We arrived thirty minutes after leaving that town, which was called Leuk. The train to Leuk had come in from Visp, the train from Visp had come from Bern, and the train before that was from Zurich, from which I had started out in the afternoon.
Three trains, a bus, and a short stroll, all of it through beautiful country, and then we reached Leukerbad in darkness. So Leukerbad, not far in terms of absolute distance, was not all that easy to get to. Were he alive, he would be turning ninety. He is one of those people just on the cusp of escaping the contemporary and slipping into the historical—John Coltrane would have turned eighty-eight this year; Martin Luther King, Jr.
James Baldwin left Paris and came to Leukerbad for the first time in His first trip was in the summer, and lasted two weeks. Then he returned, to his own surprise, for two more winters. He had struggled with the book for eight years, and he finally finished it in this unlikely retreat.
It recounts the experience of being black in an all-white village. But then it opens out into other concerns and into a different voice, swivelling to look at the American racial situation in the nineteen-fifties. The part of the essay that focusses on the Swiss village is both bemused and sorrowful.
Baldwin is alert to the absurdity of being a writer from New York who is considered in some way inferior by Swiss villagers, many of whom have never travelled.
But, later in the essay, when he writes about race in America, he is not at all bemused. He is angry and prophetic, writing with a hard clarity and carried along by a precipitous eloquence.
I took a room at the Hotel Mercure Bristol the night I arrived. I opened the windows to a dark view, but I knew that in the darkness loomed the Daubenhorn mountain. The ancestor had briefly taken possession of the descendant. It was a moment of identification, and in the days that followed that moment was a guide.
But the village has grown considerably since his visits, more than sixty years ago. There were a few glances at the hotel when I was checking in, and in the fine restaurant just up the road, but there are always glances. There are glances in Zurich, where I am spending the summer, and there are glances in New York City, which has been my home for fourteen years.
There are glances all over Europe and in India, and anywhere I go outside Africa. The test is how long the glances last, whether they become stares, with what intent they occur, whether they contain any degree of hostility or mockery, and to what extent connections, money, or mode of dress shield me in these situations.
To be a stranger is to be looked at, but to be black is to be looked at especially. There were, in fact, no bands of children on the street, and few children anywhere at all. Presumably the children of Leukerbad, like children the world over, were indoors, frowning over computer games, checking Facebook, or watching music videos. Baldwin had to bring his records with him in the fifties, like a secret stash of medicine, and he had to haul his phonograph up to Leukerbad, so that the sound of the American blues could keep him connected to a Harlem of the spirit.
The music you travel with helps you to create your own internal weather. At dinner, at a pizzeria, there were glances. A table of British tourists stared at me. There are, no doubt, as many ways of coping with the resulting complex of tensions are there are black men in the world, but no black man can hope ever to be entirely liberated from this internal warfare—rage, dissembling, and contempt having inevitably accompanied his first realization of the power of white men.
Black men can be calculating about it. Artists—especially the great ones—pay attention to these details. The very sounds of words can embody the meanings he or she is attempting to convey, so that we receive the meanings of words not only as ideas but as bodily feelings. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive.
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Notes of a Native Son , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Baldwin goes to a small village in Switzerland and learns that he is the first black person to ever visit.
The village is high in the mountains but not particularly inaccessible. Snow falls heavily, and the village has hot spring water which attracts tourists, most of whom are physically disabled and hope bathing in the water will heal them.
This never fails to shock Baldwin, though he smiles in order to appear friendly and pleasant. The villagers are extremely curious about his physical features, and some touch his hair or rub his skin to see if the color will come off.
Baldwin knows the villagers do not mean to insult him, but this does not make him feel much better. Where a white person would likely find the village a close-knit, harmonious place, Baldwin feels a profound sense of alienation from those around him. Their curiosity about his physical features not only suggests that they think of him as some kind of exotic creature, but also that they do not understand that he has internal subjectivity like any other person.
They feel no sense of shame around him, and are unconcerned about the shame he might feel. Active Themes. Inheritance, Tradition, and Belonging. A town is a populated area with fixed boundaries and a local government. A city is a large or important town. This article will be highlighting the key differences between the two types of human settlement: City and Village…. Difference Between City and Village. A village is a small group of settlements while a city is a large group of settlements.
Although some might also be found in urban areas, villages are usually located in rural areas while cities are urban centers. A village is located in a smaller land area while a city has a large land area.
The village people always try to protect their traditional habits and culture. The village has clean air and the environment is very beautiful. The village has less noise and rush. Even though I have never lived in a city, I think life is better in a small town because the community is close knit. Small towns have less crime and less traffic as well.
It takes less time to drive from one end of town to the other than it does in the city. While village life has many advantages, including less noise, beautiful natural landscapes, less pollution, fresh air and less congestion, the statistics does not favor the village folks worldwide.
Disadvantages of Village Life The educational advantages are often few and difficult to secure, and opportunities for work are far less than in the city. Life in the village may become dull, and engender a lack of brightness and polish which puts the village people at a disadvantage beside the town dweller.
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