Richard Wright (1) (1908–1960)

This actually consists of a novella-length story, plus a nonfiction essay. The short story is the one of the title. It’s set in the 1940s(?) (that’s when it was originally written, anyway), and a black man, Fred, leaving work, just having been paid in cash, is “arrested” by the police and “questioned”/tortured. Initially not knowing even what they police were talking about, it turns out the neighbours of the people Fred worked for had been murdered in their home earlier in the day. Fred manages to escape and moves underground via the sewers from building to building for a few days.

The essay talked about how the author grew up with his very religious Grandmother and how some things from that experience related to this story.

Overall, I’m rating it ok. The essay got pretty philosophical, so wasn’t all that interesting to me. The story itself was better, but also a little bit odd while Fred was underground. I definitely did not see the end coming (but maybe I should have?).… (más)

A young sociopath kills a white woman he barely knows, by accident, dismembers her and burns her body, then rapes and kills his own girlfriend. He is hunted down and captured, pleads guilty and goes to trial for the murder of the white woman. The man's race is used as a convenient explanation for his crimes, while his case is picked up by various people with their own agendas as a tool for their use. The fact that Wright is drawing on his own experiences as a Black man during the depression makes this book stronger, but the trial and justice system stuff in the third part is tedious and needed more editing. It seems pretty obvious that the boy Bigger is supposed to be assumed to have been pushed by racism to become a violent criminal, even though he has friends and family who are not killers and rapists despite living in the same environment. He seems to feel no remorse for his crimes. While the fact that his rape and murder of his girlfriend seems less important to the white people involved in the case, Bigger doesn't even seem to think about Bessie as a human being, just something that got in the way and needed to be discarded.
As far as social commentary, though, this book does show a good argument for the importance of education and economic equity. The fact that Bigger and his friends and family are so poorly educated makes them more vulnerable to mistreatment by people with more education, and their lack of education makes it harder for them to make good decisions that improve their lives. Another interesting argument from this story would be the importance of purpose in men's lives. The poor women in this story, with the responsibilities on their shoulders to keep themselves and their households functional, seem less inclined to resort to stupid criminal acts with high risks. The one truly irresponsible woman in this book, Mary, is living a pampered life similar to Bigger's, in that any mistakes she makes are dealt with by her parents or other responsible adults. Both Mary and Bigger can continue to act immature and irresponsible, at least until Bigger murders Mary and thus creates consequences even his mother and Bessie can't rescue him from.… (más)

56. The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
afterward Malcolm Wright (2021)
OPD: 2021 (written 1941-1942, with a shortened version published in 1944)
format: 228-page Kindle ebook
acquired: October 3 read: Oct 4-15 time reading: 5:44, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Novel theme: Richard Wright
locations: unknown American city, probably southern
about the author: American author born on a Mississippi plantation, 1908-1960

This for me was a curiosity, part powerful, part quirky. Wright takes a close look at police brutality against African Americans (a point noted in his publisher's rejection documentation) and then an almost surreal look at a refugee living in American sewers. Fred Daniels, a good church-going upstanding person and expectant father, is arrested for a murder he knows nothing about. He's not questioned, but beat-up by an all-white police force demanding a confession. It's not clear where his mind was before this happens, but he gets rattled, and it seems his mind is never able to settle down. Instead, in the sewers he tunnels, and he stumbles across apparent odd truths about the basics in life - religion, death, money, entertainment, etc.

Maybe think Plato's cave. It's a combination of Wright's creativity and what I see has his semi-super-aware, semi-blind romantic mindset. It makes an odd combination of strange guy in a strange place doing strange things that don't quite make sense. In a long afterward, which Wright intended to be published with the novel, he explained the novel as a response to the stubborn illogical religious faith his grandmother followed and depended on, a source of conflict between he and his grandmother, his main parent during his older childhood.

This is a lost novel. Wright wrote it written during WW2, in 1942, but it was rejected for publication by his publisher. A shorter version was published in a journal, and later in a posthumous collection. Wright moved on, composing [Black Boy], his classic published in 1945. There he goes directly into his grandmother's religion and state of mind, and its impacts on him. The full version of this novel was first published in 2021, after Wright's grandson, Malcolm Wright, pushed for it.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/354226#8263418… (más)