Sonny's Blues

This story was one of my favorites that we have read. I really enjoyed the writing style of James Baldwin. He uses great detail in his writing to describe tangible and intangible things. My favorite part was at the end of the story when he was writing about Sonny and the boys playing. His word choice and analogies were really mind-blowing. As a fan of music myself, I could appreciate his writing more because I agreed with what he was saying. There is so much more to music than notes and chords and Baldwin expresses that with a poetic tone. A lot of people listen to music, but have no idea what the author is saying. For Sonny, he found freedom in his music, especially when people listened. “I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.” He mentions how the music was the only light in their world of darkness. Music is Sonny and the boys get away, it’s how they feel happiness, it’s what the Lord created them to do.

I always like reading the little bio the book provides on the author after I read the story. As I read I could tell that Baldwin spoke from experience and I could tell as I read he grew up in a similar scene. So I was not surprised to find out he grew up in Harlem and he was one of nine children. He mentions “When you have a lot of children you don’t always start running when one of them falls.” This is one example of many where Baldwin uses his own experiences to fill and embellish the story in a very real way. I think when we write, whether we admit it or not, we write from our experience. After all, it’s all we know…