McBride, James (b. September 11, 1957)

Review of "The Source of Self-Regard" [from The New York Times]

February 26, 2019

"But the real magic is witnessing her mind and imagination at work. They are as fertile and supple as jazz."

Close your eyes and make a wish. Wish that one of the most informed, smartest, most successful people in your profession walks into your living room, pulls up a chair and says, "This is what I've been thinking. …" That's "The Source of Self-Regard." The book is structured in three parts: "The Foreigner's Home," "Black Matter(s)" and "God's Language." There are 43 ruminations in all. It opens with a stirring tribute to the 9/11 victims, then fans out into matters of art, language and history. It includes a gorgeous eulogy for James Baldwin, a powerful address she delivered to Amnesty International ("The War on Error," about the need for a "heightened battle against cultivated ignorance, enforced silence and metastasizing lies") and meditations on the thinking behind several of her early important novels. The bursts of rumination examine world history, skirt religion, scour philosophy, racism, anti-Semitism, femininity, war and folk tales, and are dotted with references to writers like Isak Dinesen and the deeply gifted African novelist Camara Laye. There's even a tidbit or two about her closely guarded personal life. But the real magic is witnessing her mind and imagination at work. They are as fertile and supple as jazz.

Music::Jazz

Reading

James McBride, Review of The Source of Self-Regard (February 26, 2019). <Link to NYTimes.com>

02/27/2019