Go Tell It on the Mountain (Vintage International) Mass Market Paperback – September 12, 2013

A powerfully fecund and original mind!James Baldwin brooks no deceit nor conceit, as he engages.In full throttle, in this book, he can be mercilessly unyielding as he fearlessly and unapologetically expose and excoriate the tainted and timid. He savagely endures no prisoner.Nonetheless, he’s remarkably deep and candid!The writer is ferociously committed and capable of delving into and navigating the most intricate and labyrinthine contours of the human soul, and clinically, analysing its subtleties: foibles, pretensions, relationships etc. And he extends this unerring capacity to capturing the sheer essence of the spiritual and elemental forces of life and nature, and their respective constituents.With studied ease and confidence, he repeatedly and effortlessly unleashes his talent to achieve this feat throughout the book.Amazing talent!Such talent....., certainly, prodigious and beyond the mere ability to craft majestic and tantalising prose.On the whole - and in the wider context - the book is a masterful portraiture of the relentless ugliness, darkness, misery, melancholy and gloom that typifies and envelops black life in the early 20th century America. A naked byproduct of the scandalously shameful American racism that lingers till date.The work is ceaselessly deep, compelling and enthralling!And no wonder it’s, dutifully, enshrined a classic.A book for all time and for all that seek to know!

As a member of Mocha Girls Read our theme was authors of banned books. James Baldwin was a writer before his time. He was able to connect the human condition of 1930s Harlem with the black church. These topics were definitely not being discussed publicly nor written about during this time. In my opinion this is a classic. I must admit you do have to pay attention and keep up with the characters and the traumas that they experienced. I would recommend this book

While only being just barely over 220 pages long, this novel certainly has a family saga feel to it! It's also definitely one of those books that falls on my "multiple readings likely required to catch everything" list. No problem there though, because the writing here is stunning! Even when he talks about the most mundane, everyday moments, Baldwin's superb word choice just makes you want to wrap up in these stories, grim as they may be sometimes. The poet Langston Hughes had this to say of Baldwin:"He is thought-provoking, tantalizing, irritating, abusing and amusing. And he uses words as the sea uses waves, to flow and beat, advance and retreat, rise and take a bow in disappearing,,,the thought becomes poetry and the poetry illuminates the thought."Go Tell It On The Mountain marks my first experience of reading Baldwin and I could not have described it better than Hughes. :-)This short novel is broken down into three parts. Part 1 introduces the reader to John and his brother Roy living in Harlem, NYC. John is the son expected to follow in his father's footsteps of being a pastor, while not much is really expected of older brother Roy. Much of the story here is on John, as he asks himself if a life with the church is really what he wants. The reader also sees the somewhat strained relationship John has with his parents, his father outwardly a respected church figure but secretly a spouse abuser, John's mother appearing as a bit of a pushover / doormat type. But as the story progresses, we learn there's quite a bit more to the story than you might imagine.Part 2... well, Part two has three segments on its own. I'll call them 2.1 / 2.2., etc. Okay, so 2.1 is essentially the story of John's Aunt Florence (sister to John's father), her past and present and how all those pivotal moments throughout her life brought her to be a key figure in John's life in present time. Part 2.2 then looks at the life of Gabriel, John's father; the fragile, nearly severed at times bond between Gabriel & Florence, as well as how Gabriel went from a life of shady activity and constant bad life choices to that of respected church figure. The reader also learns the history of Gabriel's life with first wife Deborah (not John's mother). Parts of the story here reminded me a bit of the biblical story of Abraham, Sarah & Hagar. Part 2.3 gets into how Gabriel and second wife Elizabeth (John's mother) got together, as well as looks back on Elizabeth's life before she came to know Gabriel.Part 3 is a sort of wrapup, in a way. It brings together all the characters the reader has come to know to one church service in present time where final questions and thoughts are hashed out and addressed and final "say your peace" moments are aired out. It takes all this family history you've read about up to this point and finally connects all the dots to make this amazing & rich family tapestry that I think most any reader will find relatable on some level. John talks about a nightmare that has left him a changed man and Gabriel is forced to answer for some of his past wrongs.It's not just the writing itself -- lines like "the waters of anguish riding the world" -- that grabs you in this book, but also the themes. So many powerful themes! One of the strongest being the idea of how even one small choice not thoroughly thought through can have the potential to have massive repercussions that can ruin numerous lives in the quietest of ways. I guess that's the stamp of great writing on this novel -- in some ways the story is pretty straightforward, yet in other ways it's deep and resonate even in the everyday-ness of it all. Though it's a short read, I recommend savoring this one and really getting to know all the characters & their struggles. Relate and commiserate with them!

This book was well written. It's very sad. Every sentence feels like a line from a poem and it constantly has me visualizing how life must've been back in those days. It made me grateful for the progressive movements made in recent years but also left me wondering how I can better fight for equality and fair treatment.

Baldwin’s first book of critical acclaim. I have read it a number of times over my life and it never ceases to be powerful and to deliver new and greater insight with each reading. Histories upon histories woven and intertwined to bring compassion to even the most brutal characters and hope for the most abandoned and lost.

James Baldwin is a great writer. This book was a little hard to read but was a great read. I recommend it to anyone who needs it for a social work book analysis

Uma pena não haver ainda tradução. O livro é intenso, cheio de cenas fortes e críticas que vão da tensão racial na sociedade americana (ainda super atual e um bom paralelo com o Brasil) até a hipocrisia dos religiosos, igualmente atual e importante pra despertar um raciocínio crítico e empático com os conflitos que a religião - especialmente cristã- nos causa, com seus modelos de perfeição e abnegação da carne num mundo que não pode mais ser lido com o olhar “bitolado” de uma religião anacrônica.Fantástico!

Conocí a James Baldwin con la película "I am not your negro". Decidí leer alguno de sus libros y elegí éste. Al principio no se me hizo muy fluido, pero poco a poco te va envolviendo en la historia. Parece autobiográfica, creo que en parte lo es. Seguiré leyendo más sobre este autor porque me interesa conocer la realidad de las minorías norteamericanas desde su punto de vista. Es muy interesante.

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‘Go tell it on the mountain’ by James Baldwin is a semiautobiographical novel. It was published in 1953. The American novelist was an important voice on racism in the mid-20th century.The novel is about a black family living in Harlem, New York and covers a day in the life of John Grimes. It has many biblical references so non-Christians may find it a hard-read. It deals with deep-rooted social and patriarchal family oppression in the life of fourteen-year-old John.Baldwin uses flashbacks to tell the story of John’s father, mother and aunt covering the last years of the 19th century into the 1930s. In the last chapter he also uses frames to narrate the transformation of John on the threshing floor of the church. Baldwin’s writing in this last chapter is truly vivid and striking.He is successful in shouting out from a mountain top about the plight of the black people of America.