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Washington Black
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • “A gripping historical narrative exploring both the bounds of slavery and what it means to be truly free.” —Vanity Fair
Eleven-year-old George Washington Black—or Wash—a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.
But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.
Critic reviews
“Perfectly executed . . . Soaring . . . More than a tale of human bondage, it’s also an enthralling meditation on the weight of freedom, wrapped in a rousing adventure story stretching to the ends of the earth.” —Renée Graham, The Boston Globe
“Terrifically exciting . . . An engrossing hybrid of 19th-century adventure and contemporary subtlety, a rip-roaring tale of peril imbued with our most persistent strife . . . Discover what the rest of the world already knows: Edugyan is a magical writer.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Riveting . . . [A] towering achievement . . . Edugyan is one of our sharpest and deepest writers of historical fiction.” —David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly
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February, 1906. As the personal secretary of the recently departed duke of Olympia - and a woman of scrupulous character - Miss Emmeline Rose Truelove never expected her duties to involve steaming through the Mediterranean on a private yacht, under the prodigal eye of one Lord Silverton, the most charmingly corrupt bachelor in London. But here they are, improperly bound on a quest to find the duke's enigmatic heir, current whereabouts unknown. Maximilian Haywood was last seen at an archaeological dig on the island of Crete.
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This Book Would Have Been A Hot Mess...
- By Alexis on 10-06-16
By: Juliana Gray
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Lamentation
- The Psalms of Isaak, Book 1
- By: Ken Scholes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Scott Brick, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Lamentation, the first entry in the Psalm of Isaak series, an ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands. Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city—he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant. Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others' throats.
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Highly Enjoyable
- By RB on 05-15-09
By: Ken Scholes
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Instruments of Darkness
- A Novel
- By: Imogen Robertson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born.
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Not The Best, But Not Too Bad...
- By MJ on 01-13-13
By: Imogen Robertson
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The Oversight
- By: Charlie Fletcher
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.
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Fantastic start to a fantasy series
- By jessica on 06-01-14
By: Charlie Fletcher
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The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
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Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
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Autumn Castle
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Richard Aspel
- Length: 19 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight lives in an artists' colony with her lover Jude, whose patience and beauty have eased her battle with chronic pain. But Christine begins to be haunted by childhood recollections of a little girl's disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird's wings. Then her world is rocked by the return of a childhood friend... Mayfridh rules over a land where a wolf is the queen's counsellor, fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf and mortals feel no pain.
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Great Story, Horrible Narration
- By KathyDB on 03-24-15
By: Kim Wilkins
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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Ship of Magic
- The Liveship Traders, Book 1
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.
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Horrible Narrator
- By CP on 10-07-10
By: Robin Hobb
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Stations of the Tide
- By: Michael Swanwick
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. From author Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—comes a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.
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Hard to categorize, hard to put down
- By Robert L. on 03-25-12
By: Michael Swanwick
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The Incorruptibles
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable.
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Great world, competent prose, messy story
- By Melanie on 03-31-16
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Legacy
- A Prequel to Eon
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this prequel to Eon, Greg Bear continues to explore the possibilities presented by the asteroid Thistledown, a remnant of a lost human civilization. The Way is a tunnel through space and time that leads to other worlds, some more like planet Earth than Earth itself. It is perhaps the most formidable discovery in Thistledown and with it come disputes as to the nature of the Way and how it should be used. The Way can be reached only through Axis City, the only space station of Thistledown.
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Barely related to Eon and Eternity
- By David A. Kingston on 02-21-15
By: Greg Bear
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The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
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Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
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The Bell Messenger
- By: Robert Cornuke
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Adventurer and author Robert Cornuke delivers an archaeological thriller that crosses the globe and spans two centuries. With these hopeful words, a dying Confederate lad bequeaths his Bible to the Union soldier who just shot him: "Be God's messenger as I have been." And so begins the journey of Elijah Bell's cherished Bible as it travels the world, transforming hearts wherever it goes.
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Loved it!
- By Pamela on 12-26-10
By: Robert Cornuke
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One of Kenya's Great
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Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.
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Strong novel about 1990s
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In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for nine dollars an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough and wrote an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award. In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War.
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My favorite memoir of 2018
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A frank, smart, and captivating memoir by the daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Small Fry is Lisa Brennan-Jobs' poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents' fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the '70s and '80s, Small Fry is an enthralling audiobook by an insightful new literary voice.
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Red at the Bone
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Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative 10 times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child.
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Magic
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The North Water
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Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage.
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What listeners say about Washington Black
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mary L. Doyle
- 10-04-18
Now what do I do?
