Exquisite! What a remarkable find!

From my observation, it seems that the majority of fiction readers typically gravitate towards contemporary works, those that are considered 'fresh', being widely discussed, or newly promoted. This inclination might bring joy to the publishing houses, as when the small percentage of what they have chosen to promote gains popularity (allowing them to convince themselves that they still have a finger on the pulse of the reading public).

However, it is truly a pity. There are numerous (perhaps countless?) still-worthy novels from the past that are waiting to be rediscovered by modern readers. This particular one is such a gem - and I am glad to know that it is still recognized to some extent.

It is a concise novel (I have never seen it described as a novella anywhere), yet its brevity and economy might be part of its charm. It begins rather leisurely, but soon it gathers momentum and, before you realize it, it accelerates like a runaway train.

Here, Larsen's outstanding feature is her mastery of tension and its various manifestations: quiet, brooding, escalating, and frantic. Along these lines, the early sequence where the two main characters (two black women, each passing as white) accidentally reunite after a 12-year interval is particularly notable. They are both in the same restaurant, sitting alone at tables near each other. At first, only one of them recognizes the other. The prolonged yet active silence - disturbing to one woman but relished by the other - is filled with a mild sense of unrest.

As the novel progresses, the reader may be reminded of a high-profile 'woman's picture' from the 1940s. Like many of the best works from that era, the sharp writing has not been dulled by time. Published in 1929, 'Passing' retains in its language an urgency that some other novels of the same period cannot claim.

The story held my attention firmly, and I also learned a great deal. This combination is exactly what I appreciate.

This was truly very good!

It has the remarkable ability to instantly grab your attention and hold it firmly from the very first page all the way to the last. The story offers fascinating perspectives on the concept of "passing" as a White, which is both thought-provoking and engaging. The dialogues are not just great; they are truly exceptional, adding depth and authenticity to the narrative. The pacing is quick, ensuring that you are constantly engaged and on the edge of your seat. And when it finally comes to an end, it leaves you with a lot to think about, making it a classic that is definitely worth reading. Despite being relatively short, it manages to say a great deal in just a few words, packing a powerful punch.

Furthermore, the audiobook narration by Robin Miles is excellent, enhancing the overall experience and bringing the story to life in a whole new way. It's rare to find a book that combines all these elements so effectively, but this one does it with ease. There may be an exception to every rule, and in this case, this short book is an exception that I liked a lot.

**Nuance and Ambiguity in the Social Order**

The 1920s in the USA was a time of radical change. It was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, yet also a decade with a huge increase in lynchings of Black people, mainly in the Southern states. This was a complex period when some Blacks, like the 'New Negro', and women, such as the 'New Woman' or flapper, experienced increased freedom. Two million Blacks fled the oppressive South for the North and West, and a wave of talented Black writers, artists, and musicians emerged. The characters in 'Passing' are 'elite', with Irene and Clare being very light-skinned and able to 'pass' as white. The book dramatizes the impossibility of self-invention in a society where nuance and ambiguity are seen as fatal threats to the social order. Only in the US, with its institutionalized racism, does the concept of 'passing' exist. Irene's husband Brian dreams of a life in South America to escape the virulent racism of the US, but Irene is reluctant to leave. Her need for security in a racist country is confusing and her denial is similar to those who refuse to see the climate catastrophe. The question of where identity resides is also explored. In the US, a nation of immigrants, we create arbitrary hierarchies, perhaps to rationalize the theft of land and the dehumanization of others. This 96-year-old book is quintessentially American and continues to make us think.

This is a truly excellent one!

It stands out among the rest for its remarkable qualities.

The details are carefully crafted, and every aspect seems to be perfectly thought out.

It has a certain charm that draws you in and keeps you engaged from start to finish.

Whether it's the unique design, the engaging content, or the overall presentation, this one has it all.

It's not just good; it's outstanding.

It sets a high standard and leaves a lasting impression.

You can't help but appreciate the effort and talent that went into creating it.

This is definitely a piece that deserves recognition and praise.

It's a shining example of what can be achieved with passion and dedication.

Childhood friends, who shared countless memories and adventures together in their younger days, find themselves reunited in the vibrant and bustling Harlem of the 1920s.

One of them has now chosen to "pass" as white, a decision that has led them down very different paths.

The meeting is filled with a mix of emotions - nostalgia for the past, curiosity about the present, and perhaps a hint of unease or tension.

As they catch up, they explore the changes that have occurred in their lives and the world around them.

