Theloopylululog

Oh YES! I was desperately WAITING for someone to ask me this for the past 4 years. So THANK YOU WordPress!

Another Country by James Baldwin: A regret I will take to my grave.

I am not one to take the highroad and say you know what? There is no such thing as a good or bad book. Maybe the writer needed to get the words out…maybe he was just pschologically damaged…maybe he just needed some validation or maybe he was too drunk and too high to know the difference. So let me be the bigger one today and forgive him/her/them for releasing this fiend into the world.

Sorry. No. Can’t. Do. Never been that. Not going to start becoming one today.

I cannot forgive a book for wasting my time and money. Period.

Yes, I committed the blunder of buying it in the first place. But it was already there, exisiting and breathing as if it was the best in business, raking in all those ratings and stars and glowing reviews. So, I am not gonna take all the blame here!

There are books that are plain boring. There are some that meander everywhere but towards the plot. And some that give you a peek a boo of genius in the foreword while everything everywhere in between the pages is going to pieces.

Then there are those books that are just crappy. Not cheesy. Not boring. Just plain bad. Questioning their very existence, wondering what in devil’s name was the writer thinking while writing it down. And the nerve to publish it? Phew…

Another Country is that book for me. A book that didn’t need to exist. There are and there will always be many books written about men and women having sex with every other man and woman they know. Friends, relatives, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children; they just don’t care. As long as their slam bam, I need to get some horny bodies are satiated; no matter the who or what or where.

Baldwin didn’t have to go the extra mile and write another in the garb of being inclusive of the troubled relationships between blacks and whites, blacks and blacks, whites and whites and in general the questionable morals and culture of that time in the 60’s.

It almost reads like Gregor Mendel mistakenly ventured into the America of the 60’s and instead of playing around with pea pods for his experiments on genetics, he played around mixing and matching people and their libidos!

Mendel’s pea pods laid the foundation of modern genetics. Baldwin’s lusty characters simply jump from one bed to another. I really have no clue what their end game was.

Everybody is clueless in the book about their lives, their needs, their desires and especially their sexuality. One night they are with a man. The next with a woman. The third is spent in guilt and pillow wetting. Wake up. Repeat the same mistakes. In a different bed with a different pair of anatomy ofcourse!

What next? A banana? Why not try a fresh succulent aloe vera leaf? Heard they are quite texturous, eh?

As if lying in wait for a death to occur, to get down and dirty and promiscuous as if hell’s wrath suddenly unleashed itself on heaven… each one gets into the pants of another after a character’s suicide. In the name of grief and it’s gruesome aftermath, they use sex to try to make meaning of the death and perhaps life too?

Yeah. Right.

Since when did grief become a door to enter just so we could hide our randiness under an innocent flower vase on the mantel piece? Wanna be wanton? By all means be wanton. Just don’t claim you are grieving and your senses have completelety forgotten where your true North lies.

The book came to me highly recommended. And no book has left me feeling so icky and just urghhhhh…as it did.

I mean, Mr. Baldwin? What was the point, really?

Yes, public morality was probably at it’s lowest in those times. Yes, your pants were probably on fire(no pun intended) and you wanted to raise your voice against it. Agreed, you just had this urge to vomit your rage and also leave behind a lasting legacy for the future generations to remember the infamous culture and you by; one bird, two bushes yada yada yada…Got it.

But what was the need to write something that is so basal, almost meaningless and doesn’t make any difference to anyone by the end? Your forgettable and bland characters wanted to have sex with anything that moved? Okay. Where’s the WHY? Never heard of Sigmund Freud, have you?

And don’t you bloody dare blame it on the racial tensions or the sexual tensions between races!

The book ends after every character has played inky pinky ponky with every dick and chick around. The End. No more gravy to pass around, yeah? I thought so.

I remember lashing out at the person who recommended me this insult of a book. Our friendship probably went off the cliff because of Baldwin and this book because for reasons I don’t want to know, this person actually loved the book and defended it’s case pretty emotionally too. For someone known to avoid emotions this book sure brought them all out with a vengeance into the open.

Another Country by James Baldwin is a book I will forever regret laying my hands on. But it did leave me with one thing; not sure if that is a good thing or bad.

Moral of the story: Never read a book just because it comes highly recommended.

Especially if it is a celebrated book and the recommendation comes from someone significant in your life!

Not unless you are ready to risk a lifelong regret and likely a friendship too!