Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
18th out of 58 books
—
53 voters
Middle Passage
Winner of the National Book Award
“A novel in the honorable tradition of Billy Budd and Moby Dick…heroic in proportion… fiction that hooks into the mind.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Long after we’d stopped believing in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that.” — Chicago Tribune
“It’s a joy to read fiction in which ther...more
“A novel in the honorable tradition of Billy Budd and Moby Dick…heroic in proportion… fiction that hooks into the mind.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Long after we’d stopped believing in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that.” — Chicago Tribune
“It’s a joy to read fiction in which ther...more
Paperback, 209 pages
Published
July 1st 1998
by Scribner
(first published 1990)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
2,624)
I liked it quite a bit. I'm not sure what to do with the narrative voice, though. It's, at times, wildly anachronistic and, frankly, unrealistic. This is all the more strange because Johnson is writing into a literary legacy that has a very particular set of tropes--all of which, he easily elides in order to utilize a narrator who's likeable and street-wise sophisticated. Yet this is also a man who is an uneducated, recently freed slave in 1830--a character who has an acute knowledge of continen...more
This was the perfect foil for Alexie's
The Toughest Indian in the World
. Johnson's novel is every bit as full of political and cultural commentary, is in fact a devastating indictment of slave-trading, but those points of view rise naturally out of the narrative, appear simply as facts littered about the story, rather than the other way around. There's a reason Johnson's book won the National Book Award and Alexie's didn't: literary art. Comparing these two books in a lit class would be quite u...more
I really enjoyed Middle Passage a lot. It had a great writing style, and I think the author knew it too. Our narrator is Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave, who arrives in New Orleans in 1830. After he manages to collect a mountain of debt, and is going to be forced to marry a schoolteacher, he jumps aboard the first boat out of New Orleans, which happens to be a slave ship headed to collect members of a legendary tribe called the Allmuseri. He's "escaped" into a hell worse than the one he left b...more
This is by far the best book I've ever had to read for school.
From the cover art, blurbs, and even the author photograph, I assumed this would be an interesting, if a bit dry, book in the vein of Ellison's "Invisible Man." By which I mean it would be an "important book" or that it would be a bit of a slog to read, but the class discussions and secondary theory reading would really provoke a lot of helpful thought.
And while "Middle Passage" is regarded (at least by my Professor) an "important bo...more
From the cover art, blurbs, and even the author photograph, I assumed this would be an interesting, if a bit dry, book in the vein of Ellison's "Invisible Man." By which I mean it would be an "important book" or that it would be a bit of a slog to read, but the class discussions and secondary theory reading would really provoke a lot of helpful thought.
And while "Middle Passage" is regarded (at least by my Professor) an "important bo...more
Wow.
Read by Dion Graham.
7 hours, 4 minutes.
I have rarely heard a narrator's voice so well-suited to a character as is Dion Graham's voice is to Rutherford Calhoun. Middle Passage (winner of the 1990 National Book Award) is written in first person as a personal journal of a ne'er-do-well former slave from Illinois who lives in New Orleans in 1830. Calhoun is forced to go on the run. He stows away on a slave ship bound for West Africa. It is captained by a diminutive American explorer and adventu...more
Read by Dion Graham.
7 hours, 4 minutes.
I have rarely heard a narrator's voice so well-suited to a character as is Dion Graham's voice is to Rutherford Calhoun. Middle Passage (winner of the 1990 National Book Award) is written in first person as a personal journal of a ne'er-do-well former slave from Illinois who lives in New Orleans in 1830. Calhoun is forced to go on the run. He stows away on a slave ship bound for West Africa. It is captained by a diminutive American explorer and adventu...more
Middle Passage is a novel by Charles Johnson first published in 1990. It is considered Johnson's masterpiece, and he won the National Book Award for it in 1990.
