Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
Written by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Narrated by Farah Jasmine Griffin
4.5/5 (8 ratings)
7 hours
Farah Jasmine Griffin
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Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature Hardcover – September 14, 2021
by Farah Jasmine Griffin (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 98 ratings
A PBS NewsHour Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year in Nonfiction
A brilliant scholar imparts the lessons bequeathed by the Black community and its remarkable artists and thinkers.
Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life.
Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students.
Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden, and many more. Exploring these works through such themes as justice, rage, self-determination, beauty, joy, and mercy allows her to move from her aunt’s love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron’s "Winter in America."
Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation’s inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity.2 illustrations
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Print length
272 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Quietly captivating…This is a life lived among books, and reinterpreted through them."
― Carols Lozada, Washington Post
"A book like Read Until You Understand takes courage to produce…Griffin’s evangelizing of Black literature does what the best sermons do: It sends you back to Scripture―Baldwin, Coates, Morrison, David Walker and others―to discover or rediscover them, to ponder and treasure them anew."
― Monica Drake, New York Times Book Review
"[Griffin] is both masterful critic and master teacher."
― Walton Muyumba, Boston Globe
"Now a noted scholar of African American literature, Griffin shares, in a blend of memoir and criticism, the fruits of her lifelong journey to fulfill that aspiration [to read until you understand]… She also richly evokes her childhood in Philadelphia, long a hub for Black activism where she belonged…to a family whose women, skilled seamstresses and gardeners, cultivated beauty."
― New Yorker
"Griffin's effortlessly warm and engaging writing merges personal memoir with history in a way that emphasizes the oneness of the fabric of humanity…With both grace and mercy, Griffin's Read Until You Understand is a thorough exercise in Black thought, Black anger, and Black joy."
― Arielle Gray, Christian Science Monitor
"Griffin has produced a volume of academic criticism for the masses….Farah Jasmine Griffin belongs among the grand tradition of African American thinkers that she studies. Read until you understand ― and then read some more."
― Christopher Maverick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Read Until You Understand is brought to life through Griffin’s account of the ways in which Black culture was an integral part of her being…Griffin is driven by a belief that the cultivation of aesthetic appreciation―in which the beautiful and the political do not compete―is where real change can be found. It is a book that acknowledges life’s conflicts while still valuing hope and beauty."
― Douglas Field, Times Literary Supplement
"Griffin gives readers gifts akin to the gifts her father bestowed on her. She provides insightful interpretations of iconic African American writers, including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, Griffin’s friend and mentor. And she celebrates lesser-known writers, like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper."
― Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier
"The perfect storm of imagination, research, compassion, and intellectual analysis. [Read Until You Understand] soars to a new level of wisdom, community love, and enlightenment for readers and critics alike."
― Robert Fleming, African American Literature Book Club
"The insight and joy bursts from Read Until You Understand authored by one of the greatest literary scholars of our time. Thank you Farah Jasmine Griffin for this sage gift, for packaging all these sage gifts for us."
― Ibram X. Kendi
"Griffin writes with learned poignance…Perfect for literature lovers, this survey and its moving insights will stick with readers well after the last page is turned."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An impassioned inquiry into the literary roots of Black culture…[I]nsightful, profound, and heartfelt."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Farah Jasmine Griffin is one of the few great intellectuals in our time! This wise and powerful memoir is a masterpiece. Griffin beautifully weaves her profound devotion to the life of the mind with her deep and abiding love of Black people and culture. Her magical words enchant and empower us like those of her towering heroes―Toni Morrison, Billie Holiday, James Baldwin, and Wilhelmena Griffin!"
― Cornel West
"Farah Jasmine Griffin’s vivid, passionate, and powerful tribute to the great gifts of Black culture offers a deep dive into such fundamental human themes as freedom, justice, rage, death, beauty, and love, as lived and celebrated through her own experience, music, and creative art, and that of countless others in the community she embraces, from the legacy of Black history to her own family, her wide explorations of literature and art, and her close friendships with many artists and writers."
