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Homegoing
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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
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Ethan, we usually start discussion of our reading list books on the 15th of the month. But if people are ready today, go ahead.
Oops! I've obviously never lead a discussion. I'll delete and repost on the 15th!
Ethan, I am really looking forward to this discussion. Am so glad you nominated it. But, I'm only about one-third of the way through.
Barbara wrote: "Ethan, I am really looking forward to this discussion. Am so glad you nominated it. But, I'm only about one-third of the way through."No need to delete! Just don't expect too much discussion before people have time to read the book. I just started it today.
I read this book a few months ago. I really enjoyed it except that every time I started getting into the story of a character, the chapter ended and then the book moved on to someone else!
I read this book earlier and really loved it. I think it truly captured the sense of displacement of refugees/exiles/immigrants. But like Julie, some chapters I wanted to continue. Maybe that's a good sign -- making you want more?
Sometimes I felt like I was reading short stories with unsatisfying endings (because they weren't really endings).
I read this book a few months ago. I wanted to like it. Found it challenging. The structure...the back and forth between the twin married to a British (what?) commander? and the sister captured, horribly mistreated and sent to America, for me, felt too insistent on history, rather than character. I felt that way through the entire book. I listened to the author, along with Kei Miller, another black novelist, read from their books at the Phila. Free Library. I loved listening to her reading and discussion of the book...but still felt as though I had read history, not the lives of people. Toni Morrison is an expert in creating believable characters to tell the stories of African Americans. I think it's a hugely challenging thing to do. Not quite sure that Yaa Gyasi (pronounced Jessie) did this successfully. Not for me, anyway.
I don't normally read reviews before reading the book but I bought this one some months ago because of this review in particular the paragraph beginning "Love is the glue that binds these life stories together, the chapters a series of couplings and begettings making way for the next in line." I'm just finishing up Part One of the book reading along to the audio narrated by actor Dominic Hoffman. I for one am glad I'm reading it. I'm not particularly finding any great difficultly with the individual stories although I do look back to the family tree in the book so glad I don't on this occassion have just the audio.
Sheila wrote: "I'm not particularly finding any great difficultly with the individual stories although I do look back to the family tree in the book so glad I don't on this occassion have just the audio. ..."I think I looked back at the family tree at the beginning of every single chapter to reorient myself to that family line.
I had no difficulty with the individual stories, but like most of you, I made good use of the genealogy page. I also didn't mind that some of the stories didn't have a definite ending. I imagine a searchlight illuminating parts of lives, and then moving on to find another life to light up. Life isn't easily segmented into discrete whole stories; it goes on and on, even when we're not looking. So the way that Gyasi structured the book seemed very realistic to me. It's amazing how much story she gets into these pages. I loved the ending, and imagine that Marcus and Marjorie are different elements of Gyasi herself. Marcus couldn't imagine finishing his paper because there are so many channels of discovery sounds like it might have been about writing this very book.
I felt this book was well done (and an enormous project for the writer). I did use the genealogy page at the beginning of each new story to orient myself, but that did not detract from the stories. I soon discovered that though I may want a particular story to continue, that when the story of that person's descendant began, the reader was invariably told of details of how their parent's story continued, and I liked that. I enjoyed the fact that the book was complex and involved so many different characters, and marveled at the skill of this young writer to create such a variety of characters with such skill that I enjoyed reading about them and getting to know them. I look forward to her next book.
I appreciated that though the main topic was slavery, the author did not simplify it to be only fodder for white guilt (though there's plenty of that), but also depicted conspiracy of the native tribes in the slavery trade.
I finished Part One yesterday. I think her episodic look at lineages works well. Having done some of my own genealogical research I realise how fragmentary our knowledge of our ancestors is. Stories passed down by word of mouth as family-lore, fragments of documentary evidence, a census record, a record of a boat passage, an immigration record, and in some cases only a name and a place and an understanding of what was generallly happening in that area at that time - this is what we have - disjointed, incomplete, fleeting glimpses lit by, as Sherry has described it in post 12, a searchlights illumination. Now layer off this the disjunctions caused by fatherless children, lost children, and further gaps created by forced migration, the loss of name, of language, of identity and of the opportunity to ask all the questions we never ask of our own parents until its too late and all that's left is even more fragmentary.
