Book Review: 12 Years a Slave

Normally I would include a picture of Nadi sitting with the book because she loves posing for these things. Ok, that's not true. She would prefer that anything other than treats, food, and dog toys stay away from her but she complies. I foolishly forgot to take this traditional photo so the book cover from an image will have to do.

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There is a good chance that most people out there are already familiar with the movie and if you are like me you might be unaware that it came from a best-selling book. When my friend offered it up to me I was a little hesitant to take it on because of the fact that I already knew the main focus of the story but it was the only book he brought with him that day and it was either this, or nothing. Since I have been enjoying feeding my mind with words lately, I took it home and boy oh boy am I glad that I did because by the time I was done with it I consider it to be one of the best books I have ever read.

This is the true story of Soloman Northup and how even though he was born a free man in the North of the divided United States, he was tricked into going somewhere with some "businessmen" who lead him to a job interview with the promises of good pay only to be drugged and woken up in shackles. The people involved in this were very aware of what they were doing and the intention was to strip him of his free papers and then ship him down south to a plantation.

At this particular point in time in the world and in the book, getting new slaves into the United States was difficult as the North, which controlled the Federal government, was already banning the import of additional slaves. Realizing that the freeing of what was considered property at the time would lead to war, the North made concessions at the time and allowed existing slavery to continue, but would not allow the importing of any more. The book goes into much greater detail about the specifics of this but I am just summarizing here. There is much more to it than that.

Soloman has his papers taken from him and is given the new identity of "Pratt." Even though he knows that he is not Pratt he has no choice but to comply with this because if he ever mentions to anyone that is actually a free man his masters will beat him senseless. Also, since he is in the deep South there isn't a lot of sympathy towards abolishing slavery, so finding a "willing ear" to tell this information to was a danger in itself. Simply verbalizing one's desire to be free from the plantations was enough to get whipped mercilessly. Actually attempting to do so would result in being beaten near death, then being allowed a few days to recover, then being sent back to work and probably being whipped over and over again if one fell behind in their duties.

Because of this Soloman, now known as Pratt to everyone including his fellow slaves, had resigned himself to never being free again. There are some moments where he believes that freedom is just around the corner, and only because of bad circumstances and the near impossibility of finding someone who has been kidnapped during the 19th century prevent his truth from getting out. I'm not going to reveal what it is that results in him eventually getting free and if you have seen the movie you already know what makes that happen anyway.

I expected to not enjoy this book because of the fact that I already knew the ending and most of the middle and beginning, I found myself hanging on every word once I got used to the narration style, which can be a bit off-putting at first because it is written in old-timey language that I presume was how everyone spoke at the time.

This book isn't too long, and it isn't too short. They also use chapter lengths that are just the right size and Soloman doesn't go into too wordy descriptions of the surroundings but instead gets straight to the point about everything that is going on. Being overly wordy or poetic about a situation is something that annoys me in all books and I was pleased that it didn't happen in this work.

This is a real page-turner and I ended up staying up well past my bedtime because of A BOOK. This rarely happens to me and most other people considering the YouTube times of low-attention that we live in now and most of us are guilty of succumbing to.

One thing that is really special about this book is that it is considered rather instrumental in putting the pieces in motion to make the North push for the ending of slavery in the USA and is one of the main pieces of literature that let people in the North discover just how terrible it was for blacks in the south. Most people in the North were blissfully unaware of the horrible circumstances that existed in slavery and because so many people signed on to testify that what Soloman was saying was true, it was taken very seriously by the public at the time.

It became a worldwide best-seller, which is a very big deal in the 1800's. Then something rather amazing happened: The books, despite being sold far and wide just kind of disappeared until a woman found in the late 1950's. Up to that point it was remembered, but no one had a copy that they were aware of. At the time of its discovery in the 60's it was reprinted by 1968 and re-sold and became an international best-seller a 2nd time. Then, just a few years ago after the movie was released it was printed AGAIN and became an international best-seller a 3rd time. This can't be true for very many books in all of history.

Since I didn't have a Nadi with the book picture, here is a recent Nadi with her squeaking carrot toy picture.

12 Years a Slave is an outstanding piece of non-fiction and it took me less than a week to finish it. For me, this is basically speed-reading. At first people might be a bit annoyed with the writing style, because it seems so foreign for someone to talk like that but stick with it! Once you put your mind into the head of the person telling the story it becomes even more engaging.

A truly wonderful read, I would put this at the top of books that people should read. It will remain forever etched into my memory.