A little over 10 years ago I reviewed Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice [see excerpt above]…. I said then (and on rereading the book still think) that Cleaver was a gifted writer but one whose particular qualities of rage, resentment and quasimystical aspiration in a context of racial struggle put him outside many of our literary canons. The review led to an agitated discussion … in which I tried to refine and clarify the distinctions I had drawn in the first piece.

The chief one was between what I called writing of a more or less traditional kind that happened to be by blacks (or "Negroes" at the time; that usage still held sway) and writing of a political and ideological cast that was intended mainly as a source of morale for blacks. My point was that the former could and ought to be judged the way we judge any sort of writing, but the latter, a provisional, tactical sort of thing, resisted—legitimately, I thought—our cultivated, humanistic, "white" standards.

Whatever the virtues or defects of this argument, it's been rendered academic, in Cleaver's case at least, by his new book. Soul on Fire has none of the sense of urgency of its predecessor, none of its intelligent participation in crucial issues of the mind and of politics. A slipshod, ill-written, spiritless piece of work from any point of view, its only virtue is that it provides some information, for those who might feel the need of it, on Cleaver's years in exile, after fleeing the United States while under indictment, in Cuba, Algeria and finally Paris. (p. 29)

In any case, his rationale for being in political exile eroded, his hopes for a solution to his problems with the law raised by the advent of a new admininistration in Washington, Cleaver negotiated for his return and in the late fall of 1975 left Paris for the States. He had gone into exile as a dramatic and even charismatic figure and returned as a footnote to the history of his times.

Along with his growing patriotism, he tells us, he had experienced while abroad a rising impulse toward religion, which culminated, shortly before his departure from France, in an abrupt and unconditional surrender. Thus the change in the titles of his books from "Ice" to "Fire," reflects, as he says, his movement from the status of a prison inmate to that of a born-again Christian. When it was revealed a year or so after his return that he had become heavily engaged in evangelical activity the general reaction was, understandably, skepticism, while that of his former associates was compounded of fury and contempt. These things being so, [Soul on Fire] is in large part an effort to establish his sincerity.

Well, such matters aren't properly subject to judgment, except perhaps from a long perspective in which a life may be seen in relation to a credo, and I for one am disposed to grant Cleaver what he asks. He's sincere, then, but the trouble is that he's become entirely uninteresting.

What's most surprising about Cleaver's change of heart and mind is the complete loss of eloquence it seems to have brought about. Soul on Ice was streaked with bad writing, but that stemmed I think from impatience or an excess of vitality and was more than atoned for by the many passages of sharp, accurate, often lyrical description and observation…. (pp. 30-1)

Soul on Fire has none of this fineness and originality. The account of his Paul-like conversion, for example, is doubtless honest but it makes for bad literature and probably bad theology too. He is sitting in his vacation apartment near Cannes gazing out on a beautiful night sky. He is depressed, thinking about committing suicide. Suddenly he sees an image of himself, a profile that had been used on Black Panther posters, in a shadow on the moon, and starts trembling. "As I stared at this image it changed, and I saw my former heroes paraded before my eyes. Here were Fidel Castro, Mao Tse-tung, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, passing in review—each one appearing for a moment of time, and then dropping out of sight, like fallen heroes. Finally, at the end of the procession, in dazzling, shimmering light, the image of Jesus Christ appeared … I fell to my knees."

The book is filled with clichés and platitudes, as well as with an astonishing naiveté about what educated readers might or might not be expected to know. When Cleaver talks about going to bed as a child he thinks it necessary to print the entire prayer that begins "Now I lay me…." He says that "it must have rained for forty days and forty nights" and that "American violence is homemade like apple pie."…

When his writing isn't obvious and simpleminded it's gnarled and pretentious…. (p. 31)

It is all very sad. Whether or not Cleaver had the capacity to sustain an intellectual career of any kind at the center of political or cultural issues is debatable, but what's beyond dispute are the losses implicit in this book. The question isn't one of religion in itself but of the peculiar likelihood in America that if one gains faith one has to relinquish thought. Perhaps Cleaver's erratic and wayward talnet thrived on a transient conjunction with the pressures and dramas of the period; but at least he was connected to it and was able to see and judge.

Now he rejoices in meetings with Billy Graham, and is happy to have [Watergate conspirator and born-again Christian] Charles Colson as his "brother" and the admiration of one Art DeMoss, president of the National Liberty Corporation of Valley Forge, who describes "Eldridge … and the Lord" as "a great combination." These people too are of our time, but at the cocksure, self-righteous edge of it where there is no space to turn, to "maneuver" the way Cleaver once so brilliantly did. (pp. 31-2)