Reviews

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

v_roliha's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

blackbird27's review against another edition

5.0

I read a scanned copy of a first edition, published anonymously in Boston in 1911. James Weldon Johnson wouldn't take credit for the work until the 1927 reprint, when the novel was acknowledged as a forerunner to the Harlem Renaissance. I've long admired Johnson's work, particularly as a historian (his Black Manhattan is a key text for me) and as a member of the Johnson, Johnson & Cole songwriting team who wrote popular "coon" songs that declined to be derogatory to Black people in the 1910s, but I hadn't read this short novel before.

It's excellent, as expected, if rather conventionally sentimental in its prosody. (Conventional for the time, that is; by the standards of an earlier generation it's almost shockingly unadorned, but by the standards of the next it's too pietistic about manners and morals and squeamish about class and sex.) It's a serious advance on a polemicist Harriet Beecher Stowe or even a timid naturalist like Charles W. Chesnutt, but (strictly in terms of prose style) it doesn't reach the heights of modernists like Jean Toomer or Claude McKay.

My greatest delight in it was to discover the role that Black vernacular music, particularly ragtime, plays in the narrative, which (once the protagonist reaches adulthood) roughly covers the 1890s and early 1900s. Several passages are worthy of being copied-and-pasted into Tumblr quote posts, diagnosing the causes and effects of race relations in the United States with pitiless accuracy, and in ways that are just as relevant today. I saw a Twitter thread today advancing, and receiving ignorant pushback, on arguments Johnson and Du Bois were making over a century ago. This should be a cornerstone of any education on race in the United States; just as equally, it should be only a small part of a much broader curriculum.

bailey_books's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense 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

4.0

sarahmccorm's review against another edition

4.0

I had to read this novel for African American Literature in college. I was really interested in the book as it chronicled the fictional life of a man struggling with his sense of identity, from confusion at realizing he was black, to embracing his race and find great pride in it, to ultimately being ashamed of his blackness after witnessing a lynching of a black man during his time in the South. The development of his character and life was heartbreaking at times as he lived through loss and heartbreak and was constantly waiting for the next struggle to arise. I didn't like however, the way that the narrator portrayed women as it seemed like they were just secondary characters or placeholders in his life and not actual human beings with thoughts and emotions like his own, but I also understand the context of the times. For example, he just brushed over witnessing his date being shot in the throat and brutally murdered by her exboyfriend after she left him because he was abusing her. And he also brushes over his time with his wife but instead focuses on the chase of getting her to marry him. There was no mention of the personalities of these women however and it gave me a stale taste in my mouth. Ultimately, it was one of my favorite books to read throughout the course I took it for and would highly suggest it for any reader. It helps the reader to understand more fully the history behind being mixed race in America, and the confusion and sense of abandonment and "imposter syndrome" that the narrator faced as a result of his mixed heritage.

sundelirium's review against another edition

medium-paced

2.0

teryndemaree's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

chairmanbernanke's review against another edition

3.0

A telling story about race and relationships.

shelbygilmer96's review against another edition

4.0

This could have been five stars-I even slept on it before settling on four. The problem is Johnson has brilliant ideas, but he touches on them, rather than fleshing them out. So while I loved what I read, I was left wanting more.

philip_bonanno's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

3.75

The last 20 pages are really good. The rest is kinda mediocre and boring.

juliabeaumont's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.25