Phi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.
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Join us with Mark Linsenmeyer in a previous discussion on two short stories by James Baldwin: “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” and “Sonny’s Blues.” Both are included in the collection Going to meet the Man (1965).
This is an unprecedented and critical time to listen to this remarkable man.
For the first time in my life I felt that no force jeopardized my right, my power, to possess and to protect a woman; for the first time, the first time, felt that the woman was not, in her own eyes or in the eyes of the world, degraded by my presence.
So says the narrator in James Baldwin’s remarkable scrutiny of racism in “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon,” reminiscing about the moment he realized that he had truly fallen in love. His life in Paris has allowed him a freedom to live beyond the color of his skin, but now he is returning to the turmoil of the United States with his wife and son.
In our discussion of this beautiful short work, Mark pinpoints Baldwin’s examination of the psychological internalization of the degradation of racism, with Mary citing the abuse of the narrator’s sister and her friends by the police. Laura delves into the question of the “other” in society, while Cezary posits that racism today seems to be subsumed in discussions of different cultures. Nathan highlights Baldwin’s argument that our understanding and perspectives on racism are influenced by differing realities—which is Baldwin’s reply in the famous debate with William F. Buckley.
We then discuss ”Sonny’s Blue’s,” Baldwin’s story of family, responsibility, suffering, race, and freedom. The narrator’s younger brother, Sonny, is a brilliant musician who is imprisoned for selling and using heroin. On his release he moves in with the narrator and his family, and the brothers struggle to communicate. Sonny’s music finally offers them a way toward understanding and perhaps even a sort of freedom.
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it … But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air … another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.
more of a fan of his non-fiction but appreciate his reaching into different modes of expression, be good to have Eddie Glaude on PEL to talk about Baldwin and American Pragmatism as part of his ongoing book tour.
Fiction unearths the soul.
Thanks for listening!
my pleasure thanks for the show, I fear that the arc of fiction might allow for catharsis that relieves one any feeling that things need to be different but perhaps taking it up in conversation like this leaves something yet to be done when the tale ends.
Who was the dummy on the podcast who related blackness or black skin to having a disability such as having a wheelchair?!
Please leave her out academic discussions.
The equation comes from the way in which society characterizes both groups and subsequently, treats both groups. Namely, they are both considered as if they are inadequate, incapable, unworthy. And they both move through daily life facing an extra mountain to conquer in order to prove their worth and be accepted. I doubt the Black Lives Matter protesters would disagree with me that they face that struggle every goddamn day. Nor would the wheelchair users who protested right with along them in Portland, New York, Minneapolis among other places. I urge you to listen to our discussion on Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury”–a southern white man’s handling of disability as well as black life in the south in 1929–very instructive and important for our time.