Customer Reviews

The Outsider

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Socially less valuable than Native Son, but better literature. Long overlooked book. If you read no other Wright book, read this one. Like Blackboy, gives an indepth look into American Communism. Despite obvious symbolism of blacks as "outsiders," is much more intriguing when race issue is put into backseat in favor of more universal idea. Can we judge those that are not capable of accepting a society's morality and rules by that society's standards and castigate them with that society's penalties? Is it inevitable that your life will catch up with you if you run away from it? Go and get yourself a copy.

The Outsider is a thrilling novel that reads quickly, and memorably. Like "The Fugitive" our hero finds himself suddenly outside of both society and his own sense of identity. He is forced to recreate himself as he struggles to stay ahead of danger, only to find that his new persona liberates a charisma that thrusts him into the spotlight, threatening to betray him to his pursuers.

As in the "The Grapes of Wrath", our hero is forced to confront his concept of who and how he had lived while becoming both politically and ideologically self-aware. This transformative process remains as compelling, current, and relevant today as when Wright penned the novel.

This first-rate novel is given short shrift by those who enjoy genuflecting to the myth of an intellectual heritage, to which it owes no homage nor apology, above the thrilling strength of the prose itself.

The Fugitive is a zesty hoot of novel full of suspenseful twists and thoughtful choices.

Wright has an inside view of how some black men feel in this world of enemies. Cross feels that not only is he trapped in a world of racism, but also in a dead end job and a life that seems unreal at times. He analyzes the most routine events in his life until he gets so bogged down in details that any action seems like a dead end (almost literally). I feel as though that because of this Cross sometimes is his own worst enemy and this is the cause of most of his problems. Sometimes Wright can overkill some of the themes by being so analytical that he loses the reader by going to indepth into the more obscure subjects like Communism and Facist's beliefs, that are needed for the reader to understand some of Cross's actions. But that could have been done more tersely. Overall, this is a excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who loves a good read

As in Native Son, Wright portrays a black man who manages to fool "smarter" white men. This is a common theme in Wright's work, but here is explored to the extremes. Bigger in Native Son is not an educated or confident man, but Cross' circumstances give him a swagger that is irresistible. He dupes almost everyone he meets. After all, as a black man he is not smart or educated and disadvantaged, or so his acquaintances are inclined to believe. This work acts as a raging indictment of "white" society and the prejudices that lie there in (this should not be surprising) but it also acts as a mirror, giving one pause and a chance to reflect. While most people see Cross' color, he has managed to transcend race. And that may be the true beauty of this novel. While it deals with issues of race relations, it explores fundamental issues of humanity as well. The Outsider is not just about a black man in a white world, but also about one individual who dares to question the foundations of morality and civilization. A novel for everyone to read, to think about, and ultimately to enjoy!

A clinical psychologist wouldn't hesitate to diagnose Cross Damon, the Outsider of this novel, as a psychopath. He has little empathy, a strong sense of anomie, a mind divided between paranoia and invincibility. He's a charming liar, a self-justifying misogynist who attracts women and abuses them with equal ease. Eventually, he's a quadruple murderer. His first victim, a simple acquaintance, he murders without malice aforethought, simply for self-protection.
His next two victims, bludgeoned to death in the same scene, "deserve" to be killed in Damon's mind; one is a racist fascist and the other is a militant communist. Damon kills them both spontaneously. His last victim, also a militant communist, Damon intentionally stalks and slays in cold blood. Communits and fascists are two of a kind for Damon, both ideologies being devoted to power over and repression of the individual. Thus Cross Damon cannot judge himself guilty, nor can he accept the judgment of society that he is 'evil'. He doesn't justify his crimes as one might expect, however, as the inevitable consequences of his existence as a black man in a racist society. In fact, he discounts his 'race' as anything fundamental to his identity; instead it's his intelligence, or rather his evolved individualistic morality, that makes him an Outsider, and therefore above the law. Here's a description of such a person:

"Could there be a man in whose mind and consciousness all the hopes and inhibitions of the last two thousand years have died? A man whose consciousness has not been conditioned by our culture? A man speaking our language, dressing and behaving like we do, and yet living on a completely different plane? A man who would be the return of ancient man, pre-Christian man?"

But that isn't Damon's portrayal of himself. The words belong to District Attorney Ely Houston, a hunchback, Damon's antagonist. The irony is that Damon fears Houston because he recognizes the same 'outsider' superiority in him as in himself. Likewise Houston recognizes Damon's pathological brilliance for what it is, a mirror image of his own.

Are you reminded of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"? Of the 'superior' murderer Raskolnikov and the psychologically perceptive detective Porfiry? Richard Wright makes no direct allusion to "Crime and Punishment" in this novel, but a comparison of the two books seems inevitable. "The Outsider" is "Crime and Punishment" bereft of all Christian themes of Redemption, making it a far bleaker and more contemporary vision. Both murderers eventually confess to a woman, from whom they crave absolution: Raskolnikov to Sonya, Damon to Eva. ... but you'll have to read both novels in order to learn how the two women respond.

"The Outsider" reminds me strongly also of Ayn Rand's futurist novel "Atlas Shrugged", not because of plot similarities but because Rand's character John Galt is another post-moral Superman, an "evolved individual" who transcends the commonality of humankind, a Nietzschean "Übermensch". Cross Damon, by the way, has also read Nietzsche, and misapplied his philosophy as wretchedly as Ayn Rand. But if Rand had written Wright's novel, Cross Damon would have triumphed. What Richard Wright denounces, Ayn Rand celebrates: the "Triumph of the Will", the "Man of Horseback", the Individual unshackled from the Herd of the rest of us.

