So we have reached the end of “The Book of negroes” by Lawrence Hill. I can’t stress how much I would recommend this book. It is hard to read at times, as it does get somewhat graphic, but it is totally worth it, and you won’t be able to put it down! I probably sound like a sales representative for the publishing company. Haha
•Were the predictions you made about this section of the text accurate or not?
My predictions about this part of the novel were, again, partly correct. Ev
erything that I had predicted came true except for the death of her second child; May. Her daughter, now about 18 years of age, finds her mother and they move in together. I still think that it is terribly sad that they didn’t get to have much of Aminata’s life together.
•What did you like best about your chosen text?
I honestly can’t pick just one thing!! I loved virtually everything about this book, although I can’t say I rather enjoyed the graphic parts. BUT… at the same time, that is what made the novel so real and believable for me. This story is fictional and based on true events in some cases, but all in all, it’s still fiction. When you read this novel, you do not think about that once. Everything that Aminata says is backed up, and I couldn’t find a single plot hole. It was absolutely brilliant front cover to back cover.
•With what, if anything, did you struggle?
I think the fact that it is such a long novel makes it a bit of a struggle. It isn’t the length but the things that happen during this time that almost drives you mad. I mean it is one bad thing after the other, and it get exhausting emotionally. With that said, there are moments in the book where Aminata realizes things, and the reader does too, and these moments pick you right back up.
•Choose your favourite line, quote it, and explain why you chose it.
I couldn’t just choose one quote, so I have three here for you…
“It was the first baby I had caught since the loss of my own. The pain of my losses never really went away. The limbs had been severed and they would forever after be missing, but I kept going, somehow I just kept going.”
I loved the highlighted part because it was such a visual. It was as if, for every one of her family members a limb was missing, leaving her hopping along on one leg. She had lost everything that she once held dear to her, but she will always keep going, because she is strong.
“Even as I learned new words and phrases each day, I wondered just who exactly I was and what I had become after more than thirty years in the colony. Without my parents, my husband, my children, or any people with whom I could speak the languages of my childhood, what part of me was still African?”
I have to admit I read two sentences over three times. The highlighted sentence is what really caught my eye. It made me think that if she had been completely removed from her culture, from her home, from her family what about her was still African. It made me think of me and my family. We are from Ireland and although I was there until I was 4, being here in Canada, changing my citizenship to Canadian, only really knowing my home as Canada, what part of my is Irish. I suppose it is a cool thing to say that you are Irish, especially on Saint Patrick’s, but I am not Irish just because I was born there. I am Canadian because now this is my home.
“Perhaps, if I had been able to keep my husband and to live with him for
years and our children, I would have learned to feel settled in a new place. But my family never settled in its nest, we never had any nest at all. But after I heard Mr. Alessani’s words I felt no more longing for Bioa, only a determination to stay free. And now as I waited for my strength to return, in a hut belonging to people I didn’t even know, I let go of my greatest desire. I would never go back home.”
I think that this quote caught my attention because it is a pivotal moment in my eyes for Aminata. She realized that her whole live had conditioned her for greatness, and although she just wanted to live the simple life of her childhood, she owed it to all of the slaves and to herself to help the abolitionists.
•What kind of personal connections have you made with your chosen text?
I cannot begin to express the personal connections that every woman will have with the main character/narrator; Aminata Dialo. Although it has some feminist limbs throughout the story, there is several different viewpoints brought forth by the honesty of Aminata’s character portrayal of the people she encounters. I made several personal connections with this novel, and I hope that each and every one of you that read it will too. I found that this book really got my thinking about things in my own life, and what we all take for granted. It makes you open your eyes to what we, as a civilization, were, are and will be. It is really scary to me to think that not so long ago African slaves were killed in the streets. I think that this story is something to be told, and it is don’t brilliantly.
•Were you satisfied at the end of your reading? Why or why not?
To be honest, the ending left me feeling somewhat uneasy. At the end of the novel, you are given this sence of Aminata dieing as she finishes the end of her own account. It’s as if you know that once the words run off the page she is gone too. I think that the only reason it left me feeling uneasy is because she didn’t get very much time with her daughter May. I found myself rationalizing my own thoughts about the ending, but I guess that is what made it so memorable. It is left up to the reader’s interpretation. Overall this is one of the best pieces of Canadian literature I have ever read.
I really hope that you all go out and grab yourself a copy of this novel. It looks very large and scary at first, but once you turn the first cover, you won’t be able to stop! If you don’t feel the same way that I do, that is you opinion, but I think you would have to be crazy! Haha
Avery Dawn :)
No comments:
Post a Comment