Middle Passage is told by the protagonist, Rutherford Calhoun, a first person narrator, in the form of nine journal entries. It is the coming of age story of a recently manumitted slave from Illinois who has come to New Orleans to establish his life. To escape a forced marriage he unwittingly stows away aboard a slave ship that is leavin...more
Middle Passage is told by the protagonist, Rutherford Calhoun, a first person narrator, in the form of nine journal entries. It is the coming of age story of a recently manumitted slave from Illinois who has come to New Orleans to establish his life. To escape a forced marriage he unwittingly stows away aboard a slave ship that is leavin...more
This is a book that I came by very inadvertently (in a box of freebies from my daughter) that turned out to be a quick, literary (yes, I said "quick" and "literary" in the same sentence) read that is by turns horrifying and funny. The story is told from the perspective of Rutherford Calhoun, a womanizing scalawag who lands himself in so much trouble with the local organized crime boss that he decides to stow away aboard the first ship departing from the port of New Orleans. This is a particularl...more
OK, so admittedly I thought that this was going to be a hyper-serious, quasi-historical, Important book about the slave trade. Man, I was wrong. Instead, the book was a comic romp. Rutherford Calhoun is a recently freedman from Illinois who arrives in New Orleans with a serious penchant for wild parties and wild women. When a series of missteps, or, to be more exact, his lifestyle lands him in hot water he must decide to marry the naive schoolteacher that has taken pity on him or, well, pay off...more
Aug 08, 2010
Hattie
added it
Middle Passage by Dr. Charles Johnson
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
'"I'm not on anybody's side! I'm just trying to keep us alive! I don't know who's right or wrong on this ship anymore, and I don't much care! All I want is to go home."'
This is Rutherford Calhoun's story. Creditors are looking for him. He's a thief and the woman he's courting has a fantastic scheme prepared in order to marry him. Leaving the heat behind him, Rutherford Calhoun takes off from New Orleans aboard a ship named The...more
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
'"I'm not on anybody's side! I'm just trying to keep us alive! I don't know who's right or wrong on this ship anymore, and I don't much care! All I want is to go home."'
This is Rutherford Calhoun's story. Creditors are looking for him. He's a thief and the woman he's courting has a fantastic scheme prepared in order to marry him. Leaving the heat behind him, Rutherford Calhoun takes off from New Orleans aboard a ship named The...more
I had to read this for school, and I honestly wouldn't have read it all the way if it wasn't that I had to for class. Initially, I was put off by the narrator's time-inappropriate voice. Supposedly, we are reading the journal of a freed slave in 1830. However, he sounds like a scholarly modern man.
The more I read, though, the more I understood that this was exactly the writer's intention, and that much of the message of the book lies in this paradoxical narrator. For one thing, I believe the au...more
The more I read, though, the more I understood that this was exactly the writer's intention, and that much of the message of the book lies in this paradoxical narrator. For one thing, I believe the au...more
Rutherford Calhoun, a fiesty, horny ex slave - recently freed by a benevolent master in southern Illinois - heads to New Orleans and quickly falls into the underworld, thieving and whoring and carrying on. Through the machinations of a prim and proper school teacher who falls in love with him, however, he is faced with a choice: marriage and the straight-life, or death at the hands of a criminal kingpin. Rather than accept either option, Calhoun stows away on what turns out to be a slave ship, a...more
This is a fictional Middle Passage travelogue/slave narrative complete with surreal comedy, an African culture-monster in the hold, an Ahabian ship captain, and much metaphorical food to chew on. Loved every page of it. The narrator is an incorrigible thief and coward who undergoes a transformation of character...or maybe doesn't.
Brilliant crazy terrifying and woofish. Has much to learn from genre fiction, esp. sci-fi. Not supra-original, but beautiful and horrific. One of the best short novels I have read, but still leagues away from the interrogative and stylistic qualities of Melville, Dick, and Delaney. Maybe too academic? hmm...
Reads like a novel straight out of the bloody Carribian, Johnson's effective prose captures synapses in the mind and shakes them right down to their roots. One hopes for a recovery after this tidal wave of mixed blessings.
