Haley Kooyman
read thankfully from : http://books.google.com/books?id=HDnxq1cyEq4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=notes+of+a+native+son&source=bl&ots=zJokBpzFPJ&sig=XKaN0ttz52zmN_qB_6EavsO6LZc&hl=en&ei=Ys6vTJeCEoOesQPdk9z8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
I chose to read the preface for it's immediate availability, and also to discover what the author had to say about the journey it took to write such a memoir. After writing and producing my first one woman show, I learned that the amount of self reflection it takes to turn one's story into an artwork-- an honest, thought provoking creation-- is all at once terrifying, dangerous and fulfilling. the actual start, the beginning, is the most difficult part. It's addressed in this preface: Where do we come from, and how do we acknowledge the different aspects of our being? He says, "I am what time, circumstance, history have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all." It's about discovering how you, the being, created you, the being. How we react to circumstance, how we deal with it and push through it, more create a definition of our humanity than the actual, sensuous circumstance.
Baldwin lays this notion next to his personal racial struggle-- and the struggle of the world to give definition and meaning to both the "inheritance" and "birthright" of people, black and white. Such as my mind goes.
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