Walking in the dark
Douglas Field, Manchester University Press, £16.99

Douglas Field’s Walking in the dark is a personal exploration, intertwining his life with the writings of James Baldwin. At the heart of this work lies a meditation on memory, history, fathers and sons, with the shadow of Alzheimer’s disease looming large. 

Field’s preoccupation with Alzheimer’s, particularly through the lens of his father’s suffering, serves as a central theme in the book. Baldwin’s reflections on memory and history are brought into conversation with Field’s struggles to understand his father’s illness. However, one might question where Baldwin truly fits into this exploration. The connections between Baldwin’s writings on memory — especially his view that history is largely a record from the victor’s perspective — and Field’s personal narrative are somewhat tenuous. 

The book is rich with references to other writers, such as Toni Morrison, which situate Baldwin within a wider literary and cultural context. These cross-references illustrate Field’s wide reading as an academic in the area of US literature. However, the reader may feel that these connections sometimes serve more to showcase Field’s scholarly breadth than to illuminate Baldwin’s work itself.

The author’s personal investment in Baldwin’s legacy is evident, as he delves into Baldwin’s archives, retraces his steps across New York and Europe, and reflects on Baldwin’s influence on his own life. This personal approach gives the book an intimate quality, but it also means that the author’s lens is very much at the forefront. What emerges is a selective reading of Baldwin, one that is particularly focused on themes of family, illness, and personal identity, while downplaying Baldwin’s political ideas, especially his thoughts on communism, anti-colonialism, and imperialism.

One of the more notable omissions in the book is any thorough engagement with Baldwin’s political evolution. There is a fleeting mention of Baldwin’s brief association with the Young People’s Socialist League and his Trotskyist phase, while more significant aspects of Baldwin’s political thinking, particularly regarding the significant influence of communists, are overlooked. For instance, Baldwin’s pointed comment on Britain’s colonial past in a 1965 interview is noted, but the author does little to expand on this within Baldwin’s broader anti-colonial stance. 

The most glaring omission is that of Baldwin’s condemnation of Israel’s settler-colonialism. Baldwin’s engagement with black internationalism included a critical examination of Western imperial influence in the Middle East. He consistently advocated for Palestinian self-determination, regarding Israel as an extension of Western imperialism and Palestinians as its oppressed victims. This elision is particularly striking given the contemporary relevance of the issue.

And so, Field’s recollections of his father’s presence at Baldwin’s famous 1965 debate with Buckley at Cambridge are limited in scope, failing to discuss Baldwin’s argument — against the white supremacist claim to civilisational superiority and colonialism. At this famous Cambridge debate, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w, (available on YouTube) Baldwin asked: “It is the question of whether or not civilisations can be considered as such equal, or whether one civilisation has the right to overtake and subjugate and in fact to destroy another?” 

Ubermenschen-thinking (and this includes the notion of superior Western “values”) often end up justifying ethnic cleansing. Here, the author makes a clear choice to avoid Baldwin’s stance, possibly not to offend sections of his anticipated readership, but thereby obscuring parallels to modern-day Western hegemony. Instead, Field suggests that Baldwin may have been anti-semitic — an assessment that is more in line with current ways of dealing with unwanted opinions than with Baldwin’s strong anti-imperialist position.

Equally more in tune with current social trends than with Baldwin’s political outlook, Field engages with Baldwin’s explorations of gender and sexuality, particularly through a discussion of Giovanni’s Room, highlighting elements in Baldwin’s portrayal of women and transgender individuals that would cause disagreement today. 

In conclusion, Walking in the dark offers a selective personal portrait of James Baldwin. The book’s focus on personal themes at the expense of a fuller engagement with Baldwin’s political and social critiques limits its scope.