The Underground Railroad

 So with all that writing going on, I also actually did some reading. The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, a novel I'd been looking forward to ever since I read and was amazed by The Nickel Boys. Both are Pulizer Prize winners, so I was hoping for an equally great read. As with the other novel, I'd left this one on the shelf for a while, afraid of the possible horrors within. The Underground Railroad is set during the time that slavery was still pretty common in the Southern US and I was not sure whether I actually wanted to read about all the horrors that happened. But after finally biting the bullet, The Nickel Boys was my favourite novel last year, so this one would probably also hold high rewards when I got through it.
Now the premise of the story is pretty good; not the slavery part, but the part where the underground railroad is an actual underground railroad, complete with stations, stationmasters, tracks and steam trains driving on those tracks. I loved that image, of this vast network of trains running underneath the slave owners, bringing people to safety. Sadly, that was just about all I loved about this novel.

The main character, Cora; I couldn't really be bothered about her. I mean; she just really doesn't have a personality. Her grandmother and mother, they have strong personalities, they make choices and stick by them. Cora impresses once, when she defends her plot of land against some guy who built his dog house on it, but we never really find out why, where she gets this strength from. We never really find out anything about her or her personality, not even why she decides to leave with Caesar when he asks her to flee with him. Sure, she's just had a bad experience, but we never find out her inner workings, because sadly, the novel is written in the third person. A first person perspective from Cora would really have helped.

They flee and get into all sorts of trouble, which somehow Cora doesn't seem to realise until it is upon her, at which point someone else has to take care of her again. She never seems to make any big decisions of her own. At one point, the plot is entirely stuck, with her hidden in a place she cannot get out of. The story wants this to be suspenseful, but you already know she will get caught; there is no realistic way for things to move on otherwise. Where The Nickel Boys was full of surprises, this story seemed pretty bland and uninspired. Also; no emotional investment. Like I said; the character never really came to life for me.

Enough about Cora; the 'in between' chapters focus on other characters in the novel, which means they are somehow more fleshed-out than the main character is. Especially the chapter on her mother was one that touched me somewhat; more of that kind of writing would have been nice.

The whole setting, of pre-Civil War America, didn't work for me because I didn't know what it was actually like back then. So when she finds herself in North Carolina, I had no clue whether this was the way North Carolina actually was during that time, or whether we were entering a metaphor. Turns out, this was a metaphor, but I had no clue. Given the number of (mainly American) awards this novel has won, knowing these extra layers probably makes you enjoy the novel more, but for me it was just plain strange.

So all in all; not a success for me. I really cannot see how you could award this novel the same prize as The Nickel Boys, which has so much more depth of character and such a wonderful plot. But, given all the positive critiques, this may be my lack of knowledge on the time period or the subject matter in general. Either way, this was not one for me.