Nothing in the following should be taken to in any way minimize the horrors and degradation of racism. However, while Richard Wright's classic account of his upbringing in the Jim Crow South remains a powerful indictment of a system of repression and dehumanization which indelibly stain's this great nation's history, the book is somehow simply not a compelling text. Wright never really engages the reader emotionally nor wins our empathy. It, thus, seems more important as a historical document than central to the Western Canon.
The primary reason for this is that Richard Wright, as he portrays himself in the book, is just an *expletive deleted*. And while it is certainly legitimate to argue that he is merely a creation of the malignant system of segregation and racial hatred, the history of the South and of other racist regimes (i.e., Nazi Germany) suggest that he is not an inevitable product of the system. The Richard Wright that he presents is so brutal, bitter and hate filled, that he is impossible to care about. He stands in stark contrast to the many still generous, hope filled, decent people who emerged from this same oppression (or others like it); people whose positive vision and dream of freedom brought down Jim Crow within a generation.
Moreover, he compares unfavorably to the survivors of the Death Camps and the Gulag and the other heinous criminal enterprises of the century, who emerged from experiences that were at least as brutal and seemingly soul deadening to produce a body of literature that is instead life affirming. This is not to suggest that Wright's experiences and reactions and personal development are unworthy of notice and study, rather, I would suggest that we have more to gain by studying Elie Weisel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Vassily Grossman and Anchee Min and their like, who have turned similar experiences into a testament of hope and human dignity rather than one of despair.
I know you aren't supposed to say these kinds of things in our politically
correct age, but I disliked the Richard Wright of this memoir too strongly
to genuinely care about his life. And this feeling of disgust towards
his character, allowed at least this reader an unfortunate psychic distance
from the revulsion one should feel towards the circumstances and environment
of his youth. More troubling though than the fact that I had this
reaction, is that many comments by young readers on the Web and at Amazon
indicate that they shared this reaction. If the texts from which
they are supposed to be learning about Segregation are instead putting
them off, the way that this one does, that is a serious matter.
(Reviewed:03-Jan-00)
Grade: (C)
