Oh, look! A break from tradition and I dip into a non-fiction book. A biography to be precise. I bought this book a while ago when all the hype about the film was going on. I've not seen the film, but the title of the book gives away most of the story.
I don't really know what I was expecting, but I was surprised at the tone of this book. I possibly expected the tone to be more angry. If I had been kidnapped and then sold into slavery, beaten, starved and forced to do back breaking labour, then I would be seething. Instead Solomon Northup tells his story in quite a measured, matter of fact kind of way. Yes, he does explain some of the horrors of what he went through but I have a feeling that his motivation behind writing the book was to let people know an aspect of the life of a slave living in the south. He occasionally dedicates a large part of a chapter on informing you how sugar cane is planted and harvested and then processed.
That being said, you can't help but hope for then ending of the book, where you know that he will be a free man again, but all the way through I was wondering how that would happen.
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