Rating: 
Summary: The Haitian Slave revolt that casts its shadow over today
Review: If one wants a powerful and unsettling sense of how the roots of race were buried so deeply in the western hemisphere, and how they entangle so much of the reality of the 20th Centurye, there is no better guide than Madison Smartt Bell. His powerful, blood-seeped, historical novel "All Souls Rising," traces the vibrant African will to freedom as it collides with the arrogant and brutal Colonial settlers of France and the mixed-bloods and others who sought to ride the horse of horrors. Though the land of Bell's imagination is confined mostly to the isolated half of the island known to Columbus as Hispaniola, and to the modern world as Haiti, the reader's imagination will be carried to events as fresh in their humanity as tonight's news reports. Through Bell's brilliantly informed imagination, the souls he births ring all too true-to-life, shudderingly so. Bell's creations will resonate forever in the minds the readers and chillingly so for those who have ever visited Haiti. The awful reality of Bell's world tell us, yes, it must have been that way and it reminds us that there can no other explanation for the world of the races as we know it today
Rating: 
Summary: lots of words
Review: If you like the tease of adultery and fornication, mutiliation from excessive torture in every third chapter then this is the book for you. Bell knows how to stimulate the reader and does so often. The other reviewers have captured his ability to poignantly describe the atmosphere.
Rating:
Summary: GETS INSIDE THEIR MINDS
Review: Most extraordinary, perhaps unique, is the way this book gets way inside the minds of 18th-century slaves faithful to Vaudou. It is something we cannot judge, yet Bell does it so convincingly you have to believe he actually got a look inside.
Rating: 
Summary: What is humanity?
Review: The book is a metaphor of what it means to be human. If you have ever asked yourself who is evil in the the world, where the line can be drawn between the good and evil in humanity then this is a book that will change you. Madison shows his virtuosity in literature in a brilliant display of what it means to be human and what humanity clings to as food for the soul. You learn of the grotesque poisons that one soul inflicts on another and the embrace of inner conflict when one accepts another, faults and all. The characters are for the most part deeply entwined in the the plot, in many different ways, and there are many of them, so be sure to make a list of characters, in the back of the book or somewhere, as you encounter them throughout the story. Rest assured this book is not perfect, but no novel is. At times you will face slowerer parts, and surely this book will test your anylytical skills, it will not be at the same level as "See Spot Run," it is a difficult novel, but you will not be dissapointed at the end. At its conclusion you will feel as though you accomplished something more worthwhile than your job, and satisfyingly so. Don't be discouraged if it gets hard! Its worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Arise and Weep
Review: This is the kind of book that can make you seem obsessed. Once you enter Bell's world, you're disturbed, excited, and depressed, but you can't stop talking about the book you're in. It's like having a secret that's too heavy to really divulge, but you keep alluding to parts of it, as if you were talking in code. People look at you like you're sort of cracked, but generally they think it will pass. The blood-soaked history of Haiti is cause for despair, but the revolutionary spirit of the 1790's makes you hope in spite of what you know. Toussaint is one of the great heroes of all time, and Bell makes him both human and epic. In this book, you don't develop much emotional connection to him -- that's the province of more fictional characters like Doctor Hebert and Riau -- but you care immensely about his success as a leader. You want him to be as great, as visionary, as Martin Luther King, but he belongs to a different era, a violent one. The backdrop of the French Revolution, with its mixture of rights and terror, is essential to the drama of All Souls' Rising, and most readers will need to read the appendix several times to stay abreast of royalists, Jacobins, and emissaries from the Mother Country. Some knowledge of American history might help --Jefferson, for instance, opposed the Haitian slave revolt because he feared something similar in the US which would deprive him of slaves plus the boost he got from the 3/5 compromise which gave white planters more votes, while Adams and Pickering favored emancipation and liberation -- but you can follow the essential plot without historical annotation. It's the kind of gravy that lifts the book to a higher level, but readers looking for love, betrayal, courage, devotion, cruelty, sex, and perverse logic will be sated. Contemporary maps won't help with many of the locations, but Bell has a map in the second volume of the trilogy, Master of the Crossroads, that helped me get a sense of place. The themes and the style of the book are managed with power and grace. Bell's a hell of a writer, and I believed each of the voices in the narrative. Big books like this sweep you up and carry you away, but this book sweeps the reader into a present time of continuous revolution in Haiti, slaughter in Sudan, disease and unending horror in much of Africa, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. The blood drama of Bell's Haiti gives us a red filter for understanding our own time. At the end of the book, I'm thrilled by the revolutionary possibilities, depressed by the inevitable destruction and failure, and grateful for every moment of compassion and kindness however small. I can't wait to read the next volume.