The 1920s was a time of great social and cultural upheaval, and Harlem was at the center of it all.

The friends discuss the music, art, and literature that was emerging from the neighborhood, as well as the challenges and opportunities that came with it.

Despite the differences in their experiences and identities, the bond between them as childhood friends still remains strong.

They realize that, no matter what, they will always have a special connection that cannot be broken.

Their meeting in Harlem serves as a reminder of the power of friendship and the importance of remembering where we came from.

Nella Larsen's "Passing" presents a captivating and complex story.

Irene and Clare, childhood friends, have a chance encounter in Chicago after years apart. Their reunion is bittersweet, but they reconnect when Clare stays in New York, where Irene lives with her husband and sons.

Their adult friendship has an awkward aspect. Both light-skinned Black women, Irene's husband is Black, and she is part of the Harlem Renaissance. Clare, biracial, has married a white man but longs for her Black roots. Her husband knows nothing of her past.

The book's slimness belies its depth. The writing, like Colette's short stories, is deceptively simple yet personal and uncomfortable. Irene's thoughts and actions are laid bare. She is an interesting and relatable character, not necessarily likable, but her experiences are universal.

It is both a race story and more. Irene can pass as white when convenient, but she is aware of the risks. Clare's choice to live as white fascinates and repulses her. The tension of passing runs through the story.

I don't want to reveal more. It's best experienced. I'm glad it's been reissued. Just one warning: The foreword in my copy was full of spoilers. Read it as an afterword. Take my advice and skip it at first.

I read this a few months ago now, and I drastically undervalued its brilliance.

I’m writing an essay on racial encounter in the modernist movement for university, so I’ve been picking this book apart during my second and third readings of it.

During the course of it, I’ve noticed something equally as important. Racial encounter is at the centre of this book, but it is not the heart of it. Indeed, repressed sexual desire and love are what drive the narrative forward. But love isn’t easily recognisable to our narrator Irene Redfield. She’s in love with a woman, and she doesn’t quite know it yet. Her feelings for Clare Kendry switch back and forth between lust and hatred; she hates how this woman has a pull over her, an irresistible force of attraction that she cannot shy away from.

And it’s ruining her life; thus, the completely open end of the book. She wants to destroy such an object of power, but I don’t think she really ever stopped to consider what the object actually meant to her. Her marriage is cold and loveless; she doesn’t know what love is, so when she experiences it she doesn’t recognise it or understand it. There are so many passages I could quote here. I have them marked down in my edition. There are so many suggestions of it, some subtle musings and others plain lust. It’s worth reading the book with this relationship in mind.

But, anyway, issues of race and postcolonialisms are what I’ve been really looking into. More and more I seem to be referencing the ideas of Franz Fannon’s Black Skins White Masks whenever I review a book like this. It’s so ridiculously apt and summarising the situation. Fannon’s arguments suggest that the black man has been indoctrinated with this idea that he is inferior. Who he is, and where he comes from, is inferior. Therefore, he is forced to adhere to this model of what is superior. And at this time that was the foolish notion of elite white culture. The black man then pretends to be white; he speaks like a white man, he dresses like him and acts like him: he tries to be him, rather than establishing his own sense of identity.

So what is the concept of Passing? Essentially, it is where people of black heritage, who are very white, can pass off as completely white. For example, you may have had a black grandfather or great grandfather who has intermingled with white culture and has watered down his blood. So the result is a child who is what 1920s American society would still deem a “Negro” but to all appearances is not one. The individual is left with two choices: own their heritage, and embrace it, or pretend to be something else.

“It’s funny about passing. We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”

And this book captures both sides. To be a Negro here is to be a second class citizen, nobody wants the stigma attached with that, so they distance themselves from the label as much as possible. Even if it means marrying a racist bigot of a husband who has no idea his own wife is actually descended from black heritage. Some embrace who they are and are proud of it. The psychological framework that has built the prior example is understandable. Nobody would want to be in such a situation, though the truly brave are those that resist it and stand up for who they are. Those that ignore the societal pressures, as they should, are the ones that help make change and social progress.

This is an interesting novella, it captures an element of the postcolonial legacy I was unaware of previously, and it has suggestions of homosexual desire which really is highly characteristic of some of the literature of the period. It's really worth a read. It offers a complex and nuanced exploration of race, identity, and desire, making it a thought-provoking and engaging work.

A sharp, measured but intense, psychological novella about identity, told with elegance and forensic care.

