"I had already seen many deaths: I knew the nature of evil. It was white like a duppy , it drifted down out of a carriage one morning and into the heat of a frightened plantation with nothing in its eyes."

Edi Edugyan's Washington Black: A Novel has been longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker. The narrator starts by plunging into his story midstream before taking a step back:

"But that is no beginning. Allow me to begin again, for the record. I have walked this earth for eighteen years. I am a Freeman now in possession of my own person. I was born in the year 1818 on that sun-scorched estate in Barbados. So I was told. I had also heard it said I was born in a shackled cargo hold during a frenzied crossing of the Atlantic, aboard an illicit Dutch vessel. That would have been the autumn of 1817."

Washington Black, narrated by the eponymous character, who goes by the nickname Wash, opens with an account of his brutal life as a slave on a Barbados plantation, an account which is while harrowing, ultimately relatively well trodden territory in fiction. Looking back he contrast the horrors with the beauty of Barbados:

"There were the fanged metal jaws of a mantrap meant to catch runaways, and the blood-blackened boulder upon which several men had been whipped dead, and there was the solitary redwood wide as a carriage, from which a weathered noose hung. And there were knife marks in the tree’s bark, where men had been pinned through the throat and left to perish, and there were the raw patches where the grass had not grown back since the bodies of the old and infirm had been set there to rot. 

And above it all, pristine and untroubled, sat Wilde Hall, with its clear view to the sea— a sea turquoise and glistening with phosphorus, the miles of sand pure and white as salt.

The planation is run by (the rather cartoonishly evil) Erasmus Wilde but the novel takes a more original turn when Wash is taken on as assistant by his brother Christopher ('Titch'). 
Titch is experimenting with manned flight on hydrogen balloons and something of a caricature of the eccentric but troubled scientist with also a rather different view on how the slaves should be treated.

"Negroes are God’s creatures also, with all due rights and freedoms, whatever their faculties and abilities. Slavery is a moral stain against us. If anything will keep white men from their heaven, it is this." 

Although Wash reflects: "Only years later would his phrasing strike me.", a comment which I will return to later in my review.

Wash turns out to be a natural scientist and brilliant artist. Titch even credits him with the illustrations on papers he submits to the Royal Society and working with Titch offers Wash the chance to get away from the life to which his origins had otherwise condemned him. But even as his leaves Barbados to travel to far flung shores, he receives periodic reminders of his real status in the mid 19th Century world:

"It had happened so gradually, but these months with Titch had schooled me to believe I could leave all misery behind, I could cast off all violence, outrun a vicious death. I had even begun thinking I’d been born for a higher purpose, to draw the earth’s bounty, and to invent; I had imagined my existence a true and rightful part of the natural order. 

How wrong-headed it had all been. I was a black boy, only I had no future before me, and little grace or mercy behind me. I was nothing, I would die nothing, hunted hastily down and slaughtered."

The novel, from a fictional credibility perspective, packs rather too much into a short life. Wash journeys from Barbados to the far north, over the Atlantic to London, and even to Morocco, pursued by a rather cliched bounty hunter, and scientifically he is at the cutting edge of development in, inter alia, ballooning, polar exploration and aquariums. The strands are pulled together in the figure of Erasmus and Titch's father who they find (rather bizzarely) in an igloo in the Arctic circle:

"And then I glimpsed him, a man rising from the shadows: like a figure from myth, the great patriarch of the Wildes, Fellow of the Royal Society, recipient of the Copley Medal and the Bakerian lectureship, the man whose learning had kindled his son’s mind and never burned down, the man who had drawn us north through icefield and hazard, against what odds, oh, that man, whose very treatise on the icy nature of comets once left the Sorbonne in chaos, whose learning could be expressed in twelve languages, who admired the jokes of the Tartars and the salads of the Inca, who had instructed his three-year-old son to scoop when his hand held a knife and to cut when it held a spoon, for no person ought to assume a tool’s use is determined by the tool, the man of a thousand lifetimes, who had set his heavy English leather boots on the soil of five continents, and collected the mud from each—I saw him, and I kneeled dripping in the low entrance, staring. For he was short, fat, and under his scraggly whiskers was a face very much alive and quite brutally ugly."

