Customer Reviews

Middle Passage

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Perhaps who ever did the review for Amazon.com should read the book again. Rutherford Calhoun does not become the captain's cabin boy, he becomes the cook's helper. He does not discover "to his shock and horror" that the vessel he stows away on is a slave ship since he already knew that from his conversation with the drunken cook in a tavern on shore. What he does learn that shocks him is that on a previous voyage the captain had eaten the cabin boy. Another statement that interested me was one of the promotional quotes in the front of the book, "MIDDLE PASSAGE IS AN EXAMPLE OF TRIUMPHANT INDIVIDUALISM .... Johnson's novel is a reason for celebration." - George F. Will. During the voyage, Rutherford learned that "if you hoped to see shore, you must devote yourself to the welfare of everyone ..." Not only Rutherford, but Squibb, the cook, learned this. Some like the captain did not, but then he ended up at the bottom of the ocean. At one point, Rutherford is describing the Allmuseri, the Africans taken on board as slaves, "Their notion of 'experience', I learned, held each man utterly responsible for his own happiness or sorrow, for the emptiness of his world or its abundance, even for his dreams and his entire way of seeing ..." Perhaps this is what George Will liked, but later Rutherford says of the Africans, "... Tribal behavior so ritualized, seasoned, and spiced by the palm oil, the presence of others it virtually rendered the single performer invisible - or, put another way, blended them into an action so common the one and many were as indistinguishable as ocean and wave." The amazing thing about the book to me, is that for Rutherford Calhoun everything comes full circle. Everything he ran away from comes back to haunt him, and he has to deal with all of it.He survives and learns from it all. He is a different person at the end. It was also quite interesting how the Africans were changed by their exposure to the Whites, the brutal treatment they were subjected to and their reaction to it. Not surprisingly, the weakest Africans responded in the worst way, but even the best of the Africans were affected. Not the message George Will would like to read, I'm afraid. The treatment by Charles Johnson of the mutiny by the Africans and its aftermath was incredible on many levels. There were permanent consequences for everyone, and although the Africans "won", there were really no winners, only losers. Johnson's vivid, realistic and graphic descriptions throughout the book pulled no punches. If you have a weak stomach, you probably don't want to read this book. The descriptions of pain, suffering, illness, death and dying were very powerful. There were some parts of the book that didn't work for me very well. First, I find it hard to believe that even a desperate black man would stowaway on a slave ship in 1830. Of course, the whole story is based on this happening. Secondly the business of the mysterious cargo is used for a crucial part of Rutherford's having to face what he has left on shore, but after that we are left hanging about its significance and eventual fate - a bit unsatisfying. All in all, I enjoyed this book and recommend it.

I have read every, and I do mean every book, novel, auto-biographical sketch ever put out by Charles Johnson. I am convinced that "Middle Passage" is by far his most compelling, his most outrageous, his most excellent book ever.This is a must read for all fans of his and a must gift to all those in your life who need a dose of meta-reality in a world gone madder then the one he weaves into the latter half of the book. Do yourself and the ones that you love a favor, buy this book. It was written for you, after all, you did find this review didn't you

This book is well written on many levels. My life experiences don't relate at all to the main character's, but I could identify with him nonetheless. It works well as an adventure story because the characters are real. Still, it provoked in me a wide range of emotions and thoughts

Anachronism-filled boyhood adventure story packed
with improbable dialog. Political correctness
amuck.

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

Haven't I met this god before? Aside from somewhere in Heinlein? 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 those boys, you'll like this bad boy redeemed and returning to society--but having just read Sacred Hunger, I felt a bit guilty--as if I'd gone to a musical comedy about the Holocaust. Guilty because I enjoyed it, of course. A pleasant surprise--Johnson's Isadora rang as true to life as his male characters. Read it by all means--but maybe a library copy