The Bern Book: A Record of a Voyage of the Mind

by Vincent O. Carter, Jesse McCarthy (Introduction)

Overview

The Bern Book is a travelogue, a memoir, a “diary of an isolated soul” (Darryl Pinckney), and an unwilling meditation on the myth and reality of race in midcentury Europe and America. In 1953, having left the US and settled in Bern, Switzerland, Vincent O. Carter, a struggling writer, set about composing a “record of a voyage of the mind.” The voyage begins with Carter’s furiously good-humored description of how, every time he leaves the house, he must face the possibility of being asked “the hated question” (namely, Why did you, a black man born in America, come to Bern?). It continues with stories of travel, war, financial struggle, the pleasure of walking, the pain of self-loathing, and, through it all, various experiments in what Carter calls “lacerating subjective sociology.” Now this long-neglected volume is back in print for the first time since 1973.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628973167
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Series:	American Literature
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Vincent O. Carter (1924–1983) was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. During World War II, he stormed the beaches at Normandy and took part in the liberation of Paris. On returning to America, he went to Lincoln University on the GI Bill, tried graduate school, but then, longing for escape, left the US for France, then Holland, then Germany, before settling in Bern, where he lived from 1953 until his death. Carter is also the author of the novel Such Sweet Thunder, available from Steerforth Press.

Read an Excerpt

Since I Have Lived in the City of Bern:

Whether I have idled over a glass of wine in the Mövenpick or in the Casino, or dined with friends, a week seldom goes by in which some new acquaintance does not approach me with a host of questions, most of which I can handle rather easily. He asks, "Aren't you cold!" if it is winter, and, "Aren't you happy now that the sun is shining!"—if the sun is shining. In the first case I reply, "Yes," and in the second case, which is unfortunately very rare, "Yes indeed!" She asks, "How long have you been in Switzerland?"

"Oh, about three and a half years now . . ." I reply.

"So long!" she exclaims, while I try to smile as surprisedly as her exclamation seems to warrant.

On a less auspicious occasion It asks me rather suspiciously and with a somewhat anxious twist of the lips, or with perhaps a smile which might be a sort of half-timid apology, "How do you like it?" Its smile (I pause a little at this point in order to heighten effect) deepening before my answer, "Oh . . . I like it well enough . . ." issues from my mouth, as though He, She or It would dismiss the expected derisive remark before I intoned it.

The conversation rambles on a bit after that but I see that my interlocutor is not satisfied. He has never or seldom met a real black man before. He has, however, heard much and wondered much. He knows or has heard one or three Negro spirituals and he is an ardent jazz fan. He studies me as inconspicuously as he can, comparing the strong definite impression before his eyes with all the images he has seen and heard of during a lifetime. Finally he hazards another question:

"Are you a musician?"

"No," I reply—coldly.

"Student?" he persists, noticing now my ancient briefcase, remembering that he has seldom seen me without it.

"No, I'm not a student," I reply, a little irritated but not altogether unsympathetic. This has happened to me many times. I am only irritated because my invention is running out and because I fear that I might not tell my tale interestingly. His curiosity is so great, he apparently expects so much, much more, in fact, than I can ever hope to give him. It makes me sad.

"I just thought you might be a student. There are so many medical students in town."

"Oh no! . . . no . . . " I reply with an uneasy smile, feeling that I have been a little mean, seeing that I will have to go through it once more, racking my brain for a new way to tell it and, finding none, suffering myself now because he does not come right out and ask me.

The conversation dawdles on. He hopes that he will find out indirectly, I think, really moved by his discretion, and yet not wishing to be indiscreet myself by volunteering information which is not directly asked for.

"How do you like Bern?" he asks during a lull. And I reply, "Oh, I like it all right," a little grateful that we are at last getting down to specifics. In the meanwhile he has heard me make an appointment with one of the young men sitting at our table for two o'clock the next day. The departing friend had at first suggested ten in the morning, but then changed to two o'clock in the afternoon because he had forgotten that he had a class at ten in the morning. At two o'clock in the afternoon almost everybody works in Bern.

"I see you have plenty of free time," he remarks with a nervous laugh. "You're lucky not to have to go to the Buro," by which he means office.

"I can't write all the time!" I reply at last.

His face lights up.

Write? Write what? I hear him thinking a split second before he inquires:

"You're a journalist?"

"No," I reply.

"He writes stories!" the friend who introduced him to me exclaims a little impatiently. At this point I light my pipe and try to think of an opening line, for now will come, I know, the question which I do not like because it is so difficult to answer. Even so, I am grateful for the little time which answering this question will give me because the one which comes after that will shake me to my very foundations!

Editorial Reviews

The Bern Book is a work about ambivalence, escape, evasion, and the expatriate’s creed of noble procrastination, noble withdrawal. Carter is that familiar, defensive figure in the café, the man who refuses to be practical, the artist with impossible high standards, the stranger who is difficult to help.

Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature Darryl Pinckney

"Like other black writers of his time, notably James Baldwin and Richard Wright, Carter had left the United States and moved to Europe to try his hand as an expatriate author. Unlike those novelists—now in the pantheon of black literature—Carter drew scant attention. Baldwin may have written Nobody Knows My Name, but the title applied even more to Carter."

San Francisco Chronicle

"Like other black writers of his time, notably James Baldwin and Richard Wright, Carter had left the United States and moved to Europe to try his hand as an expatriate author. Unlike those novelists—now in the pantheon of black literature—Carter drew scant attention. Baldwin may have written Nobody Knows My Name, but the title applied even more to Carter."

San Francisco Chronicle

The Bern Book [. . .] is a work about ambivalence, escape, evasion, and the expatriate’s creed of noble procrastination, noble withdrawal. Carter is that familiar, defensive figure in the café, the man who refuses to be practical, the artist with impossible high standards, the stranger who is difficult to help

Darryl Pinckney

The Bern Book is a work about ambivalence, escape, evasion, and the expatriate’s creed of noble procrastination, noble withdrawal. Carter is that familiar, defensive figure in the café, the man who refuses to be practical, the artist with impossible high standards, the stranger who is difficult to help.”—Darryl Pinckney, Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature

"Episodically riveting."—Kirkus Reviews

"Like other black writers of his time, notably James Baldwin and Richard Wright, Carter had left the United States and moved to Europe to try his hand as an expatriate author. Unlike those novelists—now in the pantheon of black literature—Carter drew scant attention. Baldwin may have written Nobody Knows My Name, but the title applied even more to Carter."—San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher