The Underground Railroad

Fascinerende kijk op de tijd voor en rondom de afschaffing van slavernij in Amerika. De hoofdpersoon vlucht met een (letterlijke!, mooie vondst) Underground Railroad weg uit een katoenplantage. Korte persoonsschetsen afgewisseld met beschrijvingen hoe verschillende staten in die tijd met slaven omgingen. Niet erg vrolijk allemaal, maar wel indrukwekkend, en allemaal nog niet eens zo lang geleden.

Had such high hopes for this book! I pushed myself to get at least halfway through... It was boring and I felt no connection to the characters.

This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.”

I thought this was gruesome, brilliant but gruesome. Treating humans like animals, humanity at its basest most disgusting form, and yet alongside all that hate there is kindness and hope for a better future for everyone. This is Cora's story; she escapes the plantation and begins her journey on the Underground Railroad towards what she believes will be freedom, however, each stop reveals a new nightmare, a different kind of hell, all the time being down by a posse of slave catchers.

I knew a little bit about the story before I read the book so I knew the Underground Railroad was a not a real railroad but a metaphorical term for a series of escape routes and safe houses that were used by escapees, helped along the way by people who disagreed with slavery laws often at great risk to themselves. I guess a bit like the escape lines that escaped prisoners used in WW2.

This is an unpleasant read but an essential one.

What if the famous underground railroad wasn’t just a series of underground tunnels, but an actual underground railroad, with stations and trains on tracks? Colson Whitehead answers that question in The Underground Railroad.

Cora is a victim of or at least a witness to every possible atrocity committed against her fellow slaves on the Randall plantation where she grew up and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. Colson is not afraid to slap his readers in the face with very real details of America’s terrible history and it’s very hard to read. I was already crying by the end of the first part, which is 8 pages long.

Although it elicited a lot of emotion from me, the writing itself is very matter-of-fact and unemotional, which felt a little jarring at first, but soon came to feel like a nod to how powerless Cora and the other slaves were. Every horrible thing that happened was just a fact of life, and they had to remove themselves from it without dwelling on it or allowing themselves to feel those painful emotions. Even after her escape, Cora often felt powerless, unable to be herself, unable to embrace any of her true emotions. I think the writing reflected that perfectly.

However, there were some jumps in time here and there that were really confusing for me as there was a severe lack of cohesive transition between flashbacks and the now. Sometimes it was a couple weeks ago, sometimes it was right now, sometimes it was suddenly a month later, and I often had no idea which it was until I read quite a bit and figured it out for myself.

I loved Cora and I loved the premise, but the erratic timeline and the incredibly abrupt ending unfortunately hindered my overall enjoyment of the book. The ending is really the thing that messed with me the most. I can’t figure out why it ended so suddenly!

Still, I’d recommend The Underground Railroad to basically everyone ever. It’s an important story that highlights a part of American history that too many people ignore but shouldn’t be forgotten, and it is absolutely worth the read.

It is a hard read, but it's a good read. It is fast-paced, and the structure helps divide things up. I like how the author did not try to sell the railroad, it is just a matter of fact. The book is fair and clear-eyed. The author's style is criticized as overly “clinical” but I think it lends to what he's doing here - he's not sensationalizing chattel slavery or it's effects. Just as the fact of the literal railroad he's simply describing things as they are. I've heard of authors described as society's physicians, and I could advocate a similar description for this book as well. It is difficult to rate “important” books, but it's worth reading and I did enjoy it. So, 5 stars

Damn, exceptional novel.

I sit here struggling to write a review of this book. It's hard to say you love a book full of such violence, suffering, and tragedy. However, it is beautifully written, allowing the reader to connect so well with Cora, to the point that there were moments I couldn't stop reading until I knew she was safe from her many terrifying situations. It was both heartbreaking and heartwarming to read the stories of human sacrifice made to help others amidst the impossible situations inflicted upon people.

I quite liked the opening of the book. For me it fell apart a bit when he makes the underground railroad and actual underground railroad. Each individual portion was quite engaging and often horrifying. But The effort to force of this to happen to the same character didn't work for me. I think this book would have worked better as a collection of short stories and novelettes about different characters experience different forms of racism across the US.

I enjoyed this book. It is not what I expected but I still loved it. I thought it would get more in-depth about the underground railroad itself. Still, the story was good and the characters were lovable or easy to hate lol. This book gives you hints about what slavery did to all people involved. It also touched on the effects that are still occurring today. This book is a must-read. I hope you enjoy it.