What Gyasi has done is made that more whole again. She has taken the Histories of Ghana, of slavery, or African Americans and made it personal Yes in doing so the individuals often personify some cliché, but whilst other historically based novels do this 'making history real' through flushing out the characters, Gyasi's characters are necessarily flimsy in parts, some more fully rounded more fully sketched out than others. For me the reviewers who criticise this have missed the point - that is that unlike most novels the main character is not a person, not even a family, but is it seems to me the family tree, the two lineages themselves. Rather than Homegoing being the story of any one person, or one family it is the story of ancestral history, the story of peoples' transformation from Ashante, Fante, Ga and others into modern day African Americans
I wanted to add something separately. Not being a student of American History when I read books like this I always discover something I knew or if I had even known I had forgotten. In this case it was the Fugitive Slave Law. Not so surprising that owners would have chased down their runaway "property" but for me, a non American, that this law was passed. Looking it up led me to read about the whole 1850 Compromise which again I had not heard of, and how it shored up exisiting Fugitive legislation and perhaps more importantly only served to delay the American Civil War. Learning is another reason for reading with CR :)
I liked this book, although I often found it difficult to read about the terrible suffering the characters endured on both sides of the Atlantic. What made it easier was the fact that the majority of these characters at least experienced love in their lives. Thanks, Sheila, for that great review in the Guardian which points out ""Love is the glue that binds these life stories together." As the novel reached modern times, it grabbed my attention more because there was so much more hope and opportunity in the narrative. Like Sherry, I really enjoyed the ending.
Fire is a recurring motif in the story. The mother of the half-sisters set a fire that allowed her to escape from the Fante village. Later, the burning of a white man unhinges the mind of one of the African descendants and results in a terrible tragedy. At the end, there is a fire on the beach.
Does fire represent both suffering and a kind of cleansing? Is this motif one of the ways the writer unites her short narratives. The necklace is another example. What other ones am I missing?
I think water plays a big part, too. Remember how afraid Marcus was of water, and how afraid Marjorie was afraid of fire. The two coming together to face both of their fears was the best part of the book for me.
Sheila wrote: "I wanted to add something separately. Not being a student of American History when I read books like this I always discover something I knew or if I had even known I had forgotten. In this case it ..."Sheila,
I know that England had slaves in their colonies, but did they ever allow slaves in England itself? I don't remember reading anything about slaves in England.
Jane, The answer to this is complex one, and I had to augment what I knew with some research for historically specifics and dates, so stay with me.
The reason it is complicated is on several levels.
First until recently much of this has been "hidden", I recall getting taught some in school but I know many folks who were taught nothing. Now there is a lot of information now available on the National Library of Scotland website now about Scotland's involvement in slavery and on the public records office website.
Secondly, the union of the Scottish and English monarchies occurred in 1603 and parliaments in 1707 so conditions varied in each country and their legal systems remain distinct to this day.
Thirdly, I believe the term slavery in the Americas is usually used only to denote the enslavement of Africans. Much is said today about "modern slavery", but for me at aleast slavery is slavery.
Back in pre Norman Conquest (11th century) days there was inter-tribal slavery. From 12-19th century there was penal transportation to the colonies, indentured labour sentences and also forced labour workhouses for the poor. From 16-19th century Barbary pirates roamed the seas from southern Europe up north to Iceland shipping captives to slave markets in NW Africa.
Much of English law is case law and in 1772 in the Somerset Case the Kings Bench judgement was that chattel slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales and no slave could be forcibly removed from Britain. In practice this meant the emancipation of over 10,000 slaves serving society households as domestic servants.
This was also the case in Scottish society houses and it became illegal to own a slave in Scotland in 1778 when Joseph Knight successfully argued , that landing in Scotland freed him from perpetual servitude having been purchase in Jamaica from a slave trader because slavery was not recognised in Scotland.
