Philadelphia Fire

This novel is so allegory and I hate it. I had so much promise for this author since he is highly rated but I was disappointed. This novel is more of a mental patient ranting and raving. I wish I could get my money back . This is one fire that I was glad to put out.

I liked Wideman stream of consciousness writing style. See why he's an award winner. The problem I had..... hoping for a little non fiction to give the story some demension not just another abusive govermental story.

This is not really the story of Cudjoe but the story of story-telling itself. The book explores the jagged edges between fictional protagonists (Cudjoe, then Caliban, and finally a homeless man named J.B.) and an ostensibly non-fictional speaker (a version of Wideman himself, hinting at family dysfunctions such as the incarceration of his son for murder). It also explores the jagged edges separating his own text from, and linking it to, precursory texts by Shakespeare, Joyce, William Carlos Williams, Robert Lowell, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Eldridge Cleaver, Marcolm X, and others. If you're looking for a cohesive, traditional story, this is not your book. It purposely does not give us pay-offs in scenes and plot developments that it arranges for us to expect. But if you're looking for continual surprise and dislocation, stylistic bravado and beauty, and an often profound meditation on African America, on masculine anguish and self-delusion, and on the American problem more generally, this book is for you.

I had to read Philadelphia Fire for a writing class and, after delving into the book, I found that it was written in that love it or hate it "stream of conciousness" style. The person of the narrator switches from character to character and other people in the story seem to appear without any warning or introduction. But the reason I gave this book five stars is because of the way the last and the way Wideman describes the homeless man sucking the ketchup and maynoise off of Mcdonalds plastic hamburger wrappers is painfully insightful and provocative. This book is worth the read simply because the ending is fabulous and leaves you with a sense of how the world doesn't care about innocent people being killed and that most people are only concerned with themselves. END

This novel with its shifting points of view and often stream of consciousness style plays like a Cecil Taylor jazz piece . . . everything seems discordant but the underlying theme pulls it all together beautifully. It's a great novel about modern America, our strengths and weaknesses, our loves/obsessions and hates, our insights and blindness. Widemnan uses the fire bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia to take a snap shot of contemporary urban America.