Never judge a
book hastily because in doing so, one may write off a genuine masterpiece as
just another book from a genre that has seen better works.
I did that
with Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, when I wrote about it
here in 2009, and then I even had a furious argument with my friend Joyce Wayne.
My contention
was that Hill was merely following Alex Haley’s Roots,
and while Hill’s Meena was a strong woman, her experiences were not too
different from those of Haley’s Kunta.
I’d called
Aminata the female version of Kunta.
But that was a
hasty assessment because the more I have come to know of Canada, I’ve developed
a better, keener understanding of the Canadian history, and especially of the
blacks who escaped slavery from the United States to find a safe haven in
Canada.
And while in
Canada, blacks enjoyed a notional freedom because they weren’t slaves, there
were constant undercurrents of racial tension that have persisted since the
18th century to the present day.
Hill’s novel
is a masterpiece that poses the question of race from a Canadian perspective. I
have no hesitation is saying I was wrong in the minimizing the significance of
Hill’s novel. And now that the book has been turned into a television
miniseries by CBC, I’ve turned into a fan.
The miniseries
vividly brings to life the book’s characters and the main turning points. Aunjanue Ellis is an accomplished
actor who brings to life Aminata’s character. She portrays the vulnerability,
the defiance, the authoritativeness, the compassion, the anxiety, the grief,
and the intellectual demeanour of the heroine of the book.
In many ways,
Ellis dignifies the tragedy of Meena’s life by a performance that is muted and
yet high-powered.
Assuming that
this blog has readers, I urge everyone who cursorily passes through these posts
to watch the episodes of the miniseries here: The
Book of Negroes.
In case you're
interested in reading the original post, here's the link: TBON
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