Rating:
Summary: Ominous, powerful, and exotic
Review: This story of the Haitian revolution is violent and disturbing, but its violence is handled with care and placed in the context of each character's psychology and motivations. The characters are believable, the history seems painstakingly accurate, and the sensory descriptions are rich and vivid. The book leaves you with new, unresolved questions about what race is -- a topic which obsesses many of the characters in the book as well.An unforgettable read and an important one.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Historical Novel
Review: This very good book describes the beginning phases of the great Haitian slave revolt. Bell is a talented writer with a real gift for descriptive prose. This long and dense book reads easily and is very informative. Bell depicts a society in which whites, blacks, and mulattoes are locked in a mutual embrace of hatred and exploitation, leading to the horrific events described graphically in this book. This book is not for the squemish, it contains many scenes of horrifying cruelty. This book is very ambitious in scope and has some deficiencies. I find Bell's efforts to emphasize the role of voudon, the syncretic Afro-Haitian religion, somewhat contrived. For a useful comparison, see the brief and evocative novel The Kingdom of this World by the great Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Bell's characters are also somewhat flat. This may be deliberate choice on his part; part of an effort to show the consequences of a society where almost all human relationships are based on asymmetric and exploitative power relationships. Bell does not deal with the role of events in France or how these events shaped what happened in Haiti. This is an understandable but crucial omission. Consequently, we never get a sense of the collision of the ideals of the French Revolution with the reality of colonial exploitation.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Historical Novel
Review: This very good book describes the beginning phases of the great Haitian slave revolt. Bell is a talented writer with a real gift for descriptive prose. This long and dense book reads easily and is very informative. Bell depicts a society in which whites, blacks, and mulattoes are locked in a mutual embrace of hatred and exploitation, leading to the horrific events described graphically in this book. This book is not for the squemish, it contains many scenes of horrifying cruelty. This book is very ambitious in scope and has some deficiencies. I find Bell's efforts to emphasize the role of voudon, the syncretic Afro-Haitian religion, somewhat contrived. For a useful comparison, see the brief and evocative novel The Kingdom of this World by the great Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Bell's characters are also somewhat flat. This may be deliberate choice on his part; part of an effort to show the consequences of a society where almost all human relationships are based on asymmetric and exploitative power relationships. Bell does not deal with the role of events in France or how these events shaped what happened in Haiti. This is an understandable but crucial omission. Consequently, we never get a sense of the collision of the ideals of the French Revolution with the reality of colonial exploitation.
Rating:
Summary: Grandioso
Review: Toccante, il libro mi ha coinvolto sin dall'inizio e a distanza di un anno ancora penso a quegli accadimenti. Madison Smartt Bell fa rivivere un'epoca ed il lettore penetra nell'atmosfera sudata di Haiti. Si riescono a sentire i profumi, gli amori, la violenza estrema.....un libro fatto di sensazioni che toccano il profondo.
Rating:
Summary: Grandioso
Review: Toccante, il libro mi ha coinvolto sin dall'inizio e a distanza di un anno ancora penso a quegli accadimenti. Madison Smartt Bell fa rivivere un'epoca ed il lettore penetra nell'atmosfera sudata di Haiti. Si riescono a sentire i profumi, gli amori, la violenza estrema.....un libro fatto di sensazioni che toccano il profondo.
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