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I never really warmed up to The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. I was expecting to be amazed and dazzled. I was expecting something different, something super interesting especially since I had heard he takes underground railroad literally and creates a network of underground train tunnels to aid the escape of runaway slaves from the south to the north. And that bit was interesting because Whitehead managed to imbue it with just as much peril as the historical underground railroad.
The story centers on Cora, a young woman on a plantation in Georgia. Her mother, Mabel, had escaped without her when Cora was younger. Mabel was never caught and Cora has spent her life since then resenting her mother for leaving her behind. Cora had no plans to try and escape until her owner unexpectedly dies and his brother takes over. This brother is known for treating his slaves on the neighboring plantation harshly and he has it out for Cora because she had defied him a time or two and made him look bad. So she runs away with another slave named Royal who loves her and had the plan set up already.
The pair is almost caught but they make it to the underground railroad station and end up in South Carolina. They get new names and false papers and jobs and Cora is staying in a kind of women’s boarding house for former slaves where she is provided an education. Everything seems to be going well until the white woman in charge of the boarding house talks to Cora about sterilization and asks her to encourage the other women to undergo the operation. Cora also learns that the men at the hospital where the women are sent regularly for health checkups all have syphilis and think they are being treated for it but they are not.
The place Royal and Cora thought they could make a new life turns out to be full of dangers too including a bounty hunter who is on the lookout for them. Cora escapes on the underground railroad but just barely. Her next stop turns out to be another kind of prison from which escape takes her to what seems a rural farming utopia. And once again, just when she thinks she will be able to settle down to a happy and free life, events conspire against her. And that is where the story ends.
We are told that Cora does eventually get to settle down and have a family but it seems such a far off and disconnected thing that it provides little satisfaction. The narration is also third person but it is such a limited third person that while we often know what Cora sees and thinks, we rarely know how she feels. It created a huge distance for me that kept me from being emotionally engaged with both Cora and the story. Without the emotional pull, I felt like the story was not especially compelling and oftentimes felt like a poor history lesson rather than a novel.
The book flap compares Underground Railroad to Gulliver’s Travels. While I can see what the description is aiming at, Cora is no Gulliver and this book is no satire. Perhaps all the buzz killed it for me. Or maybe it just wasn’t the right time for me to read it. Or who knows? I feel meh about Underground Railroad and kind of guilty about that since the book is on the short list for the National Book Award. But, as much as we might want to, we can’t like all the books, right? While it didn’t work for me, it might be the best book you read this year. You just never can tell with books sometimes.
I found this on sale at Barnes & Noble this week marked 50% off and also had a 20% discount coupon that was good for Columbus Day weekend. When I found out they would let me use both coupons, I couldn’t resist taking a chance on it. So the book started off at $13.48 and then I got another $2.70 off of that, getting me down to $10.78 for the book (can you tell I was an accountant for 40 years?).
But the first thing I did was peel that Oprah sticker off the book jacket…refuse to have those in the house.
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Sam, heh, yeah there is that Oprah endorsement 🙂 I hope you like the book better than I did. There are some good plot twists and some great scenes but it wasn’t enough for me to really like the book. I look forward to your thoughts on it!
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It sounds like the “satire” part is that you get no satisfaction knowing that Cora escapes. Traditionally, a satire’s ending is unsatisfactory, so you make some difference in the world instead of relaxing into a happy ending in the fiction.
What difference does this author expect us to make in the world, though? It sounds like Cora’s kind of slavery, at least, is in the past. It doesn’t sound like he’s addressing modern kinds of slavery, the young girls brought from other countries and held incommunicado. It also doesn’t sound like he’s addressing reparations, or even advocating for memorials to those who suffered under slavery, which I am increasingly in favor of (placards telling people where slaves were lynched, so we know the history of the place we’re living).
What is the satiric point? Is there one?
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Jeanne, I have no problems with open endings. I kind of wish it would have been left with Cora escaping once again and then not knowing what happens to her after that. That would have had more impact for me, signalling there is no place for Cora, or former slaves, or blacks to settle down and have a happy ending, that their lives were and remain upended and threatened. I’m not sure what the satiric point is and find it difficult to even read the story as satire since it is so historically grounded. It’s kind of an odd book in some ways and maybe that has contributed to my so-so feelings about it.
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Not impressive at all. Underground Railroad was an iconic creation whose brand seems to have been leveraged for a meandering and I agree with Jeanne pointless piece of fiction! I think I will pass this one!
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A shame that this novel seems a bit of a plodding disappointment.
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Ian, it did move at a good pace so it wasn’t plodding, just disappointing 🙂
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cirtnecce, the book could have used a boost from Harried Tubman 🙂 part of my trouble with the book is I failed to see what the point of it was. Maybe I just missed it and will be enlightened at some point in the future by some other reviewer.
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I think that that some books up for awards are not necessarily the best books. It seems that several factors, not all related to quality influence the nomination process.
I myself would want a solid sense a closure in a book like this.
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Brian Joseph, the writing is solid and I don’t need closure for a story, but I do like there to be a sense of purpose and I am not sure what it is with this story, which is too bad because I really wanted to like it.
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I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to read this book in hope of a “happy ending” or even looking for evidence for reparations. As far as I can tell, Whitehead does address historical American forms of oppression against blacks: forced sterilisation and the use of black men as guinea pigs in the study of syphilis are both documented events which occurred, post-slavery, in America. He’s not writing about “modern slavery” in the sense of trafficked women, but consider that ending: we’re told that Cora gets to live happily ever after, but we never see it. It’s hard to feel convinced. Likewise, I think, the black community in the US is told that they’re living happily ever after – voting rights! no longer chattel! hooray! – but are they seeing it? Their lives are under assault from legislation, from trigger-happy cops, from assholes on the street. Their voting districts have been gerrymandered. They’ve been systematically denied access to the level of education and jobs that white folks enjoy. (One of my favourite statistics: a black family in the US starting out with nothing today would need 228 years to create the wealth an average – average! not even especially rich! – white family possesses. White people have had those 228 years. Black people have been, well, busy serving white people, and trying to survive.)
So, frankly, if we feel a little dubious about Cora’s happy ending, we’re meant to. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t say if she’s treated like a mere symbol throughout (I think I’d dislike it if so), but a character can be symbolic without being one-dimensional, and if that’s the case, then I think that’s a more constructive way of reading her: as representative of black folks in America, in general, right now, being told they’ve reached the promised land and not seeing any reason to believe it.
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Elle, I agree with you regarding endings, etc. I would have much preferred if Cora’s fate had been left unknown and it almost feels like an afterthought the way it is added in. You are correct, Whitehead addresses historical forms of oppression in America from slavery to enforced sterilization and the Tuskegee experiments. I liked that he took them out of time and place and kind of quietly slipped them in. It was well done and gave me a small shiver of horror when I realized what he had done.
I didn’t read Cora as a symbol, she was too rounded for that, was given too many thoughts, and motivations. The only thing that kept her from being well-rounded for me was her lack of emotion. To be sure there was fear and anger longing and desire. But most of the time she is not described as feeling them. We are shown Cora being scared or she tells us she is angry and that created a distance for me and kept me from being engaged with her and all the things she went through. Likewise we get her thoughts – sometimes – but we rarely are privy to her thinking which means that so much of her is viewed from the outside which again sets up a distance. Maybe whitehead was going for that, was trying to use it to show how blacks are isolated, never allowed to be truly part of society. but it just didn’t work for me. But like I said, I may have not found the book amazing but for someone else, it might be the best book they read all year.
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Ah, that’s interesting! I wonder if that’s one of those authorial decisions that can be made about almost any book, on almost any subject. (It’s what made The Book of Memory less than impressive for me: I never felt we were connecting to the protagonist’s experience.) I’d still like to read this, but I’ll keep your comments in mind – not being able to connect to a character on an emotional level can make a book a pretty rough ride.
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Elle, I look forward to hearing what you think of it if you read it!
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I’m so glad to hear you say it didn’t work for you, because I set it aside (returned to the library). I couldn’t get into it and was really thrown by the railroad and the fluidity of historical time and events (the Tuskegee syphilis experiment?). I got caught up in the hype and wanted it to be amazing. Maybe it is and when it comes around again at the library I’ll get back into it.
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Jess, I think all the hype raised our expectations and spoiled what might have otherwise been a really good book. though I hope other people find it amazing, it just wasn’t the one for me.