Regarding the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, then British merchants were huge participants in this, making money through transportation and through running plantations. Scots owned over 30% of Caribbean slaves. This money created many of the major industries, family homes and even churches here. But there was also an Abolitionist movement which was led politically by William Wilberforce an English politician from Hull a notable slave port. The Anti-Slavery Society was founded in London in 1823, it is now https://www.antislavery.org and is still fighting slavery in all its forms - forced labour, including forced prostitution, debt bondage etc
Owning and trading were seen as separate and tackled separately. The Slave Trade Act of 1807 outlawed trade in human beings.
Likewise what happened here in Britain and what happened in its colonies were two different things. The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery ( although many then went into indentured labour apprenticeships with their masters and were not finally “free” until later) in most of the British Empire - West Indies, Mauritius, South Africa but notably not those places controlled by the East India Company and not in Ceylon and St Helena – and compensated the 46000 owners.
There is a illuminating article on this and the notable families involved and a database of owners T71 has been complied by The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership has been established at UCL.
The 1833 Statue was repealed in 1998 when the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated into British Law Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a side, this is one of the thorny areas for our BREXIT, how to back incorporate the good things about EU legislation into the English and Scottish legal systems
As regards modern day slavery, England and Wales are covered by the Modern Slavery Act of 2015 and in Scotland by the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015
Wikipedia has a slavery timeline which I found interesting way to compare what happens in different countries – it states slavery was abolished in the Gold Coast in 1874.
Thank you, Sheila, for that very interesting information.
Sherry, good observation about the role of water in the story. The slaves were taken away by water, so I think that is why it is so ominous.The side of the family which supported slavery in Africa suffered so many horrors that I felt they had been cursed for this historical wrong. Do you think the author went too far with this?
I think Sherry and Ann make interesting points regarding the motifs of fire and water. This duality, this opposition, is ultimately manifested in Marjorie and Marcus, the histories of their families, of their lineages which return us to the original sisters of the story, the necklace kept and the necklace lost. Water is the frame of fear in those taken who bore visible scars of their own suffering under the whip of slavery, imprisonment, segregation and redlining (a new term for me), the sea holding the lost ones, the water being where the ancestral souls reside, drowning is what the addicts do.
Fire is the frame of fear for the remainers, the fire woman fable , Africa, destroying her one children, fire made manifest as Akua’s dreams/illness and Yaw’s scars. Only in the ending are fire and water brought together and fears neutralised.
I liked the ending, no grand scale finale but epic in its own way, showing agin theat Gyasi can write deftly about relationships, sexually and lovingly.
Having finished the book I have to remind myself that this was a first novel. I don't know if this is how she did it but I can see her writing these smal small encapsulations of people's stories and then threading them together to make the necklaces of the two lineages in the book. Most impressive to attempt something so grand for a first novel. It surely shows real potenial as a writer and one to watch for her future works.
I loved the way she told a "western" family saga with all the myth and fable one expects from Africa. Yes I can see why some might think her broad brush strokes only giving cliqued strokes to the people in her book, but that never bothered me. I was totally held by her writing, I loved its straightforward magical style, like the best fiction she made it real, I was always in empathy with the people and still thinking that the main character is the lineages I rooted for their joining all the way through.
Ethan listed two reviews way back at the beginning of this thread, here's another https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/02/...
Sheila,Thank you for your excellent elaboration on the role of fire and water in this novel.
I also really liked the interview. It clarified for me why Gyasi consciously chose to have the family in Africa experience a kind of "curse" for their involvement in the slave trade. She said that she wanted the story to have a "feel of a fable, or folklore to it." The curse was part of that, as well as the legendary beauty of Effia.
I was also very surprised to read that her parents, who grew up in Ghana, had never learned about the slave castle in school. She clearly shows the role that Africans themselves played in the slave trade.
Ann wrote: "Sheila,Thank you for your excellent elaboration on the role of fire and water in this novel.
I also really liked the interview. It clarified for me why Gyasi consciously chose to have the family ..."
Fire and water, half of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. I think the earth was a major element in this book too.
I loved the story but I felt the characters passed too quickly. I want her to write other books, taking these characters and fleshing them out into more stories.
Ann, I experienced similar in Nigeria where I found young people had not been taught about the Biafran War, part I suppose of a rewriting of history.
