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Jun 18, 2017kmcdouall rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Colson Whitehead must be praised for a remarkable achievement with this surreal vision of the torments of slavery and the promise of escape. What begins as a well-executed, if unremarkable, narrative of the sufferings of a young woman in slavery, evolves into a phantasmagorical cacophony of horrors as realism is engulfed by symbolism that represent the long history of cruelties inflicted on Africans and their descendants in America. The structure of the novel imitates the epic quest tale, though perhaps here the better comparison would be to a journey into Dante's circles of hell. The metaphorical underground railroad becomes an actual railway line, with mysterious branches and burrows far into the South. Each state in the travels of Cora, a runaway slave, represent a particular type of oppression inflicted on African Americans. Imprisonment and torture; eradication through lynching; seemingly benign, scientific paternalism; forced sterilization or plans for amalgamation: it's all here. When we get to Cora's penultimate destination, we already know what must come, because it's the one horror we haven't yet visited. Whitehead has tremendous writing talent, and his concise, deadly accurate prose can bring home the tragedy of the ideology of white supremacy in a simple sentence: "She'd never been the first person to open a book." In a comment on the inevitable reaction to the success of a black settlement: "That is how the European tribes operate, she said. If they can't control it, they destroy it." This isn't a novel that sermonizes, but rather envisions the conceits and deceits of a history founded on slavery: "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." Here we are. Still caught up in this overly long tragedy that began with the idea that one "race" of humans could objectify, dehumanize, and own another "race" of humans. Whitehead illuminates the past in a brilliant and refreshing (if that word can be used in a novel of such dark events) style and structure that helps us see the threads running through these events. Threads that spiral ever onward.