Roots

Rating:
Summary: Amazing story and research, but missing something
Review: Alex Haley is to be congratulated at this well researched and stirring family saga. Just the fact that he was able to use his family's oral history to trace this wonderful story is an achievement most modern authors are unable to lay claim to. And it is a fabulous story, rich in detail and for the first few generations after Kunta Kinte we really get to know the characters.

But it is the very fact that we know intimately only the first few generations that makes this fine work lack something. There is a disproportionate amount of time focused on Kunta Kinte, and whereas this is important, as his is the most harrowing and heart rending story, I feel it takes a little too much of the book. And towards then end, the characters get barely a mention. I should imagine that Alex's father has a story which is equally worth telling, but the latter generations are glossed over. I would really like to know more about these people too.

So it is a magnificent achievement, easy to read and riveting. But it loses steam about half way through, and there is little flesh in the story towards the end. I do recommend it - it is a justly famous and wonderful book - I just feel it misses the opportunity to have been a truly spectacular book

Rating:
Summary: Roots - a family saga.
Review: Roots.

This is a saga of an American family that starts with Kunta Kinte and ends with the author himself. It starts in Gambia in the year of 1750 when Kunta Kinte is born in the village of Juffure where he grows up. When Kunta is about seventeen years old, he is captured by toubobs (white slave hunters) and brought to America on a big slave ship together with a lot of others slaves. Decades pass and generations of slaves from his descendants goes through tough times but keeps the story about Kunta alive. They finally get their freedom back but now they are far away from their homeland.

The language in the beginning of the book isn't very difficult. It is a little more difficult when he comes to America and you start to read the English that the black people speak. For me it was a little difficult in the beginning before I got used to it. He really writes the way that people talk. In this book it's quite a lot of dialogues but it is also a lot of describing text. The pace is good and it is very concentrated to important things. Those are very dramatic.

My favourite character in this book is, without a doubt, Kunta Kinte. It was really interesting to read about his life in Africa, his trip to and his life in America. At first he despises everything that America stands for. He hates the whites because they are white and so evil. He hates the black because they are so stupid that they have given into whites and are letting themselves be controlled by these evil people. They had given up their faith and their traditions and taken part of the whites. He tries to escape four times and then get his foot chopped of. He loses his hope of ever seeing his village or country again and he is determined to keep his religion alive and not to eat meat. (I think that his religion helps him to remember who he really is.) He talks with his daughter about his homeland so that it won't be forgotten. That continues through generations and includes every new person.

He is also the most important character if for no other reason than that about half of the book is about him. It starts with him being taken to America. You read about his feelings, his fears and his hatred for other blacks (and toubobs) when he first comes to America. ....

This book is very well written and full of emotions. Love, joy, sadness, happiness and a lot of pure hatred.

The plot is very believable. This author is very good at describing things. You get an idea about what they were going trough. The places are real and we know that this has happen in our history. The descriptions of the environments are excellent. ...
The must have had an unbearable desire to die. The book is written in the third person until he, himself is born. Then he writes in the first person.

I think Alex Haley doesn't want us to forget this part of our history but also encourage us to find out more about our ancestors. Your family is the most important thing in the world. They went trough tough times but they got through them because they stayed together.

It is not possible to read this book and not be affected in some way.

Rating:
Summary: A family story.
Review: This year for Black History Month, I decided to read a black history book, and I could not think of any title more celebrated than Alex Haley's "Roots". The experience was rewarding far beyond what I would have imagined in two respects. First, learning more about a cultural heritage that was different from my own was an awakening to say the least. Furthermore, Haley proved to be a master storyteller, making the read an enriching personal event.

One of the most compelling aspects of Roots is its conceptual basis. "Roots" is unique in its approach to research. The germination of "Roots" occurred when, as a youth, Haley marveled at the ancient family stories related to him by his maternal grandmother and a coterie of other female cousins and aunts. Those tales relate how a great ancestor known as "the African" was kidnapped into slavery one morning while chopping wood for a drum along a river called "Kamby Bologo". The family's oral tradition was remarkable in its time scale, covering at least five generations after the African was sold into slavery at Annapolis in 1767.