I read this immediately after Sacred Hunger, two books my readers group has chosen. Both deal with down-and-outers' experience of the slave trade but there the similarity ends. This one is fun, the language juicy, the action intense. If you like Huck Finn, Tom Jones and all tho...more
I read this immediately after Sacred Hunger, two books my readers group has chosen. Both deal with down-and-outers' experience of the slave trade but there the similarity ends. This one is fun, the language juicy, the action intense. If you like Huck Finn, Tom Jones and all tho...more
I had trouble finding my sea legs with this story.
It is an adventure.
It is a tragedy.
It is a commentary on slavery and other social issues.
It has shades of allegory.
In places the language is brilliant.
It is dark.
It is illuminating
At times it dips into philosophy.
At other times it feels like a comic book.
It is many different things, but don't make the mistake by the title that it is historical fiction. It is too anachronistic.
I imagine some readers will come away asking- what was C. Johnson...more
It is an adventure.
It is a tragedy.
It is a commentary on slavery and other social issues.
It has shades of allegory.
In places the language is brilliant.
It is dark.
It is illuminating
At times it dips into philosophy.
At other times it feels like a comic book.
It is many different things, but don't make the mistake by the title that it is historical fiction. It is too anachronistic.
I imagine some readers will come away asking- what was C. Johnson...more
I purchased this book for my classroom library because it is a National Book Award winner. I was surprised by the amount of PG sex in the book. I like the protagonist, he's a sort of Han Solo of the seas; a man of dishonorable reputation but deep-seated honorable intentions. As a freed slave, he sets about a life of debauchery in New Orleans, only to get into trouble with the areas equivalent of Jabba the Hutt. He stows aboard a ship in the harbor, only to find out late that it's a slaver bound...more
As a history major I had a hard time with this book and all the anachronisms. Perhaps after I graduate and I'm not required to spit out exact dates of events and their relation to other events I'll be able to reread this and accept the humor. Some idiot in class said the book was fiction so I shouldn't have a problem with it but the author dropped the names of real people and real events which is NOT fiction. If someone wrote a book that put the events of 9-11 during WWI I'm willing to bet some...more
When I told my father I was reading a book about the middle passage ... and it's kind of funny, I should have expected him to look at me like I just came from another planet. I was totally expecting this book to be ultra serious, but I am so impressed that the author was able to create humor set against the backdrop of a horrific historical event. Not an easy task. The book does describe some of the more gruesome aspects of the slave trade, which I could envision quite easily, thanks to Charles...more
The only part of this book I enjoyed was the fact that they referenced Makanda, IL. Besides that, it was disgusting and disturbing throughout the plot line up until the end, when everything turns out lovely and happy somehow. The narrator is egotistical, ignorant, and immoral to the extreme. He is a snitch with very few good qualities: the only one I can think of is his paternal care for a younger slave on the ship. I would not recommend it to any degree, even for an American literature class, w...more
Tracking the final voyage of an illegal American slave ship in 1830, the novel presents a personal and historical perspective of the illegal slave trade in the United States through the personage of Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave who unknowingly boards a slave ship bound for Africa in order to escape a forced marriage.
I don’t want to say too much about the story (which is a fair dinkum ripping yarn), other than it is a fine blend of melodrama, mysticism and historical realism. Any book that c...more
I don’t want to say too much about the story (which is a fair dinkum ripping yarn), other than it is a fine blend of melodrama, mysticism and historical realism. Any book that c...more
I got this book out from the library back in the mid ninties and because we were moving I took it back after reading the first chapter. All I remember was that I wanted to read it and so remember the title. Such an excellent writer I thought back then, and so a few years ago I bought the book and it has been sitting because I have been so unindated with so many books. The other day I picked it up and read it in two days. It is a brutal book, not what I actually expected.
