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Even the Stars Look Lonesome

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When Maya Angelou was a young woman -- "in the crisp days of my youth," she says -- she carried with her a secret conviction that she wouldn't live past the age of 28. Raped by her mother's boyfriend at 8 and a mother herself since she graduated from high school, she supported herself and her son, Guy, through a series of careers and buoyed by an implacable ambition to escape what might have been a half-lived, ground-down life of poverty and despair. "For it is hateful to be young, bright, ambitious and poor," Angelou observes. "The added insult is to be aware of one's poverty." In "Even the Stars Look Lonesome," a collection of reflective autobiographical essays, Angelou gives no further explanation for her "profound belief" that she would die young.

"I was thirty-six before I realized that I had lived years beyond my deadline and needed to revise my thinking about an early death," she recalls. "With that realization life waxed sweeter. Old acquaintances became friendships, and new clever acquaintances showed themselves more interesting. Old loves burdened with memories of disappointments and betrayals packed up and left town, leaving no forwarding address, and new loves came calling."

Angelou, looking at tailights of her 20's, is the nearest thing America has to a sacred institution, a high priestess of culture and love in the tradition of such distaff luminaries (all of them, hitherto, white) as Isadora Duncan and Pearl S. Buck, with a bit of Eleanor Roosevelt and Aimée Semple MacPherson thrown into the mix.

"She was born poor and powerless in a land where/power is money and money is adored," the poet Angelou writes in tribute to another astonishing black woman of our time, Oprah Winfrey. "Born black in a land where might is white/and white is adored./Born female in a land where decisions are masculine/and masculinity controls." Angelou's lifelong effort to escape and expose the "national, racial and historical hallucinations" that have burdened black women in America and replace them with a shining exemplar of power, achievement and generosity of spirit is as miraculous as she says it is, even if one suspects that in "real life" Angelou must be a little hard to take.

"I would have my ears filled with the world's music," she writes, "the grunts of hewers of wood, the cackle of old folks sitting in the last sunlight and the whir of busy bees in the early morning ... All sounds of life and living, death and dying are welcome to my ears." At times Angelou seems more like a blast from Olympus than a woman of flesh and blood.

Reading these essays, I found myself longing somewhat guiltily for evidence of smallness on her part, of pettiness, even -- some sign that even an icon as monumental as she is might occasionally allow herself an irritated moment, a lapse into cynicism, or humor that wasn't so resolutely seasoned and wise.

On the other hand, smallness isn't what Maya Angelou stands for. Ordinary is not what she does. Only a cynic, a smaller mind than Angelou's, could fail to welcome the gifts she offers.

"Even The Stars Look Lonesome", by Maya Angelou is a collection of short insights into things that are important to her. It is the second book in a sequence following "Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now." Maya Angelou touches down on various subjects like how a house can hurt those who live there but a home can heal it's occupants. She also reveals her knowledge to the reader on sensuality and how everyone has the right to sexuality. My favorite one is her essay on how her thoughts of growing old have changed since she has become old. In her book she shows the downside of having pride in her fame and she also tells of the unforgetable lessons she has learned of violence and anger. There is also a short profile of Oprah and other stories fo being an African-American. "Even The Stars Look Lonesome" is Maya Angelou's book of things that she believes must be learned throught one's lifetime.

What a Voice! What an inspiration, and great enunciation. The Lady is her usual awesome self in this wise and eloquent sharing of some of her more intimate life experiences. It's impossible to adequately praise Angelou's ability to speak to the heart and soul, whether through her written work or recorded truth. You'll listen to this over and over again, and will be renewed, and renewed. Enjoy!

The deep and compelling thoughts of life and how to endear every emotion, experience, and disappointment that comes with growing older day by day, were wonderfully displayed in Maya Angelou's Even the Stars Look Lonesome. This book was an intelligent continuation of her best selling book Wouldn't Take Anything from my Journey Now. Taking life one day at a time, and learning from each experience is what this book is all about. The recreating of each memorable happening from love and intimacy to rage and violence, not discounting her remarkable outlook on age, fame, and perhaps the most impotent, the comfort and security you find in a home and a family. The experiences would relate more to elder women looking for advice and insight on common life issues.
In this novel, Maya Angelou has combined a wonderful collection of life experiences that have formed and made her the person she is today. Each chapter reflects an important stepping-stone of her life. The book consists of twenty chapters that are mumbled together and yet stayed in order of the way they took place.
The plot is always changing each chapter is like a different book. Towards the beginning of the novel, love and divorce where the experience of choice and she soon moves in to her times in Africa, and how challenging it is to be an African American Women earning her well deserved respect. Maya Angelou's novel also voices her opinion on age, denial, and anger to an older age group of African American women, using emotionally over powering stories. The chapters are short and moderately easy to get through, if you're good at combing facts and clues to complete the final picture.
Coming to a conclusion of the eye opening novel Even the Star Look Lonesome we feel as though the experiences displayed in this book would better relate to women between the ages of 20 and 80. The reason for that relation is due to the fact not many people have experienced the things talked about until theses ages have been reached. Also the group felt the book was directed towards African Americans and the troubles that race encounters.

Although I did not find this book as good as some of her others, the experiences and feelings that Maya conveys are rich with detail and passion. Each chapter is sort of a separate story. They are entertaining and are a testimonial to her life's experience.

Maya Angelou provides insight and humour in her book Even the Stars Look Lonesome. The book is a quick read but deservedly warrants several readings.The prose is simple , yet profound coming from a woman who has lived through life's joys and sorrows. The book is rather poetic; at times, it appears as though one were reading her poetry and not prose. Even the Stars Look Lonesome is a book for all to cherish; she provides insight on the joy of aging, commends Oprah Winfrey on her strengths, talks about events in her life that shaped her and people that influenced her. Overall, a joy to read; a book that entertains, educates and makes life a more pleasant journey.

it talks about essays of aspects in life and what kind of journey that people are planning to have in their experiences and I think its a very interesting book
Best Book

maya angelou's even the stars look lonesome is an outburst to the african american society. it gives so much hope. her words express a lyrical emotion. her usage of intelligent voice structure titilates the mind.

I was very satisfied with my purchase of this book and also with the delivery.

Most books are meant to be read . . . one exception to this
rule might well be EVEN THE STARS LOOK LONESOME
by Maya Angelou, the continuation of her bestselling
WOULDN'T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW.

I was fortunate to hear the CD version of this book, which
is a combination of essays by the author on a wide variety of subjects.

What made it so outstanding was to actually hear the author . . . her
voice is unlike any you've ever heard . . . to listen to it makes you
feel like she is talking directly to you.

EVEN THE STARS grabbed me from the opening:

* My last marriage was made in heaven. The musical accompaniment
was provided by Gabriel, and angels were so happy that ten thousand
of them danced on the head of a pin.

I was mesmerized from that point on . . . and each chapter seemingly
kept getting better, covering such diverse topics as aging, learning,
vacationing, sexuality, teaching and violence.