I've spent most of the last two weeks with Bigger Thomas. Alas, today I must bid him farewell as he awaits his fate in that Cook County jail cell.
I will miss Bigger. It's been a long time since I viscerally connected with a literary character like I connected with him. All of the characters ring true. The story rings true. It's very realistic.
I don't know that I fully understand Bigger's character development, but I have certainly tried to understand. I like to think he found himself at the end.
The main thing is that this is a great story. I really like the plot.
I'm glad Freddy read the book; otherwise, I might never have read this novel and would have missed a great reading experience. This is great stuff.
4 comments:
I am reading Native Son right now. I am about three hundred pages in. We are reading it for book club discussion on Tuesday night and I am really looking forward to this talk. Does anyone else feel Wright's writing is similar to Arthur Miller's? Don't ask me why I think this, it just instantly popped into my head from page one. I don't care for Miller all that much and I am happy to report that I am enjoying Wright's dialogue and character developments immensely. Will report once I have finished, but yes, a truly great book.
It didn't occur to me while reading this book that Wright's writing is similar to Miller's. I'll thumb back through Native Son and consider this possibility.
What's great about this novel is that it puts you into the mindset of a person and into a time period that is alien to my experience as a white man who's lived from 1949 to the present in the Deep South.
This book can lend itself to complex analysis. It would be great to listen to a Wright scholar discuss it.
You are right about this book's putting you into a mindset you might not be used to. That is how I felt when I read it. You see things from a new perspective.
I have finished the book now. I still think the writing is excellent. I also think Wright could have ended the book about sixty pages before he did with Bigger coming to the realization of what it is to be human. The part when he talks to Max and then is left alone in his cell and starts screaming "I want to live!" I don't know, I just thought the trial a bit redundant. Like a lot of parts of the book, I thought it a bit overdone. Having the book club discussion on Tuesday night so I will comment on what is said then.
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