Beautiful word choice and paints the black community as taking very small wins (celebrating a birthday on different days—perhaps not even a real birthday, but just a reason to have a small celebration and break) and forging their community while suffering through the evils of slavery. I enjoyed seeing a fictional representation of the underground railroad and the potential historical situations that black individuals most likely faced. I did not enjoy how removed I was from the characters–I agree with other reviews that said that switching it to first-person-pov would have helped immensely. Additionally, it was jarring to switch in between the individuals and their stories.

This book is a great look into slavery, the south, and the hopes and realities of many black individuals. Not always the best writing overall, but beautiful words convey the harsh realities of history.

Quote:
“A reminder that she is only a human being for a tiny moment across the eternity of her servitude.”

“He wrung out every possible dollar. When black blood was money, the savvy business man knew to open every vein.”

“What a world, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close, but from outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to do with chains or how much space you had. On the plantation she was not free, but she moved unrestricted on its acres, tasting the air and tracing the summer stars. The place was big in its smallness. Here, she was free of her master but slunk around a warren so tiny she couldn't stand.”

I've really enjoyed some of this author's other books, but this one was a little disappointing for me. It was a great concept, but the characters felt underdeveloped and emotionless, and the plot felt a little repetitive after a while. Whitehead wrote another great historical book (the references to the Tuskeegee syphilis study were a surprise for me and I appreciated that detail) but it just lacked emotion for me.

Story: 5.5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 8.5
Prose: 7.5

Whitehead can't seem to decide if he wants to write a novel or an essay. When he focuses on the novel, the results are salutary. The prose is rich and descriptive and powerfully depicts the horrific injustice taking place. But Whitehead can't seem to help adding a didactic element to the prose that doesn't mesh with the protagonist. Whitehead wanted to say something, and shoehorned it into Coras thoughts in a clumsy and obtuse way. We know the thoughts are Whiteheads, not Coras. The same message could have been delivered more deftly and better integrated with the protagonists character, or through other mechanisms. Furthermore, the railroad theme is interesting, but wasn't deployed as effectively as it could have been.

The first 40% of the novel superb , but things start to unravel from North Carolina onward.

2 ⭐️

I truly feel bad that I didn't like this. There was not much with the book itself; Whitehead is an excellent writer who creates believable characters. I do wish the Railroad itself was featured more heavily or more creatively, as is this was really just an over the plate historical fiction where the Underground Railroad happens to be a literal railroad. The concept itself felt underutilized and I think the book would have had the same impact on me had Whitehead not changed this, which left me wondering why he did.

It feels wrong to say that I felt bored reading this, but I truly did. I didn't feel attached to Cora or any of the other characters and didn't feel very involved with the plot itself. I kept wondering where it was going to go. This is where I mention that I think it was my mistake to read this book – I rarely enjoy straightforward historical fiction and I read this thinking it was going to be something different because of the railroad. The fact is, this read like any other historical fic novel and it's a me problem that I didn't enjoy that.

I definitely recommend readers interested in historical fiction, particularly Southern history, pick this up. It's well-written and is obviously enjoyed by many. Unfortunately I just wasn't the right audience for this.

I feel like I've read a lot of books so far this year that I don't really have any strong thoughts on. This is another one of those. It's well written, but I don't think I was thoroughly engaged while reading through it.

I've had it on my to-read list for awhile and just picked it up because it's been turned into a TV show now and I heard something intriguing about the premise that I didn't realise before that sounded really neat, but ultimately I just thought this was okay. Oh well.

Hits hard from the very beginning and keeps on hitting. Three hundred pages of cruelty; suffering; the very worst of humanity. Brief moments of respite, in each of which our heroes pause, catch their breath, wonder whether they're safe at last. (Not-much-of-a-spoiler alert: they're not). Further suffering ensues.

I found it heavyhanded at times— then again how could it not be? — and the writing uneven: beautiful at times, a slog near the end; but maybe that was just me. Like other books I've read recently, the reader is kept at a distance, but with third-person narrative that distance feels clinical, objective, not uncaring; the absence of connection coming out of self-preservation, a necessary response to a lifetime of loss.

The “railroad” gimmick didn't really work for me, but it was a minor plot point overall, unobtrusive.

Du même auteur, j'avais beaucoup aimé The Nickel Boys, son roman paru l'année dernière qui parlait d'un pensionnat / centre de rééducation pour adolescents noirs américains qui y subissaient les pires tortures dans les années 1950-1960.

Cela m'a donné envie de plonger dans ses oeuvres précédentes, et notamment ce roman de 2016 consacré à l'esclavagisme dans le Sud des Etats-Unis et des réseaux d'aide aux esclaves évadés.

