The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
Overall this is a boring story. There are very few beats to the plot. When nothing is happening with the characters nothing is happening at all.
I did enjoy the construction of the novel. The story is broken up into separate parts for the different characters.
This works especially well for Cora’s mum Mabel.
She has been immortalised and hated by the other characters in the story and it is only when we see her part towards the end that we learn the truth.
The rest of the story is broken into a few locales. The Randall farm and the escape. North Carolina and a new life. The attic and Valentine’s farm. There is minimal action and Cora isn’t interesting herself.
It isn’t exactly that though. Cora is interesting. We only get to see her real emotions a few times.
The railroad itself is disappointing. It’s an actual railroad – it left me thinking: Was that real? Amazing if so. But I’m sure it wasn’t – so what was the point? Very strange.
The story is punctuated at every turn by brutality. I am so dead to this treatment of African Americans in popular culture.
I have a seething hatred of the US because of the systemic racism that so many generations have done nothing about.
How much more racial inequality do I need to witness?
