FINISHED READING - Go Tell It On The Mountain - James Baldwin

Go Tell it on the Mountain was Baldwin's debut novel. Published in 1954 to high praise at the time. Perhaps over sixty five years later its harder to sense how much of a boundary breaking novel this was. The black experience and lives are all front back and central, not one colourful peripheral caricature walks in then out of the narrative. Its written in a fluent punchy style, but Baldwin was still evolving his writing, discovering what the tone and structure of his novels might be like. He was at this point yet to become the renowned civil rights activist of the sixties, The inspirational speaker and voice of the black experience for his generation. But the sources for it are all there in this book.

Baldwin said he had to write Go Tell It On The Mountain, simply to get his conflicted relationship with his own Father off his chest. In the middle of the story stands Gabriel, a visionary tub thumping pastor who berates and cajoles his parishioners, including his own family members, over their shaky moral rectitude. Around him his sons, daughters, wives passed and present, mistresses and casual flings all know that Gabriel has this secret side, one that he hides the consequences of even from himself.  

Gabriel's mission in life is to go and tell the truth of the Lord as he knows it from the Bible, to those who will listen. Though his family all know the flaw of hypocrisy that runs through this, each of them were at one time deeply enamoured with Gabriel's power as an orator. Under the weight of his unspoken guilt even that power as a preacher wains. Everyone might know of his hidden secrets but never Go Tell It openly, even amongst themselves.

Though it takes a while to accustom your ear to the rich bible belt language, it slowly draws you into the insularity of a black culture surviving within a white society. Really what remained most striking and moving for me was Baldwin's empathy for the predicament of the women surrounding Gabriel. They are all in some way trapped by their circumstances, most often simply by virtue of being a woman. Many make a great effort to gain some agency in their lives, only to see it fail, usually because a man dies, or leaves them destitute or fails to act honourable towards them.  The beating heart of this novel is its portrayal of the black woman's lot, and one patriarchal man's role in that. It still has something to say and for us to hear all these decades later. Its an engaging read, I look forward to reading the subsequent novels.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8