Do you remember watching The Titanic or Gladiator for the first time? How you cried and cried and cried at the end? How you found the fictional depiction of history so mesmerizing? This book, may be, one of the best books of historical fiction I have ever read, if not the BEST book I have ever read. Like many people, I appreciate a good tear-jerker, but this books made me cry tears so full of the realization of human-failure that I couldn't stop.
Imagine watching your son or daughter (or future son/daughter) weigh and record their own excrement in order to prove misconstrued social conceptions.
In high school biology class, do you remember dissecting different deceased animals? Now imagine that as a family member being picked apart by scientists. (I am sorry about the terrible image, but imagine how that would affect you, how heartbreaking and disturbing that would be.)
M.T. Anderson deals with the earliest onset of slavery in America in a way no other author ever has. Young Octavian is the son of an African princess, Cassiopeia. They live in a mansion in 18th century Boston run by 03-01, Mr. Gitney. Mr. Gitney believe in a ranking a person's status though numbers. Mr. Gitney along with philosophers, artists, and scientists are running an experiment using Octavian and his mother to see if the African race is inferior to the European race in the Novanglian College of Lucidity.
That being said, this novel pushes young adult literature to a level of such supreme quality that those of you in the world who disregard young adult literature will be astonished after reading this book. It's at a level superior to adult novels in content and social commentary.
This book is also extremely intertextual in that (PAGING TEACHERS) it explores and describes a segment of history not touched upon by many: the earliest beginnings of the Revolutionary War. While I was reading this text, I couldn't help but think how wonderful of a teaching tool this text would be. I remember wishing in grade school that my teachers would be more creative in the class room. Using supplementary texts, such as this one would be an excellent way to make students interested in historical studies.
How does this text fit this book series?
This novel will make readers question social traps of race and prejudice issues that remain today. While reading this novel you should question American history, and how people have felt trapped through slavery and during the Civil Rights movement with Jim Crow laws.
Octavian is literally trapped by a system that seems inescapable in more ways than one: mentally, physically, and socially.
There are numerous novels on slavery; while reading this text I was also enrolled in two African American novel courses. Because this text is written by a white author (similar to Kathryn Stockett's The Help and Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), you wonder how authors become trapped by stereotype in being accused of not being able to tell a true story of a different race. This book tears down that stereotype in evoking such feeling and sentiment, it's not even an issue.
Memorable Quotes:
- "For strangers know more of us, and can judge of us more without reproach than ever those we love." (219)
- "And then they imprisoned me in darkness; and though there was no color there, I was still black, and they still were white; and for that, they bound and gagged me." (p. 314)
- "May the Lord remind me of this always as I walk free upon paths, and may I thus always give thanks unto Him for the strange small gifts of gesture, of simple tasks done with requisite care and sphere of action." (p. 318)
Cherry on Top:
The best part of this novel is the epic final scene, which I must keep private due to spoiling the novel. I have already recommended this book to a handful of people, and now I recommend it to you. You'll want to pass this novel down to your children and grandchildren after reading.
Connecting with the text:
Here M.T. Anderson speak at the 2010 National Book Festival.
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