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Sorry to hear the book disappoints. For such an important subject, engaging the readers is crucial. I know the Underground Railroad is an important unit in Canadian schools, for Canada played a part in rescuing escaped slaves at that time. Did the story mention Canada, even a little? You see, 12 Years a Slave did. 🙂
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Arti, I was hoping Harriet Tubman would make a cameo appearance as one of the train engineers 🙂 Yes, Canada gets mentioned. A number of escaped slaves plan to go there and others are mentioned to have gone there. And before the utopian community gets broken up at the end, it is posed as a possibility that they all move to Canada.
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I’m glad that the underground railroad is taught in Canadian schools, but I am glad that more and more teachers are including the rest of the history – because Canada had slavery too – in the lessons nowadays.
This Colson Whitehead novel is on my list because I was so impressed by Zone One (which was definitely not your typical post-apocalyptic novel); I’m curious to see whether I am more or less satisfied than you’ve been with Cora’s story.
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Buried, I didn’t realize Canada had slavery too. It’s good that it isn’t left out in history classes. So much does get left out, at least it did when I was in school. I don’t have kids so I don’t know what is being taught today but I hope it is more inclusive than it used to be.
Isn’t Zone One zombies? I think about giving it a go sometimes. I will be interested to see what you make of Underground Railroad!
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Well it is and it isn’t. If you were to pick this up looking for a zombie novel, I think you’d be disappointed (unless you were looking for something that moves as slowly as zombies are reputed to move). But that’s the scene and it does highlight some interesting questions about humanity. I still haven’t gotten up the gumption for TUR but my library days are numbered now. That usually helps!
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Since I haven’t read Zone One because I thought it was about zombies, I am glad to hear that it not really what the focus is. make me more interested to read it now!
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Such an interesting historical topic. Sometimes it is difficult to live up to the hype–almost sets up disappointment.
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jenclair, yeah, hype sometimes makes it hard for a book even when the hype is deserved. I mostly stay away from buzz books for that reason. I probably should have let this one go until next year. Oh well.
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I’m so sorry you didn’t connect with this book! Ah well.
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Carolyn, yeah, it happens. Good thing I was also in the middle of Shirley Jackson and loving it!
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I liked this book quite a bit more than you did. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a masterpiece, and it may not make my personal best-of list this year. And I’m rooting for Another Brooklyn over it for the NBA, but in general the book worked for me. This year’s Booker contenders were such plotless messes that I was pleased to read a book where things happen, and the episodic structure fit my attention span at the time. Plus, I thought he did really well at incorporating different types of oppression, not just slavery. I might have preferred the open-ended conclusion that you wanted, but I also don’t mind a happy ending fantasy in a book that is not meant to be entirely realistic.
As far as it being satire, I wouldn’t call it that myself. I read the Gulliver’s Travels comparison to be more about how it’s a non-realistic travel narrative with each stop making a slightly different point. But the stops along the way are more realistic than Gulliver’s, so it’s not a perfect parallel.
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Teresa, I remember you liked liked this one. I can see how it would be really appealing after a bundle of plotless “messes” as you call them 🙂 There was definitely enough good about it that kept me reading so i give it credit for that! I didn’t read the book flap mentioning Gulliver until after I was done thank goodness because that totally would have interfered with my reading. I wish publishers wouldn’t make comparisons that don’t really fit or at least explain what they mean by the comparison!
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Okay, I wasn’t amazed and dazzled BUT, I didn’t hate Colson Whitehead’s writings, which I did with the last book of his I read, AND I thought it was the most epic subtweet of various kinds of antiblack racism that I probably have ever read. I think I respected it more than I loved it, in the end, but I respected the living hell out of it.
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Jenny, I liked the writing and I like what he did in making the underground railroad a real railroad. I found the book competent but since I was expecting to be dazzled I couldn’t overcome my disappointment. I respect your opinion on it though!
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I keep hearing about this book, looked it over when it crossed my desk at the library (I have too many books started and too many checked out so I let it pass by….) and have noticed all the accolades it seems to be getting. Sometimes there is just too much in the press about a book and it makes for hard reading in a way since then you have expectations one way or another. I do like the premise but it will have to wait. Too bad it wasn’t as good a reading experience as you hoped.
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Danielle, you win some you lose some, right? If you want to read it I do recommend waiting a little while until all the buzz dies down a bit.
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