"The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill

Last night was Lawrence Hill's reading of his masterpiece, The Book of Negroes. He was soft-spoken, surprisingly humorous in person, and generous enough to answer many of our pressing questions and sign our copies of his book.

I was truly moved and inspired by Hill's book and am most likely going to write about it for my Letter Assignment. So I've decided to use this journal entry as a space for me to brainstorm on the many things I want to write about. Right now, there is so much that I want to mention about the 470-page novel, that I feel that I have to get down my ideas as soon as I can.

I am thinking that I would like to focus on Aminata and the forces that push her to survive. I am very interested in the relationship she has with her parents and how their voices are constantly with her, even when she is nearing death and getting ready to face the London courts:

"I could feel my pulse pounding in my throat, and tried to calm myself by thinking of my father and how - even when making tea or jewelery - his hands moved with confidence. I imagined his voice, deep and musical, reaching out across the ocean to soothe me now: Just be who you are, and speak of the life you have lived. (458)

I am also interested in her relationship with her husband, Chekura. I was deeply moved by how only death could stop him from finding her every time they were apart. Not only did The Book of Negroes teach me things I did not know about Black history and Canada's role in slavery, but also about love and how it can cross oceans and bring people together again.

The hardest parts in the novel for me to read were when Aminata loses both her children. Aminata experiences some of the most horrific events I could ever imagine. As a child, losing parents would be the most difficult thing to face, and as a woman, she must endure losing her children and her husband. Reading those passages always made me feel a pang of regret for the pain that she encounters, but I also learned that these experiences were what made her a stronger woman, encouraged to keep reading, learning, teaching others, and pushed her to continue fighting for her freedom.

I look forward to developing these ideas into my letter to the wonderful Lawrence Hill.

"Ragged Company" by Richard Wagamese

In lecture, we discussed the question that Richard Wagamese's book asks: Does money have the ability to change someone's quality of life? Previous to reading this book, I had often toyed with that same idea on my own. Whenever things don't go exactly as planned, those of us who have financial limitations often think, 'If only I had more money, everything would be different.' But Wagamese's book questions the truth in those thoughts. The characters in Ragged Company win money through the lottery, but are still unable to let go of their previous experiences, struggles and burdens. This reminded me of an episode of Oprah that I once saw about a homeless person who was give $100,000 by a documentary filmmaker. The director put the money in a briefcase in a dumpster where the homeless man was sure to find it, as he made his living at the time by collecting cans. The homeless man was unaware that the money was to be part of the movie he was being filmed for; the director had told him that he was just following him to discover what it was like to be homeless. The man had no idea that he was part of a social experiment to see if money really can change someone's life for the better. Out of no where, family members and old friends who had once abandoned the man and forgotten of his existence wanted a new relationship with him. The man bought these people lavish gifts such as cars and even bought himself a $32,000 truck. Not only did he not know how to handle having so much money, but he could not grow accustomed to living under a roof. Once he had acquired an apartment, he couldn't sleep on a bed, but slept on the floor. Eventually, he was so unwise with his money, despite the financial advisers and therapists available to him free of charge through the director, that he ended up homeless and alone once again. This story demonstrates that money cannot solve all of one's problems. (The link to the story is here http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/95216/a_homeless_man_blows_100000_of_free.html?cat=9)

Although the characters in Ragged Company do not grow fully accustom to having more opportunities either, they eventually learn how to use their talents and skills as trades and give back to the Mission. But the success of the characters is due to something they had that the homeless man in the other story did not - each other. They were a family before they received their windfall and were there for each other despite their social circumstances. They may have been lacking a physical place to live, but they had built a home with their friendship. The company's relationships with each other and with Granite allow them to move past their former lives and use their fortune to reinvent their lives. Regardless of their monetary wealth, as long as they maintained their home with each other, they would continue to be rich in love and companionship.