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.
