John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead

  

I find it funny that the Franzen quote on the cover of this book is actually an extract from a review in which he states that "John Henry Days is funny and wise and sumptuously written, but it's only rarely a page turner" (thanks Wikipedia!). I do realize it happens all the time, but still. 

But I actually liked John Henry Days in full and with few reservations: it might not be Whitehead's best book, but it deals with the American folk stories that I liked since seeing Disney's Johnny Appleseed as a child, offers some deep reflections on American society, but also the world of mass media and the ultimate, profound, loneliness of some people. 

Oddly enough, I did consider it a page turner at the end of the day.

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

The last in a (short) series of books by black writers that I've read at the end of the spring, and the one I liked best together with Citizen.

Having outgrown magical realism - or at least thinking I have - I was afraid that the decision to turn the underground railroad into an actual railroad would have been too much, but instead it was done in such a way as to give a scarily thrilling impression of the experience of former slaves going from station to station.

So many passages are beautifully written, and even without being a historian you can guess that until Cora gets to the North she's never going to be safe in any state no matter how stable the situation seems to be (from that point of view, South Carolina almost made me gag).

Possibly the most enjoyable chapters were the ones dedicated to the side characters that break the narrative of the main story - and I actually came to the conclusion that the only one who ever felt truly free was Mabel, Cora's mom, in those fleeting moments outside the plantation.