Customer Reviews

Native Son

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My copy of this Richard Wright jewel came broken, ripped and old, mixed among several other literary treasures from a local stoop sale. Every time I turned a page, it would break from the ancient adhesive binding and almost turn to dust in my own dye-stained fingers. Was this a first edition paperback? No idea. The beginning pages were long lost and any other potential date displays were ripped or smeared. I was reading the future lining of my kitchen trash bin. How in the world could such wonderful gems as books have such cruel fates?

This entire book is about cruel fates. Broken up into three parts, Wright's "Native Son" tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an angry and foolish young black man from 1940's Chicago. He is powerfully built but weak-minded because he didn't have a proper education. He had big dreams of becoming an aviator but lack of opportunity forced him to live in a rat-infested room with his mother and two siblings. He just wanted to be left alone but his suffocating world would soon torture him with relentless attention. He was one of many young black men like this during the age of evil prejudice, withheld freedoms and spirit-breaking segregation.

The first "book" introduces us to Bigger and his dead end plan to rob a Jewish deli with his gang. The second "book" shows that he could have a chance for a better life if he could make better choices. When something finally goes his way - a job as a driver for an affluent white family, unforeseen events turn his good fortune into a deadly nightmare. That's when "book" three resolves all conflicts with a predictable, yet harrowing end. Packed with suspense, this gut-wrenching tale speaks to the modern world about a history we should never forget.

I feel that I should separate the sections of the book in order to properly review the piece. The beginning is your average low story of black hard-living during hard times. The middle is rough, startling and easily the strongest writing of all parts. I could not put it down. However, Wright loses me a bit during the denouement. It seemed like he had run out of story and while his words are powerful, they meander and repeat. The novel is already dialogue-heavy, but it goes a little overboard near the end.

It's a great, great book - just by no means perfect. It's sad to see this beaten thing go into the garbage can.

I enjoyed this book. I initially found it difficult to read but then I got into it and could not put it down. It is an amazing, well laid out story. Bigger Thomas....sigh! I have never been more aggravated by a character's stupidity.

The language is rather rough in this book. However, it does fit in with the character. I have been reading it for a while now and hope to finish it soon. The book came in a timely manner and the packaging was fine.

Native Son was on the "recommended" list for a grad class, so I was expecting something dense with vocabulary words and filled with symbolism, a sort of intellectual interpretation of gender and race.
What I got was an in-your-face portrayal of Bigger Thomas. The separate parts or "books" vividly convey Bigger's disenfranchised childhood, his "break" as a young adult, and the events that lead to his demise. I gasped and bemoaned Bigger's very movements or utterances dozens of times, wanting so badly to stop knowing this story but at the same time completely incapable of putting it down. You have to find a way to read this book.