Ernest J. GainesRecensioni

"My eyes were closed before this moment, Jefferson, My eyes have been closed all my life. Yes, we all need you. Every last one of us."
It's a heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring book. It reminds me of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". It teaches the power of knowledge- how it changes perception. There is more to reality than what the senses can grasp.
“He was the strongest man in that crowded room, Grant Wiggins,” Paul said, staring at me and speaking louder than was necessary. “He was, he was. I’m not saying this to make you feel good, I’m not saying this to ease your pain.”p. 255

Graced with seriousness, importance, humanity, and some snorting-through-my-nose humor. Wonderful.

Excellent! Second time around for me and just as compelling. Lovely writing.
Enjoy!

Abandoned 43% of the way through. At this point, not much had happened, plot-wise, yet there was profanity, including God's name used in vain, and some sexual content. Not worth finishing.

Dans la Louisiane, dans les années 30, un jeune Noir se fait condamné à mort. Sa marraine s'allie à l'instituteur et au révérant pour l'accompagner vers la mort. C'est un livre absolument bouleversant mais magnifique qui montre le fonctionnement de la communauté et le rôle de chacun, une tapisserie riche et complexe où l'éducation, la foi et la couleur de peau marque chaque personne. Plus d'une fois j'ai eu les larmes aux yeux: c'est un roman complexe, d'une finesse extrême. Magistral!½

The writing style of this author was very strange. It's almost the level of high school or less. The dialogue between characters was immature and very repetitive, literally once there was a No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes going on between two people. So, I would give this part about a 2-star.

On the other hand the storyline was awesome and would absolutely make a GREAT movie and gets at least a four star, so I gave an average 3-star rating overall. Now, imagine this:

The story takes place in 1970's Marshall, Louisiana, on the St. Charles Bayou when racism and racial tensions are still very high and the KKK was trying to still hang around and keep the blacks down and in their place. A black worker on the sugar cane plantation kills a longtime Cajun resident and descendant of the Marshall plantation, Beau Boutan, 35 years old, who thought he could still live by the slavery rules and insult and whip and even kill a black person who stood up for himself. So, Charlie killed him in self protection. Candy, Beau's cousin, who runs the sugarcane business operations and loves and fights for the rights of the blacks still living in huts on the plantation, tries to protect the blacks knowing the KKK klan will be coming by and wanting blood. She gathers all the old black men left around to come and bring their 12-gauge shotgun and a blank 5-shell to gather on the porch and around the house to protect Mathus, who she thought killed Beau, but it was really Charlie. But they had also secretly stashed some real rounds at the back of the house and everytime one went out to the outhouse, they grab a bullet or two. So, all the old men, around 15 of them, 80 years old and some even older are there and they all claim they were the one who shot Beau.

The sheriff shows up and is at first very hard on them until he starts to hear each of their stories of why they killed Beau. It was for what's not there any more...their mom &dad and what they put up with, someones uncle no longer here, someones brother who was beat down and killed because his mule beat the white man's big tractor, etc...They each told their story.

The KKK, with Luke Wills in charge, head out there at night and there's a bit of a shootout. The fat sheriff is maimed right off the bat. Later there's another big shootout where everyone was shooting everywhere and Charlie and Luke Wills end up dead. During the hearing at court, all the old men showed up broken...scratches, cuts, bandaged here and there, crutches, casts. And to top it all off, they had the courts rolling with their nicknames such as: Clabber, Dirty Red, Coot, Chimley, Rooster, etc...which the old black men kept using instead of their real names when telling their story.
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MOVIE: A Gathering of Old Men (1987), starring Louis Gossett Jr, Richard Widmark and Holly Hunter.

The debt is never finished as long as we stand for this.

What an incredible story.

This is a very moving book and a profound meditation on religion as a therepeutic lie vs. education as painful, truthful dignity. In the end the protagonist, Grant Wiggins, manages to salvage a kind of victory out of a horrible situation, but in doing so, he knows that the larger injustices remain - so the victory is hollow.

