James Baldwin is considered a complex figure. Older generations criticized him while newer ones revere him as a secular saint. Baldwin believed every writer has a message, emphasizing that many who think they understood him missed the point. He was emotionally volatile and magnetic, engaging audiences with charisma and intensity. His life was unstructured and filled with habits like chain-smoking and drinking. While he often seemed to rant, this behavior served as a deliberate method of making impactful points.
An interviewer once asked James Baldwin if he'd ever write something without a message. "No writer who ever lived," Baldwin said, "could have written a line without a message." This is true. People write because they have something to say. Baldwin had something to say, and he spent his life saying it. But many who thought they got his message didn't get it at all.
He could charm, he could engage, and he could also rant. Some people who knew him thought that the ranting was an act, and to some extent it was: it was a calculated way of making a point.
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