This is one of those books that draw you in so completely, when you're finished, you feel lost. What will I do now? What can I possibly read -- listen to, that can equal this?
Beautifully written, beautifully read and totally engrossing. My only complaint is that it had to end. Dion Graham makes the story come to life. Highly recommend.
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- Phyllis
- 09-25-18
Unexpected but Remarkable
Magical realism is not quite the description that fits but it is close. Though written as a traditional story narrative, there was almost a fantasy quality to the events and characters. I found that I was willing to accept the unreal plot and appreciate the visual quality of the writing. Sometimes difficult. The book was worth the effort.
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- ibillinsly@gmail
- 11-30-18
4.16 stars
Washington Black is the story of a young boy born into slavery and his everlasting struggle to escape. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it’s good, though I enjoyed a couple others on the list maybe a little more. Regardless, it’s deserving of its recognition. Wash, the protagonist, takes the listener all across the globe in his perilous journeys. It’s a bit like an English version of the Underground Railroad. This was my third audiobook narrated by Dion Graham, and another excellent performance, though I thought his portrayal of crying was a bit over the top. All in all, it’s a solid audiobook.
Overall rating: 4.16 stars
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- Rick
- 11-11-18
A Genuine Masterpiece
We know from the opening moments that the perspective of a slave is one we could never imagine, when the child describes witnessing the death of his owner as “watching the dead go free.” So desperate is the slave experience that they share a belief that when they die, they will be returned to their ancestral homeland. No wonder they contemplate suicide, and sometimes accomplish it.
Dion Graham’s almost-whispering narration belies the nonstop unexpected drama that awaits an 11-year-old boy called Wash whose whole world in 1830 is a Barbados sugar plantation. That will soon change, beginning with a hot air balloon in a storm at sea, and a dead white man left behind.
The novel spans great lengths of time and even greater distances, through the eyes of a bewildered former slave with physical and emotional wounds, like a scarred Phileas Fogg with a cutthroat bounty-hunter on his tail. From the Caribbean to Virginia and the Underground Railroad, to the Arctic, Nova Scotia, London and Morocco, he encounters other damaged mortals in his travels, each flawed in their own unique ways.
Esi Edugyan wields brilliant, evocative prose with such descriptive power, and plot points you never see coming. It is history, science and travelogue, but none of those is an adequate description. It is an adventure, but also a kind of pilgrimage.
Near the end, in an African desert, a grown-up Washington Black rages at the benefactor who transformed his prospects and later abandoned him: “You are more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men, than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men!”
But the truth is even more complex than that, and more subtle.
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- Carmencita Lozano
- 10-18-18
Prepare to take a pause from everything and immerse yourselves Washington Black’s world.
His tale will enter your soul and send you to museums. I disengaged from my life to stay with the story.
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- Kelly
- 06-14-19
A deep book set in an adventure story.
This is a book for which I had high hopes of a five star rating. I was thinking it would compare well to Whitehead's Underground Railroad. Perhaps unfairly, I thought the books would be quite similar -- both were fantastical journeys out of slavery, both were included on the Manbooker longlist for the years of their qualification. But really, the books are not the same story. I did like Whitehead's book more, but this one is deeper than many reviewers are noticing.
In Washington Black, Esi Edugyan gave us a young protagonist who is born into slavery, and whom we meet at about the age of 10. In the first part of the story we focus on meeting the characters. George Washington Black ("Wash") is a slave on a plantation in Barbados. He has no family, and is cared for primarily by a female field slave. Erasmus Wilde is the new manager/owner/master of the plantation, and his brother Christopher Wilde ("Titch") is a scientist and adventurer. Titch seems to be a free-thinker and a dreamer, who has followed in the footsteps of their father. Titch has built a hot air balloon and convinces Erasmus that Wash is the perfect manservant, due to his small size.
This is where our story changes. That focus on Wash's life in slavery and his relationships with other slaves changes to a story of adventure. Titch and his balloon take Wash to Africa with many stops along the way. Wash becomes an artist and illustrates Titch's work. Wash's life changes dramatically along the way, and when I chose to think beyond the YA feel of the adventure story I recognized the deeper meaning of this part had to do with the story of how a young man finds his own identity when he is held back by the world. Wash was never given the tools or the hope that he would ever have freedom to create his own place in the world. But Titch's balloon takes him out of slavery, and now Wash is finding his way despite the fact that the vengeful Erasmus placed a bond on his capture.
Ultimately the book is about more than slavery or even the abolitionist movement. It is about how we unite with people of color, how we can be allies. So when I reflect upon its similarities to, and differences from, The Underground Railroad it occurs to me that the author intended a different outcome. Whitehead used the structure of his novel to show all the varying horrors of slavery. Edugyan is using hers to tell the story of what happens to a man who is free for the first time and trying to recover from slavery.
