Something about this personalness despite having to live in the world with its fucked up agendas and confusion from all sides spoke to me. No one gets to steal anyone else's story. Are our ideals and ideas vulnerable to being enslaved on us? Dulled into stupidity? Or selling-out? What the hell does anyone owe anybody else, anyway? (I don't think they do, beyond trying not to hurt anyone.) The sickness is worked up... I could probably pick many examples from today's culture (like pregnant teens m More...

I wouldn't have thought it possible to write a funny book about slavery, but Ishmael Reed does just that in Flight to Canada. This is a multilayered postmodern satire of slavery and the racism that pervades America, not just in the 19th century, but in the late 20th century as well.

Reed diagnoses the sickness of the South by associating southern plantation owners with King Arthur and Edgar Allan Poe. They are wannabe Arthurians who wallow in decadence: "Raised by mammies, the South is dandyish, More...

How to Subvert Colonization
(spoiler alert)
When an Imperial culture seeks to dominate a population outside their own without actually killing them off, three essential tools are to (as best as is possible) take away their language, their folklore and their spirituality. When slave-trading whites from the West sought insure subjugation of African slaves, they employed these tools with a vengeance. In his anachronistic satire of the Civil War, Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed wrests these tools from More...

Hilarious! Another great read if you like history and also Civil War literature. It basically juxtaposes the Civil War era with the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. It takes the assassination of Abe Lincoln and televises it just like the J.F.K assassination and really messes with your historical senses. I really like the way it was written and the way it illuminated problems that said: we had racism then, and we still have it now, so don't think that we don't. It's really in-your face. Not only th More...

In an attempt to break down the "black aesthetic," Ishmael Reed presents a wildly entertaining, uproariously funny, and impossibly anachronistic hybrid tale in Flight to Canada. Featuring the slave-poet who escapes on a jet plane named Raven Quickskill, a bumbling Abraham Lincoln, the sado-masochist Master Swille, the pornographic model Stray Leechfield, and the conspiracy-theory-lover 40s, the ensemble cast provides a great deal of humor. Underlying the humor, however, is a biting satire of Ame More...

Reed is not for everyone but he is for me. In this kaleidoscopic history of America, we see a hundred years collapsed on itself and acted out by caricatures. Reed shreds to pieces what we think we know about slavery, the civil war, abolitionism, and freedom and no side goes unscathed. His writing leaps off the page. Talking about Reed, someone recently said to me, "He is fun to read but he has 'attitude.'" If you idolize Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe, this book might offend you and maybe tha More...

This book was pretty awesome, so I'm surprised to see that none of my friends have read it. I was going to write a review telling you all how great it is and that you should read it, but frankly I'm just too lazy to bother and apparently the only reason I come here anymore is to post strange unwanted rants about the futility of life on people's reviews (sorry about that Eric) and also to make stupid jokes that no one laughs at, whatever, I think they're funny even if you bastards don't, beside w More...

Beside broadly symbolic characters, the book's chief feature is a sort of bleary historical simultaneity, the total merger of the 1860s and the then now of the 1970s. This setup yields a few comic moments and a very good sense of the endlessness of American history, but it didn't make for much of a story. A few excellent passages, however, offer some redemption.

Reed draws the curtain back to aid his reader into making connections between slavery and contemporary racism by this still innovative novel, to meeting our own lives and meeting the legacies of fear and hatred and contempt that bind us together as we try to make a new and different way.

Let go of all your preconceived notions of what a novel should be, and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Reed distorts time and brings the civil war to the 20th century in this postmodern slave narrative. I really enjoyed this book and keep going back to it in my mind over and over again.

This book is the first of it's kind that I've read, and one of my favorites of Ishmael Reed. The story does not take place in any one point in time or history, but still has a completely realistic feel. Very entertaining and thought-provoking.

This is amazing. It's not at all what I expected - I walked into this book without any idea of the plot - but it's hilarious, and makes its point beautifully and sharply.

Great comic set up, can't help but wish it was a bit longer to see more of these characters, particularly Reed's Lincoln. It's almost an excerpt, an episode from a larger story, though I realize that's intentional.

Always challenging Reed--should read it again soon--thanks to Bradly DeFelice for reminding me how much I enjoy this novel!

I'm not sure what I think - it's a wild ride, not necessarily enjoyable, funny/depressing, disconcerting...uncomfortable, but brilliantly written.

Anachronistic, iconoclastic, and generally belligerant. Not my favorite.

Satire that's funny, biting and still relevant. A great read.

I might have liked this more as a freshman in college, but I probably still wouldn't have been able to finish it. Glad to invoke my tried and true "if it's not better halfway through, it never will be" rule in this case.

Roman

This book is so funny!!!! I have never laughed so hard in my life over the contents of a book before. Reed taps into the absurdity of the institution of American slavery. He wants his reader to understand that any society that condones racism and slavery is highly absurd and not at all civilized. The brutality of slavery, the Civil War and racism lies in the nation's absurdity and stupidity. I highly recommend this book!

This book is a scathing commentary on racism in the U.S. and not just during slavery, but as the book suggests, through imagery etc, right now in the present as well. The references to Poe throughout are great. Some parts were a tad bit explicit for my taste, but it fit the book.

I enjoyed this but think I probably missed a lot of the meaning...lots of absurd and anachronistic symbolism. Pretty interesting take on Honest Abe and other civil war era figures, from what I can remember. Challenges the conventional view of Lincoln as a saintly humanitarian.

A historiographic metafiction juxtaposing the mid-1800s (Abe Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Underground Railway) with the 1960s (Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau).

The 1860s collide with the 1960s in Reed's Flight to Canada. Slaves take jumbo jets to escape from the south and this po-mo piece of literature leaves you reeling. May be a little odd for those who think postmodernism is insane.

AMAZING and original, anacronistic story about fugitive slaves...you must suspend all your disbeliefs....

Probably my favorite writer at the moment. I little full of himself, but his prose is brilliant.

Not sure I "got" it but still an enjoyable read

Believe it or not, it's a funny slave narrative...

Be prepared to use Wikipedia. A lot.