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ravensreads 's review for:
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
by Alex Haley
Roots: The Saga of An American Family
[ai:Alex Haley|17434|Alex Haley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1182806085p2/17434.jpg] Alex Haley writes the multigenerational tale of what is supposedly his own family lineage – initially focused on Kunta Kinte and then his descendants Kizzy, George and others.
I had always planned to read Roots but had previously never gotten around to it. In 2017, I finally finished Canadian, [a:Lawrence Hill|20411|Lawrence Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1233783749p2/20411.jpg]'s – [b:The Book of Negroes|23873268|The Book of Negroes|Lawrence Hill|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|860779], which I considered to be historical fiction following the life of Animata whose journey from Africa to America and then Canada seemed set in a very similar timeline and style as Alex Haley’s Roots.
What I didn’t expect was the change in protagonist. I was always under the impression that Roots was about Kunta Kinte, and that the story followed his life from his birth in Juffure, to his death in America. So when his daughter Kizzy was sold away to the “Massa Lea” I was surprised that we followed her from Virginia to North Carolina, leaving Kunta and Bell’s fates to our imagination.
This was actually quite a disappointment to me. We spent over 500 pages with Kunta Kinte and his character would have grown on Haley’s readers as he had grown on me. So the rapid timeline of Kizzy’s life as a small child on the Waller plantation with Missy Anne and her parents to her teens years and separation from her parents really wasn’t enough time for me to grow acquainted with her enough for the perspective to change. The focus on Kizzy did not last too long as she soon became pregnant and had a son, George, whose father is Kizzy’s master Lea, who repeated raped her.
George’s maturation seems even more rapid than Kizzy and suddenly she is gone from the picture and George is the main focal point. There are numerous chapters on George and Uncle Mingo and Massa Lea chicken fighting. We don’t hear much about or from Kizzy until Chicken George marries Matilda and start having children. I especially felt that the chicken fighting story chapters went on for way too long. I saw very little importance to the chicken fights. This felt extremely drawn out and boring to me. George and Kizzy eventually roughly calculate the amount of money he would need to win in chicken fighting to purchase their freedom.
Although the story of Roots is a billed as “the saga of an American family”, it did not retainmy interest through to the end. Haley spent so much of the story with Kunta Kinte that I would have preferred that Haley saw Kunta Kinte’s life story through.
[ai:Alex Haley|17434|Alex Haley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1182806085p2/17434.jpg] Alex Haley writes the multigenerational tale of what is supposedly his own family lineage – initially focused on Kunta Kinte and then his descendants Kizzy, George and others.
I had always planned to read Roots but had previously never gotten around to it. In 2017, I finally finished Canadian, [a:Lawrence Hill|20411|Lawrence Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1233783749p2/20411.jpg]'s – [b:The Book of Negroes|23873268|The Book of Negroes|Lawrence Hill|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|860779], which I considered to be historical fiction following the life of Animata whose journey from Africa to America and then Canada seemed set in a very similar timeline and style as Alex Haley’s Roots.
What I didn’t expect was the change in protagonist. I was always under the impression that Roots was about Kunta Kinte, and that the story followed his life from his birth in Juffure, to his death in America. So when his daughter Kizzy was sold away to the “Massa Lea” I was surprised that we followed her from Virginia to North Carolina, leaving Kunta and Bell’s fates to our imagination.
This was actually quite a disappointment to me. We spent over 500 pages with Kunta Kinte and his character would have grown on Haley’s readers as he had grown on me. So the rapid timeline of Kizzy’s life as a small child on the Waller plantation with Missy Anne and her parents to her teens years and separation from her parents really wasn’t enough time for me to grow acquainted with her enough for the perspective to change. The focus on Kizzy did not last too long as she soon became pregnant and had a son, George, whose father is Kizzy’s master Lea, who repeated raped her.
George’s maturation seems even more rapid than Kizzy and suddenly she is gone from the picture and George is the main focal point. There are numerous chapters on George and Uncle Mingo and Massa Lea chicken fighting. We don’t hear much about or from Kizzy until Chicken George marries Matilda and start having children. I especially felt that the chicken fighting story chapters went on for way too long. I saw very little importance to the chicken fights. This felt extremely drawn out and boring to me. George and Kizzy eventually roughly calculate the amount of money he would need to win in chicken fighting to purchase their freedom.
Although the story of Roots is a billed as “the saga of an American family”, it did not retainmy interest through to the end. Haley spent so much of the story with Kunta Kinte that I would have preferred that Haley saw Kunta Kinte’s life story through.