Wow! I wonder if that is because the governments in Ghana and Nigeria are worried about stirring up tribal rivalries. What do you think?Of course, the Biafran War is recent enough that some people may want people to forget the roles they played in it.
When I was in elementary and secondary school. I found American History very dull because it was presented so one dimensionally. The objective seemed to be to teach patriotism. In college it was a different approach.I think things have improved, but there are still great controversies about textbooks and such. In recent years there has been a lot of emphasis on multiculturalism, but I suspect that is also changing. Our school system is very decentralized and differs from state to state and even school district to school district.
What fascinating information from Sheila!
Ann glad you liked the interview I thought it was a good one. Ann happy to be of service I get so much from these threads it is nice to reciprocate
I agree with Ann about the motif of fire. There is something about that duality, as Sheila expanded upon, that seems to represent both the fear and life. The topic of slavery is one that is so multifaceted and I think that Gyasi manages to touch on some of those layers. Rather than focus on a single story or event, she gives us glimpses into lives that are impacted by the practice.
Being Jamaican and also African American, I can relate to many things in this novel. Of course taking multiple African and Caribbean studies in college made it easier to grasp so much history without feeling lost. I enjoyed the novel and like others felt a little slighted when a character I wanted to know more about vanished. I found the expectations of family and traditions interesting in that people who made choices outside of the norm ended up being cursed in some way. Quey is gay yet he had to marry the asante king's daughter in order to save the fante. Quey's son ran away from his wife and married someone beneath him and in return his farm was never prosperous. In addition to that, his only child met a terrible fate.
I also enjoyed this book; it's one of the few books I gave a five star rating. I won't start this time with my review because I think everything I said there has been said here already. I liked the structure of the book, just giving the important parts of the lives in each generation; this could have been a much longer book in a more traditional style giving all the details and I don't think it would have really said any more than it does. I learned much that I didn't know about African society in the colonial period. I already knew most of the American material, but I was impressed by the chapter about H: I've read several novels recently (good and bad) about slavery and the Jim Crow period, which like the Holocaust have become "safe" topics, but the framing of Blacks to use as cheap prison labor is something most books shy away from, and which is very topical today in terms of the privatization of prisons in the U.S. It was also interesting to me, having just read Nella Larsen's Passing for the other subgroup here, and a number of other writings on "passing" which were included in the Norton edition of that book, that Willie says, not that her husband was "passing" but that he was white -- but he "used to be coloured."
James, I was struck by that description by Willie of her husband too. I'm glad you reminded me of it. I think it would have been striking in any case, but particularly after reading Passing.And, I agree that the book wouldn't have been better if it had been written more traditionally. Gyasi seemed to be a master at choosing the essential details.
I haven't read "passing" but I think it was essential for Robert to be white and not just passing. When he was coloured, he was automatically a black man with all the baggage, but as a white man he was completely free with all the privileges that come with that. He always said that he wanted to be more than his own father and even though we don't know much about his parents, we know that their options were limited. Being white allows him to be more of everything. This is one of the characters that I wanted to know more about like are all his children with his new wife completely white or did his colored gene pool show up somewhere down the line calling attention to his true identity.
I am just dipping in to read all the comments for the first time since the thread opened. So many great insights!! I love the idea (early in the thread) of a spotlight illuminating various aspects of these family histories then moving on, and the idea expressed that it is not too different probably from what we might know about our own genealogy - bits, pieces and fragments about our ancestors. The remnants of slavery in the U.S. are so palpable right now and I thought this book was timely, showing through the stories of many generations descended from two African women how it has been hard to extricate our society from the bonds of racism. I thought the book ended on an optimistic note, at least for Marcus and Marjorie and the future of these two lines.
This conversation thread also points out to me how much I have forgotten! I plan to listen to the audiobook sometime soon.
Oh, and I plan to listen to Passing, starting in a couple of days, for another group I belong to. I'll look for the connections.
Suzy, please come back after you finish Passing and post your reactions on that thread. Our discussions never end.
Barbara wrote: "Suzy, please come back after you finish Passing and post your reactions on that thread. Our discussions never end."I will! This is an August pick for On the Southern Literary Trail, so I'll have 2 discussions to join :)
To get us started, here are a couple reviews:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/bo...