This is the story of Cora a slave on the Randall plantation in Georgia. Cora's mother had abandon her and escaped when Cora was 10, leaving Cora as a stray, with no one but herself to look after her. The Randall plantation is a cotton farm and although it starts off as a bad place to be it becomes a nightmare. Slaves are beaten and raped. After one failed escape attempt a man is horribly toured and then lit on firefor amusement, while the plantation owner and his guest look ok, making a dinner party out of it. One day, Cora is approached by another slave named Caesar. He is planning an escape and wants her to come with him, as his good luck charm. At first she says no, but after her situation becomes much worse, she agrees and follows Casear into the night to begin her journey, perhaps to freedom, perhaps to death. Either way, Cora made her first free choice, to travel on the Underground Railroad.
There are both amazing things and bleh things in this book. Let me start with the amazing. Their is no whitewash on the story of how blacks were treated in the early 1800s. Blacks in the North might of had it easier, but life was limited even for them. Whitehead goes into all of the horrible nightmares inflicted on this race and how whites justified this behavior. I liked that he did not sugar coat it. He also explained how the slaves often turned on each other, either to get favor with their master or just for spite and fear. When you are oppressed and told you are nothing from your first breath, you will do anything to feel like someone special, if only for a moment.
I also liked that the book questioned if a slave could ever be free. Were the still chained by their past, long after their shackles had been removed? Could a black freeman ever truly understand the slave, and vice verse? The Underground Railroad asked a lot of questions for the reader to ponder. It was definitely a book that made you think.
Now the stuff I wasn't crazy about. I guess I did not get attached to any of the characters, including Cora. Maybe it would have been a better book written in first person. As it was written, everything that happened didn't really touch me. It was almost to history book like in parts. Besides Clara none of the other characters are even fully realized. When we do get back stories about them, it is in a separate chapter, after that character has left the story. By then it is too late. There are chapters from other POV's spread through the the sections and they could have just been removed. The only one that was of interest came at the end of the book.
Now to the elephant in the room, the transformation of The Underground Railroad into an actual railroad, with real trains and conductors. I don't understand. Why is it a real railroad? It didn't add anything to the story. In fact, it cut out the perilous journey that these runaway slaves made trying to get to freedom. Was it suppose represent something other than the obvious? I don't know. I couldn't figure it out. Every time she boarded a train, my mind went to that scene in the Gene Wilder version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The scene were they take the weird boat in the LSD tunnel. That scene never made sense to me either. Maybe they both meant something deep and I am to shallow to grasp the meaning.
I am not sure if I would recommend this book or not. It is going to stay with me for awhile, the horrors of the past brought clearly to my mind. But I don't think Cora's story will stay with me at all. I think it is more of a well told history lesson with a story thrown in.
There are both amazing things and bleh things in this book. Let me start with the amazing. Their is no whitewash on the story of how blacks were treated in the early 1800s. Blacks in the North might of had it easier, but life was limited even for them. Whitehead goes into all of the horrible nightmares inflicted on this race and how whites justified this behavior. I liked that he did not sugar coat it. He also explained how the slaves often turned on each other, either to get favor with their master or just for spite and fear. When you are oppressed and told you are nothing from your first breath, you will do anything to feel like someone special, if only for a moment.
I also liked that the book questioned if a slave could ever be free. Were the still chained by their past, long after their shackles had been removed? Could a black freeman ever truly understand the slave, and vice verse? The Underground Railroad asked a lot of questions for the reader to ponder. It was definitely a book that made you think.
Now the stuff I wasn't crazy about. I guess I did not get attached to any of the characters, including Cora. Maybe it would have been a better book written in first person. As it was written, everything that happened didn't really touch me. It was almost to history book like in parts. Besides Clara none of the other characters are even fully realized. When we do get back stories about them, it is in a separate chapter, after that character has left the story. By then it is too late. There are chapters from other POV's spread through the the sections and they could have just been removed. The only one that was of interest came at the end of the book.
Now to the elephant in the room, the transformation of The Underground Railroad into an actual railroad, with real trains and conductors. I don't understand. Why is it a real railroad? It didn't add anything to the story. In fact, it cut out the perilous journey that these runaway slaves made trying to get to freedom. Was it suppose represent something other than the obvious? I don't know. I couldn't figure it out. Every time she boarded a train, my mind went to that scene in the Gene Wilder version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The scene were they take the weird boat in the LSD tunnel. That scene never made sense to me either. Maybe they both meant something deep and I am to shallow to grasp the meaning.
I am not sure if I would recommend this book or not. It is going to stay with me for awhile, the horrors of the past brought clearly to my mind. But I don't think Cora's story will stay with me at all. I think it is more of a well told history lesson with a story thrown in.
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