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The Fire Next Time
 
 
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The Fire Next Time [Paperback]

James Baldwin (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 15.00
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The Fire Next Time + Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World + Media Control (2nd ed): The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
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  • Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World by Eduardo Galeano Paperback CDN$ 14.80

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Product Description

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It's shocking how little has changed between the races in this country since 1963, when James Baldwin published this coolly impassioned plea to "end the racial nightmare." The Fire Next Time--even the title is beautiful, resonant, and incendiary. "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" Baldwin demands, flicking aside the central race issue of his day and calling instead for full and shared acceptance of the fact that America is and always has been a multiracial society. Without this acceptance, he argues, the nation dooms itself to "sterility and decay" and to eventual destruction at the hands of the oppressed: "The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream."

Baldwin's seething insights and directives, so disturbing to the white liberals and black moderates of his day, have become the starting point for discussions of American race relations: that debasement and oppression of one people by another is "a recipe for murder"; that "color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality"; that whites can only truly liberate themselves when they liberate blacks, indeed when they "become black" symbolically and spiritually; that blacks and whites "deeply need each other here" in order for America to realize its identity as a nation.

Yet despite its edgy tone and the strong undercurrent of violence, The Fire Next Time is ultimately a hopeful and healing essay. Baldwin ranges far in these hundred pages--from a memoir of his abortive teenage religious awakening in Harlem (an interesting commentary on his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain) to a disturbing encounter with Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. But what binds it all together is the eloquence, intimacy, and controlled urgency of the voice. Baldwin clearly paid in sweat and shame for every word in this text. What's incredible is that he managed to keep his cool. --David Laskin

From Publishers Weekly

Speakers or headsets will have to be turned up to listen to Jesse L. Martin's low, slow reading of Baldwin's classic long essay on racism and African-American identity. Martin seeks to be respectful of Baldwin, but he ends up rendering the meaning and the force of his work relatively inert. Pausing in poorly selected places, placing emphasis where little should be placed, Martin does not convey the precision and anger of Baldwin's prose. Instead, Baldwin's book becomes Great Literature, to be intoned and honored, but not truly grasped. Readers with an interest in Baldwin's work will be far better served by reading his prose to themselves than having Martin read it to them. A Vintage paperback.(Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
5 star:
 (20)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars The truth is here, Mar 10 2004
This review is from: The Fire Next Time (Paperback)
As I was reading this book, I had thought some of the same ideas in this book before reading it. The idea of ending racism, but not forgetting it. I know, it's easier said than done. If we (people of the world) or let's just start with the U.S., weren't so thick-headed, I believe we could achieve this. A great read for those who don't want to continue on the same catastrophic path of we've been walking for the past hundreds of years. It can start with the present generation. Remember, whether you believe in a higher power than humans or not, we do have brains and have implemented far more complex notions.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Roadmap of Sorts!, Feb 23 2004
By 
This review is from: The Fire Next Time (Paperback)
This is a fine essay. Within the comprehension of a clever reader, the content can be an informative guide to warn one of previous and current obstacles which may prove daunting. One may have to go a considerable distance on his path to really relate to the essay, whereas a certain understanding may be easily found.

Personally, I find the book fascinating on its own account without any social implications whatever.

Certainly, similar social issues prevail in almost every culture so the book should not specifically regard only the culture from which it comes, but many more indeed.

It is not angry or critical, but objective and resourceful. Whereas it may not take a great scholar to understand the pages, it takes a certain understanding of the world to relate to them. It takes humanity!

I recommend it highly!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Fire Next Time, Nov 6 2003
By 
"tmptmp" (Laguna Woods, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fire Next Time (Hardcover)
Searing, insighful work by a genius mind with a
writing style so filled with grace that it evokes tears.
Recognition fills every page. This book should be
required reading in every American school. Anyone
interested in what a writer is, should be, can be, should
experience Baldwin.
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