## Review THE BIG SEA

Langston Hughes' autobiography, "The Big Sea", was published in August by Alfred Knopf. It has 335 pages and sells for $3.00. The story is told in three books, Twenty-One, The Big Sea and Black Renaissance. The first book covers Hughes' life up to the time he was twenty-one and went to sea, the poverty of his family, the nomadic life his mother led looking for a job, the trips to Mexico and the father whom he learned to hate, the writing of his first poem. The second book, Big Sea, deals with the trip to Africa, the two voyages to Rotterdam, all on tramps or freighters as a mess-boy. The arrival in Paris with seven dollars, the Russian girl who shared a 'not too dear' room with him in Montmartre, Mary, the English/African girl with whom he fell in love and of the unacceptability of the match( so her father felt ) because the young poet had neither wealth nor prestige. He tells of his job at Le Grand Duc, of Florence the exclusive night club singer, of the fights he saw in the ca baret's, the trip back home via Italy, being stranded in Genoa and working as a beach-comber, Naples, Pompeii, across the Mediterranean to Spain and the arrival finally in New York with twenty-five cents. The trip from Paris on had cost him only $6.75 ! Then he tells of going to Washington to live with his mother and of working at the Wardman Park Hotel where he met Vachel Lindsay, of winning the Opportunity poetry prize and of the publication of the Weary Blues. In the winter of 1925, he entered Lincoln University in Pennsylvania on a scholarship secured through the kindness of an unnamed friend and a patron, an elderly and wealthy white woman who had a son in college.

The third section of the story, Black Renaissance -- When The Negro was in Vogue is a vivid picture of that fabulous and much misunderstood period and the individuals who made it. One other

## Review The BIG SEA

Negro writer, the late Rudolph Fisher, in his "Enfants OF The Spring",
now out of print, has written of this period. I feel that the real
worth of Hughes' book rests heavily on the objective picture of the
Negro Renaissance which he presents. In its pages move Countee Cullen,
James Weldon Johnson. Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Hurston,
Wallace Thurman, Rudolph Fisher, A'Lelia Walker, Paul Robeson, Ethel
Waters, Richmond Barthe, Carl Van Vechten, Alain Locke, Jules Bledsoe,
Nora Holt, in fact hosts of Negroes and whites who helped to make
and rode the crest of the incredible wave that was the Black Renaiss-
ance.

Hughes life story is told in a series of incidents told in a simple,
straight-forward style. He relates for us what happened to a young
Negro who wanted to travel and to write. There is no thread or theme
except that of chronology. After reading the book, I feel a sense of
incompleteness which is due, I feel, to the omission of material on
his experiences in China and Japan, The Soviet Union and Spain, the
writing of "The Ways of White Folks" and "Mulatto", of his being hailed
by the left-wing as a proletarian poet. These are the things which have
been his life since the demise of the Black Renaissance and since he
reached maturity and literary stature. Perhaps there'll be a second
volume in which he'll talk about this latter portion of his life.

"The Big Sea" is no boat rocker. On the whole, it is a placid
account of the life of a Negro writer. I imagine that/white people,
the book is filled with revelations, For Negroes, it holds countless
opportunities for identification with and sympathy for the author.
Hughes has recorded his life and that of those closest to him with a

3.

Review THE BIG SEA

candor and objectivity which is seldom encountered and even less
often appreciated. If you don't read the "Big Sea", your life will
run its course without any sense of lack. On the other hand, if you
do, you'll feel that some intangible and sensitive influence has
been met. The BIG SEA is not a fine book. Rather it is an interesting
book, and one to which the reader will often return. If you don't
believe me read it so I can say "I told you so!"