ANOTHER COUNTRY: BOOK REVIEW
CW: DISCUSSION OF VERBAL & EMOTIONAL ABUSE
In bed beside his lover, Vivaldo, a protagonist of James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962), responds to a declaration of love: “...what can we really do for each other except—just love each other and be each other’s witness?” Eric, the man Vivaldo is sleeping with, sits staring as the complication of their love rips through him. Vivaldo goes on, “And haven’t we got the right to hope—for more? So that we can really stretch into whoever we really are?”
Vivaldo and Eric are just two characters of Baldwin’s Another Country who suffer under the heavy weight of love. Published at the flight of America’s civil rights movement, the effects of prejudice are evident in Baldwin’s longest and most complex work. Another Country, which takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, explores the theme of the “Other” in great detail. In Edward Said’s Orientalism, the
”Other” is defined as everything that exists outside of oneself. In a global case, the Self is Europe and the Western world. In America, the Self not only includes white, but also straight, male, cisgender, and whatever else that may grant one privilege.
Almost every character of Another Country is touched by the “Other” — either by being defined as such or through their relationships. Rufus Scott, the protagonist of the novel’s first chapter, is a formerly homeless Black man who was forced into sex work for money. A white woman, Leona, falls in love with Rufus, whose abusive tendencies drive her to an emotional breakdown. Vivaldo, Rufus’s white best friend, falls in love with Rufus’s sister, Ida, and similarly, their relationship devolves into a cycle of abuse. Eric, former lover of Rufus, is a gay man who sleeps with Cass Selenski, a married and well-off white woman. Eric sleeps with Vivaldo as well. The entanglement of characters becomes almost impossible to navigate as chapters wear on, and each action of one character results in repercussions for the others.
Baldwin’s novel revolves around a single question: Can people who belong to different communities form lasting bonds? Is that thought truly too ridiculous for the human brain to comprehend? Baldwin takes this question and explores it the way one would with an undiscovered land. The four hundred and thirty six page novel is filled to the brim with connection after connection between people belonging to different communities, such as Vivaldo and Eric, and the outcome of their loves. In this way, the relationships between the characters become the most important aspect of Another Country, aside from what makes them the “Other.”
Rufus and Vivaldo, who are longtime friends, have a relationship that revolves around power. In a critical scene, the two compare genitalia to determine who would be more powerful by the men’s standards. Rufus and Vivaldo display a vulgarity that makes their toxic, masculine understanding of dominance prominent. This can be seen in Rufus’s abuse of Leona both verbally and physically. He threatens Vivaldo’s life when he fears his friend’s interest in Leona, an act that would strip Rufus’s power over her. Vivaldo similarly verbally abuses Ida, who remains in their relationship whilst cheating on him with another white man. In an argument between Vivaldo and Ida, we learn about her time with sex work and her white clients, which reveals her own search for power as a Black woman:
“How I hated them, the way they looked, and the things they’d say, all dressed up in their damn white skin, and their clothes just so, and their little weak, white pricks jumping in their drawers. You could do any damn thing with them if you just led them along, because they wanted to do something dirty and they knew that you knew how. All black people knew that. [...] I thought to myself, Shit, this scene is not for me. Because I didn’t want their little change, I didn’t want to be at their mercy. I wanted them to be at mine.”
Power. We see it again and again in the relationships between characters: a desperate fight for power. Cass fights for power over her husband, who robs her of it in his theft of marriage. She gains that power by sleeping and falling in love with a gay man. Eric seeks power over his family, who are Southern racists, not only by loving men but by specifically preferring Black men. Eric’s fetishization of the Black body also establishes power over his lovers by dehumanizing them. In Baldwin’s description of Eric’s desire for the Black body, he writes, “...the bodies of dark men, seen briefly, somewhere, in a garden or a clearing, long ago, sweat running down their chocolate chests and shoulders, their voices ringing out, the white of their jock-straps beautiful against their skin, one with his head tilted back before a dipper—and the water splashing, sparkling, singing down!...”
Each relationship brought to life in Baldwin’s novel is destined for destruction. When connections that were built on a foundation of dominance collapse, what remains?
Ultimately, Another Country is a brilliant dissection of what it means to love. It asks the question that many are afraid to ask: does love surpass race, gender, sexuality, and all aspects of identity? The contents of the book are so visceral, you begin to wonder if you, yourself, have experienced them. In the end, Baldwin makes it clear that his golden question is unanswerable under the current pressures of society. The constant search for control interrupts our search for truth in our connections. Until we open our eyes to understanding, how can we truly love someone we don’t understand?