― Elaine Pagels
"Read Until You Understand gives us Farah Jasmine Griffin in full and mighty sail. Keen cultural analysis, storytelling, and gorgeous lyricism combine in this book that makes a genre of its own. In recollection there is profound insight here; we have a portrait of a rich Black community in place and time, and of the teachers Griffin finds in neighborhood, family, books, and music. The sounds, words, and wisdom that Black folks make also make us, and no one expresses that with more beauty and power than Griffin. This book is a talking book, a teaching book, and a treasure."
― Elizabeth Alexander
About the Author
Farah Jasmine Griffin is professor of African American and African diaspora studies and English and comparative literature at Columbia University. The author of numerous books and the recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in New York.
Product details
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (September 14, 2021)
Language : English
Hardcover : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 0393651908
ISBN-13 : 978-0393651904
Item Weight : 1.11 pounds
Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars
Top reviews from the United States
Carol Storm
3.0 out of 5 stars Mercy For Those Left Out In The ColdReviewed in the United States on December 10, 2021
"In religious terms, each time the oppressed chooses to forgive the oppressor, each time, on those rare occasions, they find themselves having a modicum of power over them and offering mercy instead of vengeance, might be interpreted as an act of mercy in favor of the oppressor." Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature by Farah Jasmine Griffin.
This happened to me almost forty years ago. I was on the rowing team at Columbia College in New York City. The coach insisted we go on a five-mile run through Central Park around sunset on a bitterly cold November night. Since I was new on the team, and nobody knew me, the guys all left me behind. (So much for rowing and camaraderie. So much for sportsmanship at Columbia!)
Since I was an out of towner, I got really lost. I was all alone, wandering through Harlem after dark. And as a white boy, I knew what I could expect. My Columbia professors were full of liberal chatter, at least in the classroom, but the dorms were full of stories, like "don't ever trust *those* people," and "don't ever leave the campus after dark." For a liberal college, it really wasn't a very nice place.
Wandering around Harlem alone, in the dark, I was shocked to see old people lighting fires on the street to keep warm. Nobody at Columbia ever mentioned those kind of people. And at one point I had to ask a black man for directions. I remember he was wearing a long fur coat, and I wondered if he was going to pull out a knife or a gun and kill me on the spot. But he didn't. He told me how to get back to campus. I was ashamed, but I learned a lot that night, not just about race but about class privilege and life at Columbia. And that's something I've never forgotten.
I am really grateful to Farah Jasmine Griffin for giving my experience a meaning. She put it into words in the paragraph I quoted above. This is a very important book. The analysis of the speeches of Barack Obama and the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates is really first rate. Yet I was disappointed about some things that were left out. Professor Griffin teaches at Columbia, my beloved Alma Mater. Yet she never talks about what college life is like for Columbia students, black or white. She never talks about how easy it is for kids of all colors to be left behind, forgotten, and not just the way I got left behind that night. She never talks about how little interaction there is between faculty and undergraduates.
I loved the first couple of chapters, but the rest of the book was basically the Cliff's Notes version of every novel Toni Morrison ever wrote. And a lot of free-floating anger, mostly channeled towards people like Dylan Roof and Donald Trump. (Round up the usual suspects!) The anger is valid, and I get that, but there are no new insights, and certainly no stories about racism at Columbia. That disappointed me, because I know some pretty good ones.
And I bet Professor Griffin does too.
32 people found this helpful
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Harold L. Hart
5.0 out of 5 stars Read Until I UnderstoodReviewed in the United States on December 27, 2021
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As a recommendation from a friend I really appreciate this style of writing. The stories, people, places and events are still very fresh in my consciousness. I've lived every bit of what Farah writes and recall every experience that my own family lived in Newark and East Orange New Jersey. Excellent resource and reference for those that seek to know about the wisdom of our people.
7 people found this helpful
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Troy
5.0 out of 5 stars ExcellentReviewed in the United States on September 19, 2021
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Excellent
4 people found this helpful
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In This Together
5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read — Toni Morrison’s work is one of the characters of the wonderful little jewel of a book!Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2022
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A beautifully written book that examines and celebrates some of our nation’s most significant and beloved literature and music through the lens of cherished concepts such as mercy, justice and grace. Farrah Jasmine Griffin also shares the amazing gifts she was given by her father when he shared his love for the arts, politics and history with his daughter at a very young age.
