The Outsider [Paperback]

richard wright (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harper (1953)
• ASIN: B001D0P92K
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Richard T. Wright holds a Ph.D in biology from Harvard University and is professor emeritus of biology at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and is widely sought as a lecturer in biology and ecology.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Made me yawn through parts of Crime and Punishment, July 18, 2001

By 

Yan Timanovsky (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Outsider (Perennial Library) (Paperback)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly engrossing journey, April 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Outsider (Perennial Library) (Paperback)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wright truely captures the black man's plight., February 8, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Outsider (Perennial Library) (Paperback)

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