Wow, another book that wasn’t really in my wheel house but totally blew me away. Very powerful, emotional and well written! Almost felt like satire at first due to the fact that the experiences written about were so foreign from mine own but it evolved into so much more than that, highly recommended.

Heartbreaking story of an unjustly condemned young black man who learns to die with dignity.

Protagonist Grant Wiggins is a schoolteacher of poor black children at a church in a small town in Louisiana in 1947. As the story opens, his aunt and her friend, Miss Emma, are attending the trial of Miss Emma’s grandson, Jefferson, for murder. Jefferson was in the wrong place at the wrong time and did not kill the white proprietor, but due to the deep racism of the time and place, the jury presumes he is guilty. He is sentenced to death. Miss Emma asks Grant to visit Jefferson in jail to help him feel a sense of self-respect before he dies.

The story shows the struggles of the black community living in the era of Jim Crow laws and segregation. It brings them to a personal level, showing how difficult it is to live with dignity in the shadow of racism. And of course, this is a lesson our society is still learning. It is easy for the reader to empathize with Grant and Jefferson and develop a sense of outrage at the injustices they face. Grant has no desire to attempt to “teach” moral knowledge, but he does it out of courtesy to his aunt and Miss Emma, and initially there is little response from Jefferson. In the end, they both learn “a lesson before dying.”

Themes include bigotry, poverty, education, injustice, social class, religion, and sacrifice. The tone is mostly bleak, but somehow the author ends it with a tiny ray of hope, and this is no small feat considering the subject matter. It is a powerful and emotional story.

Written in a simple and straightforward fashion, this book is anything but simple in its message and impact. The choice of having a different narrator for each chapter would not work well in just anyone’s hands, but Gaines is not just anyone, and he makes this device serve to reveal the truth of the situation without any bias or personal slant.

How could anyone read this without feeling a great deal of pride for the subject old men? Each of them reaches into his deepest self and emerges as his own master, a role they have each been denied for most of their lives. When Charlie declares, “I am a man,” he seems to speak not just for himself, but for all of the old men.

An excellent and important read.

I'm not quite sure where the recommendation to read (or in my case listen) to this book came from but it certainly was a good one. First published in 1983 there was a movie made from it in 1987 with some, at least now, notable names in main roles. This audiobook was recorded in 2008 with a cast of narrators to voice the main roles in the story. I think that was a good strategy since it clearly delineated the different characters.

The book is set in the 1970s on a sugar cane plantation in bayou country in Louisiana. Although it is called the Marshall plantation the cane production is carried out by a Cajun family,the Boutans. Candy Marshall is a 30 something white woman who looks after the black folk who still live in the slave quarters. She is particularly close to an old black widower named Mathu. When Candy discovers Beau Boutan shot dead in Mathu's yard she comes up with an idea. She sends word out to all the other old black men in the neighbourhood to show up at Mathu's place with a shotgun and one spent number 5 shell. When Sherriff Mapes shows up all of the men plus Candy claim that they shot Beau. The sherriff is pretty sure that Mathu is the guilty party but he wants to avoid a riot which is what he fears would happen if he tries to take Mathu into jail. He is also concerned that the local Ku Klux Klan, of which Beau and his father Fix were members, will "ride" and lynch Mathu. There are lots of strangers around because there is a big football game the next day between LSU and Mississippi. Beau's brother, Gil, is one of the stars of the LSU team; together with a black team member he is a good bet to become All-American. Gil knows that if there is a whiff of trouble involving his family his chances of that coveted designation go out the window. So there is a lot of racial tension and it seems like the situation could explode with the slightest spark.