3 people found this helpful
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Crystal J. Lucky
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful!Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2022
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Professor Griffin’s book is profound, touching, haunting, and beautiful. Reading it made me so proud to be Black and to appreciate those who have gone before me. It’s readable language will draw you in and carry you to the end.
3 people found this helpful
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Read-A-Lot
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound!Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2021
Upon further consideration(drum roll) I’m going 5 bright stars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Indeed this book is profound as the subtitle states. It moves between memoir, autobiography, literary criticism, and the intersection of great literature which needs to be mined for themes such as Rage and Resistance, Death, The Quest for Justice, and others. Always relating the texts to her personal life and more broadly to the African American community and beyond. Her scholarship is deployed in a very accessible way, taking the reader out side the classroom. Here she discusses Death and the reason why Black folk “seem open to the possibility of visitations from the dead” What one might term ghosts.
“The omnipresence of death in our lives might be the reason we were so open to the possibility of visitations from the dead. Might it have been yet another mechanism to help us have some sense of control over the otherwise senseless occurrence of frequent death?”….. Everyone dies. But Black death in America is too often premature, violent, spectacular. The particular nature of Black death haunts Black writing, as it haunts the nation. It haunts this book, born as it is from my own mourning of my father’s premature death.”
The literature she references will make you run to the library or bookstore. She leans on the works of Toni Morrison highly in this book, and dedicates the book to her, Ms.Morrison was a “deep influence” on her and she states SULA(the novel)”changed her life.” The way she breaks down literature is definitive scholarship on display. I’ve read a lot of Morrison, but I feel like now I have to do some rereading.
That’s the kind of takeaways you will experience with this book. And her chapter on music, gave me all the feels! Stand up and take a bow, Ms. Jasmine! You’ve made us all so proud!
16 people found this helpful
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R. Brooks
5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for this book!Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2022
This book is an excellent interweaving of Griffin's personal life experiences and her scholarly critiques on African American literature and culture. How kind of her to give us insight into such intimate details of her life and her family members' lives?! I am immensely grateful for the personal stories she shares. This writer/professor/speaker's background and upbringing is a NEEDED gift. All types of people make up the professoriate.
6 people found this helpful
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Carl J. Danielsen
5.0 out of 5 stars read nowReviewed in the United States on March 16, 2022
Inspiration for our frightening, morally bereft times. Joy and sorrow and wisdom and much beauty. Highly recommended for any book lover
6 people found this helpful
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====
Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
by Farah Jasmine Griffin (Goodreads Author)
4.42 · Rating details · 250 ratings · 58 reviews
Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life.
Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her fa ...more
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Published September 14th 2021 by W. W. Norton Company
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Heather Jones
Jun 14, 2021Heather Jones rated it it was amazing
If you're a person who wants to dive more deeply into the history of African-American literature, and needs some guidance, I can't think of any book that would be better for the purpose than "Read Until You Understand."
The title comes from guidance the author got from her father, when he gave her a book about Black history when she was, perhaps, too young for it. But it's also advice for the reader of this book.
Reading the book is like taking a survey of African-American literature in college, from a really good professor. You could just sit back and listen to the lectures (read the book) and learn a lot. But if you actually follow the trail of this book and read the books she's discussing, you'll connect on a much deeper level. Reading books tends to lead to other books, and so this book, used thoughtfully, could unlock years or decades of reading for the curious reader.
Whether you read it for itself, or use it as a guide for further reading, this book is well worth your time. (less)
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Andre
Oct 29, 2021Andre rated it it was amazing
Upon further consideration(drum roll) I’m going 5 bright stars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Indeed this book is profound as the subtitle states. It moves between memoir, autobiography, literary criticism, and the intersection of great literature which needs to be mined for themes such as Rage and Resistance, Death, The Quest for Justice, and others. Always relating the texts to her personal life and more broadly to the African American community and beyond. Her scholarship is deployed in a very accessible way, taking the reader out side the classroom. Here she discusses Death and the reason why Black folk “seem open to the possibility of visitations from the dead” What one might term ghosts.