And at times there is a bit too much reliance on coincident meetings and discoveries. Indeed as another character observes:

"“You are like an interruption in a novel, Wash. The agent that sets things off course. Like a gunshot. Or a wedding.”

“I do not read novels.”

“Do not let my endorsement dissuade you . They are not all as I describe.”"

(but this novel is)

The novel, even in its title is something of a pastiche of the 19th century adventure novel and also has a strong steampunk flavour. Except there is actually no science-fiction involved but rather the actual scientific developments of the early to mid 1800s. For example, later in the novel Wash researches, designs and builds the world's first aquarium in Regent's Park, working with the (ficticious) marine zoologist HM Goff. 

“Imagine a large hall, a gallery, but filled not with benches. There are instead large tanks holding all manner of aquatic life. Enormous tanks. Perhaps there are open-air terrariums with toads and turtles and lizards. And people could come and press their faces right against the glass. Learn the habits of the animals first-hand. It could be permanent, like an indoor park.”

Although Wash is the main inspiration, Goff is 'forced' to take all the credit. Wash ponders:

"My name, I understood, would never be known in the history of the place. It would be Goff, not a slight, disfigured black man, who would forever be celebrated as the father of Ocean House. When I allowed myself to truly think of it, a tightness rose behind my eyes. Goff was not a bad man—he did not like to take credit for my discoveries in principle, but I understood he was getting older, and that the desire to make a late sensation burned deep in him. And I understood too the greater conundrum—for how could I, a Negro eighteen years old, with no formal scientific training, approach the committee on my own, or even be seen as an equal in the enterprise?"

The real historic inventor of the aquarium was Philip Henry Gosse, who in 1853 indeed built it at Regent's Park. In the novel Gosse reappears in aspects of both Titch and Goff and I believe that the author must have taken inspiration for the character of Wash from Samuel Johnson, Gosse's local assistant for the 18 months he spent, on a different project, in Jamaica, in 1845-6. From Gosse's The Birds of Jamaica:

"I may be permitted here to record a tribute of affection to this faithful servant, Samuel Campbell, a negro lad of about eighteen with only the rudiments of education, he soon proved himself a most useful assistant by his faithfulness, his tact in learning, and then his skill in practising the art of preparing natural subjects, his patience in pursuing animals, his powers of observation of facts, and the truthfulness with which he reported them, as well as by the accuracy of his memory with respect to species. Often and often, when a thing has appeared to me new, I have appealed to Sam, who on a moment's examination would reply, 'No, we took this in such a' place, or on such a day,' and I invariably found on my return home that his memory was correct. I never knew him in the slightest degree attempt to embellish a fact, or report more than he had actually seen.

He remained with me all the time I was on the island, and was of great service to me. Many of the subjects of his work were obtained by him, when I was not myself with him, and some which I believe to be unique."

It must be said that Samuel Johnson stayed in Jamaica when Gosse left, that Gosse credited him in his work (albeit one could argue slightly condescedingly) and there is, as far as I know, absolutely no suggestion that Gosse's aquarium had anything to do with Johnson. But then the power of Edugyan's novel is to ask us how we actually know this to be true - scientific papers like history are written by those who had the power.

And indeed as Wash comes to reflect on his relationship with Titch he comes to question Titch's motivation. And when they meet again he plays back to him something Titch had stressed when they worked together, one that has echoes from the words of Gosse above:

"“You told me once, when I was drawing, ‘Be faithful to what you see, and not what you are supposed to see.’”

“Did I say that?” Titch seemed genuinely surprised. 

“You did. And yet it always did seem to me that you never lived by it yourself.” He paused. “What do you mean?”

“You did not see me— you did not look at me, and see me. You wanted to, but you didn’t, you failed. You saw, in the end, what every other white saw when he looked at me."
...
“You took me on because I was helpful in your political cause. Because I could aid in your experiments. Beyond that I was of no use to you, and so you abandoned me.” I struggled to get my breath. “I was nothing to you. You never saw me as equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.”"

Overall: an enjoyable and straightforward read (some harrowing scenes not withstanding) and with some important messages about historical attribution of scientific discoveries and of the motivations of even well-meaning abolitonists which are also of contemporary relevance. 

