You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

Interesting, worth reading after a slow start, 23 Mar 2007
I bought this immediately more because it was a novel written by a Guyanese and based in Guyana and I love all things Guyanese. You certainly would not need to know anything about the country to enjoy this book. It is an interestingly written insight into family, cultures, pyshcology and how distorted our view can be to life if we do not know or wish not to accept the truth. I liked the style of writing - short chapters often looking at the same incident through different peoples eyes.

So why only 3 stars? Mostly because I found the first 100 pages slow going. I think if it had not been a novel with the Guyana link I would have given up. However having persevered I am glad I continued to the end, I felt it got much better as the plot expanded to the family and situation immediately outside of the confines of the 4 walls of the house. On reflection when I reached the end I could understand why the author spent so much time in what seemed repetetive chapters about physical abuse of a young girl Bethany Bettany at the start of the book, but it did make me nearly give up reaching the end.

I would read something else by Fred D'Aguair.

Bethany Bettant, 22 Jun 2005
D'Aguiar presents a perfect example of the effect ignorance can have on a child's life. Through the family's ignorance Bethany Bettany has a very confused and troubled childhood. D'aguiar also emphasises the differences between the cultures and the result of particular things depends on the perception.

Bloodlines, the latest book by award-winning poet and novelist Fred D'Aguiar, invites us to read its title in two ways: as the "bloodlines" of inheritance, and as lines written in blood. D'Aguiar's new work, a novel in verse, deals directly with the brutish facts and festering legacy of slavery ("hoping to kill the soul/ by wrecking the body") by focusing on the "illegal passion" between Faith, a slave, and Christy, the son of a plantation owner.

Interracial sex--even now a delicate subject in the United States--becomes the centre of a multi-faceted narrative, as the consequences of their relationship is refracted through a variety of characters. The whole is mediated through the narrator, Faith and Christy's orphaned son, who becomes the personification of their terrible history: "I am the lives of slaves... The past won't let me leave." Condemned to the act of compulsive witnessing ("My cloudy head/ humming full of Slavery's towering dead"), the deathless narrator survives to see slavery mutate into other versions of bigotry: "Slavery may be buried ... Racism still breeds."

D'Aguiar's book is written in ottava rima, a complex rhyming verse form used most notoriously by Lord Byron in Beppo and Don Juan, and can be seen as a modern-day answer to Byron's dislike of "cant political, religious and moral" and to the latter poem's digressional structure. After the opening section, which recounts Faith and Christy's story, we get sections on the later lives of the now separated Faith and Christy, followed by the narratives of Tom and Stella, ex-slaves who are now part of the Underground Railroad--the secret route to freedom for escapees from the Southern states.

The book's structure allows D'Aguiar to roam freely through the inner worlds of his cast of characters: in fact his verse is most alive when dealing with the intimacy of sex and the unfettered freedom allowed by imagination. Among the most vivid passages in the book are Tom and Stella's very different dreams of an idyllic Africa, in which sensual details combine to articulate the "thinking heart" that "involves the spine, the sap of trees,/ and history." It is this insistence on the imaginative autonomy of the self that balances and counters the book's bleak architecture of violence; and in an age that has seen the resurgence of ethnic divisions and racist rhetoric, D'Aguiar's voice is a bold and necessary declaration of the specifics of love and the imagination over the crude abstractions of hatred. --Burhan Tufail

You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

Interesting, worth reading after a slow start, 23 Mar 2007
I bought this immediately more because it was a novel written by a Guyanese and based in Guyana and I love all things Guyanese. You certainly would not need to know anything about the country to enjoy this book. It is an interestingly written insight into family, cultures, pyshcology and how distorted our view can be to life if we do not know or wish not to accept the truth. I liked the style of writing - short chapters often looking at the same incident through different peoples eyes.

So why only 3 stars? Mostly because I found the first 100 pages slow going. I think if it had not been a novel with the Guyana link I would have given up. However having persevered I am glad I continued to the end, I felt it got much better as the plot expanded to the family and situation immediately outside of the confines of the 4 walls of the house. On reflection when I reached the end I could understand why the author spent so much time in what seemed repetetive chapters about physical abuse of a young girl Bethany Bettany at the start of the book, but it did make me nearly give up reaching the end.

