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If Beale Street Could Talk: James Baldwin (Penguin Modern Classics)

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I would summarize the theme of If Beale Street Could Talk by stealing some words from James Baldwin. That is, when it comes to racism and prejudice, we have "to face it, even taunt it, play with it, dare". Dare that we can conquer it.

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin is a an angry and sometimes brutal love story set in the Bronx, New York. That sentence becomes a refrain, because you see soon that Baldwin is not concerned with the how of his majestic art, only with the what – “Your characters say: Here I am, I got to tell you this and you got to listen. Then they get you to listen, and maybe you listen to a whole lot of shit. But you’ve got to listen. And then one day they say, Thanks, baby, goodbye – and they go out into the world.” Which is how the words are bound to come, perhaps, to a man who at 14 was seized by the Word, and became a boy preacher among the Holy Rollers. of the novel. Fonny's friend, Daniel, has also been falsely arrested and falsely convicted of a crime, years before, and his spirit broken by the humiliation of jail and the fact--which Baldwin stresses, and which cannot be stressed role of the indifferent esthete, it is really the best possible time for most writers--the sheer variety of stances, the multiplicity of "styles" available to the serious writer, is amazing. Those who are bewildered by so manyThe only real criticism is that I wanted to spend longer with Tish and Fonny as they struggle on into the future. If you're on "music.youtube.com", you can find me by searching for "Beale Street timothynull"; then scrolling down to the Playlists. You can then select my "Beale Street" playlist. It includes all the songs listed above. I recommend people read Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, because it's a great book. I also hope people will read or reread it in an effort to look for the songs referenced by Baldwin. I hope people can confirm my song list, add to my song list, or make corrections in my song list. Also, I hope someone can find the two or three songs I didn't find. (On several occasions, I found what I believed were song references, but I couldn't determine what songs were being referenced.) I get the feeling that Mr. Baldwin doesn't worry overmuch about the authenticity of his books. He knows that, with all his faults, a sizable proportion of the American public will love him still. He is a brand name by now. In fact, he is so dated—I think even Richard Wright is more contemporary—that he might even qualify for our current nostalgia craze. An urbanized "Perils of Pauline," his book could make it equally well as a "gothic" novel, sending thrills of synthetic terror down the spine of that legendary old lady in Dubuque. [5] Broyard, Anatole (May 17, 1974). "No Color Line in Cliches". The New York Times . Retrieved 2019-11-15.

On August 29, 2017, Stephan James was set to star. [5] In September 2017, KiKi Layne and Teyonah Parris were also added, with Layne in the female lead. [6] [7]

I'm reasonably sure the above song list is correct or nearly correct. I'm also reasonably certain I probably missed two or three songs because on several occasions, I found what I thought was a song reference, but I couldn't determine what song it was referring to.

Baldwin destroys all the machinery of his country: a corrupt justice; a racist police force; a hypocritical society. Very little is saved from his mordacity. Not everything is bad. There are good people, very good people, who take care of others. While climbing up the stairs to her apartment, Tish thinks about her plan to live in the East Village, which is in downtown Manhattan, with Fonny because it's cheaper than living in the projects, and Fonny would have more room for his art. Tish also considers the East Village as nicer than other places where they could live in Harlem, which she considers to be "worse than the projects" (31). When Tish arrives at her apartment, no one is there, but five minutes later her mother arrives, carrying a shopping bag. Upon seeing her daughter, Sharon asks Tish how Fonny is doing and whether the lawyer has gone to visit him yet. When Tish says no, Sharon sighs and moves to start putting the groceries away. Sharon agrees to go to Puerto Rico, and when she finally manages to find Mrs. Rogers, she tries to appeal to the woman’s motherly love, since Rogers is a mother herself. To do this, she shows Mrs. Rogers a picture of Fonny and Tish, explaining that Tish is her daughter and that she’s going to have Fonny’s baby. Unfortunately, though, talking about this only dredges up Mrs. Rogers’s trauma, and she starts screaming. Shortly thereafter, she disappears once again—this time for good—and Sharon is forced to return to the United States in defeat. I then got out a notepad and started a list, and every time I discovered a reference to a song in Baldwin's book, I wrote down the name of the song and artist that sang it. I eventually labeled the list, and I have duplicated the list below. (Many times, there was only one potential singer. Other times, I guessed the singer I thought Baldwin would have preferred. Naturally, I had to limit myself to performers that were alive when or before Baldwin was alive.) Tish goes home and tells her mother, Sharon, that she’s pregnant, and it goes quite well. In fact, Sharon isn’t even surprised, and she urges Tish to refrain from feeling like a “bad girl.” Later, Joseph, her father, echoes this sentiment, and Tish’s sister, Ernestine, tells her to “unbow [her] head.” After Tish’s family toasts to her pregnancy, Joseph calls Frank and tells him to come over, saying he should bring Fonny’s mother, Mrs. Hunt, and his two sisters, Adrienne and Sheila.If Beale Street Could Talk affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction - that between members of a family' Joyce Carol Oates Read more Details

his center inside him," but this is, ultimately, the means by which he survives. Others are less fortunate. After going to Hayward’s, Tish visits Fonny in the Tombs and tells him the bad news about Mrs. Rogers’s disappearance. She tries to stay optimistic, but that night she has a terrible nightmare about Fonny driving full-speed off a cliff, and when she wakes up, her mother is sitting on her bed and looking at her. “I know I can’t help you very much right now,” Sharon says. “But I know about suffering; if that helps. I know that it ends. I ain’t going to tell you no lies, like it always ends for the better.” Going on, she urges Tish to focus on her baby, and to remember that “love brought you here.” The next morning, Tish wakes up and goes to her job as a perfume-counter salesperson. The line break between the end of Section 1—in which Tish is meditating on why New York City is the "ugliest and dirtiest city in the world"—and the beginning of Section 2 emulates a shift in a train of thought. Tish's thoughts on why her environment is harmful shift to concessions about the good associations she holds of her setting: her personal love story has flourished "on the streets" of the very city she abhors. The shift between these two sections is a good index of Tish's tone throughout Beale Street. While situations in this novel sometimes feel bleak or hopeless, Tish is able to find optimism in them and endows them with a powerful hope. In this way, Beale Street's tone is closely tied to the spirit of the blues, which are about enduring suffering while maintaining a terrible kind of hope.The book follows a relationship between a 19-year-old girl named Tish, whose given name is Clementine Rivers, and a 22-year-old sculptor named Fonny, whose given name is Alonzo Hunt. They grew up in the same neighborhood in New York City and are childhood friends. They fall in love and become engaged. The novel takes place after Fonny has been falsely accused of raping a woman, and arrested and jailed awaiting his trial. Tish learns that she is pregnant after Fonny is incarcerated and must rely on her and Fonny's family for support. The failures of the criminal justice system keep Fonny incarcerated. [3] An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. and Tish's to get him free. Even so, his father cannot endure the strain. Caught stealing on his job, he commits suicide almost at the very time his son is released on bail. Tish moves on to discuss speaking in tongues or being possessed by the Holy Ghost at this church, wondering if it will happen today. She notes that this doesn't often happen in her church, because they are more "respectable" and "civilized" than the Sanctified church. When they enter the church, the congregation's heads turn to watch them. Tish notes that she does not remember what color Mrs. Hunt's dress was anymore, but that it stands out in the darkness of the church. The way that Mrs. Hunt enters the church affects Tish: "She was saved the moment she entered the church, she was Sanctified holy, and I even remember until today how much she made me tremble, all of a sudden, deep inside" (24). Mrs. Hunt marches Tish and Fonny to the front and center pew and they all sit down.

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