The Underground Railroad
January 25, 2018
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't read this last year when everyone else did because I had other fiction-reading goals at the time, so I'm late to the conversation.
I enjoyed the conceit and how the various sections allowed Whitehead to explore broader themes--What is freedom? What is America? He was also able to explore other periods of American history, such as the DuBois-Washington debate paralleled at the climax of the story.
What did puzzle me were some of the individual decisions of various characters, which seemed poorly motivated and therefore constructed to achieve some plot goal rather than authentic decisions of the characters.
View all my reviews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't read this last year when everyone else did because I had other fiction-reading goals at the time, so I'm late to the conversation.
I enjoyed the conceit and how the various sections allowed Whitehead to explore broader themes--What is freedom? What is America? He was also able to explore other periods of American history, such as the DuBois-Washington debate paralleled at the climax of the story.
What did puzzle me were some of the individual decisions of various characters, which seemed poorly motivated and therefore constructed to achieve some plot goal rather than authentic decisions of the characters.
View all my reviews
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.