The Water Dancer

It's rare I read a slavery narrative that feels fresh, but this book is truly unlike any I've read before. The same powerful, poetic voice of Between the World and Me is thick and beautiful throughout. The first-person perspective is so strong as to be immersive, and the world-building is more like reading fantasy than historical fiction. This writing demands attention, and when I lent myself to it, I found myself sucked into the narrative. Beautiful read.

Chills. Not that I should have expected anything less from Coates, but the depths of emotion, setting, and dilemma in this book are impressive. His gift for turn of phrase and well-placed juxtaposition is a wonder, a talent felt so effortless that it seems he is merely playing with the English language. A truly awesome ability, shared by very few.

I feel I will be haunted by this story for many years to come, with all that brings. It is daring, nuanced, forceful, and full of sorrow and grace. I will read it again someday.

This was a beautifully written book. It was a powerful contrast between the harrowing slavery experiences of the characters and the freedom that the Conduction provided the lucky few. For my personal taste I found the Conduction part hard to swallow, but nevertheless it made for some wonderful images in my imagination.

It took me 3 years to finish this book but I finally did it. The book was more historical fiction than magic which wasn't what I was expecting. The audiobook was great though.

I loved Hiram and “Moses” Harriet and the magical realism addition to the history of the Underground Railroad. I recently finished Babel and my biggest complaint was how unnecessary the magical addition was and that the characters were one dimensional. This book is the complete opposite. The “Conduction” was intentionally beautiful and all of the characters were complex. I have read several books about this historical period, specifically escaping slavery and making it north, but this is the first book with any real mention of the Underground. The secret society feel about it kept me anxious and the pages just flew by. I love the lyrical way that Coates writes and the dialogue in this book plucked me from the present time and dropped right into the story.

I cannot recommend this book enough.
Our history and its stories are heartbreaking. I love the story that Mr. Coates built around the actual histories presented by Mr. Still.

I don't feel qualified to properly review this book in my position, so I'll keep this short. I thought this was a beautiful book about a terrible subject. It made the characters real to me in a way I wasn't expecting, and while the cast does get a bit large and unwieldy later in the book, I still enjoyed what was shown to me. The story is simple – a boy growing up in slavery, grown into a man who rescues others in slavery – and also complex as he considers how he fits into the larger picture and experiences the stories that his fellow Underground compatriots tell. While the added layer of magical realism added to the beauty of the storytelling, tonally I'm not sure adding it to such a heavy subject worked all the time. Mood whiplash was a thing I experienced, where the beauty of the magical realism would be bookended with terrible things. Maybe that was by design, I'm not sure.Much like [b:Between the World and Me 25489625 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451435027l/25489625.SY75.jpg 44848425], I think this would make for some good required reading. There's lots to unpack here, both in the words and in the history of the topic.

The story is very powerful as it is the style of the author. The images are strong, but the plot might be confusing at times.

I'm blown away about this book. I couldn't put it down. It's also going on my read again pile. Outstanding.

Fantastic, it's going to stick with me for a long long time. I feel like the author definitely adds something different to other narratives about slavery, and this story ties in directly with race relations in America today.

This was a hard one to start. The reality of slavery is not a pleasant one. As I went along, the characters came to life and took hold of me. The characters feel so real with their individual views and flaws.

Slavery. Racism. It's not unique to white people, but we held that power in my country of the USA. It is a sin I feel we can never fully make right. Reading about these topics hurts. I say this book is very much worth reading. Especially if it hurts to see someone that looks like you as the antagonist. I say it's worth taking time to contemplate why this hurts. Then look for ways to bring healing.

Freedom isn't just about being allowed to go and do as we please. It's a state of mind. The cruelest taskmaster of all is hate. The mind that hates is never free, especially when it thinks it is the master.

Great read.

A Sad, Yet Uplifting Journey

The Water Dancer is a story suffused with sadness (because how could a life of slavery be anything else?) and the joy of the hero quest. It makes a powerful, engrossing combination based on our own country's sordid history of owning other people. I can assure you, you will be more for reading this almost lyrical yet melancholic story.