But to me, and in pure literary terms, rather too straightforward to be Booker shortlist material. This is the sort of novel that would (geographical eligibility aside) instead be perfect Costa material. 3.5 stars rounded down to 3 as, by strict Man Booker standards, I was little disappointed.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Not what I was expecting at all and all the better for it! When the book opened I assumed I knew what to expect, a literary and well written but ultimately tragic look at slavery - instead within a couple of pages the book took off and flew, literally and metaphorically! I loved the pace, the characterization and above all the inventiveness and was delighted to see it on the Booker long list.

What a compelling read. A worthy addition to this year’s Booker longlist, and one I’m not sure I would have been aware of otherwise - the best part of literary prizes such as the Booker!

Washington Black is an exciting mix of historical and literary fiction, sort of like a Victorian steampunk bildungsroman set in 1830s West Indies and beyond. Safe to say, I haven’t read anything quite like it.

The book starts out at Faith Plantation in Barbados. The eponymous Washington Black, or Wash for short, is a young black field hand, about 10 years of age when the book begins. The master of Faith Plantation has not long died, and a new master arrives in his wake. One day, this new master’s brother, Christopher Wilde (or Titch to those close to him), decides to pluck Wash from the life he has known and the people who filled it. This sets of an awakening. Wash’s world broadens as he discovers the wonders of art and science and learning. Even as he becomes more comfortable, coddled into a feeling of security, he starts to feel separated from his roots. He can’t really go back as he will be ”even more despised and pitied, a twisted black Englishman.”

His actual full name is George Washington Black, as named by the previous plantation master. An ironic, mocking moniker that highlights the callous cruelty towards black slaves during that era. Like his namesake, Wash ends up making three crossings of his own; to North America, to England and the European continent, and then to Africa.

The novel is quietly complex, dealing with multiple themes that left me with many thoughts to ponder over. It outlines the rampant racism and savagery of slavery in that era, before Emancipation, and the lasting impacts beyond this. It also deals with questions of freedom and personhood. Living with Titch, Wash had thought he had freedom. It was more than he had ever known. But like he had been told previously of what it truly meant to have freedom: ”if he did not feel like working, the free man tossed down his shovel. If he did not like a question, he made no answer.” It was poignant reading of how Washington became gradually aware of himself as a person and a black man; from relative innocence and belonging, to a tectonic shift between his identity and his heritage, later learning of the lasting shackles wrought by nervous fear and brutality, before being plagued with a sense of isolation and despair and abandonment. In the end, it’s hard to even recognise himself, harder still to belong.

Titch was an interesting character, himself grappling with the concept of freedom and personhood alongside Wash, burdened by guilt and grief, seeking a redemption that eludes him. Even as he values science and causes such as the ending of slavery, he seems oblivious of his effect on Washington’s life. For a while, he was all Wash knew, so it was a painful truth to later realise that in contrast, he was not as significant a fixture in Titch’s life: ”I was nothing to you. You never saw me as an equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.”

It seems that as Wash becomes unmoored from his origins, he becomes drawn to others who are similarly rootless and seeking to be truly free. He meets Tanna Goff, the other character who features more prominently later on in his young life. She is of mixed race, and has a privileged life. She has faced similar struggles with being accepted in the society she lives in, thus colouring her perspective on the history Washington shared with Titch, something that Wash had been almost romanticising. In the end, it all seems to come full circle.

I really enjoyed this and am glad to have read it, and will certainly be interested to read more by Esi Edugyan in the future. Glad that the Booker Prize has brought her writing to my attention, and I’ll be hoping that it makes the shortlist!

I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.

This is an exuberant, rollicking page-turner of a novel, a sprawling adventure of a runaway slave and an epic journey from Barbados, to America and London and Amsterdam, ending in the Moroccan desert. Longlisted for this year’s Man Booker, this is a rewarding read.