And so this is all of my...more
And so this is all of my...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This book had been sitting in a box in my basement for years. Someone gave it to me, and because I never quite felt in the mood to sit down and read a book about the Middle Passage, I put it in a box and proceeded to move six times. Two weeks ago, I was down in the basement looking for an extension cord to whip my stepkid with, and I came across that box, and because I was feeling gloomy, I picked up this book. And what a damn treat! It was engaging as hell. I sat down, read the whole thing, and...more
I read this pretty quickly. The story is engaging. The language is difficult at times. There are lots of literary, historical, and biblical references that could be distracting for some people. It ends well and was very satisfying. It is not a depressing book about the horrors of the middle passage slave trade. The selection of Rutherford as narrator was smart and well executed. The use of a captain's log structure helped to move the narrative along. I'm looking forward to hearing what other peo...more
Here's a rip-roaring seafaring story, combined with a sensitive exploration of slavery, as we find ourselves on a 19th century slaving ship picking up slaves in Africa and then taking them to the new world. Relationships between complex characters of different races and backgrounds help us see that things are not always what they seem, and the writing style is richly descriptive yet concise. The ending is just a little contrived, but I'm willing to overlook that. This won the National Book Award...more
It's hard to imagine you could read a humorous book about slavery. Charles Johnson manages to make you actually laugh out loud with this book. This is the story of a freed black man who is not a slave and not an African. Due to crazy circumstances he finds himself trying to figure out his own identity while surrounded by slave traders, Africans, and fellow freed black men in New Orleans. It's a really interesting look at the identity & culture of newly free black Americans as they struggle t...more
I enjoyed this book immensely more than I originally thought I would. The narrator Rutherford Calhoun is a perfect representation of the irrepressible rogue who's easygoing-ness and quick wit make him impossible to hate, despite his obvious flaws in matters of morality. This is one of the only books I've read that's made me laugh out loud and cringe with horror on the same page. Johnson's love and knowledge of philosophy is quite evident throughout the development of the text, and thus provides...more
Interesting premise: In 1830, a black American, newly-freed from slavery, runs away from creditors and his own wedding, and stows away on what turns out to be a slaver ship tasked to bring back survivors of an ancient African tribe, plus a secret cargo.
Like all classic stories of seafaring, everything goes to hell and back from there.
The protagonist and narrator, Rutherford Calhoun, a lowlife even before he joins a crew of other lowlives, is a good choice for an antihero perspective. I particula...more
Like all classic stories of seafaring, everything goes to hell and back from there.
The protagonist and narrator, Rutherford Calhoun, a lowlife even before he joins a crew of other lowlives, is a good choice for an antihero perspective. I particula...more
A quite intellectually-written tale of a liar and a thief, Rutherford Calhoun, who embarks somewhat unintentionally on the epic journey of his life. Johnson questions human nature to the fullest in Middle Passage creating a novel that can be thought of as a pirate yarn, a myth, a legend, but most of all a story of how significantly one changes in the face of utter peril. I strongly recommend this book to anyone up for an intellectual read, it has certainly made me question my own opinions and be...more
What a wonderful, powerful, thought provoking, surprising read. The first two attributes are on account of Charles Johnson's mastery of the written word. His prose grips the reader from first sentence and doesn't let go for a second. It goes by so quickly that I found myself wishing it had been padded to last another 50 pages or more. Why was it surpising? Well, I expected it to focus primarily on the horrific middle passage in which people were enslaved and transported in barbaric fashion from...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slave ship narratives | 1 | 20 | Jul 08, 2009 03:03pm |
There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.
Charles R. Johnson is an American scholar and author of novels, short stories, and essays. Johnson, an African-American, has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Middle Passage and Dreamer. Johnson first came to prominence in the 1960s as a political cartoonist, at which time he was also involved in radical...more
More about Charles R. Johnson...
Charles R. Johnson is an American scholar and author of novels, short stories, and essays. Johnson, an African-American, has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Middle Passage and Dreamer. Johnson first came to prominence in the 1960s as a political cartoonist, at which time he was also involved in radical...more
Share This Book
1 trivia question
More quizzes & trivia...
“The Apocalypse would definitely put a crimp in my career plans.”
—
1 person liked it
More quotes…
May 23, 2011 10:49am