The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead - ★★

AUTHOR: Colson Whitehead

GENRE: Historical Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 2, 2016.

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction (or perhaps I should say, historical fantasy) set in 1820s USA, focussing on a young woman who slogs her way to freedom. I struggled with this book in almost every way: geography, historical research, characters, plot, writing. The geography issue was due to my shortcoming; the rest, I don’t know. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

1820. Georgia, USA. Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation, has already faced every kind of abuse. Though she is a strong woman and able to hold her own against *some* atrocities, she is still tempted when Caesar, a new arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad. Together, they take the risky decision of escaping. But such a plan is obviously fraught with uncertainties, and Cora finds herself handling far more than she had bargained for.

The book comes to us in alternate long and short chapters, with the long chapters being from Cora’s POV and the short ones coming from the POV of key secondary characters, all written in third person.

Bookish Yays:

🚅 The portrayal of the slave system and the rampant abuse. The depiction is brutal and gruesome. It would takes a strong stomach to read these scenes without flinching, but this is probably the most (and only) realistic part of the book.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🚂 The story structure with the alternate short and long chapters. I did like the idea for learning more about historical events through the other perspectives, but the short chapters don’t add much to the core plot as they aren’t directly connected and go into incidental events. There’s also too much meandering.

🚂 Some thought-provoking quotable quotes. Too much purple prose.

🚂 As a historical American story, the book obviously makes reference to plenty of geographical locations, based on where Cora is. (And she does travel a lot thanks to the railroad!) I found myself lost in the geography and the relevance and social attitudes of the locations. This points more to a gap in my awareness of the US map. Readers familiar with US geography shouldn’t have the same problem.

Bookish Nays:

🚧 I read historical fiction to learn more about history. As a non-USian, I wasn’t aware of the railroad prior to this book, so while reading it, something about the railroad felt off. Turns out, the book has taken the metaphorical ‘Underground Railroad’ and turned it into an actual and functioning underground railroad. I am not sure how to feel about this. I know the genre is “historical fiction”, but I do prefer it to be more historical than fiction.

🚧 That said, even if the metaphorical railroad was converted into an actual one, at least make it sound possible! An actual *underground* railroad “under Southern soil” constructed only to help slaves escape? And it actually has trains and signals and tracks and conductors? And no slave owner or government official is aware of this breach in law? C’mon! How much suspension of disbelief can be undertaken in this genre?

🚧 Cora’s third-person kept her at a distance. I hardly ever felt connected to her nor did I feel like rooting for her because her character was too detached.

🚧 Some of the other characters, especially Cora’s grandmother Ajarry, had tremendous potential to be memorable. But almost every character is underdeveloped. Side characters ride in and go off track at random points in the plot. I expected to see at least Caesar pop in regularly, considering his key role in Cora’s escape, but he is there barely for the initial one-third or so.

🚧 There’s too much luck and coincidence involved in Cora’s narrative. EVERYTHING happens to Cora, and she escapes EVERY TIME. After a point, the brutalities started blending into each other.

🚧 The pacing is very unsteady.

🚧 Thanks to the somewhat episodic structure with each location containing one core historical focus, the resultant plot seem quite disjointed.

On the whole, this has been a surprisingly disappointing experience. Rating a book on emotions would obviously result in 5 stars. But the writing is also important, and that’s where this Pulitzer-winning book went topsy-turvy for me. I still appreciate the highlight on the historical railroad (even if inaccurately depicted herein) and the blunt portrayal of the realities of slave life. But the rest, whether characters or pacing or storyline or prose, didn’t click for me. It’s an important book, but not a realistic one.

This book might work better for those historical fiction readers who enjoy overly lush prose and are okay with a fantastical version of reality: in this case, the imaginary actual railroad. Mine is anyway an outlier review, so please do read other reviews and decide.

This was a library read.