Set in the 1830s, this is the story of George Washington Black (‘Wash’), on the run accompanied by the brother of his former plantation owner. A bounty on his head, he feels pursued on a relentless journey, until Christopher, the brother, himself disappears in a blizzard in Arctic Canada. The mirroring of the narrative now sees Wash continue to search for his former saviour as he continues to be pursued. The book touches on education as an escape – Wash finds solace and reward in his painting, is taught to read and write, and finds wonder in science and nature. There are obvious issues of family, as Wash finally learns the identity of his mother in plantation records housed in London after slavery has been abolished in his homeland. And, obviously and centrally, the book deals with slavery, about ownership, and about identity. Edugyan resists the temptation to give us a nice, neat reconciliation by the end of the book. There is a space, words unspoken, no final understanding between the former slave and the figure of Titch: ‘life had never belonged to any of us’.

There are moments of real emotion, as Wash meditates on what his mother must have felt and thought as she was transported from Africa on a slave ship, and the issues at the heart of the novel obviously ring true today, still, as we continue to struggle with the lessons of history and the fight for equality that continues. A big, bold story that deals with big issues, I felt this definitely deserves its place on the longlist. A 4 star recommend.

(Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.)

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018
The Booker judges seem to be eager to add quite some material that is highly accessible and easily readable this year, but while the inclusion of Snap seemed outrageous to me, this is a defendable choice. Edugyan writes about slavery, racism, and identity, but in the form of an adventure novel, told chronologically and in the first person. While this makes for a rather conservative narrative strategy, the author clearly knows how to compose an engaging and compelling story - and there is depth, too.

Our protagonist is George Washington Black who at the beginning of the story is an 11-year-old slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados. When the new owner's brother arrives and needs help for his science project, Wash, as people call him, gets the chance to get away from the vicious and sadictic cruelty the slaves on the plantation have to endure. Christopher Wilde, or "Titch", as the young scientist is called, borrows Wash from his brother so that he might help him work on an airship he designed - by that, Wash first gets the chance to learn about science and nature, which, along with drawing, will turn out to be his passion. When Wash, without his own doing, gets into trouble that might cost him his life, Wash and Titch flee Barbados with their "cloud-cutter".

From there on, Wash roams the world, first seeking safety as he is a runaway slave, later, when slavery is abolished, still fearing bounty hunters and looking for Titch - I will not spoil how they got separated, but I will say that Wash travels to the US, the Arctic, Canada, London, Amsterdam, and Marocco. We learn more about Titch's twisted family and witness how Wash tries to build a life, pursuing his interests in science and art.

All of this is intriguing as an adventure novel, but Edugyan also discusses the hardship Wash has to endure, because even when slavery was abolished, racism of course persisted. Wash struggles with his identity, constantly forced to look into the gap between his own potential and what society sees in him. The writing is particularly strong when Edugyan writes about the psychology of her characters, what drives them and how they suffer from their flaws and past injuries, mental and phsyical. For instance, the question arises why Titch decided to help Wash: Is he, the white upper class scientist and abolitionist who finances his endeavours with money earned by the plantation, a good person, or does he just pursue self-serving goals? Sometimes it seems like Titch does not know himself.

Sure, the novel partly comes close to a fairy tale and the narrative skeleton that carries Wash's travels always shines through - much of what happens is highly unlikely, or as the text itself puts it: "You are like an interruption in a novel, Wash. The agent that sets things off course." But realism is not the point here, Edugyan talks about history and human nature in the form of an allegory, and there are many smart ideas and strong images. This is an enjoyable, intelligent read that leaves room for interpretation and discussion.

The first 100 pages or so of this Booker nominated novel is strong. The young slave Washington’s relationship with Kit is moving and his subsequent development by the plantation owner’s scientist brother, known as Titch, is interesting. As soon as Titch and Washington start their escape from the island however, the descent into farce begins. I don’t enjoy fantasy as a genre and that is what this book becomes. I was captivated at first by the strong writing and by a promising storyline but that didn’t last long. I’m sure others will love this but it’s just not for me.

The Man Booker Prize goes retro!

I have spent much of the past 2-3 years reading novels that are non-linear, multi-narrator, stream-of-consciousness and other buzz words. It seems that the 2018 Man Booker judging panel have at least partly (I haven’t read Milkman or The Long Take yet, for example) turned away from that and gone for accessibility. Even The Overstory from Richard Powers is his most readable book.

Washington Black is a good book. It is immensely readable. It is a straightforward first person narration with a linear timeline. And there is nothing wrong with that!