Two affluent black women, who knew each other as children, meet again when they are in their late thirties. Glamorous, cat-like Clare, with a “caressing smile”, lives as a white woman, while Irene is a pillar of black society and charitable works. It’s told from Irene’s point of view.

“Strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness.”

Clare is good at getting what she wants, and what she wants now is to have a toe in black society in NY, while retaining her white privilege in Chicago. In essence, Clare is a white woman who now wants to pass as black, occasionally.

Irene thinks passing is “dangerous” and “abhorrent”, but as things get complicated, she’s torn by conflicting loyalties: to her family, her friend, and her race.

“She had to Clare Kendry a duty. She was bound to her by those very ties of race, which, for all her repudiation of them, Clare had been unable to completely sever.”

Clare just floats in and out, seemingly oblivious of any difficulties.

Although the consequences of rekindling their friendship become obvious to the reader before they are to the protagonists, the way it unfolds is carefully done. Secrecy matters.

“It hurt like hell. But it didn't matter if no one knew.”

It closes with a sudden dramatic event (foreshadowed by crockery), while retaining plenty of ambiguity. If it’s a sort of karma, which transgression is it for?

It also explores community, keeping up appearances, aspiration, social class, racism, toxic relationships, secrets, loyalty, marriage, parenting, and much more. The New York jazz age setting adds sparkle.

It was published in 1929, so black people describe themselves as colored and Negro.

“It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve.”

The idea of a black person “passing” as white was something I’d heard of, but given little thought to until I read Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half last year. The advantages are obvious, but I’d never considered the multifaceted disadvantages, especially of living one’s whole life that way. I found Bennett’s book eye-opening and explored the ideas of carving and cleaving destiny in my review.

The Vanishing Half wasn’t a bad book in isolation, but now it feels like a simulacrum of this. Where this is taut, that took the idea of girls who grew up together living as different races in adulthood, and then padded it out with box-ticking subplots.

The ease with which some people pass fits with the idea of race as a social construct, which I thought was a recent idea. However, Irene’s husband, Brian, suggests similar by being unable to define race. He observes that all the people he’s known who passed felt drawn back to their culture, but he doesn’t know why.

“If I knew that, I’d know what race is.”

Another time, Irene is chatting with white friend Hugh, who asks how one can tell. She says no one can tell by looking:

“I’m afraid I can’t explain. Not clearly. There are ways. But they’re not definite or tangible.”

“Chicago. August. A brilliant day, hot, with a brutal staring sun pouring down rays that were like molten rain. A day on which the very outlines of the buildings shuddered as if in protest at the heat… Sharp particles of dust rose from the burning sidewalks, stinging the seared or dripping skins of wilting pedestrians. What small breeze there was seemed like the breath of a flame fanned by slow bellows.”

“Between them the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and just as firm as if in Clare did not run that strain of black blood. In truth, it was higher, broader, and firmer; because for her there were perils, not known, or imagined, by those others who had no such secrets to alarm or endanger them.”

“She wanted no empty spaces of time in which her mind would immediately return to that horror which she had not yet gathered sufficient courage to face.”

“Christmas, with its unreality, its hectic rush, its fake gaiety, came and went.”

Rebecca Hall’s 2021 film adaptation, stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. It’s filmed in black and white, and nearly square, rather than cinematic “letterbox”, which suits the setting. Brit Bennett wrote an introduction to a recent edition of the Passing. I didn’t enjoy Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots, but it makes interesting points by reversing the races in the slave trade. Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who passed as black and even became a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Zen Cho’s The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo features colourism and fitting in. Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

I read Passing in this edition and was truly captivated by its profound themes and engaging narrative. I then took the time to post a review here, sharing my thoughts and feelings about the book with the online community.

Interestingly, I found myself rereading Passing the very next night. It was as if the story had left such an impression on me that I couldn't resist delving back into its world. However, it's important to note that I did not reread Quicksand at this time.

Adding this experience to my account allows me to document my journey with Passing and perhaps inspire others to give this remarkable book a try. I look forward to exploring more of Nella Larsen's works in the future.

Nella Larsen's short novel "Passing" is both engaging and disturbing. It mainly focuses on Irene and Clare. Both have an African-American parent and are so light-skinned that they could pass for white. Clare has "switched sides" (the process of "passing" in the original). The two childhood friends meet again by chance in Chicago after twelve years. Subsequently, Irene visits Clare at home and meets her racist husband. This is where the disturbance begins. The man's racism is illustrated with extremely drastic language. However, it is also one of the most impressive and cruel episodes I have read in a long time. In later parts of the novel, there are ongoing discussions about "race". The term keeps coming up. This may be due to the time. The novel was originally published in 1929. Disappointingly, there is no context provided in the afterword.

