My reason for avoiding any book about slavery
in America is the same reason I give for avoiding any book or movie about the
Holocaust. I find the subject rather redundant, they make the same points over
and over again, and while it is a noble cause to help people never forget such
things, I have a hard time finding most modern attempts (after so many
successful one) to be that interesting. So I can safely say that I probably
would not have read Colson Whitehead’s new novel, The Underground Railroad if
it wasn’t written by Colson Whitehead. I am a big fan of his and am always
curious about what he puts out, fiction of non-fiction. And I’m really glad I
picked the book up and I’m really glad I read it, because this book is the most
fascinating, sophisticated and complicated book dealing with such subject
matter in quite some time. Right off the bat, I can say that this is not an
angry book. It doesn’t shy away from what happened, and the evils that seemed
to infect a passive American conscience, but Whitehead is more interested in
crafting a rather unique alternate version of the Antebellum South, one where
there is an actual railroad that is underground, and one where both hunted and
hunter are finely crafted individuals, and the proceedings are imbued with more
than a little grey. Switching between chapters about certain characters and
chapters headed with wherever the story’s action is taking place, the novel
deals with Cora, a slave on a plantation in Georgia. She is a strong-willed
person, who destroys a fellow slaves doghouse when part of her land is taken
away (the payback is horrifying), but she is a torn individual. Her Grandma,
Ajarry, lived on the plantation all her life and was complacent and happy. Her
mother Mabel, on the other hand, just recently escaped. She is offered a way
out by Caesar, and after a brutal beating from the plantation owner’s son,
Terrance, she decides to go for it, killing a young boy who tried to catch her
in the process. What made this novel so rich was its emphasis on setting, character
and action. There might have been political points made, but I was too busy
with the book’s intense narrative to find and decipher any. Besides Cora and
Caesar, there are the people she meets on her journey to freedom, such as Sam,
who she meets in South Carolina, a drunkard with a strong sense of justice and
inner turmoil, Martin and Ethel, a couple she meets in North Carolina, who keep
her locked up in their attic for safety and eventually sacrifice everything for
her. But to me, the most memorable characters were Ridgeway the slave catcher
and his group. Having failed to capture Cora’s mother (whose fate we don’t
learn until the final fiery pages), he is man with a grudge, wounded pride and
a sense of duty. He doesn’t show outward signs of racism toward slaves,
evidenced by Homer, a free black man and Ridgeway loyal servant, but he cuts a
presence, one that is violent and disturbing, and he is the true villain of the
book. Whitehead has created an engaging funhouse reflection of our country’s
worst era, one that is propulsive, alive and original.
Rating: 5/5
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