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A review by psijic
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
3.0
3.5/5 This was an odd one. The main character keeps being ambiguous (or more like a spectator, despite all the suffering), the jumping around from character to character in order to tell the tale of, like, every single side character is both interesting and tedious and reminds me on a grim, resignated John Irving. (Don't quote me.)
The concept is clear: show the USA how it was in each corner. The Railroad concept emphasized on this nicely. So yes, this has been accomplished, or at least does it feel like that. But it was written so clinically in a way I can't put to words that it's more like reading an imaginative Wikipedia article. Interesting, at times even pretty interesting, but not enjoyable.
It is, of course, not meant to be "enjoyable", but even the horrors of Cora's and most people's life feel weirdly distant. That being said, the lack of passion shows the horrors for what it is; you can't say the book is romanticizing violence in order to be thrilling. The concept is cool, but not for my melodrama, intimacy loving ass.
I'll have to add that the final two chapters have actually been not only a fitting, but also a worth to read conclusion. My interest isn't magically rising to superlevels, but the story does seem to have characters easier to grasp and at least in some ways to worry about. And, retrospectively, I truly felt relieved that it ended. No, really not in a purely negative sense (really!) - this was hard to push through, but I do remember many events and the exhaustion, the numbness is real.
I could have done without it. I didn't gain much knowledge from it, and no character feels really worth remembering since they often feel more like tools to bring forth different ethical ideas. But for what it is, it's good.
The concept is clear: show the USA how it was in each corner. The Railroad concept emphasized on this nicely. So yes, this has been accomplished, or at least does it feel like that. But it was written so clinically in a way I can't put to words that it's more like reading an imaginative Wikipedia article. Interesting, at times even pretty interesting, but not enjoyable.
It is, of course, not meant to be "enjoyable", but even the horrors of Cora's and most people's life feel weirdly distant. That being said, the lack of passion shows the horrors for what it is; you can't say the book is romanticizing violence in order to be thrilling. The concept is cool, but not for my melodrama, intimacy loving ass.
I'll have to add that the final two chapters have actually been not only a fitting, but also a worth to read conclusion. My interest isn't magically rising to superlevels, but the story does seem to have characters easier to grasp and at least in some ways to worry about. And, retrospectively, I truly felt relieved that it ended. No, really not in a purely negative sense (really!) - this was hard to push through, but I do remember many events and the exhaustion, the numbness is real.
I could have done without it. I didn't gain much knowledge from it, and no character feels really worth remembering since they often feel more like tools to bring forth different ethical ideas. But for what it is, it's good.