Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
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Book Reviews of Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Book Review: Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Summary: 5 Stars
Book is in perfect condition as described by seller and arrived in the time stated. I recommend ordering from this seller.Book Review: A must read
Summary: 5 Stars
anybody interested in American history or family this is the book to read. Hailey is a must read for eveybody.Book Review: excellent characters, but too long and a hurried ending
Summary: 4 Stars
The ingenuity of the characters is what I enjoy most about Roots. What irritates me, though, is the novel's length. There are too many chapters about Kunta Kinte in Africa and in Virginia, and there are too few chapters about the last two generations preceding Haley himself.
Each successive generation is memorable: there is, of course, Kunta, the native of Africa. His only daughter, Kizzy, is sold away and raped by her new master. The son begotten from that rape is "Chicken George," an accomplished cockfighter. His part is my favorite.
Chicken George has many children, chief among them Tom, the blacksmith. Once the family is freed by their masters and moves to Tennessee, the book picks up pace, going over two generations in the same amount of print used to describe Kunta's miserable, horrific passage across the Atlantic. These generations are less memorable because the book moves too quickly at this point to give juicy details. And the final few chapters, chronicling Haley's research, is gratuitous and self-aggrandizing.
Aside from a slow first two acts and abrupt ending, Roots is excellent, character-driven story-telling. I don't mind that there factual errors (that scholars have pointed out) and much of the meat of the story is a novelization of Haley's "roots." Go in regarding this is a novel, which it is.
Book Review: Tough stuff but an interesting read
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was a massive success when it came out , about 25 years ago, and was turned into a television mini series in the 80's (which is intriguing, as the book is very racially charged and is HEAVY content). Starring in that mini series as the main character was LeVar Burton (reading rainbow, Geordi in ST: TNG).
Anyways, back to the book:
'Roots' starts with the life of Kunta Kinte, a member of the Mandinka tribe in Africa, during the 18th century. We watch his life as he is born, raised, loved by his family, and instilled with a deep sense of pride, tradition, and work ethic from his village.
Now a young adult, Kunte goes to chop some wood down and BAM! Nabbed by slave traders (booo!). As the reader, you are already engrossed in the life of Kunta. I knew a little about the book while reading it, so i was waiting for this moment (very sadly, as I was enjoying just reading about Kunte's life in Africa).
Horrific boat ride over to the states, he tries to escape slavery several times until they cut off half his foot.
The rest of teh novel is about Kunte's assimilation into slave life, and the generations after him. You watch how each generation becomes watered down, and more complacent with their life. You can see what traditions and stories become altered with change between the families.
Ultimately, the story ends with the author, Alex Haley, who claims that he is descended from Kunte and follows the family tree to himself. Apparently he plagarized a bunch of the book from The African, and geneology experts contest against his claim of descent from Kunte. These facts kind of irked me once I read them on Wikipedia... I had enjoyed the book but seeing that he plagarized AND possibly miscontrued facts pisses me off. BUT he DOES say near the end that most of it is fiction, and I think Haley himself wants to believe the geneology tree (he wasn't just saying all this to pimp himself up).
A good read but difficult in terms of content (reality is always the biggest bitch). One of those tales of history that is painful to hear about, but history has it's lessons that we should all be mindful of.
Book Review: A beloved book marred by flaws
Summary: 3 Stars
I love Roots and think the whole world should read it. It's an important and vital book about American history, family history, and triumph over hardship. I loved Roots the first time I read it twenty years ago, and I love it still, having just finished it yesterday, BUT...
1) If only Alex Haley hadn't plagiarized whole sections of the book (see Wikipedia's article on the author Harold Courlander)
2) If only Haley really HAD been related to Kunta Kinte (genealogists state he consciously perpetrated a hoax)
3) If only Juffure really WAS Haley's ancestral village (evidence suggests that the griot from modern Juffure with "memories" of Kunta Kinte's disappearance in 1767 was coached about what to "remember")
I found these fabrications depressing. And what's so sad is that I believe Haley had no need to lie and cheat, because he's really a top-notch storyteller.
This aside, though, I have a few other critical comments.
1) The book begins a slow descent into petering out after Kunta Kinte exits. The characters become increasingly wooden and one-dimensional. Kunta is great, Kizzy is good, Chicken George is fair, and everyone and almost everything after that is forgettable.
2) The book lauds having tons of children, mindlessly, and fails to criticize parents who have children and cannot provide for them. Haley makes it seem that having children and passing on the family name, no matter what horror the child risks getting subjected to, is the noblest of goals. I disagree! It sounds crass to say that slaves shouldn't have had children, but I hold all parents, slaves or not (rape victims being an exception), responsible when they knowingly bring children into a world of hell. (And Chicken George - a neglectful parent, to say the least - bringing 8 children into slavery? Nothing admirable there!)