Roots

Rating:
Summary: An emotional masterpiece
Review: Never before, has any book had an effect on my personal philosophy of myself and my history as this. My family too were slaves, but until this novel came into my hands and I read it's texts rich with history, have I felt a connection to them. I knew, of course, that my family had come from slavery, but slavery had never been presented to me in this manner before. The fear of kidnapping from Africa, The terrible realities of the middle passage, and the life on the plantation. IT made me realise what they endured so that I would be here today. It's made me reflect on the ancestors from wence I came, and made me say "Thank you for surviving." Haley must have been moved by his work as much as I was, to have written it with such passion.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting part of american history
Review: After the african part which unfortunately didn't catch my attention, the story of slavery in America over several generations was really worth the read. The two main reasons are that the talented and awarded author manages to show us touching characters and gives simultaneously many glimpses into the american history. A history that we Europeans (I'm French) often ignore but which Haley gives me the desire to learn more about. By the way, the biography of Malcolm X by the same writer is also worth a read

Rating:
Summary: A book that brings humanity vividly to life!
Review: The story that traces the lives of the generations of black slaves in America reveals the cruelty of humanity that has been forgotten and ignored. Through the gripping tale of the slaves, readers can identify with the emotional trauma that they are going through with that of yesteryears. They are so real and human and inevitably leads us to wonder what has or has not changed over the years. Surprisingly, what that has apparently changed and forgotten has merely taken on another form, maybe worst then what one can expect

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Wonderful
Review: I won't get all into detail in this review. The book ROOTS is so unblievably good. It looks like a dictionary, I know this, but it is like a damn journey. You will never want to stop reading

Rating:
Summary: Heritage Regained
Review: Alex Haley's monumental tribute to his forebears provides not only the perfect antidote for Blacks in a society that perpetually miseducates us about our ancestral homeland, but also an unblinking and unflinching view of slavery.
This was the book that made Americans of all races and creeds care about this country's shameful past in a way that many never had before. The book points out the role of Arab slave traders in the problem, but it should be noted that under their auspices such problems stayed on African soil until the arrival of the toubob.
Haley does a brilliant job of getting inside the heads, hearts and souls of his forbear, Kunta Kinte and his family, however fictional certain aspects of the story may be. He warmly and lovingly re-creates both the positive and negative aspects of life in the village of Juffure, The Gambia, detailing their family lives, educational system, religious life, and their complex system of government. We learn about griots, who are highly reminiscent of the wandering minstrels of Medieval Europe, who through their songs and stories, pass the history of their people from one generation to another.I could feel the hot,arid climate of that region from just reading!
If people never read any other part of this epic saga, I would at least encourage them to read Chapter 24 in which Haley gives a brief but college-level education about the great kingdoms of West Africa, including Mali, the Kingdom where the world's first University was built in Timbuktu.More so than Europeans, Americans have a harder time accepting Africans as people of acheivement with a noteworthy history, even though they know that the earliest civilizations of man began on that continent, and that Africans have had thousand of years to figure out many things for which our culture does not give them credit.
It was to the University of Timbuktu that Kunta Kinte had purportedly planned to travel when sometime in the summer of 1767, he was chopping wood to make a drum and was attacked by four men who killed his pet dog, knocked him unconscious, and after a demeaning process of being chained, shaved, and branded by his abductors, had him loaded aboard the Lord Ligonier, and shipped to America on a filthy and horrifying journey, where he touches terra firma again at the docks of Annapolis, Maryland on September 29, 1767.
Every emotion Kunta must have felt as he lost control of his life, identity, name, and physical personage is registered. We feel his bewilderment, at dealing with his first view of an alien culture, Native Americans, innumerable degradations, first encounter with snow during one of four attempts to escape, and his pain when his foot is severed. His humbling discovery of his need for love is especially saddening.
Kunta's overwhelming resentment at the docility of the other slaves is replaced with understanding of their survival tactics. He befriends a gardener and fiddler after being sold to a kinder master, and he meets Belle, several years his senior, whom he eventually marries, and has a daughter named Kizzy.
Massa Waller's daughter, Missy Anne teaches Kizzy to read, and Kunta Kinte's life ends in the heartbreak of permanent separation from his daughter when the teenager writes an illegal pass for her sweetheart, Noah, and is sold from the Virginia plantation to a more sadistic master in North Carolina, who rapes her repeatedly and by whom she has her son, George.
In the midst of their dehuminization, we learn how the slaves manage to sustain a culture, learn and discuss current events, to love each other and have honorable relationships, even though the auction block may part them forever, and to periodically assert themselves and settle scores with their oppressors.While reading this story, I was reminded of how professors have warned that whatever Europeans did to others for so long boomeranged in two world wars.
The story follows the triumphs and tragedies of Chicken George and his descendants and finally ends with Alex Haley's emotional quest to trace his heritage and ascertain the truth about stories he was told in his boyhood.
Ultimately, Haley compensates for his ancestors' losses merely by his presence at the dock at Annapolis on the 200th anniversary of his ancestor's disembarkment there.
Whereas Kunta Kinte's abduction was lamented in 1767, two centuries later, in an underrated moment that is probably one of the most sacred in literary history, Haley visits Juffure and reconnects with those of his ancestral village who address him by his forebear's name.
Happily, the circle is complete and the world made to care about events that claimed more lives than Hitler's Final Solution.
Kunta Kinte's memory is honored with an annual festival in Annapolis, and every September 29th, a promising African American is given a scholarship in his name.
Hence, the Gambian who had once hoped to study at the University of Timbuktu has his waylaid ambitions fulfilled through others. There could not be a more fitting tribute to his memory.

Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: Did you ever feel nostalgic ? It is a very sweet emotion, isn't it ? On deeeper thought we discover that this emotion is not merely missing the people we have left behind. It is the loss of the place, it's sense, the sights all put together in which people are only one of the ingredients. Now imagine a person who could trace his ancestry back through seven generations to another continent and completely different culture and you can guess what kind of a book 'ROOTS' is.

The journey begins in a tribal village in Africa called Juffure in 1750. The first part of the book is very endearing with a lifelike description of the tribal existance and how the main character of the book Kunta Kinte develops. Then disaster suddenly strikes. I won't tell you in what form because you will anticipate it even when you start reading. But let me just say this. There are not many books where you will feel compelled to enter the story to prevent something (knowing what will follow).

The second part is an insight into the American lifestyle in the early 1800's and the cotton plantations where slave's were employed. The next generations of Kunta Kinte are not dealt with as much detail and the book provides only a fleeting glimpse of each group of families. Here the text is a little difficult to read as spoken language is directly employed. Without word endings and a lot of slang, sometimes you have to actually 'read out' to understand the dialogue. However, a good hundred pages where the episode of a chicken breeder is described is very exciting.

If you read this till the end (and why won't you?), I can promise you that the heightened emotion you will experience when the author visits the village of his ancestor can be got from very few literary works.

This is a very powerful book which will stay with one for a long time. This is a true account of how the early african-americans suffered and the savagery of many of the early white settlers. Because of the mix of fiction/non-fiction the author employs, this saga had it's share of controversy. But whether this particular narrative is true or not is irrelevant since there have been a million genuine cases similar to this. We often
forget that history is written by winners and the tribulations of the other side are rarely chronicled. Only through books like these do we realise that another side also exists.

Bravo Haley!

Rating:
Summary: Roots by Alex Haley
Review: Roots was an epic novel written by Alex Haley. This book was about Kinta Kinta, a black African sold into slavery in the United States. When he first arrives at his new home on a plantation in the south, he refuses to give up his African name, Kunta Kinti, for the American name of Toby. This was one of the most touching moments in the novel because he was so proud of his heritage. As his family grows he passes on his African heritage down the family line. His family overcomes many obstacles in America and end up settling in Tennesee.

Rating:
Summary: Roots
Review: This book goes through generations and generations of slavery and black culture starting in the 1750's. It not only touches the heart but makes you think and hassuspense. I would reccommend this book to anyone who is interested in their heritage or slavery, the civil war, and the recovrey of the civil war. This book is probably the best book I have ever read and I hope you read it too.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but Dry at Times
Review: Unlike another review I read, I found myself whizzing through the beginning of the story, which starts with Kunta Kinte's birth in Africa, and follows his growth until his capture. I found this to be the most interesting part of the book, for it is the history and culture that millions of Africans lost when they came to America and were forced to conform to the 'toubob' way of living.
In the end of the book, as we got further and further away from the depth of the story, I found myself snoozing a little bit.
Roots is an amazing story, and despite Haley's mistelling of some of the true facts, and his borrowing of some other writer's work, is a classic read.

Rating:
Summary: ROOTS - Starting of A Journey
Review: I first read this Book, more than 10 years ago now. I was in the 10th Grade. I was born and raised and live in Australia. Yet Roots, the Novel and then also the mini-series, became one of the driving forces behind my passion for searching the great story of the United States.

Along with the phenomenal series, The Civil War, by Ken Burns and (hosts), Gore Vidal, and his Novelization of Historical America (ie. Burr, Lincoln etal.) I began to take an interest in the history and Culture of our Pacific Neighbour.

The Journey of Alex Haley's family fascinating in it's description and detail from mid 18th Century Colonial America, through to the 20th Century, was and remains as many other's have noted, a landmark in American literature and history.

I remember I began reading this hard cover version, and not being able to drop it. As a guy in his teens, with such a powerful historical narrative, it began to open my eyes.

I have since then, gone on to complete an Honours Thesis on the subject of American Intellectual Culture, and how it draws from it's historical roots. While my academic and career directions have moved in recent years, my personal passsion to know and delve into the richness of American culture and history has not dimmed.

I want to express my gratitude to Alex Haley for opening up the biographical - social history of his people and his nation. So that no matter what oceans we traverse on what continents we come from, we can tap into this mighty story which longs to be re-read, and draws us to our own roots, wherever they may be.

Thankyou,

Corey (11/28/2004)