed me- then made me angry- then made me sick)

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piperclover's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Read for school and have no idea how to rate

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dancefever's review

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

as with most short story collections, this is difficult to review. the very medium itself preempts a “mixed bag” of stories, either all too similar or inevitably containing a few duds. this is arguably even moreso the case with baldwin, who with his careful crafting of character and scene being one of the main reasons i fell in love with his writing, perhaps wouldn’t be able to develop those as well in a shorter medium. of course, his books are short anyway; but the characters are forged so lovingly and vividly in them that i wasn’t entirely sure if i was going to connect to the characters in his short stories as well as i did in his novels/novellas. well: i did! for the most part. each story feels like it is held together by a common thread: according to the blurb, the “role of inherited prejudice in shaping man’s destiny”: inevitably for a baldwin piece, this takes the shape of racism, sexism and homophobia. the family dynamics play a starring role in most of the stories, whether this be to the benefit of the characters in question or to their downfall. some stories give me echoes of baldwin’s other work, like the american in paris in “This Morning, This Evening” (a la Giovanni’s Room), the lament of sonny’s brother at his incarceration (a la If Beale Street Could Talk), and the church community with the closeted young boys in “The Outing” (a la Go Tell it On the Mountain”). though i understand that baldwin is want to explore the same themes throughout his work, i couldnt help but wish for a fresher perspective, rather than the same feelings and emotions over again.

the last eponymous story was absolutely haunting. the weakest stories, i felt, were “Previous Condition” and “Come Out the Wilderness”; which just felt like sketches at best. saying that, i do think baldwin is extraordinarily good at writing women and portraying women’s voices in general; the woman in the latter story felt uncharacteristically underdeveloped.

a mixed bag, but overall a good collection with a decent length for short stories: would recommend to someone who wants to dip their toe into short-form fiction. 3.75/5 stars.

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tenten's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

many thoughts. i had to let them marinate for a bit. obviously a five star read cus this is Baldwin but i was quite blown away. i've read "Sonny's Blues" before and it was amazing but i never got around to reading more short stories by him.

first thing: he is so good at writing homoeroticism and repressed gay sadness. sheesh. "The Outing" was so good and honestly i didn't expect the gayness so it was a pleasant surprise. with that one and "The Rockpile," i believe Baldwin drew from his own childhood and his strained relationship with his father (like Johnny, he was the eldest son, from his mom's previous 'days in sin' and his father had some resentment towards him for that) so the emotions in those two really felt real.

second thing: there were passages in this book that legit made me think, "why do people even still write about Black-white race relations in the US? everything that could be said has already been said by Baldwin or Morrison." and i know that sounds mean but like. truly. a lot of writing about race in the US that has come out in the past, like, 15 years just feels elementary to me because a lot of it has already been said and better. sorry 😭

between "Come out the Wilderness" and If Beale Street Could Talk, his representation of women doesn't WOW me so far. it's not bad but it's not perfect. "write what you know" was definitely Baldwin's strong suit...though Going to Meet the Man, which is in the perspective of a racist white deputy sheriff during the Civil Rights movement, was really powerful, so it really just might be that his women needed work. with the exception of the wife in "Going to Meet the Man," they're all quite neurotic and their interior lives are almost exclusively taken up by the men in their lives.

fave stories:
- The Outing
- The Man Child
- Sonny's Blues
- This Morning, This Evening, So Soon

truly always itching to read more from him!

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library_raider's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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seawarrior's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This short story collection presents moments of revelation for a variety of characters caught up in complex relationships and questioning their identity within them. I appreciated the diversity of people, places and times Baldwin wrote from the perspective of to make up the collection. He was adept at finding resounding voices for each of these characters, from playful young Black boys to a violently racist white sheriff. I felt like I understood the meaning and themes of some of these stories more than others, but it was easy to feel drawn into them all. The final and title story of Going to Meet the Man was one of the most disturbing works of literature I've ever encountered, and the most difficult to keep reading. Racism was described throughout many of these works, but Going to Meet the Man details how it has been passed on through generations of white families through violence to sedate depraved insecurity. I would be wary of reading this particular story if descriptions of violent racism and lynchings are triggering to you. My primary issue reading this collection was the length of the paragraphs. Often times I got lost in a passage and had to re-read it repeatedly to make sense of it, thought I doubt this is a problem for everyone. Overall, I enjoyed being introduced to Baldwin's style and skill through these stories, and look forward to reading his longer novels.

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