To be clear from the very beginning, I didn’t finish the book. I dropped it somewhere in the middle.

General information about Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

This book is about the life and adventures of Washington Black, a man who was born a slave, became a person of science, escaped and travelled the world.

Doesn’t it sound exciting?! I thought so too. Besides, the book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018. Doesn’t it guarantee a good book? Not for me, apparently.

I purchased the ebook together with the audio version. The plan was to alternate between reading and listening. The two versions are synchronised, so you can stop reading and continue listening from the same place where you stopped reading, and vice versa. Future has come!

Even though I thus paid a double price for the story, I knew it would be a bigger loss if I had continued wasting my time on the book. Having dragged through Washington Black for weeks, I finally dropped it.

Not only did I stop reading it, I did it at the moment when the protagonist was in mortal danger. I. did. not. care. That’s how generally boring it was.

What’s so bad about Washington Black

The story

Some descriptions mentioned that Washington Black was “inspired by a true story”. I’m not sure to what extent the story is true, it feels absolutely naive and sugar-coated.

The characters

There is no depth to the characters: villains are villains, good guys are good. The characters are absolutely predictable and do not seem to develop.

The writing

The writing is another curious detail of this book. It tries to be beautiful so it does sound sophisticated but quite pretentious. I see no reason for “the dying gold of morning” at a banal breakfast. To me it looks misplaced, like somebody wearing a ball gown for grocery shopping.

What’s good in Washington Black

Theoretically, a story about a person fighting his way to freedom while crossing different countries and meeting different people, should be interesting.

This theory didn’t work for me.

Final thought on Washington Black

I’m sure the book will find its readers, but I’m not one of them.

On Chesil Beach is a beautifully written eventless novella where graphic sex scenes are an essential part of the story. The writing style reminds me of those old classics created at times when authors didn’t care if they could interest the reader. They just immersed themselves in the process and those who were literate enough would read the result anyway. It’s a high quality writing but you have to exercise self-control to drag yourself through it because nothing at all is happening.

On Chesil Beach looks like a well prepared stage where action is about to take place. Then, suddenly, you hit the final page. All story could fit in 177 words.

The book was selected for 2007 Booker Prize shortlist which caused a few scandals because it’s not even a novel by size.

Another curious story happened when Ian McEwan mentioned that he kept two pebbles from Chesil beach while writing the book. It caused one more scandal. McEwan was threatened with a fine and had to apologise and return the pebbles back to the beach.

There’s now a movie adaptation of the story released in May 2018. Judging by the trailer, the characters look nothing like the ones described in the book. Unless the storyline was changed too I can’t even imagine what there was to film at all.

You will still like On Chesil Beach if you enjoy looking deeply into characters and dissecting their emotions, and if you don’t mind the complete absence of action.

Sometimes the word “a book” does not describe a creation well enough. All books are different but some books are just more than books. Apart from telling you a story, they bring a whole new world along with them. I don’t mean a world like the one with Tolkien’s hobbits, lands and languages. It doesn’t have to be that gigantic. But when you read it you start being aware of something that hasn’t been there before.

Everything Under is this kind of book. In no way is it just another story. In fact, the story itself is quite transparent. You can easily guess what’s going on if you read carefully (or if you google the book and get a major spoiler in the first lines of the description. Don’t google the book!)

Everything Under is a story about a river, a mother, a daughter. It has fantasies that merge into lives and become a reality.

The main treasure of the book is its language. It’s been a lifetime since I saw something so beautifully, intricately written. You can take a sentence and watch it as a separate piece of art. I read some of the phrases aloud several times just to see how beautifully they unfold.

If there were prizes for the best magic performed with words Daisy Johnson would be the winner. She doesn’t just give you descriptions. She lays out words that you don’t expect to see but then you watch them grow into a perfect construction conveying exactly what the author meant. When it’s getting late and the characters are near the river, the author doesn’t just say “it was getting dark”. She says: “The water had lost its colour”

The water had lost its colour… Precise and perfect.

I’ve marked a lot of phrases in the book. I go through them like through a gallery of beautiful paintings. There’s a whole collection now taken from one short book.

Everything Under will not be beautiful for everybody. You’ll have to savour the lines to see what they mean and how they unravel. Also, some moments in the book will make you cringe, although even my prude self shut up this time to let me enjoy the book. But if you like watching the beauty of the words put perfectly together, and you are looking for something special for your literary senses this book is for you.