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- Anastasia
- 12-18-19
Whaatt???
I guess I'm not smart enough or intellectual enough to get it (I'm not a total dunce, I read every moment I can get- hard with kids- I have a number of degrees including a doctorate)- I hate these books that just end, period- like I kept reversing because I thought I must not have been paying attention or the audio skipped or something. But no, the book just ended in the middle of nowhere with no resolution, explanation. Zip, nada. It was a lovely listen while it lasted, excellent narrator, interesting story, hints of supernatural, the emotional trauma. But all of it was for nothing. And, while very beautifully and painfully detailed in the beginning, I feel like the author got lazy about a a third of the way through- how exactly did Wash make his way throughout once he stopped working as a busser- or even though we witnessed the abuse that Wash faced as a presumptively free man, we got no look at how his interracial (at least as perceived by others) relationship with treated (even though her father knew, the public would have figured it out with them always together or him pushing her face into his chest to protect her from witnessing something traumatic). I hate having to rate the performance because I've discovered that rating the performance high will the give the book a higher star rating that is not warranted because who cares about the performance when the book is a rip off???
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- Cynthia Bazinet
- 01-28-19
What a spectacularly disastrous effort
The first third of this novel seemed to be reasonably on track. Characters were developing nicely and the plot possessed an appealing. free-wheeling energy. But then the plot imploded, and I have to say that I've not witnessed such a spectacular breakdown in decades. In retrospect, the conception of the novel was fatally flawed; there was no way to make this work because Wash, himself, is not really a character; he's a prop.
The whole thing goes to hell in a handbag with the arrival of Tanna and her father who are apparently necessary for Edugyan to hammer home her underlying thematic purpose. Wash devolves into a dithering mute, unable to articulate, well, anything. All we get is "oh no, this guy's gonna be bad--no wait, no he isn't," a repetitive and tiresome device designed to create suspense. Fall for it once, shame the reader; after that, shame on the author. Absolutely no intellectual discourse takes place in a novel that's supposed to be about ideas. Bad men abound, Wash escapes, Tanna lectures, and Wash dithers. Indeed, Wash grows increasingly mute and inert, he seems to cease having a real presence in at crucial moments in the plot.
Another significant flaw in this novel is its misandry. Washington never becomes a fully dynamic man; instead, he remains a stunted man-child. In fact, all of the men in this novel are thusly drawn, incapable of understanding their own feelings and mystified by their own behaviors and motivations.
In short, the novel is little more than the author's political views on the empty but self-serving paternalism of abolitionism, an idea that may, indeed, have merit but one that deserves exploration through characters who are capable of actually debating ideas. Instead, what we get is a ham-fisted sermon via our MPDG whose wisdom will point out the error in their ways.
This author needs a good editor willing to correct her pacing, her tendency to repeat and reiterate, her formulaic piling on of ludicrous smells and textures, and her cringe-worthy contrivances and coincidences. After that, moving on to fully realized dynamic humans might then produce a novel worth our time and consideration.
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- Mary
- 11-08-18
Book of Wonders
This was a beautiful book. lt was sensitive and exciting at the same time. My only reservation was the accents attempted by the otherwise terrific narrator. Less is better with any accent.
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- Zu-Zu
- 02-26-19
Artful As An Epic Poem
If you crave listening to a grand epic, I cannot recommend Washington Black read by Dion Graham highly enough. Esi Edugyan's writing is meant to be read aloud.
I imagine this book becoming a classic, worthy of study and rereading. There are many great books appearing on the subject of slavery and post-slavery, but the subject matter here is unique in many ways. The sensibility of young Washington Black, our narrator, is artistic and analytic from an early age. It is through him that we see the world with its hierarchies of power, of some characters who want to hold on to power at any cost and disregard the lives of others. But he must be free to develop his potential and receive the recognition that every human deserves.
Meanwhile we experience all the elements of nature in beautiful or harsh intensity--earth, wind, fire, water. We journey with Washington Black from his birthplace as a slave in steamy Barbados in the early 1800s up the coast to frigid North America and eventually to Europe and North Africa.
Ultimately this is a story of the deep bonds of relationships that every human being craves. The human characters are as unique and amazingly complex as the species that Washington Black collects, draws, and prepares for exhibition. Without giving away the plot, I will mention only the Nova Scotia octopus and the Moroccan camel as two memorable minor "characters," which echo characters and themes in the human world.
I look forward to recommending this book to my Book Group and thinking deeply about the ending.
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