Absolutely brilliant book!

One sentence synopsis... Born into bondage but gifted with mystic abilities, Hiram Walker is reluctantly drawn deeper and deeper into an underground war between slavers and freedom fighters.

Read it if you liked... Toni Morrison, who wrote, “the stress of remembering, its inevitability, but the chances for liberation that lie within the process.” Coates seems to be taking that idea to its furthest point, imagining a world in which memory is the path to freedom. If you expect this novel to be like ‘Between the World and Me' you'll be disappointed but if you prefer Coates' more fantastical work on Black Panther this book is for you.

Dream casting... Logan Browning as the fiercely independent Sofia and Jessica Brown Findlay as the duplicitous Corrine Quinn.

4/5 stars. Really amazing, well written novel. I did not expect to love it so much. The range of characters and depth of character for each character was a unique coming together of unity. Everything seemed to be incredible tense and all events left you at the edge of your seat. So much was at stake for the characters and their lives that it made their experiences incredibly heartbreaking. Each substory was endearing and filled with so much hope. The difference between this novel and other Underground Railroad historical fiction was the main character and his internal processing. Many of those historical fiction novels were written from the perspective of a woman. Seeing these events from a man's perspective and watching the wheel turn to understand his relationship to the hardships of the women in the story was hard, but really essential. Also, the culture and history turned semi fantasy was fantasic, like there was an extra layer to the events that was alreading happening and that so many who know of the Underground Railroad are familiar with. I especially loved the humanizing of Harriet Tubman and how the author dove into her background a little. I feel like it really encaptured a spirit. I would read this book again and again because I feel like there is so much to unpack in this novel, I have surely missed something.

Olipas jotenkin hämmästyttävän sujuvasti etenevä kirja. Jotenkin tällaiselta suuresti arvostetulta Keltaisen kirjaston kirjalta odottaisi, että kirjan parissa vierähtäisi hyvä tovi, mutta ei, tämä oli hyvin nopealukuinen, joutuisa kirja. Ja mikäpä siinä - eihän se mikään itseisarvo ole, että hyvän kirjan on oltava hidassoutuinen.

Vesitanssija kertoo Hiram Walkerin tarinan. Hiram on virginialaisen tupakkatilan isännän ja orjan poika, tummaihoinen ja siten orjan asemassa – mutta isännän poikana kuitenkin erityisasemassa. Virginian tupakkateollisuus on hiipumassa, maa on köyhtynyt ja suuret, perinteikkäät tilat rappeutumassa. Orjia myydään pois ja yhteiskunta alkaa murentua ympärillä.

Hiram joutuu onnettomuuteen ajaessaan velipuoltaan kärryillä kotiin. Kärryt suistuvat veteen, veli kuolee ja Hiram selviää kuin ihmeen kaupalla – ja jotain todella ihmeellistä onkin siinä sinisessä valossa, jonka välähdyksessä Hiram vedestä rannalle päätyy. Tapauksen jälkeen Hiram päättää paeta. Hän on kuullut maanalaisesta liikkeestä, joka salakuljettaa orjia vapaaseen pohjoiseen. Vapaus kutsuu Hiramia, mutta vapaus ei aina ole aivan yksinkertainen asia.

Vesitanssija on jännittävä ja vauhdikkaasti etenevä kuvaus maanalaisesta toiminnasta orjien vapauttamiseksi ja isoista kysymyksistä liittyen vapauteen, muistamiseen ja menetyksiin. Vapaus on ies, siinä missä orjuuskin, mutta toisaalta itsenäisyys ja valta itseensä voittaa aina orjuuden ja vankeuden. Kiehtova teos.

