Nine runaways gathered out on the South Forty of the welcoming Loma Linda Farm and devoured hotdogs, imbibed Pilsner imported from the former Czechoslovakia, and swapped stories. It is noted that there was general discomfort with the notion that the railroad was actually underground. Many of the readers found this to be quite perplexing and highly unlikely. Reviewers were asked to provide a 3 word review of the subject book. The results are presented below.
Longer reviews submitted in writing were redacted in keeping with the current custom in certain high places.
The unredacted reviews will be posted below as well.
Reviewers should feel free, and indeed are encouraged, to expand their reviews to 6 words in Hemingwayian fashion.Mike- I felt hoodwinked... (redacted) C for crazy.
Ken- Interesting. Worth the read. Not great writing. B
Dick- I was disappointed. B[Update {30 Apr 2019} Finally completed Blight's book on Frederick Douglass. 910 pages. "It's a great book but I spent many, many hours reading it. It's one of those books that you could read several times and learn something new each time. I don't think the guys in the book club would be too happy if they had to read it."]
Tom- Not great writing. B
Karl- Man’s inhumanity to man. B -
Charlie- An important educational piece. B
Keith- Yuk, yuk, yuk. C-minus
Rob- Uncle Tom’s Cabin is better. B
Ron- It kept my interest. A-minus
... and from well beyond the underground station:
As I finished reading The Underground Railroad I recalled the words of the uplifting song, from “The Harder They Come” by Jimmy Cliff, the first Reggae song I ever heard. It was at Joe Schepps’ Fourth of July party in 1976 (Our Nation’s Bicentennial). I was at his new house high on the ski basin road standing at his big window gazing across the expanse of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado when I heard “You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try, try, try, you succeed at last.”
Jimmy Clift’s words range in my ears as I finished reading this book about Cora’s struggle to shed to yoke of slavery that required her to learn to read, to leave her family and friends, to travel into the uncertain and unknown, and use force to defend her life. Cora’s struggle reminded me of how our country struggled and continues to struggle to lift the yolk of slavery from its shoulders. A struggle by millions of people that cost Millions of lives and still persists. So much, blood, sweat, and suffering. Will we ever be able to shed that dark mantle history has laid on our shoulders.
The book reminds me that America still is dealing with its history that seems so similar to the struggle Germany continues to go through to remove the nightmare of two world wars and the horrors of the world’s worst genocide it perpetrated from its collective conscience.
The book is well written and a wonderful introduction to the peculiar institution of slavery narrated by and about the one living it. I loved that there was no attempt to exercise political correctness and clean up the language. The syntax and vernacular rendered Cora’s experiences more real. Transmitting a real experience takes great writing skill and confidence and empathy and knowledge of the facts, especially when the facts are not within one’s own kin. I now know how it felt to be a slave and the extreme efforts and sacrifices taken by so many people to end it. I am confident that we are a better nation, now that slavery no longer infects our collective consciousness and that we are moving toward a more perfect Union. I enjoyed the book and thank Ron for selecting it. It had a profound effect on me, which is the highest compliment I can give any work of art. This story about Cora’s road trip to liberation should be required reading for every American.
I apologize that I shall miss hot dogs and beer and a stimulating conversation. I am going to New York to see family and shall attend “What the Constitution Means to Me.” I look forward to re-joining our small but perfect union next month. Grade - A
- Bob Simon
I felt
hoodwinked as soon as we came across the first Conductor and underground
station. Say what? This is not Alternate History as was The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
– there we could see an alternate path that America may have taken, and how it
may have played out. Here the first
‘real’ Alternate History was when Cora entered North Carolina, and we hear the
alternate path: import Irish immigrants to pick the cotton at near-slave wages, and dispose of the
black slaves. Did they get rid of slaves
on the plantations? Whitehead doesn't follow through with details; I don’t think so, or
else the Night Riders would have no job.
An actual railroad? That is not alternate history, that is silly fantasy, for so many reasons, the biggest being obvious discovery. The first 2/3 is so poorly written – like a 4th grader's essay on “What Slavery and The Underground Railroad Means To Me”. Whitehead's slaves speak a bit of dialect but Cora still says e.g., 'mother' vice 'mama.' So far from anything the Pulitzer committee should consider. So much better to do a real history like Bruce Catton’s monument to the Civil War starting with The Coming Fury and his description of the United States in 1860 – describes how slaves were becoming just too expensive in the North and South, not worthwhile until England's insatiable hunger developed for cotton goods following Eli Whitney's invention.
I find my feelings of being hoodwinked captured in this 1-star review on Amazon:
This story is badly framed between truth and fantasy, and fails at both. The writing is uneven, the story choppy and badly structured, amateurish. Sentences without verbs may work for Hemingway, but not in this frenetic, poorly written abomination.
I found it interesting to read the music acknowledgements that Whitehead added at the end of his book, e.g., how he puts on "Purple Rain" when he writes his final chapters. I wanted to hear Genoni’s take on “Early Misfits.” I thought it might be appropriate to consider Brewer and Shipley's One Toke Over The Line, Sweet Jesus,
Awaitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin' that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station ...
I did not enjoy much of this book at all; most
of what wasn’t clichés was silly fantasy. The dialogue and the writing were disappointing. The North Carolina experiment was interesting but overly harsh – yes,
import Irish workers, but why lynch all blacks?
I would not ask anyone else to read this. Grade C for Crazy.
-
Mike
I found Colson Whitehead's novel, The Underground Railroad, intriguing, disturbing, and at times mesmerizing. I admit I had mixed feelings after I encountered Cora's first experience with the literal railroad at the end of the second section entitled "Georgia," but came to terms with that by the time I got to the end of the fourth section, "South Carolina," by reminding myself that it was a work of fiction, not history. As a fan of the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I viewed Whitehead's use of the railroad as a literary device to propel the story forward. This style known as magical realism has the power to get at truths such as man's brutality and the existence of injustice and racism throughout our history. The Underground Railroad also reminded me of Joseph Conrad's boat in Heart of Darkness. I believe the train can be seen as a vehicle which allows us to penetrate into the dark heart of America--slavery and the different facets of racism in American history as stops along the railroad. The bottom line, in my opinion, is that Whitehead did a powerful job in depicting the horrors of slave life. A-
Regards,
Jack
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