Richard Wright the author (1908-1960) drew on his brief experiences with the Communist Party in the USA for this excoriating portrayal of ruthlessness and hypocrisy; "The Outsider" is as ferocious a condemnation of Communism as any novel by Solzhenitzyn or Viktor Serge. One wonders, therefore, why Wright is still 'unpopular' in the USA. Oh, yeah, he also depicts the horrors of American Jim Crow racism, with its lynchings and oppressions. His protagonist Cross Damon sees and says that Communism and Fascism have more in common than distinct; they are two of the three elitist ideologies that carved the Twentieth Century in zones of misery, the third being Capitalism of the dogmatic sort preached by Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, and the young Robert Nozick. Rand's "Atlas" bearing the weight of the world on his Übermensch shoulders has Hitler's moustache, or Stalin's.

Some novelists are 'artists in words' who employ ideas to fill their language. Richard Wright is the contrary, a man of ideas who has to rely on the thick sludge of words. "The Outsider" is a bit sludgy, slow-going as fiction, laden with extended conversations that couldn't possibly be mistaken for normal human speech. It's not an entertainment; it's a long book worth reading only for the power of its insights. And one has to be cautious about confusing the author with his character! Wright builds his narrative with fragments of his own experience, as most authors do, but "The Outsider" isn't an autobiography. Rather it's a 'confession' of Richard Wright's worst nightmare of his own potential to "play God", to become another Superman in his own eyes.

Socially less valuable than Native Son, but better literature. Long overlooked book. If you read no other Wright book, read this one. Like Blackboy, gives an indepth look into American Communism. Despite obvious symbolism of blacks as "outsiders," is much more intriguing when race issue is put into backseat in favor of more universal idea. Can we judge those that are not capable of accepting a society's morality and rules by that society's standards and castigate them with that society's penalties? Is it inevitable that your life will catch up with you if you run away from it? Go and get yourself a copy.

A pioneer in Americam existentialism. One of my favorite books. A man is given a 'second chance' at not life but identity. The incompatability of ideals and reality serve as a catalyst to his acceptance to this opportunity. He explores many social differances such as politics and ethics (especially the issues of the marginilized society - race most prominantly). Some of the monologues are a bit more like a solilique than seems fitting for reality but they do not really come off as out of place. This is executed well, but not masterfully. The sypathetic 'harmony' between Cross and the hunchback works well along the lines of Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall in Falling Down; that is to say that they play a sort of reciprocal/yin-yang type role of dichotomy. Addresses the role of identity within the self and within society throughout the novel. The futility, the acceptance of futility, and the futility of that acceptance are dealt with. Though this may not be the best example ( I do not know, I have yet to read his entire output), it nonetheless exemplifies some of his strengths as a story teller. This is perhaps his strongest philisophical effort. I would suggest reading "The Man Who Lived Underground" (to be found in "8 Men") as a type of preface. "The Stranger" by Camus and "Naseau" by Sartre would also be in a related vein, though markedly different.

The character development in "Cross" as an intellectual, bemused by his past, but confronted by his present, presents many challenges to a young man fighting personal demons inorder to account for his actions as a productive vexed individual. Cross Damon is a product of any era where hopes fade away as obstacles seemingly come out of nowhere, at the same time when confusing them with oppurtunity.

Excitingly sad tale of young man caught in the vice grips of lift without the personal attributes of an identifiable accountability thread in his make-up, where finding his way out of trouble gets him deeper into it.

Richard Wright (1908-1960) covers racism, exploitation, and existentialism in this engaging story. Cross Damon is an alienated young black man in Chicago in 1950 with a wife and family he doesn't really love, and an unfulfilling postal job. Dissatisfied with his life, he eagerly takes the plunge when given an unexpected chance to skip town unnoticed with a bundle of money. Moving to New York City, he soon becomes mixed up with violent communists and a white district attorney whose disability makes him, like African Americans, an outsider in U.S. society. Damon is bright and not uneducated, but he's also devious, violent, and unable to sidestep troublesome associates one must avoid.

Like most books by Richard Wright, "The Outsider" attacks racial injustice in a readably engaging manner...but is a bit long-winded. Unlike earlier efforts like "Native Son," here Wright disdains communists as violent and oppressive. Perhaps that was due to McCarthyism, but more likely it stems from the fact that the murderous oppression of Stalin and communist police states was better known by 1950.

"The Outsider" is Wright's exploration of existentialism, which he became interested in while hanging out in France with Sartre, Camus and others. As a novel of ideas, it's a useful work for readers beginning to investigate existentialism. As literature, however, it's a heavy-handed, didactic exercise.

Like Camus' "The Stranger," Wright's work attacks the question of existential freedom: where does Man go if he cuts himself free from traditional moorings such as religion, family, political ideology? A worthy subject, but where "The Stranger" forces us to deal with the questions by considering the protagonist's actions, with little or no authorial intervention, Wright feels compelled far too often to intercede as narrator and explain the problem. This leads to him putting speeches in the mouths of his characters.

A further problem occurs when Wright places his main character, Cross Damon, in the middle of an ideological battle between the Communist Party and a "fascist" landlord of the apartment into which Damon has moved. This plot device is Wright's attempt to deal with his own estrangement from the Communist Party, which he detailed in the essay "The God That Failed."

Damon's rejection of the Communists further freights the novel with ideological baggage. Wright actually has his character embark, midway through the novel, on a speech to a roomful of people (who presumably were asleep by the time it ended) that runs well beyond the several-page mark! Wright (through Cross) slays his ideological demons in "The Outsider," but the victory feels hollow and it certainly detracts from the book's literary merit.

Wright made a far better effort at exploring existential ideas in "The Man Who Lived Underground," which is included in the book of short stories, "Eight Men." That story, well-conceived and written, will reward the reader far more than this overburdened novel.