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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
~Spoilers~
I'm having a really hard time rating this book. First, the prose is beautiful. The way Edugyan writes is so evocative and paints such a picture in my mind. I was really hooked into the story right in the beginning, and I loved the first two sections. We get to know Wash and his relationship to Kit and their life on the plantation, and we get introduced to Titch who ends up catapulting Wash into a totally new life.
Through Titch, Wash has a chance to explore talents and abilities as his 'assistant.' He's still enslaved, but he learns to read, do mathematics and measurements, and most importantly, learns to sketch which is something he has a rare talent for. He spends over a year with Titch, helping him with his scientific endeavours, before tragedy strikes and they both flee the plantation.
I like the sequence where they're running away to the Arctic - Titch definitely is in over his head, and Wash is experiencing so many new things for the first time in his life, and he's also on the run with a $1000 bounty on his head. It definitely feels fast-paced and has almost a quest-like aspect as they try to discover if Titch's father is still alive.
It's the second two sections of this book where I lose some of the intense interest the first two sections brought. His life in Nova Scotia is hard and it makes sense - he's scared, he's focused on survival, he has no time for art, or science, or beautiful things. But he slowly begins trying to change his life to make it something he can be proud of. He meets Geoff and his daughter Tanna, and suddenly there is science and art and beauty in his life again. But his joy is offset by his continuing paranoia, and I found his confrontation with Willard wasn't at all what I was expecting. He was menacing in the pub but the attack afterwards didn't feel like a resolution.
Wash journeys to England with Geoff and Tanna and he works with Geoff to make his dream of an ocean exhibit with live specimens into a reality. But unlike in his earlier work with Titch, Wash is plagued with doubts and is obsessed with finding Titch and confronting his past.
I don't mind the idea of Wash needing to confront the past in order to move forward with his life, but instead of a resolution it becomes a loop. In the Arctic, Titch confronts his father, a man he is obsessed with impressing and who's love and pride he desperately wants and feels he can't have. He walks into a snowstorm and is believed dead. Wash rediscovers Titch in Morocco and realizes that Titch has become like his father - he has not spent that much time considering what happened to Wash, is not fully cognizant of any wrongs he might have done to him, and has been preoccupied with his scientific endeavours. Wash, who has a woman who loves him and a groundbreaking exhibit about to unfold back in England, walks into a sandstorm at the end of the book.
I thought he would be confronting his past so he could truly be free but instead it felt as though he mirrored Titch instead of becoming his own person or breaking the cycle. It definitely left me with mixed feelings on the plot despite the lovely writing.
I'm having a really hard time rating this book. First, the prose is beautiful. The way Edugyan writes is so evocative and paints such a picture in my mind. I was really hooked into the story right in the beginning, and I loved the first two sections. We get to know Wash and his relationship to Kit and their life on the plantation, and we get introduced to Titch who ends up catapulting Wash into a totally new life.
Through Titch, Wash has a chance to explore talents and abilities as his 'assistant.' He's still enslaved, but he learns to read, do mathematics and measurements, and most importantly, learns to sketch which is something he has a rare talent for. He spends over a year with Titch, helping him with his scientific endeavours, before tragedy strikes and they both flee the plantation.
I like the sequence where they're running away to the Arctic - Titch definitely is in over his head, and Wash is experiencing so many new things for the first time in his life, and he's also on the run with a $1000 bounty on his head. It definitely feels fast-paced and has almost a quest-like aspect as they try to discover if Titch's father is still alive.
It's the second two sections of this book where I lose some of the intense interest the first two sections brought. His life in Nova Scotia is hard and it makes sense - he's scared, he's focused on survival, he has no time for art, or science, or beautiful things. But he slowly begins trying to change his life to make it something he can be proud of. He meets Geoff and his daughter Tanna, and suddenly there is science and art and beauty in his life again. But his joy is offset by his continuing paranoia, and I found his confrontation with Willard wasn't at all what I was expecting. He was menacing in the pub but the attack afterwards didn't feel like a resolution.
Wash journeys to England with Geoff and Tanna and he works with Geoff to make his dream of an ocean exhibit with live specimens into a reality. But unlike in his earlier work with Titch, Wash is plagued with doubts and is obsessed with finding Titch and confronting his past.
I don't mind the idea of Wash needing to confront the past in order to move forward with his life, but instead of a resolution it becomes a loop. In the Arctic, Titch confronts his father, a man he is obsessed with impressing and who's love and pride he desperately wants and feels he can't have. He walks into a snowstorm and is believed dead. Wash rediscovers Titch in Morocco and realizes that Titch has become like his father - he has not spent that much time considering what happened to Wash, is not fully cognizant of any wrongs he might have done to him, and has been preoccupied with his scientific endeavours. Wash, who has a woman who loves him and a groundbreaking exhibit about to unfold back in England, walks into a sandstorm at the end of the book.
I thought he would be confronting his past so he could truly be free but instead it felt as though he mirrored Titch instead of becoming his own person or breaking the cycle. It definitely left me with mixed feelings on the plot despite the lovely writing.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual assault
This book started out very exciting with an excellent description of the cruel sadism of the plantation owner of the slaves on his Barbados plantation, the idealistic opposition of his intellectual brother and the wonderful young apprentice Wash.aka George Washington Black. Halfway through I was convinced I loved it enough to buy the book myself. Three quarters through it started to lag and get confusing and I was losing the thread as the journey became confusing in it's globetrotting. By the end I was so disillusioned I wanted to put it down. Suffice to say, the end petered out and resolved nothing for me. I actually reread the last two pages looking for what I had missed as it fell flat. I was disappointed and I wonder how this novel won so many prestigious awards for great writing. And ended up as a book discussion novel. Several reviewers described it as tell with no show and I could not have said it better. What a letdown.
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a lovely adventure story, though definitely with an undercurrent of deeply sad human circumstances.
An important story that needed to be told, emotionally moving and multidimensional characters, at least some of them. The beginning definitely reads Jules-Verne-like as the back cover promised, I don't think I've felt as excited as I did during their escape since lockdown started. Both the main protagonist and Titch are wonderfully described characters whom I'd be honoured to know in real life. However halfway through it feels like the plots are starting to fall apart - Nova Scotia and London feel like an entirely different book from the beginning and the people he meets from then on feel half as alive as the previous ones did. When I read the London events, the book tells my brain what's happening and I can follow, but the vivid little movie that usually plays in your brain is dampened and blurred and the exciting conviction that it's a harsh but opportune world and anything could happen, built up by the promising first part, fades into a lackluster desire to just get to the end of the plotline.
Generally good writing and an engaging book and I'm glad to have discovered it, but the latter half isn't entirely convincing.
Generally good writing and an engaging book and I'm glad to have discovered it, but the latter half isn't entirely convincing.
This book captivated me enough to read it all in one afternoon. Washington Black is loaned to his master’s brother to help with his science projects and is forced to travel around the world to evade capture and to seek answers about why he was chosen for the work. Could he really be considered “family” of a white man?
Maybe 4.5. I really enjoyed this book - a great and compelling historical novel, with vivid detail, great writing and excellent characterisation. The ending left me wanting something else, perhaps a little more closure, but I think that's just personal preference. I would certainly recommend it.