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