We know since last summer that there is still a lot of tension between blacks and whites in the United States but I don't think most people would casually drop the "N" word in conversation now. And I hope that the Ku Klux Klan wouldn't ride to lynch people in the 21st century. So I guess there have been some improvements but it must be difficult to be black now, especially a black male, and realize that one's life could still be in danger because of the colour of their skin. It's disheartening to realize that this story is not that different from what could still happen almost 50 years later.½

Een advocaat verdedigt een zwarte jongen op zijn proces: '...Ziet u hier echt iemand zitten die instaat is om te moorden? Hem naar de electrische stoel sturen? U kan evengoed een VARKEN op die stoel zetten..' Voor de pleegmoeder zijn die woorden, naast het proces en de veroordeling, niet te dragen. Emma vraagt dan aan de onderwijzer Grant Wiggins om voor de uitvoering van het vonnis te praten met Jefferson, de pleegzoon. Wiggins, de verteller in het boek, is een opgeleide zwarte van wie veel verwacht wordt door zijn gemeenschap. Hij strijdt niet alleen om contact te krijgen met de jonge veroordeelde, maar ook nog tegen het puriteinse idealisme van de dominee en de discriminatie.
Uiteindelijk krijgt Wiggins toch contact met de gesloten jongen, die zich na de veroordeling voelt en gedraagt als een varken. Langzaam verandert de jongen zijn houding door toedoen van Wiggins en zal sterven als een man, rechtop.
Wiggins worstelt in het verhaal voortdurend met de kleingeestigheid van de mens, van de Kerk en de beïnvloeding door de oudere dames in de zwarte gemeenschap. In het boek komt dan ook de slavernij, de matriarchale positie van de oudere vrouwen in de zwarte gemeenschap, de discriminatie, de vernederingen, de segregatie aan bod. Mooi verhaald zonder melig of sentimenteel te worden.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
by Ernest J. Gaines
This is a fictional autobiography. Regardless, it is historically correct in the social aspects.
A reporter comes to see Jane who is turning 110 years old and he asks if she would share some of her life stories. This is 1962. The book then flashes back to her life as a slave, her freedom but working like a slave, on up til present. It's a book of sorrow, pain, joy, love, and strength. A lot is happening in their town with civil rights in 1962. She has one last adventure left in her before she dies. I enjoyed it but keep tissue handy.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Earnest J. Gaines is a 1971 publication.

A very realistic classic

I don’t remember what grade I was in, but one of my teachers offered the class extra credit if they watched the made for television movie based on this book. My family gathered around our console TV and sat riveted by Cicely Tyson’s performance. I had big fat tears streaming down my cheeks at the end, and the movie made such an impression on me, I still own a DVD copy of it. I will confess that for a long time I thought this was a true story-

For the record, this is a work of fiction, but it is presented in such a way, it would be very easy to believe it was a true story.

Before Ms. Tyson passed away, I had already put her memoir on hold at the library, but after her death, I found myself mulling over her iconic roles, and while Sounder and Roots are still prevalent in my memory, it was her role as Miss Jane Pittman that made the biggest impression on me.

After re-watching the movie recently, I was once again reminded that it was based on a book, which I had completely forgotten about.

How could I have gone all this time without reading the book? That seemed totally unacceptable, so I set out to find a copy, and once again, my library came through- as did Scribd, which has the audio version.

In Jane’s long life she sees the aftermath of the Civil War, lives through the Jim Crow south, and decides, well past the century mark by this time, to set an example, by taking part in the Civil Rights movement.

Her life is filled with hardships and tragedies, but before her life ended, she became a true inspiration, doing what others were too afraid to do.

The book version does vary some from the television production, which left out a sad interracial relationship Jane witnessed, for example, and really, really, toned down the use of racial slurs.

The book, unfortunately, severely lacked inflection, and was devoid of the emotion that the movie generated- especially the iconic conclusion. I admit I was a bit let down by the flat tone of the narration, including the audio version, which was also strangely pedestrian.

This may be one of those very rare times when the movie version was better than the book. Still, I am glad I took the time to read it, as it did teach some lessons the movie left out, and the lack of glossiness was very effective during a few specific passages.

Overall, while the book is fairly dry, it does hold an air of authenticity, and should be read as a companion to the movie for the full experience.

3 stars

I finished this book and wept. I can't believe it doesn't have better reviews. Yes, the narrator was impossibly whiney, but liking him wasn't important. There are a lot of privileged jerks who are whiney, so it was completely believable to me. He wasn't supposed to be likable any more than the book was supposed to make you feel good. I was exhausted after finishing it.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. There are pretty obvious parallels to Wright's Native Son, but I've read that Gaines has shrugged off any kinship of his work to Wright's. It was, as the back cover says, moving. It made me feel ashamed to be a white man with the white man's legacy, but in the end there seems to be a sort of hope (if not one that racism in America in recent years has borne out). It strikes me as an important book.

