A review by bgg616
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
5.0
There has been a lot of discussion about the merits (or lack of) of this book. The author won me over because she asks not the simple question of what freedom means to formerly enslaved people, but what has the world lost in terms of creativity, inventions, genius and more in keeping large numbers of people from reaching their potential.
I was immediately pulled into this novel. The story captivated me. With one exception,while not all of the "science" makes sense, that didn't detract from the story for me. The exception was the disappearance of a key character in the Canadian Arctic. Washington Black is smart, and driven. Like other enslaved Africans of the time, he does not know who his mother is (or father) nor where he was born. He is fortunate at a young age to be taken out of the fields, and taken on by Christopher Wilde, a son of the plantation owner, as an assistant. As a description of the book states, sometimes it reads like a fairy tale. But I was open to this, and Wash's adventures. The story was well constructed, and beautifully written. While some readers felt it wasn't "literary" enough, I went back to an article by Jane Friedman "What is a literary novel?" https://www.janefriedman.com/what-is-a-literary-novel/
which details that a novel must : be Intellectual e.g a novel about ideas; have Depth e.g. interwoven plots and subplots; about Character e.g. the people in the book drive the plot and aren't simply devices to forward the plot; and have Style e.g. gorgeous writing, beautiful prose. Washington Black is a novel that in my view satisfies all of these.
I was immediately pulled into this novel. The story captivated me. With one exception,while not all of the "science" makes sense, that didn't detract from the story for me. The exception was the disappearance of a key character in the Canadian Arctic. Washington Black is smart, and driven. Like other enslaved Africans of the time, he does not know who his mother is (or father) nor where he was born. He is fortunate at a young age to be taken out of the fields, and taken on by Christopher Wilde, a son of the plantation owner, as an assistant. As a description of the book states, sometimes it reads like a fairy tale. But I was open to this, and Wash's adventures. The story was well constructed, and beautifully written. While some readers felt it wasn't "literary" enough, I went back to an article by Jane Friedman "What is a literary novel?" https://www.janefriedman.com/what-is-a-literary-novel/
which details that a novel must : be Intellectual e.g a novel about ideas; have Depth e.g. interwoven plots and subplots; about Character e.g. the people in the book drive the plot and aren't simply devices to forward the plot; and have Style e.g. gorgeous writing, beautiful prose. Washington Black is a novel that in my view satisfies all of these.