Welcome to Binge-worthy Books, where we review the title for that month's edition of our new Streaming Book Club, a book club around those titles that were later turned into hot new streaming shows or movies. So sit back and relax. We're getting ready to binge another book: Passing by Nella Larsen
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Passing
by Nella Larsen
Book Summary
Nella Larsen's powerful, thrilling, and tragic tale about the fluidity of racial identity that continues to resonate today. A New York Times Editors’ Choice. Now a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.
Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to “pass” as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision to engage in racial masquerade for personal and societal gain. After frequenting African American-centric gatherings together in Harlem, Clare’s interest in Irene turns into a homoerotic longing for Irene’s black identity that she abandoned and can never embrace again, and she is forced to grapple with her decision to pass for white in a way that is both tragic and telling. This edition features a new introduction by Emily Bernard and notes by Thadious M. Davis.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. -- Publisher Description
The Netflix Movie: Passing
Nearly a century after its initial publication, many feel that Passing still brings the same driving force as when it was initially released. Add to that the powerhouse duo that are Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, and you have a stunning, touchingly tragic, powerful yet delicately complex story that continues to illuminate issues of racial, social, sexual, and gender identity and belonging today. The film adaptation will not disappoint.
Discussion Questions
Penguin Random House Official Questions
Passing is set in the 1920s, before the Supreme Court declared "separate but equal" facilities for nonwhites unconstitutional. What privileges are Irene Redfield denied as a black person? What do men and women gain by passing?
In Part One, Irene has tea with Gertrude and Clare, her two childhood friends. Compare the attitudes each woman has toward passing. To what degree does each pass for white?
Passing presents two women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, who make very different choices yet whose lives intertwine in startling ways. Compare the characters of each. What are each woman’s strengths? Her weaknesses? What are each woman’s attitudes toward race? How do these attitudes influence the novel’s plot?
Consider Irene’s fear that Brian and Clare may be having an affair. Does her anxiety seem reasonable to you? Why, or why not?
Compare different characters’ attitudes toward sexuality. For instance, in what ways are Irene’s and Clare’s thoughts on sex similar? How are they different? How might these attitudes be related to each character’s thoughts on race?
Discuss the novel’s ending. Do you think Irene pushed Clare? What evidence does the novel offer either for or against this interpretation?
Certain critics have suggested that an erotic attachment exists between Irene and Clare. Do you agree with this reading? What evidence can you find in the novel to support this idea?
Movie Questions
Film director Rebecca Hall was initially drawn to the idea of a film adaptation of this book due to her own somewhat mysterious biracial genealogy and used it as an excuse to connect to her heritage, discovering some amazing connections along the way. Have you ever looked into your own genealogy? What did you find?
The term "passing" refers to the practice of individuals from minority groups to "pass" as those from the dominant group. The same can be said in a more philosophical way of the ways in which individuals act as if they were something for the sake of acceptance when they are or would rather be something else. In what way are you passing? Have experienced passing?
Questions of loyalty, love, identity, and what it means to bind yourself to a particular label, whether or not it is true, total, complete, or something else. While the film and novel might not lead to any easy answers, chances are you have an opinion. What is your take? Where do you stand on the concept of labels, identity, and categorizing humanity?
In what way do the labels we put upon ourselves affect both our perception and others' of ourselves? Have you ever looked at those that you put in place and realized that they were inaccurate, no longer true, or that you flat out had outgrown them?
In what ways do you see people passing in today's world? Are there groups more likely to? Why?
What good / harm do you see in labels, whether our personal ones, society's, or those others foist upon us?