Nous y suivons Cora, jeune esclave dans une plantation de coton en Géorgie, dans sa tentative d'évasion et sa fuite effrénée, poursuivie par ce que j'ai envie de définir comme un chasseur de primes spécialisé dans la capture d'esclaves en fuite.

Le roman se compose de plusieurs longs chapitres correspondant aux différentes étapes du périple de Cora. Le récit alterne les moments où Cora semble s'installer dans une nouvelle vie loin de son ancienne condition d'esclave, et des passages où l'action s'accélère et où Cora doit fuir à nouveau pour éviter le retour en Géorgie et la mort qui l'y attend à coup sûr en punition.

J'ai bien aimé ce roman, avec sa jolie galerie de personnages secondaires qui aident Cora dans sa fuite. J'ai surtout aimé le discours sur l'esclavage, l'économie de l'esclavagisme dans les Etats du sud, et l'inhumanité de cette condition pour celles et ceux qui l'ont subie. C'est un roman bien ficelé sur l'injustice, sur l'histoire peu glorieuse des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, une histoire qui résonne encore de nos jours lorsqu'on évoque la question raciale.

Oh this was epic! I regret taking so long to pick it up, but as usual, the books I own get pushed aside by my library books and their infernal due dates.
I couldn't help but think Cora was like Odysseus and on an tragic trail of a story. Meeting unique characters, in alternate history settings, and conveyed all along by an actual railroad dug under the earth. This is the second novel I have read by Whitehead and now I'm determined to find another to read. A near perfect novel, and 5 stars for sure.

One of those books about slavery and the treatment of Black people in America that is really hard to read, but worth reading.

I went into this not knowing that much about American history so I took everything at face value, not realising this was an alternate history / fictional version of America (in hindsight the underground railroad being a literal railroad is a bit too crazy to be true. Whoops!)

I thought it was uncharacteristic of Cora at the end to give up the location of the railroad, she was threatened with a gun but surely being shot by a gun would be a better fate than what was in store for her if she was tried for murder?

Sensational (and cruelly graphic) novel that's relevant today more than ever.
The story takes place during some of the most shameful years in American/world history.
A perfect narration through the consciousness of a salve, examining both hope and reality.

I liked:
- themes of civil right and freedom
- deep dive into the character's thoughts and feelings
- lack of character development (that's the whole point)

Didn't like:
- flow of events
- everything was very predictable


This book can easily pass on as a nonfiction

The Underground Railroad is the harrowing tale of an escaped slave, Cora, and her determined odyssey towards freedom, and was an interesting read, but not quite what I was expecting.

It is written in a beautiful yet matter-of-fact tone that, while not first person, suits Cora's point-of-view, as she is reserved, resilient, and steely. The plain, pragmatic descriptions of the horrors that she endures add some strange distance, but allows the events to stand on their own, harsh and unadorned, for what they are.

There are chapters that focus on some of the supporting characters interspersed throughout the novel, to fill in time jumps in the main narrative. These were appreciated extra touches, with the final one being particularly devastating.

This book was challenging to read, but very compelling–I was so invested in Cora's story that I found it hard to put down. The challenges were: of course it's hard to read about the brutal (fictionalized) realities of slavery, but I'd already read several slave narratives and the like, so I mean...horrible to read but not shocking, I guess? But I really struggled to understand what was going on with the alternate history and I really struggled to understand what the point of it was. Would Cora's story have been any less effective in a work of more realistic historical fiction? Like I just don't think I GOT it on some level. But I mean it won like 500 awards so what do I know?

I went and read a bunch of reviews/interviews to try to unpack this; for me, this was the most interesting/helpful one, if anyone else is curious:

https://www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502558001/colson-whiteheads-underground-railroad-is-a-literal-train-to-freedom

5 stars for shock, suspense, and the journey through the story. Loved the structure of Cora moving through different locations, with characters moving in and out of the story.

3 stars for character development. There was some depth to Ridgeway and Cora, and some good depth to the couple in the house, but I'd have enjoyed more. Cora's feelings could have been conveyed more too.

Fantastic book, strong recommend.

3.5 rounded to 4.

This was hard to read. There are no adequate words to describe the horror.

What bothered me was the writing style and the ending. It felt hollow but then maybe that was the point.

I had a hard time with the author jumping all over the place, past to present, present to past. I don't mind that kind of writing but the way this was written, there was no connection to the next scene, it just appeared.

The book was good but i think I need to research some of the symbolism as it is deeper than what it appears. It did start out like a lot of other slavery era books but I did like the journey aspects of the book. Reminded me of books like Huckleberry Finn or as the book stated Gulliver's Travels.
I think this book will be one of those that gets better with subsequent readings,
I liked it but did not love it. I would sat 3.5 stars.