“The omnipresence of death in our lives might be the reason we were so open to the possibility of visitations from the dead. Might it have been yet another mechanism to help us have some sense of control over the otherwise senseless occurrence of frequent death?”….. Everyone dies. But Black death in America is too often premature, violent, spectacular. The particular nature of Black death haunts Black writing, as it haunts the nation. It haunts this book, born as it is from my own mourning of my father’s premature death.”
The literature she references will make you run to the library or bookstore. She leans on the works of Toni Morrison highly in this book, and dedicates the book to her, Ms.Morrison was a “deep influence” on her and she states SULA(the novel)”changed her life.” The way she breaks down literature is definitive scholarship on display. I’ve read a lot of Morrison, but I feel like now I have to do some rereading.
That’s the kind of takeaways you will experience with this book. And her chapter on music, gave me all the feels! Stand up and take a bow, Ms. Jasmine Griffin!You’ve made us all so proud! (less)
flag14 likes · Like · comment · see review
Nakia
Mar 23, 2022Nakia rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I loved the concept of this book. Farah Jasmine Griffin's father was a reader who pushed her to read books about Black life, liberation, and justice. He tragically passed away during her pre-teen years, but her love for books never waned.
In this book, she does a sort of family and community memoir, telling her father's life, and the story of her community and her family after his passing, while sharing books and passages that connect to the evolution, life, and love of her parents and community in Philadelphia. Each chapter has a theme like joy, or love, or liberation, and you learn how her parents met, her father's life and unfortunate death, and how her mother persevered alone, and with the help of her village, while raising Farrah in the 60s and 70s.
The book started off a bit slow for me, mainly because of the centering of Phillis Wheatley early in the book (I don't think there needed to be a full chapter on her work, but I understood why she chose to do so to establish the presence and citizenship of Black women in America), but I fell in love with this creative community memoir as soon as I moved past the beginning.
As her family grows, expands, and lives through the changes that happen in America in the 50s on through the 90s, Farrah connects Black literature to events and feelings of that time, and how they reinforce or support the love, joy, strength, quest for justice and civil rights, family dynamics and even sadness that she and her mother and family experienced as she moved closer toward and through adulthood.
My favorite chapters were:
"The Transformative Potential of Love"
"Joy and Something like Self-Determination"
"Cultivating Beauty", and
"Of Gardens and Grace"
Farrah's voice is easy to digest and relatable. She is also a true bibliophile, and I loved her connection to Toni Morrison, but I loved the story of her family most of all here, particularly her parent's origin story, and the kinship she experienced from both sides of her family after her father's passing.
Anyone who enjoys Black literature and its connection to Black life will really love this offering. (less)
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Carol Storm
Dec 10, 2021Carol Storm rated it liked it
"In religious terms, each time the oppressed chooses to forgive the oppressor, each time, on those rare occasions, they find themselves having a modicum of power over them and offering mercy instead of vengeance, might be interpreted as an act of mercy in favor of the oppressor."
This happened to me almost forty years ago. I was on the rowing team at Columbia College in New York City. The coach insisted we go on a five-mile run through Central Park around sunset on a bitterly cold November night. Since I was new on the team, and nobody knew me, the guys all left me behind. (So much for rowing and camaraderie. So much for sportsmanship at Columbia!)
Since I was an out of towner, I got really lost. I was all alone, wandering through Harlem after dark. And as a white boy, I knew what I could expect. My Columbia professors were full of liberal chatter, at least in the classroom, but the dorms were full of stories, like "don't ever trust *those* people," and "don't ever leave the campus after dark." For a liberal college, it really wasn't a very nice place.
Wandering around Harlem alone, in the dark, I was shocked to see old people lighting fires on the street to keep warm. Nobody at Columbia ever mentioned those kind of people. And at one point I had to ask a black man for directions. I remember he was wearing a long fur coat, and I wondered if he was going to pull out a knife or a gun and kill me on the spot. But he didn't. He told me how to get back to campus. I was ashamed, but I learned a lot that night, not just about race but about class privilege and life at Columbia. And that's something I've never forgotten.
