Native Son. (Perennial Classics): Amazon.de: Richard Wright: Englische Bücher

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Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy. And yet...

A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer. That is not to say that Richard Wright created a novel free of flaws, but that he wrote the first novel that successfully told the most painful and unvarnished truth about American social and class relations. As Irving Howe asserted in 1963, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."

Other books had focused on the experience of growing up black in America--including Wright's own highly successful Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of five stories that focused on the victimization of blacks who transgressed the code of racial segregation. But they suffered from what he saw as a kind of lyrical idealism, setting up sympathetic black characters in oppressive situations and evoking the reader's pity. In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion:

"I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."

Wright's genius was that, in preventing us from feeling pity for Bigger, he forced us to confront the hopelessness, misery, and injustice of the society that gave birth to him. --Andrew Himes -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Library Journal

After 58 years in print, Wright's Native Son has acquired classic status. It has not, however, lost its power to shock or provoke controversy. Bigger Thomas is a young black man in 1940s Chicago who accidentally kills the daughter of his wealthy white employer. He tries to frame the young woman's fianc? for the crime and attempts to extort ransom from the victim's family, but his guilt is discovered, and he is forced into hiding. After a terrifying manhunt, he is arrested and brought to trial. Though his fate is certain, he finds that his crimes have given meaning and energy to his previously aimless life, and he goes to his execution unrepentant. Wright avoids the trap of making his hero a martyr, for Bigger is a vicious and violent bully. But out of this tale the author develops a profoundly disturbing image of racism and its results that puts Bigger's experience in horrifying perspective. The unabridged recording includes material edited out of the original edition (Audio Reviews, LJ 10/15/98), including one major scene and some significant dialog. Peter Francis James's narration is thoughtful and polished but lacks intensity. When the text clearly demands an outburst of emotion, James repeatedly holds back, allowing the book's climaxes to drag by unrecognized. This recording will stand well until a better version appears. Recommended for all public libraries; librarians should be aware of extremely violent language and situations.AJohn Owen, Advanced Micro Devices Lib., Santa Clara, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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A Really Good Read 14. Juli 2000

Von Chad Spivak

Format:Taschenbuch

Native Son is an excellent book that is quite deep on many levels. Richard Wright does an incredibly nice job of developing his main character, Bigger Thomas.

Bigger is a twenty year-old poor black man hired by a wealthy white family, and then accidentally kills the prominent young daughter out of fear. In covering up her death, he allows his emotions to get the better of him, and he rapes and kills another girl.

The first two sections of the book are loaded with intrigue, suspense, and drama, as the reader is right there with Bigger as he tries to mislead the murder investigation, and then runs from the large angry masses once his cover-up is foiled. The third section allows you to get into Bigger's mind and feel his confused emotions. Here, the reader is treated to Wright's views on society mainly through the voice of Bigger's trial attorney.

The language in the book is easy-flowing, and not terribly descriptive, which was done intentionally, so the reader could read between the lines and make clear assumptions. All in all, the novel was quite entertaining and rather eye-opening.

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Excellent 2. Juli 2000

Von Ein Kunde

Reading this book for high school English last year, I was struck immediately by the raw immediacy of Wright's style. There is no superfluous detail, no interruption in the taut suspense that he maintains from almost the first page. Some criticize the book for being too simplistic and say the characters are poorly drawn, but this is intentional-Wright forces you to read between the lines and actively search for meaning in the senseless violence and hate that pervades the story. The tripartite structure of the story (Fear, Flight, Fate) is strikingly parallel to Orwell's 1984, with the same basic plot and three divisions. Native Son is definitely the best work of American 20th-century fiction I have read.

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In Response to a Poor Review 15. Juni 2000

Von J. Moseley

I typically would not bother to respond or offer criticism to another's review on any given book, but in this instance I feel the need to do so as a matter of setting the record straight. In his review on May 17, 2000, Rspellman asks why it takes 430 pages to tell a story of rape and murder. He goes on to say that, "Honestly, that's the whole plot itself." Whether or not this is true, it is more important to understand, I think, that a book's degree of quality should be based on more than just a plot. A book has characters that develop and unfold; it has a setting that one may never but through literature see; and, to make matters even better, the characters and setting and even plot are based upon an author's choice of language. Often, as in the case of Baldwin's Native Son, the language itself might be so beautiful that it breaks our hearts.

Rspellman states that the emphasis is on the white man in Native Son. The book presents an altogether larger social matter that plagued Chicago in the 1930s and still continues with remarkable similiarity today. Native Son is about the social circumstances of that period--a crucial one, in fact, as it is when the Great Black Migration had begun and Chicago was attempting to find a way to respond to it--and therefore has placed emphasis not on the white or black man, but on both, and how they respond to one another.

Finally, Rspellman states that he understands things were not easy for blacks, "back then," and that in order for America to correct itself from racist attitudes it should simply stop thinking about how difficult it really was. The truth is, the education of America's tangled past with racism is the only sure way to prevent further racism. When you understand others, you have a much better chance of leaving behind marks on the world that will help make it better. Literature such as Native Son can be a force which moves us in that direction.

Rspellman states that he is from another country, and while I hesitate to point out the importance of this, I must do so. To truly understand the American experience, it often takes years of exposure. You find it through the schools of childhood, the colleges, the neighborhoods, travels, arts, and so on. In the experience itself, the one issue that you can never escape from, no matter how much you might try, is race. Any American who has a true sense of its history knows this to be, as sad as it is, the truth.

Further suggested readings on race in America: Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land; Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man; Lillian Smith's Killers of the Dream