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Life in His Language

archive.nytimes.com · 1,385 words · saved by 1 readers

Jimmy, there is too much to think about you, and too much to feel. The difficulty is your life refuses summation - it always did - and invites contemplation instead. Like many of us left here I thought I knew you. Now I discover that in your company it is myself I know. That is the astonishing gift of your art and your friendship: You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish. We are like Hall Montana* watching ''with new wonder'' his brother saints, knowing the song he sang is us, ''He is us.'' I never heard a single command from you, yet the demands you made on me, the challenges you issued to me, were nevertheless unmistakable, even if unenforced: that I work and think at the top of my form, that I stand on moral ground but know that ground must be shored up by mercy, that ''the world is before [ me ] and [ I ] need not take it or leave it as it was when [ I ] came in.'' Well, the season was always Christmas with you there and, like one aspect of that scenario, you did not neglec

Life in His Language JAMES BALDWIN : HIS VOICE REMEMBERED; Life in His Language Date: December 20, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 27, Column 1; Book Review Desk Byline: By Toni Morrison Jimmy, there is too much to think about you, and too much to feel. The difficulty is your life refuses summation - it always did - and invites contemplation instead. Like many of us left here I thought I knew you. Now I discover that in your company it is myself I know. That is the astonishing gift of your art and your friendship: You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish. We are l

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