I am really grateful to Farah Jasmine Griffin for giving my experience a meaning. She put it into words in the paragraph I quoted above. This is a very important book. The analysis of the speeches of Barack Obama and the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates is really first rate. Yet I was disappointed about some things that were left out. Professor Griffin teaches at Columbia, my beloved Alma Mater. Yet she never talks about what college life is like for Columbia students, black or white. She never talks about how easy it is for kids of all colors to be left behind, forgotten, and not just the way I got left behind that night. She never talks about how little interaction there is between faculty and undergraduates.
I loved the first couple of chapters, but the rest of the book was basically a study of the incomparable works of Toni Morrison. And while I understand that this is a memoir, an intimate account of family and grief, I was somewhat disappointed that there were no stories how the author chose to teach at Columbia University. I happen to know from personal experience that this is a very cold, impersonal, and elitist institution. I know many people of color and people from disadvantaged backgrounds who did not have a rewarding experience there.
And I bet Professor Griffin does too. (less)
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Dollie
Sep 30, 2021Dollie rated it it was amazing
Wow. So beautiful. A personal, cultural, and historical tapestry of black experience and literature woven so intimately. This book is topical and reflective with memoir overtones. Most of the books referenced I haven't read but the author does a brilliant job of acquainting us to their character's power and significance both to her and to the American story. Even the books I’ve read, I must read again. We reflect on how black literature raises the undeniable presence of resilience, strength, sadness, cunning, brilliance, pain, creativity, wisdom and, most of all, beauty within the context of slavery, oppression, violence and white supremacist dogma throughout history right up to the present moment. It seamlessly transitions from past to present, everyday to celebrity, human to divine. I have a lot of reading to do. (less)
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Kim Lockhart
Nov 23, 2021Kim Lockhart rated it it was amazing
This is part scholarship/Black literary criticism and part memoir. I found the chapters well crafted, illuminating, and instructive.
The author starts out with stark explanations of the differences between justice and mercy. The hard message is that White people who owe justice to Black people cannot even be counted upon to grant mercy. The Black cultural inclusive interior has been literally carved out by the most dire instances of vulnerability: exclusionary abandonment by those with power.
The author continues to mine the experiences of Black Americans throughout history. With the weight of generational trauma, what should be the reaction to injustice? If justice is routinely blocked, there are only two choices: angry vengeance or bitter powerlessness. Either is poison for the body and soul.
In addition, the author breaks down the concept of justice itself. There are different outcomes people can expect, receive or strive for: performative or partial justice, restorative justice, and transformative justice. Partial justice is no justice at all. Restorative justice just places you right back where you started. There's no progress or redress. Transformative justice is the only kind of change which creates space for a new kind of social community, a radical view of our common humanity and intrinsic worth.
The author centers on the ethic of care, the strength of community, and the struggle for justice, as well as a detailed description of what Black culture means. It's an effective treatise. (less)
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Oscreads
Nov 11, 2021Oscreads rated it it was amazing
Wow! Just wow!
flag3 likes · Like · comment · see review
Beverly
Dec 20, 2021Beverly rated it really liked it
Shelves: black-literature, newtome2021, narrative-nonfiction, race, philadelphia, 2021, memoir, ess, criticism, non-fiction
thoughts coming shortly
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Cam
Aug 09, 2021Cam rated it it was amazing
Written by a professor of English and Comparative Literature, this is part memoir, part literary criticism, and part a cultural history of America. Griffin tells us about her father, their relationship, and how she came to know herself better through the literature and music he encouraged her to read and listen to. I think you might get more out of it if you are already familiar with the literature she references (for example, works by Toni Morrison, Frederick Douglas, Richard Wright), but this is an enlightening read (especially to a Brit like me), as educational about the African American experience as it is about literature, and has given me lots of ideas for further reading. (less)
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Kate Brown
Jan 16, 2022Kate Brown rated it it was amazing
Wow. I finished it a few minutes ago and just kind of hugged it for a minute.
