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A review by shansometimes
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4.5
In THE MESSAGE, Coates takes his readers along on his travels to Senegal, South Carolina (for a school board meeting where one of his books is being banned), and Palestine. In three essays—which seemed unrelated at first but follow a similar, haunting thread—he processes each experience, detailing connections he made between various historical moments and what he learned from the people he met along the way.
Coates' thoughts are challenging and bold, underscoring the far-reaching impacts of colonization and persistent inequality in the US and globally. His perspectives are thought-provoking—most strikingly (and controversially), the way he ruminated on and drew comparisons to Israel's occupation of Palestine. I sometimes find Coates' writing style too stream-of-consciousness and hard to follow, but the third essay about Palestine is where his style made the most sense to me, and his talent shined the best. He blended personal narrative and political/social commentary to communicate the gravity of the topic and how deeply it affected him.
THE MESSAGE is by no means a history book meant to comprehensively cover the full story of the transatlantic slave trade, book banning, or Zionism. It's a weighty personal account of what Coates witnessed in Palestine (and elsewhere) and what it revealed to him about inequality, resilience, storytelling as a humanizing force, and the power of community.
*This review is based on a digital advance copy provided by the publisher. All opinions are 100% honest and my own.
Coates' thoughts are challenging and bold, underscoring the far-reaching impacts of colonization and persistent inequality in the US and globally. His perspectives are thought-provoking—most strikingly (and controversially), the way he ruminated on and drew comparisons to Israel's occupation of Palestine. I sometimes find Coates' writing style too stream-of-consciousness and hard to follow, but the third essay about Palestine is where his style made the most sense to me, and his talent shined the best. He blended personal narrative and political/social commentary to communicate the gravity of the topic and how deeply it affected him.
THE MESSAGE is by no means a history book meant to comprehensively cover the full story of the transatlantic slave trade, book banning, or Zionism. It's a weighty personal account of what Coates witnessed in Palestine (and elsewhere) and what it revealed to him about inequality, resilience, storytelling as a humanizing force, and the power of community.
*This review is based on a digital advance copy provided by the publisher. All opinions are 100% honest and my own.