We begin by meeting George Washington Black, an 11 year old slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados in the company of a woman call Big Kit. The first few pages of the book read like a slavery novel and they are pretty difficult to stomach. Like me, you may find them so unpleasant you wonder if you can keep reading. I suggest you do keep reading because the unpleasantness does not last for many pages and what looked like a slavery novel turns into a 19th century adventure novel, albeit with overtones. Within a straightforward adventure story, Edugyan finds time to write about freedom, slavery, identity and racism.

"I could feel the day’s exhaustion descending on me. 'What it like, Kit? Free?'
I felt her shift in the dirt, and then she was gathering me in close, her hot breath in my ear. 'Oh, child, it is like nothing in this world. When you are free, you can do anything.'
'You can go wherever it is you wanting?'
'You go wherever it is you wanting. You wake up anytime you wanting. When you free,' she whispered, 'someone ask you a question, you ain’t got to answer. You ain’t got to finish no job you don’t want to finish. You just leave it.'
I closed my heavy eyes, wondering. 'Is it really so?'"

This is early on in the book and Black soon leaves the plantation for his adventure and learns that freedom is not so easy and not so simple. It becomes a globe-trotting story that takes us to the USA, the Arctic, Canada, London, Amsterdam and Morocco. By the time we finish, Black is an adult with what feels like more than a lifetime of experience behind him.

This is novel that cries out to be a movie. It played like a movie in my head as I read it. There are scenes that you can picture exactly how a director would film them. It has action (storms at sea, storms in the desert, storms in the snow), violence (slave abuse, bar fights), love interest, friendship that grows unexpectedly and is tested to its limit. It has just about everything you could want for an action movie (well, it is set in the 19th century, so there are no car chases, but you can’t have everything).

I’m glad the Man Booker jury chose a book like this. It shows that someone can write a “normal” book, can write it well, and can include bigger ideas in a very natural way. I guess some of the depth might be lost in a movie because Edugyan does a good job of exploring the inner workings of her characters and that’s hard to communicate visually. So, read the book!

My thanks to Serpent’s Tail for a review copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Esi Edugyan lives in Victoria, British Columbia and was a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Award for her previous work “Half Blood Blues”. I have to confess I had never heard of her before. After having read the proof of her upcoming new novel “Washington Black”, I am no longer surprised why she was shortlisted. The quality of her writing is superb, reminding me of the language in classics. It was a pleasure to read such finely crafted writing and such a captivating story.
I am sure “Washington Black” will appeal to readers who enjoyed “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi or “ Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead.

This literary novel is set in the cruel world of slavery in the early 19th century narrating the incredibly adventurous life story of George Washington Black, “Wash”, a slave boy born on the Faith Plantation in Barbados. The barbaric way plantation owners used to get the outmost of their “human merchandise” cutting sugar cane is truly incomprehensible, the cruelty and punishments beastly. Such is the daily life of the child slave Wash who is lucky to have the fierce protection of Big Kid, the closest thing he ever knows to a mother. His life changes dramatically when they are ordered to serve at a dinner in the big house where Erasmus Wilde is entertaining his brother Christian “Titch” Wilde, a scientist who recognizes something in the boy. Titch, a wealthy eccentric explorer is opposed to slavery unlike his brother whose cruelty knows no boundaries. He begs his brother to loan Washington to him to assist with scientific experiments. Washington has a quick mind but never having known kindness from white people he has to shed his mistrust before learning to read and write becoming an invaluable assistant to Titch who is building a “cloud cutter”, an early version of an air balloon. Events heat up when Titch’s and Erasmus cousin Philipp visits the plantation from England leading to two terrible accidents and a death, disfiguring Washington. The hasty escape of Titch and Wash by their newly build cloud cutter is the beginning of an unimaginable journey to freedom for Washington, his coming of age in strange countries, surviving danger and slave catchers together with Titch who recognizes in him a human being becoming his family and friend. When Titch suddenly disappears in the Canadian Arctic, Washington is lost and forced to fend for himself. His travels to his true inner freedom lead him to many countries, Nova Scotia, England, Holland and Morocco trying to answer the question what true freedom really means .

There is a German translation of “Half Blood Blues” by Insel Verlag but I could not find a German publisher yet for this novel.