Haley expands his research beyond the family stories to include corroboration from conventional genealogical and historical sources such as official records from Spotsylvania county Virginia. In addition, Haley takes the further (and unprecedented) step of including corroboration from African oral tradition sources know as "Griots". Griots are a cultural phenomenon in West Africa. They are individuals who are combination storytellers and historical archive for a culture that has limited written records. It is the blending of information from such diverse sources that gives "Roots" its unique appeal.

As the father of two young (and darling) children, the most touching part of "Roots" for me was the beginning that related the birth, childhood and early adulthood of "the African" who was named Kunte Kinte. Having an awareness of the general storyline, and knowing what was going to happen eventually to Kunte Kinte, it was heart wrenching to read about the loving family and village relationships that would be forever severed by a terrible crime. The process of committing a person to slavery is dehumanizing in the extreme. "Roots" reversed that process by returning to the chattel that was Kunte Kinte his basic humanity. From the standpoint of prose style, the success of "Roots" herein lies. It is not merely a story from black history, but it is an important cautionary tale for any human being that is tempted to show brutality to fellow travelers.

I did not give "Roots" five stars because of another stylistic issue that I believe diminished its potential impact. It appeared to me that Haley changed his pace about mid way through the text, and I found this somewhat disappointing. Up through Kunte Kinte's sale to "Massa Waller", the character development reminded me of the level of detail you might find in a Victor Hugo novel. However, about the time Kunte Kinte is maimed by slave hunters (they chop off half his foot), it seemed to me that Haley picked up speed in his storytelling, and the years (and generations) began to pass by with ever increasing velocity. I would have preferred a more deliberate approach and greater character development to the later generations (particularly with Kizzy and Chicken George). I think that "Roots" could easily have been twice as long and yet remain a compelling epic.

Rating:
Summary: A riveting drama about American History...
Review: This book begins in the African village of Juffure in the mid-1700's with the birth of Kunta Kinte. The reader is permitted to partake in the first 17 years of Kunta's life, learning along with Kunta the customs of his people... We cheer with him when he graduates from one kafo to the next; we sit in awesome wonder as we read about all of the things he sees on his travels; and we cry out in agony as he is captured and kidnapped by slave traders. We follow Kunta to America, where he makes four failed attempts to escape before slave catchers cut off half of his foot. If more than half of the book is dedicated to Kunta, the remainder of the book is dedicated to his legacy. We follow the life stories of Kunta's daughter Kizzy and Kizzy's son Chicken George, all the way down to Alex himself -- who sits on his grandmother Cynthia's knee, over and over again hearing the story of "The African". I was so captivated by Roots that I took the book with me even to the bathroom. You will not be able to put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: I still have tears in my eyes
Review: I just finished "roots" about ten minutes ago and my eyes are still stinging. The last twenty or so pages are truly the best part in this book, the most fulfilling and moving. The Story of how Alex Haley traced his lineage.

I believe 'roots' to be a very important book, but not a page-turning kind. I was actually a bit anxious to finish it and get it over with, but I think everyone should read this book. Everyone must know this history. Even though a lot of it is fictionalized, the main gist is the truth. Haley couldn't have known what they were saying exactly, his ancestors, or the little things in their daily lives, so he gave them life through his life experiences and through his research and the time period.

When he was standing at the port in Annapolis, 200 years to the day later, it was an incredible feeling for me, the reader, feeling the pride and grief and joy that he felt. Devour this book , in some way, it will change you for the better.

Rating:
Summary: Truely Touching Saga - you'll be shaken to your roots
Review: This book already has hundred reviews .. why am i writing one more ?Well,So much is the power of this book .
This book is different .. It will haunt you . You won't be able to leave this book in half.Nor will you be peaceful for few days after reading it .So is the power of this book .. you are drawn in the characters and really deeply touched by them ..
But it will teach you something you'll never forget.
This book changed my thoughts ..
People have already wriitten about historical , literery aspects of this book and i agree with them this is a masterpiece !!
I want to mention this rather small thing that struck me ,
This family has rather informal way of passing information to generations after generations ..Telling each new born stories about his dad , grand father and indirectly keeping the ROOTS ALIVE ...giving them something to treasure
I thought to myself , what will I be passing to my kids , and what will they tell thier kids and so on ..will my family members down few generations remember somethings about me our times ?
You have to have to read this ,no matter whether you are black brown or white .