A dead man. A running tractor. A white woman who claims she shot him. A gathering of old men with shotguns. A sheriff who knows everyone is lying. A father who needs revenge.

What is so marvelous about this work is that Gaines tells it from a variety of viewpoints, as different characters narrate chapters. Candy Marshall is the woman who owns the plantation that has been in her family for generations. It is she who spreads the word among those in “the Quarters” that the men need to show up at Mattu’s place. By the time Sheriff Mapes is called and arrives there are dozens of elderly black men, each with a fired shotgun, though many can barely hold the gun let alone aim and fire it with any accuracy. One by one they tell their stories of how and why they shot Beau Bouton.

Meanwhile Beau’s brother, Gil, comes home to meet with his father, Fix, who wants nothing more than to call up his group of Klansmen to “take care of this problem.” It is Fix’s arrival that the group of old men is awaiting. One by one they tell their stories of how and why they shot Beau Bouton.

Their stories are simply but eloquently told. Oppression lasting for generations. Men who will not take it any longer. Their decision to stand up for what is right and against those who would continue the sins of the past has been coming for a long time and they are united and steadfast in their determination to see this through. And that includes NOT allowing some white woman, however well-intentioned, to “save” them. No, they will save themselves, or die trying.

Gaines’s writing is evocative of time and place. I can feel the humid heat, taste the dust that fills the air, hear the buzz of mosquitos as evening comes, smell the swamp and sweat. This is the second book by Gaines that I have read (and I’ve read A Lesson Before Dying three times), but I have all his works on my tbr. The world of literature lost a great writer when he passed on in 2019.

Attempts to show the injustice to Blacks. The whites feeling that Blacks are subhuman, the total segregation splitting the town, the need for them as field workers more important. Although Grant is trying to educate, he questions himself on the worth of it knowing that even as an educated man is is still inferior. He visits his aunt’s son in prison attempting to make him realize he is a man and not the hog the whites called him. The town people realize that everyone should have a feeling of worth. Questions the religious beliefs held by his people. Clear descriptions of preparation for an electric chair death.

A story about an African-American teacher who is just trying to do the right thing, while a black man is suffering in prison after receiving a death sentence. A very throughout provoking read.

One of my daughters read this for her AP Lit class in high school a few years ago and loved it. I have been wanting to read it but have been in a terrible reading slump so hadn’t picked it up yet. That slump is definitely over seeing as how I read this book in a day. It took all day with life getting in the way, but I just kept picking it back up to read a little more and finally finished it. I absolutely LOVED it! The only thing negative for me was trying to read 9 pages of a diary written in Ebonics. That is hard for me to read so the book lost its flow for me as I struggled through those pages. All the other pages are absolutely fabulous so I can’t lower my rating simply based on that. Granted, maybe my rating is a little skewed due to emotions related to the current Black Lives Matter movement, but I’m OK with that too. Now is probably a good time for everyone to read it while emotions are high.

Fair warning – the n word is used throughout the book. It takes place in Louisiana in the 40s so it is historically correct to be there. Because of that it might be banned in some areas, which is very sad to me. They are missing out on a great book by not being able to see the significance of the word’s usage in this story.

Beautiful and tragic story. Quick read, left me in tears.

Finished reading A LESSON BEFORE DYING a week ago, but it resonates, particularly in this Black Lives Matter era. Gaines's story, set in post-war Louisiana, follows a young black teacher, Grant Wiggins, and a condemned black prisoner, and the tenuous friendship they establish before the man's wrongful execution. The book's final line from Grant says it all. "I was crying." So was I. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

Until I reached the last page of the novel, I was certain I would award it four solid stars. The ending is unsatisfying in a general sense but more so in the context of an autobiography, a genre which doesn't conventionally rely on artsy ambiguity. Since the fictitious interviewer explains in the foreword that Jane lived for several months after the final interview, the lack of resolution is especially inexplicable.