Roots - Alex Haley > Reviews (6)

"Roots" is one of those novels that you hear about but never really have the time to read. I've always wanted to read it but the length of it has always deterred me. It must be said that I'm not an avid reader and I mainly read chic lit and the odd crime novel. However one day I decided that the time had come and I picked up a copy of "Roots" on my way home from work and started reading it the same evening. To be honest it took me the better part of a month to read the entire novel, but having said that I'm really glad I did.

The plot
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"Roots" is an autobiographical novel in which we get to follow the author Alex Haley's family history from the 1750s up till the 1970s. Even though the people in the novel have all existed there's no way of knowing what their lives were really like, therefore there are elements of fiction in it as well.

The novel starts with the birth of Kunta Kinte in the village of Juffure in the Gambia in the year 1750. The first part of the novel tells about his life in the Gambia and Haley pays a lot of attention to details of the culture of the Mandinka tribe. However, when Kunta is approximately 16 years old he is captured by slave dealers and taken to America where he's sold.

Kunta tries to escape several times but eventually accepts his destiny. Still he doesn't let go of his past and therefore he is delighted when his only child, a girl named Kizzy, shows an interest in his history and eagerly learns some Mandinka words and also the story about how Kunta as a young boy was captured by a group of white men while out chopping wood one day.

This is a story that lives on through the generations and even Alex Haley when he was young heard the story about Kunta Kinte the African who came to America onboard a slave ship. He decides to seek his roots (hence the title) and travels to Africa and actually manages to locate the village of Juffure without knowing its name and he also finds an old man, a story teller, who actually knows the story of the young boy Kunta Kinte who disappeared one day never to be seen again.

My opinion
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I was absolutely captivated when I read this novel and you really start to care a great deal for the characters, not only Kunta Kinte but all his descendants. There are so many memorable characters, Chicken George (Kizzy's son) being one of my favourites, but I will not talk about all of them here. There's no way I could do them all justice so you just have to read the novel and get to know them yourself!

The novel can be quite graphic at times and therefore painful to read. I felt especially uncomfortable when reading about how Kunta and about 150 other slaves where taken across the Atlantic onboard a slave ship. The conditions on the ships were appalling and the slaves were chained to the floor where they were forced to lay in their own faeces, they had sores that got infected and on their shoulders and bottoms the flesh had been worn away from lying on rough wood so you could see all the way down to the bones.

All of this as well as the emotional pain these slaves were going through Haley describes really well and don't be surprised if you find yourself crying when reading it.

I would definitely recommend this novel as it is a classic and it deals with some important parts of American history: it covers both slavery and the emancipation of slaves. I've googled some of the historical events that are described in the book and they are portrayed accurately which I appreciate. My only problem with this book is the fact that Haley writes in African American Vernacular English (the way the slaves talked) and even though I can see why he does it, it's still difficult to read as the grammar and spelling is so different to what I'm used to, and sometimes I even had to read it out loud in order to understand what it meant. This is also why it took me so long to read it. However, this is a minor problem I believe and I think I will read "Roots" again, but not for a while though. I have actually bought the TV series from 1977 on DVD so I'm going to watch that instead.

The book costs about £8.99 but you can find it cheaper than that on Amazon. The edition I bought (the one on the picture) has 688 pages.