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: I never saw the mini-series and don't want to. I finished the book about three days ago, having avoided it and the film since I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon and follow a trend. But this was one time I wish I had listened to everyone else, for I truly missed one of the great pieces of literature out there. ROOTS, along with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and Jackson McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD are some of my favorite books now and have a special place in my heart. The writing is excellent, the story will blow you away, and it seems as fresh (and disturbing) today--as if it were just written. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a heart and soul.

Also recommended: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and BARK OF THE DOGWOOD

Rating:
Summary: WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK FOR EVERYONE!!!
Review: This book IS one of the landmarks in writing in the 20th century. It was the first REAL book that i started reading from start to end and WHAT a journey it was!! From the first page Alex Haley grips you into the epic story of Kunta Kinte leading up to the author's actual life. Despite the book's large size it will not matter as soon as you start reading it.
I found this book not only to be a work of fiction, but also a history lesson of the slavery era and black history in general. The dialogue and characters Haley talks about are top rate and he writes it in a way that makes you feel that you were actually there watching it all happen!! There are even some parts of the book where I found myself nearly shedding tears!!! due to the drama that unfold in the book, especially the part where he describes the slave ship.
I highly recommend this book for two reasons. First, because it is a fascinating look at the Slavery Era and what followed it with its 'raw' and dreadful reality. Second, because this book will educate those who read it, including myself, about the brave struggle of the Blacks in the U.S towards achieving their freedom.

Rating:
Summary: Who we were... and who we are
Review: In 688 pages, Alex Haley has captured in his history of one family, the history of an entire race of people whose names and identities were stolen from them. It's hard to say if this book is fiction, history or biography, since it reads so much like all three. Haley found sizeable gaps in his efforts to trace his family roots, and of necessity had to fill in the blanks from his own imagination, but it reads so convincingly that none of the fictionalized parts detract from the overall story. Probably millions of American blacks, I among them, have wondered where we came from and tried to trace our family lines, only to inevitably run up against a brick wall. (I managed to trace my own family reliably back to my great-great-great-grandmother, who arrived here at the end of the 18th century on a slave ship, but I'll never know her tribe or her nationality.) Haley begins his story fittingly in a small African village, where a 17 year old boy named Kunta Kinte is abducted by slave traders after venturing out of his village alone. His harrowing voyage to America is told in some 50 of the most gut-wrenching pages ever written. It's been reliably estimated that the death rate on the slave ships was between 35 and 40%; translated into numbers, that means that besides the 14 million Africans who were dragged, more dead than alive, onto the shores of the Americas, another 11 million died en route. Sold into slavery to a Virginia planter, Kunta lives out his life in bondage, struggling to hold onto the few remnant of his African identity. Haley is a great storyteller and the narrative sweeps through succeeding five generations, bringing his subjects vividly to life, and it all reads like a great novel until we are brought up short by his own arrival on the scene a century and a half after his ancestor's birth, and then it hits us like a knockout punch: forget the novel, this is real. This is Haley's family and every black family in America that has struggled to survive and has not only survived, but has succeeded despite enormous odds. The most mind-blowing part of the book, for this reader, was when Haley returned to his ancestor's native Gambian village of Juffure and heard his own family history narrated by the Griot. Haley has written, in his history of one family, the story of every family in America that traces its roots back to Africa from the 16th through the early 19th centuries. In the words of old African-American saying, which has relevance for everyone, you can't know where you're going, if you don't know where you've been. Haley shows us, in vivid and at times excruciating detail, where we've been, and what we've come through to be who we are.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for a wide variety of readers
Review: Alex Haley's Roots has become a classic of American literature in the relatively few years since its release in 1976. Indeed, few books of any kind released during the 20th century had its impact. Its immense popularity -- the book has since sold millions of copies and spawned a critically-acclaimed television mini-series -- has left two legacies. First, it inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of people, both black and white, to trace their history back to its roots. Also, it shed an illuminating light on the plight suffered by African-Americans during America's long years of slavery (it may seem unnecessary to point this out, as the subject is no longer looked over perpetually, but, at the time the book was released, it was a near-taboo subject often relegated to the status of the proverbial pink elephant in the corner.) In so doing, it played a big role in opening our eyes to a chapter in our history that we are all-too-often prone to merely gloss over. Consequently, it also helped to bring about the revolution in African-American socio-cultural studies, doing much to make African American studies a respected scholarly field and also a popular college major.

