The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985 by James BaldwinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The problem with reading such a profound volume of work is that you can't do it justice in words. I wish I could describe to you the level of beauty and voice this collection has, but I can't. I honestly can't think anyone can. All I can do is recommend that you read it. Even more so, say not only is it good, but that it is important. Not only to be absorbed for the sake of your mind but also that of your soul. I can't describe it to you, but I will try.
The biggest problem I find with collections, especially those of the same author over a long period, is a varying level of quality. If you collect everything a writer has done, even an extremely talented one, you get the good along with the bad. Earlier works that don't hold up as well against later works that are more refined. Plus the occasional work that makes no sense, but was still published because it would make money. However, in this collection, I didn't find that to be the case. It's almost impossible to read anything by Baldwin and not come away with at least something profound. There is no good with the bad because it's all great. To say this is the gold standard of collections is an understatement.
I don't feel right picking a favorite, since everything in the collection is worth reading, but I do want to say that "The Fire Next Time" is by far the crown jewel of this collection. It may be one of Baldwin's most important nonfiction works but remains the hardest pill to swallow. I can't help but feel he didn't write it for his own time, but rather, saw where the country was headed, and wrote it for today. While I don't condone reading only one essay in this collection, if there was only one you would read multiple times, it would be Fire. In fact, everyone should read it before every school council meeting.
The weird part of my brain that feels it needs to complain about something says I need to say something about "No Name in the Street." It's overly long and tends to stray from the point on more than one occasion. Not Baldwin's best work. That being said, Baldwin's worst book is better than 90% of the stuff in publishing today.
In a more broad analysis, there's a great deal of beautifully written pain in these works. Baldwin's voice can be too easily dismissed as angry, but I feel that is too simple of an answer. Sure, there is anger, but I feel his voice is directed more at the worse world than it is at any particular group of people. A feeling that the world, or more accurately the people in it, can be better. Understanding that people can't solve any of the world's problems until they at least acknowledge the problems that lie within themselves. That's what I took away from it at least. And that might be this collection's greatest gift. That it's impossible to read and not walk away the same.
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