Native Son (Perennial Classics) | Richard A. Wright

Native Son (Perennial Classics) | Richard A. Wright | superb.

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Native Son (Perenn...

	Native Son (Perennial Classics) Richard A. Wright, 1998 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 186 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A True Classic

(In all honesty I didn't actually READ the book. I listened to the unabridged audio version, but since it was the first audiobook I listened to I have no idea about the quality of the production versus other audiobooks. I'm just mentioning that in the interest of full disclosure.)

What separates an old book from a classic book? The classic book has themes and ideas that are relevant and important to readers decades or even centuries after its initial printing. "Native Son" fits this definition because its portrayal of the doomed young black man Bigger Thomas is just as relevant today as it was in 1940.

For the obligatory plot summary, Bigger Thomas is 20 years old and lives in one cramped, rat-infested room on Chicago's South Side with his mother, younger brother, and sister. At this point Bigger is already a petty criminal, sticking up some black businesses with his buddies Gus, Jack, and GH because the police don't care if black kids rob black businessmen. When he's offered a job as chauffeur to the rich white Dalton family, Bigger is reluctant at first, until he sees the Dalton's attractive daughter Mary on a Newsreel. But Mary is no Paris Hilton-style heiress partying her days away. She is involved with a Communist leader named Jan and has Bigger drive her to meet him. Jan and Mary's well-intentioned but heavy handed kindness towards Bigger makes him uncomfortable, more so when they ask him to take them to somewhere to eat on the South Side. This begins a night of drinking that leads to all three getting drunk, Mary most of all. She is so out of it that Bigger has to help her into the house. While standing over her bed, Mary's blind mother enters the room. Bigger panics and accidentally suffocates Mary. After this he panics further by stuffing her into the furnace. Soon enough this deception is found out and Bigger is a fugitive before finally being caught and brought to "justice."

If I were to nitpick I would say there's a little too much interior monologue that at times slows the story down to a crawl. And the speech by Bigger's lawyer goes on much too long so that it seems like his defensive plan is to filibuster. Those are very small and unimportant imperfections.

A quick word here on what this story is not: it is not a story about injustice. Bigger does commit the second-degree murder of Mary Dalton. He compounds this by fleeing, killing an unwitting accomplice, and resisting arrest. The only crime he's accused of he didn't commit was the rape of Mary Dalton--how officials could determine this since her body was burned I have no idea. This isn't a story like "To Kill A Mockingbird" about a black man being railroaded by the white courts.

"Native Son" is more complex than that. This is a book more about the causes that create a man like Bigger Thomas. It's about the oppressive society that caged young black men like him in the South Side, teaching them to fear and hate the white man so that he doesn't trust even well-meaning do-gooders like Jan and his lawyer. The killing of Mary Dalton is a by-product of the fear and ignorance bred by centuries of hatred and discrimination. That is of course the real injustice here.

For examples of how this message continues to be relevant, one need look no further than high-profile, racially-dividing cases like Michael Vick, OJ Simpson, or Rodney King among many others. While advances have been made since the time of "Native Son"'s first printing, every day there are still new Bigger Thomases being created and stuffed into an already overcrowded prison system. That's what makes "Native Son" a true classic.

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superb.

This is what I would call the perfect package literature. Profound, and daring message, incredible eloquence, the protagonist that embodies complexities of life, and yet so real and believable, and the fast paced story developement. what a brilliant mind and talent!

Stunning and Thought Provoking

It's been a decade since I read this book (I am planning on re-reading it soon, which is what brought me here) and I can still recall the impact this book had on me during the first read. The intersection of two very different lives - the young violent protagonist (?) and the misguided clueless rich girl and the events that follow. The scenes where the girl and her boyfriend are unwittingly patronizing our protagonist, their attempts to let him know he has their unwanted compassion so at odds with the survivor realities of his world so that they are almost (unknowingly) mocking him are just incredibly awkward and telling about our world in general. I can remember groaning out loud as the angry young man makes mistake after mistake, desperation clouding his judgement, yet his actions realistically parallel with real lives one reads about in the newspaper year after year. Excellent book - highly recommended.

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After 68 years--reads like today!

Two local ministers objected to the use of the "N" word, so the Board of Education took this book off the required reading list for our (GA) high school seniors. (Not censored, mind you, just removed from the required list and forbidden to be discussed in class.) Therefore I HAD to read it. I hate for someone to tell me not to read something.
Except for the prices of things like bread and newspapers, this book reads like today. Despite the conspicuous successes of Barak Obama, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, Tiger Woods, Shaq O'neal and many others, I would be willing to say that more young black men identify with Bigger Thomas than with them. Getting racism out in the open is one step towards solving the problem. The book doesn't pull any punches!
I'm glad I read this book and I feel sorry for the students who will choose not to read it.

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A story of alienation

This is a novel about alienation. It follows Bigger Thomas a he commits grisly and sensational crimes and, in his grasping way, tries to understand what has driven his actions. The first two sections of the novel are fairly fast-paced, but the third section is marked by speeches that border on exposition. Because other characters are seen only from Bigger's view, they seem as one-dimensional to the reader as to the central character. The addendum - How Bigger Was Born - is an interesting self-examination by the author of the labors that went into the creation of the novel. Even though this work has a few problems, I do recommend it.

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