As someone who loves to pick apart the things that she reads and sees and analyze it to the nth degree, I feel like this book literally fell out of heaven for me. ๐ I almost put it back at the book store and I thank God I didn't - I needed to read this.
This book was so beautiful. I always love being able to find shared experience in a life that is so vastly different from my own and Farah and I might be sisters torn apart by time and location. The way she is so vulnerable and honest about her pain surrounding the death of her father but how her relationship with her dad spurred her to become the activist she is today - my mom and I were the same way; I am who I am because of her and how she taught me. The way she describes the ubiquitous music in her family's life - it was the same in my house (and even the same kind of music!). I like to annotate while I read because it helps me focus and I could have read this book a lot quicker if I wasn't stopping every two seconds to highlight something that reflected my own life so perfectly or something that I had never realized and LOVED the way she put.
Farah paints such a beautiful, and sometimes haunting, picture of life as a member of the Black community. The overwhelming love. The shared pain and joy. The family gatherings (and family is never just blood relations, it's the family you create - as a southerner and a preachers kid, I relate to that a little too much ๐).
And don't get me started on the Theology of the Black community - the way Farah incorporates God and the community and her family's individual views of God into the discussions of the literature is literally transcendent. I've recommended it to my Theology teacher at seminary to use in her Theology and The Arts class next year!
There's one point in chapter 7 where she quotes the dearly departed bell hooks in saying that love is not a feeling, it's an action and I think that's the heart of the whole thing, isn't it. There's another point earlier on in the book when she says that Mercy is "the dispensation of passion and forgiveness when someone deserves punishment". Chosing to love and be merciful are intentional ACTIONS - like they have physical and mental movements that come with them. Loving means being enraged at the treatment of others. Seeking justice is a form of love, probably the greatest form of love.
This is a must read. Seriously, don't think twice. (less)
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Dominique
Jan 30, 2022Dominique rated it really liked it
Shelves: books-on-my-2022-list
More like 4.5 stars- this book is gorgeous, special. It’s hard to review it, because it’s exactly what it described to be- personal memoir set against a deep reading of the canon of African American literature. But Griffin writes so vividly- her anecdotes are filled with grace, humor, electricity, her deep readings of Baldwin, Morrison, and Brooks and others, so filled with rigor and reverence. If you’re like me, and have had the privilege of reading many of these texts, and even taking classes with her, there’s even more of a sweeping sense of a life filled with thoughtful experience and observant noticing, and gorgeous sharing. And the time she generously allows us into that life is so enriching. For anyone who has ever been a black girl, or loved black girlhood, or been a reader, or loved a reader, you will shine over every celebration of those identities. I loved every minute of this book, which I read via audiobook, and her fluting timbre only adds (though I did miss the additional context of footnotes and acknowledgments). Go out of your way to read this one, I really don’t see anyone regretting it. (less)
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Christie Bane
Feb 06, 2022Christie Bane rated it really liked it
This was really a beautifully written book. I’m sure it made its way to my “to-read” list via the New York Times newsletter, but also, I really do want to understand. I want to listen to all sides in my quest to understand the forces that are causing such strife in this country, because I want to do my part to see if we can all learn to listen to each other or not.
This book is equal parts memoir and literary analysis. I enjoyed the former much more than the latter.
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Kat
Dec 28, 2021Kat rated it it was amazing
My goodness this was so brilliantly written while weaving references to other historical Black literature in an interesting biographical presentation! The breakdowns and conversational commentary was throughly engrossing. While I got the message the first time, I strongly feel that this is one to read repeatedly for deeper understanding.
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Sandy
Jan 10, 2022Sandy rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: racism, literature, memoir, non-fiction
This evocative and heartfelt memoir primarily focuses on the literature of Black authors who informed and shaped the author's understanding of herself and the world. Parts of the book read a bit like a walk through a literature class, exploring characters and themes. But I found it wasn't necessary for me to have read these books to grasp the author's points. Indeed, if/when I get around to reading any of those I haven't yet read, her analysis here will give me a richer understanding of them.
More than the authors she highlights, her observations about the food, music, art, gardens, and family love of her life growing up in Philadelphia ring out memorably. (less)
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