My direct exposure to the slavery that has been suffered by Africans naturally is none. Even cultural exposure is a remote thing, only through books and movies. The first book I read about slavery is the classic [b:Uncle Tom's Cabin 46787 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414349231l/46787.SY75.jpg 2478635]. Now, Uncle Tom's cabin, follows mostly the journey of Uncle Tom and gives us quite a picture of how cruel slavery is. It is focused and intense. To understand the landscape of centuries of slavery, it is not quite enough. Then came some movies and other books. Only after reading [a:Howard Zinn 1899 Howard Zinn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1245211489p2/1899.jpg]'s [b:A People's History of the United States 2767 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1494279423l/2767.SY75.jpg 2185591] I got the grasp of the big picture of slavery in the United States. I read some of Du Bois, and in the last summer, I read my first [a:Ta-Nehisi Coates 1214964 Ta-Nehisi Coates https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], [b:Between the World and Me 25489625 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451435027l/25489625.SY75.jpg 44848425].Now, Between the World and Me is a book of whole another level. The time is of our own, slavery has vanished but the trauma, distrust and violence didn't. Coates, in a monologue to his son, in the form of a letter expressed the African-American life which I believe no one had done with this much psychological insight.Naturally, I've started reading this book with high expectation. Of course, this book is not as good as the aforementioned one of Coates, but it is a good book. Coates blended a pre-civil war America, the race-wide trauma and melancholy, suffering, faith and redemption and magic realism in a coherent manner. Characters are dynamic, details are adequate, and many smaller stories intertwined to tell a bigger story, a story of love, parting, longing, pain and most of all remembrance. Enjoyed the book.A considerable amount of time spent in this book on some sort of magic, a mean of salvation, prophetic in characteristic. However, I always felt that this magic is just a small detail. The more important part is what triggers this magic, i.e. memory. To be specific, the memory of suffering. Now, what I find amazing is this emphasis on memory, remembering is a common thing to the whole African-American community. Cudjo Lewis (in [b:Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave 39693605 Barracoon The Story of the Last Slave Zora Neale Hurston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1522537216l/39693605.SY75.jpg 2108582]) never forgot Africa, he carried Africa within him, neither did [a:W.E.B. Du Bois 10710 W.E.B. Du Bois https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1211293877p2/10710.jpg], nor the faithful coloured Christians, who sang church songs, for generations, in the melody of their long lost motherland. The same communal memory, also allowed the water dancers to do the magic, made them powerful and prophetic.Next comes, I think, The underground, an organization where people of all colour and races are trying to free as many slaves as they can. This gave the context to tell more stories and expound on ideas like freedom, revolution, radicalism and all.I finished the book on a sleepless night. The melancholy seeped into me, and when I've finished it, it was no ‘happily ever after', but a mix of many things, and especially with a dualism of pragmatism and emotion.

This was wonderful. I couldn't put it down. I have a new hero in Hiram. That said, it could have been a little shorter as some of the ideas are just repeated and repeated. I also stumbled in the first chapter, but reading on explained everything. What really got me excited for this story was a review I read about it on NPR. I could not wait to meet Moses, and was truly rewarded.

Clearly the reps TNC was getting on Black Panther have helped on the fictional side of things. Admire and adore his previous non-fiction but this as a debut novel is really quite something.

This was just ok. I'm reading a lot about white privilege which has led me to read more about our history from other viewpoints. Not just from the “winners”. This book added to it and it was an interesting take on the underground railroad but just not my style. There was a lot of imagery and poetry in the writing but nothing that grabbed me as far as the storyline. Although books like this tend to stay with me so we'll see.

Amazing!!! A must-read!

I finished reading The Water-dancer but truth be told, I wish it hadn't ended. Not because it's a feel good book, it's not. But because it's a book where the imagery is strong enough for me to stay with it for a long time and to visualise it almost as if I were there. The story of a slave and his journey to learn about himself and the special power that he has. It's the story of a burning need to create connections with the past in order to understand the present and live the future.

The story revolves around slavers and the enslaved. There is the Underground which helps the slaves become free and find a new life. Hiram, the protagonist, has special powers which he uses to help the Underground in their quest. The torture of the separation of the families that slavery and the masters takes on the slaves is rampant. Few are untouched by it. The author has brought the pain, of the slaves, out vividly. It is a story of slavery and of deep humanity written with much sensitivity.