Philadelphia Fire
Inspired by the 1985 MOVE bombing, John Edgar Wideman's novel follows writer Cudjoe as he searches for the lone survivor amid the ruins and his own memories. It confronts urban violence and loss at the center of the story.
Work Information
From the fragments of a burned city, questions of memory and responsibility emerge.
Set against a historic Philadelphia disaster, the novel overlays the narrator's inner life with the city's scars. It begins with real events but grows into something with allegorical reach.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Henry Holt & Co
- Published
- 1990-08-01
- Language
- 英語
- ISBN-13
- 9780805012668
- ISBN-10
- 9780805012668
- Price
- 13088 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Urban Life
At once personal and political, this novel about being Black and male in white America depicts an unyielding core of individual resistance and demonstrates with tragic immediacy how America's mixed signals foster false hopes
Reviews
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Arty for art sake
Very pretentious style, stretched allegories, artificial trains of thoughts. Hard read that doesn’t flow and is a pain to keep track of the narrative. Regretting to get involved in this one
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Poses more questions than it answers
Excellent, underrated book. Admittedly confusing and ambiguous, with the use of stream of consciousness narration leading you places you often aren't prepared to (nor want to) go. But it's just such a fascinating representation of the authorial self, of the personal imbued with the political. Wideman shows us the challenging process of writing about a significant & difficult event, the struggle between being both on the inside and the outside, the near impossibility of giving a sufficient representation. If you want a linear, "objective" retelling of the fire, there are other books for that. If you want a cleanly-tailored adventure story about a heroic protagonist finding a lost boy, there are other books for that. Wideman's novel does something strikingly different, and if you're willing to step out of your comfort zone, it's absolutely worth the read.
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Five Stars
Great read
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Three Stars
Bought it as a gift
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One Star
forced to read this book for school. so boring