The psychological novel consists of three parts ("The Encounter", "The Second Encounter", "The Finale"). Especially the first two parts are extremely strong. The characters are so vividly drawn that the theme of ethnic origin becomes palpable. In the third part, the focus in this regard is somewhat lost. Nevertheless, there are still exciting aspects here. For example, the question of whether children should be informed about racism at an early age or not is addressed.

The greatest strength of the novel lies in the characters Irene and Clare. Especially Irene, from whose perspective the events are described, is ambivalent and alive. In addition, it is the portrayal of "passing" in many different variants that makes the book a classic. An absolute recommendation, provided one has no problem with drastic language to depict racism.

Nella Larsen's work can be regarded as a remarkable piece within the context of the Harlem Renaissance. It also belongs to the genre of fictions of passing, which includes notable titles such as "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" by James Weldon Johnson, "Caucasia" by Danzy Senna, and "The Human Stain" by Philip Roth.

The story Larsen tells is about two childhood friends who reunite as married women with young children. One of them, Clare, has crossed the color line and lives as a white person, married to a racist who is unaware of his wife's true heritage. Through her friend Irene, Clare attempts to reconnect with her Black roots, a perilous undertaking as it could potentially lead to legal consequences, as seen in the real divorce case of Rhinelander v. Rhinelander.

This text provides a complex exploration of the phenomenon of double consciousness as described by W.E.B. Du Bois in "The Souls of Black Folk," but with a unique twist. Light-skinned Black women, who are difficult to categorize, occupy a distinct space within a racist society. Larsen delves into the question of privilege versus marginalization in the contexts of race, gender, class, and even sexuality. There is not only sexual tension between the women, but one of the husbands may be gay or bisexual. Additionally, Clare has crossed class lines by marrying up, while Irene fluctuates between the working and middle classes, highlighting the social construct of strict separations.

The short novel is deeply rooted in Larsen's own experiences. With a Danish mother and a supposedly mixed-race Afro-Caribbean immigrant father who may not have identified as Black, Nella faced discrimination in a white American neighborhood as a child. Later, she attended both the historically Black Fisk University and the University of Copenhagen.

Undoubtedly, this work is a well-deserved classic that offers profound insights into the complex issues of race, identity, and society.

\\n  "At that Clare laughed, her spark of anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 'Of course,' she declared, 'that's what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. And I must say I don't blame them. Money's awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that it's even worth the price.'" \\n



Wow, what an incredibly strange and brilliant little book this is! It offers a psychologically-fraught character study, not just of one, but two perplexingly human individuals. It's like a classical tragedy, yet it's dressed in the guise of a tight two-act domestic drama. It presents an uncomfortably ambiguous cross-section of biracialism, colorism, gender, and class. And it's also a barely-disguised flapper age lesbian romance. It's funny! It's tense! It's terrifying! All of that and so much more, and it's all contained within the length of a shorter-than-average novella.



I almost never read more than one of an author's books consecutively. My attention span is short, and there's just so much that I want to read. But Passing was such a perfect gem that my immediate urge was to move straight on to \\n  Quicksand\\n without taking a break. In the end, I didn't do it because I'd already overloaded myself with other things. But maybe that's for the best. After all, those two works are pretty much all she published, and it would be such a shame to fall in love with her oeuvre and then exhaust it in just a week.



The fact that Larsen didn't write more is, of course, a great loss to us all. Now and then, a great artist will burst onto the scene in a flash of brilliance and then fade away almost as quickly, leaving behind just enough to make us long for more. In Larsen's case, as in that of her contemporary Zora Neale Hurston, the disappearance was less her own fault and more that of America itself. This is the country that made her fight so hard to get anywhere and still didn't recognize her genius until it had already beaten her down and cast her aside.



Who can say how things might have been different for Larsen if she had been white or if she had been a man? Those are precisely the questions that Passing invites - or perhaps even orders - us to consider. And yet, that's the very thing: no white man could ever have written this.



Sometimes a book is so good that it startles us out of a complacency we didn't even know we'd fallen into, reminding us just how painful and surprising a truly good book can be. Passing was one of those books for me.