A must read 'Classic' (Roots - Alex Haley)

Member Name: nickyturnill

Product:	Roots - Alex Haley
Date:	07/02/06 (1173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A stunning and shocking must read classic tale .

Disadvantages: Very long, 800 - 900 pages and contains difficult language at points .

Haley's 'Roots' published in 1976 is one of the best and most vivid books I have ever read. It is a modern classic which won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and sold more than a million copies in its first year of publication. Roots comes with my 100% recommendation, here's why.

The Storyline.
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Roots is a account of the life of Kunta Kente, a young African boy, captured and shipped to the US to work as a slave. The book details the start of his life from his birth in 1750 in a village called Juffire in The Gambia, West Africa.

As a young boy Kunta is captured and subsequently transported across the Atlantic to be sold as a slave in the State of Virginia. At first he is bought by a harsh master and thus he runs away four times. With no place to go his is eventually re-caught on each occassion. But eventually he is sold to a new 'master' who is much softer than the first.

Kunta eventually accepts his fate and the book goes on to detail his working life with his new master, his marriage to the housemaid Belle and the birth of their daughter Kizzy.
In some ways the book has a happy ending as Kunte is eventually freed but at the end of the day this book is about slavery, a practise that was inhumane and unforgivable.

My Opinion.
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At times 'Roots' is a shocking and graphic account of the maltreatment and suffering endured by those taken as slaves. This is true of Kunta's life in America but particularly so in the parts in which Kunta details his experiences on the ship across the Atlantic. He estimates that the death rate could reach as high as 40%. The conditions were unsanitary to say the least, the slaves lie chained in rows day after day. They cannot stand and they go above deck infrequently for forced exercise. Bodies of those who did not make it were chucked mercilessly into the sea. This disturbing account will stay with me always, it is appalling to think that so many thousands of innocent people undertook such horrific times, stolen from their homelands in order to ensure that the USA became the richest country in the World.....

Roots is a book that is passionately written as well as being factually correct. Thus the book has definite educational value as well as being a great read. It is based on the real ancestral history traced back seven generations to the Gambia by Alex Haley himself. Of course many of the details will be fictional but this doesn’t damage the story in any way. For further details about this please see http://www.kintehaley.org/rootshaleytree.html

The story follows Kunte throughout his entire life and consequently it is LONG and some might see this as a disadvantage! It's one of the longest books I've ever read in fact, a good 800-900 pages, but it is well worth the time. It's totally engaging and impossible to put down once you have really got into it, I'd reccommend it as a holiday read, when you've got the time to really get it to it.

Another slight disadvantage of the book is the language used. At times it can be a little difficult to comprehend, as there is a lot of slang involved, but as long as you persist then it gets easier to read with time.

About the Book and the Author.
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You can buy Roots in any good book shop retailed at £7.99. I actually picked my dog eared copy up in a second hand book shop for a few quid and as always the book can be purchased from Ebay or Amazon for much cheaper.

In 1965 Haley also published the Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm Little) which is based on a series of interviews conducted before his death depicting racism in small town America. I have not read this so I cannot comment on the book but given my enjoyment of Roots I would like to read it.

Roots was also televised in 1977 and is available to buy on DVD. The show stars LeVar Burton and John Amos as Kunta Kinte at different ages. I havn't watched this but I have heard that it is very good and I would like to.

Further details about The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots on DVD can be found on Amazon.

Summary.
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An A++++ read, Roots is a absolute classic, read it!!

ISBN: 0440174643

Summary: A classic must read book.