But all of this is background, because the book itself also makes for great literature. Though Haley is no prose stylist, his writing style, honed by his years of journalism, epitomizes the quasi-documentary. The story is very wide in its breadth: it covers a period of over 200 years. The product of 12 years of research and writing, Roots is the culmination of an astonishing and monumental feat of genealogical detective work. Haley was among the very first -- if not, indeed THE first -- African-Americans to trace his ancestry all the way back to his African roots: the birth of his great-great-great-great-grandfather, Kunte Kinte in 1750. From that point on, he gives us the story of his family, all the way up to himself. The story is certainly not balanced in respect to each generation: a couple of hundred pages are devoted to Kunte Kinte, with fewer pages being devoted to each successive generation. By the end of the book, generations are glossed over in a matter of mere pages. This, however, is not to be lamented: in order to keep the book at a manageable length, the more exciting and engrossing people and stories are given more pages (Haley mentions in his acknowledgement that his editor excised many pages from the originally very long manuscript.) The only real problem here is that sometimes the stories of some of the individual people are cut off very abruptly -- including Kinte's -- which leaves the reader hanging with a sense of incompleteness. This, however, is also true-to-life: the families of slaves were often broken up in just this way, with one part never hearing from the other part again (this, indeed, was the case for the lucky ones, who were fortunate to know their parents at all.) This is also justified by reality: the point where Kinte's story breaks off in the book is also the point where the historical evidence relating to him breaks off; Haley could not have taken his story any further, having nothing to go on.

Looked at from a purely literary point of view, in regard to its story, Roots is a masterpiece. The book starts out rather slowly for those who are unfamiliar with African culture or who don't particularly care about it. It rapidly moves on from there, reaching many emotional and suspenseful peaks. This book can make one cry and make one sad with its depictions of the utter cruelty committed by men upon men. It can also make one fiercely proud of the admirable endurance of the human spirit through all manner of hardships and suffering. The book contains a very moving story that makes it both poignant and hard to put down. The book is also very interesting for its depiction of life in Africa, a thing of which many people are ignorant, and for its unique perspective on American history -- the saga of the mighty republic seen through the eyes of slaves.

Recently, the long-praised book has suffered a critical backlash due to accusations of inconsistency, inaccuracy, and deliberate factual manipulation. It needs to be pointed out that neither Haley nor anyone else has ever purported the conceit that the book is 100%, certifiable fact -- how could it be? Haley, not being a witness to the majority of his ancestor's lives, was naturally forced to write dialogue and scenarios that are not certifiably factual, though many of them are based on fact. Haley admits as much in his acknowledgement and in the text of the book itself. Indeed, such a fact should be self-evident. The important thing, though, is this: the events portrayed in Roots, whether they actually happened to the characters in the book or not, did happen to real people like them. The story of Haley's ancestors is not meant to be an entirely factual documentary: it is a saga that speaks across the ages to the descendants of all former slaves -- and, indeed, to all people who have ever been curious about their roots. Those who claim that Haley deliberately manipulated facts for his own monetary gain are presumptuous to their detriment. Who would've predicted that a book like this would sell in 1976? Aside from that, Haley, as he mentions in the book, did not originally intend to put the results of his research down in book form: he was clearly motivated by a genuine curiosity about his past.

In summary, this is a wonderful book in many different ways -- as literature, as a socio-historical cultural document, and as an inspiration and motivation for anyone wanting to know more about their roots. It is an essential read for anyone interest in sociology, cultural relations, African American studies, the plight of slaves in America, or anyone just looking for a great and unique read.