Notes Of A Hanging Judge: essays and reviews 1979-1989

Stanley Crouch is an excellent essayist, and of his books, Notes of a Hanging Judge is the best I've read so far. That being said, some of the essays in this collection still anger me, some 8 years after I first read them. Much of his national exposure has seemingly been created by the gratuitous pot shots he takes at notable blacks, in efforts to knock them off some imagined pedestal. Two examples stand out. In the Rage of Race,(#34) one of two essays about James Baldwin, Crouch embarks on an acidic deconstruction; claiming that Baldwin's late-career work "sold out to rage, despair, self-righteousness and a will to scandalize." Crouch further wrote that Baldwin's mantle as black literary spokesman led him to neglect his craft, and eroded the impact of his subsequent work. To the contrary, there are numerous black artists, whose passion and activism did not lower the quality of their work(i.e. Paul Robeson; and Ishmael Reed-see Airing Dirty Laundry, and Writin' is Fightin). To Baldwin's credit, he defiantly refused to "sit in some ivory tower perfecting my craft" while events on the civil rights ground demanded his attention and participation. In "Nationalism of Fools(Essay #25)Crouch reduced Malcolm X to a purveyor of "a cockeyed racial vision of history which precluded any insights into human nature..." Crouch's willingness to adopt the mainstream consensus about Malcolm left him no room to study the true evolution of Malcolm's world view; it expanded beyond U.S. borders, transcended civil rights, and embraced human rights instead.With these criticisms, you may wonder why I gave this book 5 stars. I did so because I LEARNED SO MUCH!! Crouch introduced me to people I'd never heard of, and whose work I now enjoy. The best example is("Chitlins at the Waldorf"-Essay #6) his tribute to Albert Murray, who was a contemporary of Ralph Ellison. Murray's book, Stompin the Blues, is widely regarded as the definitive text about the meaning of jazz and the blues. Because of Crouch, I now have four of Charles Johnson's books. Crouch's essay, "Another Master" profiles Senegalese film maker Ousmane Sembene, who recently had a month-long festival of his films shown at NYC's Film Forum. For all the acerbity in some essays, Crouch also shows real compassion and empathy, as his essay about Lionel Mitchell attests. For the most part, I will never align myself politically with the conservatives with whom Crouch appears cozy. However, I will never stop reading his essays either, for they are rich, improvisational, educational and eclectic. Notes of a Hanging Judge is an intense,fascinating workout, which is at times fun. It is a truly worthwhile reading experience, and I highly recommend it!