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alsvider 's review for:
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
by Alex Haley
The author originally billed this as a fairly accurate non-fictional family history (though with an embellished narrative), but later research by experts disproved most of the connections he made, people he mentioned, and even some of the locations he wrote about. There was also a lawsuit regarding plagiarism that he settled.
Nonetheless, if you read this as fiction, it gives a good account of the experiences of slaves in colonial mid-Atlantic America through the Civil War. There are some issues with pacing - there's a very long and in depth exploration of Kunta Kinte, but once it moves on from him, things feel much more rushed and the writing suffers. I also felt like it glossed over many of the worst atrocities slaves experienced both before and after the Civil War. The slave owners in the story were, with only a few exceptions, pretty reasonable people, and the book only gives a few small glimpses into the physical and sexual abuse people experienced, the separation of families, and the life of slaves working in the fields on cotton and tobacco plantations (the field hands directly discussed in the book were not described as having the hellish lives you hear about from the deep south plantation slaves, and the only 'overseer' mentioned in depth was actually a very nice young white guy who was happy to work alongside the field slaves on a friendly owner's small farm). After the end of the Civil War, the descendants of Kunta Kinte moved along pretty quickly into decent lives, with no major descriptions of the hatred for black Americans that followed the war, the challenges faced when people tried to live even the most quiet of lives, let alone own businesses or aspire to be contributing members of a community. I think the author realized how long the book already was, and felt as though he needed to wrap it up quickly, thus skipping over many of the major issues that the later generations would have faced. It made the structure of the book very strange, after so much time spent on the day to day experiences of Kunta Kinte and the challenges he faced. Even successive generation became less interesting and much more of a quick sketch.
This is still an interesting fictional story and I enjoyed the audiobook version as the narrator, Avery Brooks, does a fantastic job.
Nonetheless, if you read this as fiction, it gives a good account of the experiences of slaves in colonial mid-Atlantic America through the Civil War. There are some issues with pacing - there's a very long and in depth exploration of Kunta Kinte, but once it moves on from him, things feel much more rushed and the writing suffers. I also felt like it glossed over many of the worst atrocities slaves experienced both before and after the Civil War. The slave owners in the story were, with only a few exceptions, pretty reasonable people, and the book only gives a few small glimpses into the physical and sexual abuse people experienced, the separation of families, and the life of slaves working in the fields on cotton and tobacco plantations (the field hands directly discussed in the book were not described as having the hellish lives you hear about from the deep south plantation slaves, and the only 'overseer' mentioned in depth was actually a very nice young white guy who was happy to work alongside the field slaves on a friendly owner's small farm). After the end of the Civil War, the descendants of Kunta Kinte moved along pretty quickly into decent lives, with no major descriptions of the hatred for black Americans that followed the war, the challenges faced when people tried to live even the most quiet of lives, let alone own businesses or aspire to be contributing members of a community. I think the author realized how long the book already was, and felt as though he needed to wrap it up quickly, thus skipping over many of the major issues that the later generations would have faced. It made the structure of the book very strange, after so much time spent on the day to day experiences of Kunta Kinte and the challenges he faced. Even successive generation became less interesting and much more of a quick sketch.
This is still an interesting fictional story and I enjoyed the audiobook version as the narrator, Avery Brooks, does a fantastic job.