Slavery is one of the darkest chapters of human history. Now, must one like a book that describes the cruelty of the 1850‘s systematic enslavement, torture, abuse, manslaughter, neglect, hunting down of the black and colored population in the US by their white compatriots? Well, I acknowledge with respect what the author attempted to. I simply adored Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing“ with a similar topos, so that tinted my perception. I loved the last 100 plus pages of this book, but they came after I had to force myself through the middle.
The book is largely Cora’s story, who grew up on a Georgia plantation as a slave. Abandoned at an early age when her mother fled, Cora was accustomed to brutality both from her “owners“ and from her fellows, until Cesar, a slave who had experienced relative freedom with his former owner, persuades her to join his flight. And off they go via the Underground Railroad, the system to help escaped slaves to freedom.
Here are my issues:
Author Colson Whitehead take that “Railroad“ literally, so Cora finds herself on a real train underground. This was discussed wildly among readers and one should also be aware (especially if without a US-background like me) that Whitehead sort of condenses some more events from a larger timescale and from different locations into the shorter span his story covers. Rather than “magical realism“ this should make the book “alternate history“, thus, SF – and gained a price in that genre, too. But the railroad is also sort of a motif all over to get his point through – like when the curator at the museum with the “Africa“-theme says “Some people never left the county where they were born … .Like a railroad, the museum permitted them to see the rest of the country beyond their small experience…“ p 109 or p 68 “When the slaves finished, they had stripped the fields of their color. It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but not one of them could be prideful of their labor. I had been stolen from them. Bled from them. The tunnel, the tracks, the desperate souls who found salvation in the coordination of its stations and timetables – this was a marvel to be proud of.“
There is another, naval, theme which I liked better, like when Cora hides in the upper attic and the form reminds her of an overturned ship. When the prosecutors come they seem to her like sharks, with her, the human pray, only seperated by thin planks. Both motifs appear when the black slaves are replaced by Irish workers “Cora figured that a new wave of immigrants would replace the Irish, fleeing a different but no less abject country, the process starting anew. The engine huffed and groaned and kept running. They had merely switched the fuel that moved the pistons.“ p 171
And yet another motif is the „trade“ – black people are treated like merchandize, later, like livestock.
Overall, I found it a bit strained, a bit too much for just a ittle over 300 pages. I figure these themes rather sum up the authors message – I get the picture, but to me, it is to week to justify the adjustment of the story around it, especially the „real railroad“ portion.
I love to be able to pick commemorable quotes – unlike Gyasi, Whitehead’s language did not spoil me, sorry. I know there a limits as a non-native speaker, but some of the language I even found squirmish – why write gourds rather than pumpkins p 110, or like p 91 “The basket contained victuals.“ Sorry if it is my German mother tongue, but I read similar from readers of the translated version, you have to read a number of sentences twice to sort of punctuate them in your head to get the meaning – though it is difficult to give an exemple without copying whole pages.
Then the issue of brutality – I found it too much. Yes, this happened, it WAS brutal – it made my stomach rise and I guess those who are not appalled are rather those that should be addressed (those who are shocked by Anthony’s torment got the message anyway). This is no point of turning away. Yes, whippings and torture a despicable – but the issue is to me to convey a) the effect = permanent fear b) the result = being kept down c) the reason = “because“! (because they can, because humans unfortunately tend prey on their fellow man,…)
In between, Cora bored me. Often, nothing happend but mere repetitions, so even a bad incident to her, to me brought at least the “relief“ of novelty. And all of the sudden, for the last 100 pages, the novel caught up with me again – but, on the other hand, sort of „frayed out at the edges“ – too many sub-storylines, too much of the feeling of trying to hard to make some stories come full circle.
The topic is important. That does not mean I have to like each book with it. 3 stars, and trust me, I regret it as I expected so much after the wonderful wonderful „Homegoing“.
This interview https://www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502558001/colson-whiteheads-underground-railroad-is-a-literal-train-to-freedom points out which portions Whitehead „added“ to the historical context.
Quote „once I made the choice to make a literal underground railroad, you know, it freed me up to play with time a bit more. And so, in general, you know, the technology, culture and speech is from the year 1850. That was my sort of mental cutoff for technology and slang. But it allowed me to bring in things that didn’t happen in 1850 – skyscrapers, aspects of the eugenics movement, forced sterilization and the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.“
Weitere Rezensionen lesen: Underground Railroad | Colson Whitehead