Scan barcode
A review by shimmery
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
5.0
Growing up on a cotton plantation in Georgia, Cora is a slave totally alone in a cruel world. Her mother notoriously ran away never to be found, abandoning her to grow up alone with only a small plot of land to remember her by. When Caesar gives her the chance to escape with him, she doesn't turn him down twice.
This book is remarkable and having read it I understand why it has picked up so many awards. Whitehead's pared-back writing style ensures all the violence is in no danger of being sensationalized in to something almost pornographic as is sometimes the case with books on this topic. The disgusting punishments the slave owners inflict could take over and be the thing that stayed with you most after the book, they're that horrific. That's been done before, and yet it isn't done here.
This book to me isn't about that. It's totally new in that it's about Cora, who I think is the best heroine I've come across in a long time. There's a scene near the start where she takes her hatchet and smashes apart the dog shed that has been built on her land; it left me absolutely gobsmacked. It's such a simple thing to do and a kind of violence that shows what she's capable of without her actually harming anyone. The owner of the dog shed is left knowing better than to mess with her, and I did too after that.
The railroad moving from metaphorical to physical takes the glory away from white people -- I think we're so used to reading slave stories where the heroes are the nice white people who rescue them. This book is great because it doesn't have that to detract from the struggle of the slaves. There was a line that made me laugh near the beginning where Cora senses that one of the station masters is about to give a long tale about how he got involved with the railroad so she switches off because she's not interested. That's what I find so great about her. She's totally uninterested in people trying to make her feel grateful or like she owes anything. Her freedom is a right, not a privilege, and she knows it. She is certainly prepared to fight for it.
There were a few little twists in the book that I won't include but that just showed what a deft writer the author is. It gave the story a resolution that worked really well without being a classic/unrealistic 'happy ending'.
This book is remarkable and having read it I understand why it has picked up so many awards. Whitehead's pared-back writing style ensures all the violence is in no danger of being sensationalized in to something almost pornographic as is sometimes the case with books on this topic. The disgusting punishments the slave owners inflict could take over and be the thing that stayed with you most after the book, they're that horrific. That's been done before, and yet it isn't done here.
This book to me isn't about that. It's totally new in that it's about Cora, who I think is the best heroine I've come across in a long time. There's a scene near the start where she takes her hatchet and smashes apart the dog shed that has been built on her land; it left me absolutely gobsmacked. It's such a simple thing to do and a kind of violence that shows what she's capable of without her actually harming anyone. The owner of the dog shed is left knowing better than to mess with her, and I did too after that.
The railroad moving from metaphorical to physical takes the glory away from white people -- I think we're so used to reading slave stories where the heroes are the nice white people who rescue them. This book is great because it doesn't have that to detract from the struggle of the slaves. There was a line that made me laugh near the beginning where Cora senses that one of the station masters is about to give a long tale about how he got involved with the railroad so she switches off because she's not interested. That's what I find so great about her. She's totally uninterested in people trying to make her feel grateful or like she owes anything. Her freedom is a right, not a privilege, and she knows it. She is certainly prepared to fight for it.
There were a few little twists in the book that I won't include but that just showed what a deft writer the author is. It gave the story a resolution that worked really well without being a classic/unrealistic 'happy ending'.