I would read something else by Fred D'Aguair.

Bethany Bettant, 22 Jun 2005
D'Aguiar presents a perfect example of the effect ignorance can have on a child's life. Through the family's ignorance Bethany Bettany has a very confused and troubled childhood. D'aguiar also emphasises the differences between the cultures and the result of particular things depends on the perception.

happy i am me, 12 Nov 2002
This work has an overall musicality that pulses with reggae and scat. I could only think, as I poured through the pages, of how happy I am to have been born in my time, and not to have lived through the utter desperation of slavery in the pre-bellum south.

I love the female narrative and think this was exquisitely done, and probably the most powerful of all of them, and I could have heard more from her. The end for me dropped off in intensity and focus a little, and became a little reflective, when I guess I wanted to see more details about how this offspring's life unfolded.

I think it's sad, and lovely, and playful at the sametime. Definately worth the read.

Freedom . Just A Word?, 22 Nov 2000
The latest book from celebrated poet Fred d'Aguiar is a novel in verse form relating the story of Faith, a black slave and her white lover, Christy. Spanning the years from the American Civil War to the present and showing us how little we appear to have learnt about racism and its haunting roots d'Aguiar uses words like weapons to drive his message home. As narrated by the son of Faith and Christy the novel also peels back society's attitude to mixed marriage and exposes the raw predjudice inside. Using the ottava rima verse form favoured by Byron this is a compelling and avidly readable book despite its subject matter which some may find heavy going. They should not be deterred as d'Aguiar's sparkling way with words and pin-sharp humour lift it way above the humdrum and the moribund.As the inside cover says, " read it fast like a novel,savour every word like a poem" The only addition I can make to that is return time and again to rejoice at d'Aguiar's spellbinding language and his eternal, heart felt message.

Bloodlines, the latest book by award-winning poet and novelist Fred D'Aguiar, invites us to read its title in two ways: as the "bloodlines" of inheritance, and as lines written in blood. D'Aguiar's new work, a novel in verse, deals directly with the brutish facts and festering legacy of slavery ("hoping to kill the soul/ by wrecking the body") by focusing on the "illegal passion" between Faith, a slave, and Christy, the son of a plantation owner.

Interracial sex--even now a delicate subject in the United States--becomes the centre of a multi-faceted narrative, as the consequences of their relationship is refracted through a variety of characters. The whole is mediated through the narrator, Faith and Christy's orphaned son, who becomes the personification of their terrible history: "I am the lives of slaves... The past won't let me leave." Condemned to the act of compulsive witnessing ("My cloudy head/ humming full of Slavery's towering dead"), the deathless narrator survives to see slavery mutate into other versions of bigotry: "Slavery may be buried ... Racism still breeds."

D'Aguiar's book is written in ottava rima, a complex rhyming verse form used most notoriously by Lord Byron in Beppo and Don Juan, and can be seen as a modern-day answer to Byron's dislike of "cant political, religious and moral" and to the latter poem's digressional structure. After the opening section, which recounts Faith and Christy's story, we get sections on the later lives of the now separated Faith and Christy, followed by the narratives of Tom and Stella, ex-slaves who are now part of the Underground Railroad--the secret route to freedom for escapees from the Southern states.

The book's structure allows D'Aguiar to roam freely through the inner worlds of his cast of characters: in fact his verse is most alive when dealing with the intimacy of sex and the unfettered freedom allowed by imagination. Among the most vivid passages in the book are Tom and Stella's very different dreams of an idyllic Africa, in which sensual details combine to articulate the "thinking heart" that "involves the spine, the sap of trees,/ and history." It is this insistence on the imaginative autonomy of the self that balances and counters the book's bleak architecture of violence; and in an age that has seen the resurgence of ethnic divisions and racist rhetoric, D'Aguiar's voice is a bold and necessary declaration of the specifics of love and the imagination over the crude abstractions of hatred. --Burhan Tufail

You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

Interesting, worth reading after a slow start, 23 Mar 2007
I bought this immediately more because it was a novel written by a Guyanese and based in Guyana and I love all things Guyanese. You certainly would not need to know anything about the country to enjoy this book. It is an interestingly written insight into family, cultures, pyshcology and how distorted our view can be to life if we do not know or wish not to accept the truth. I liked the style of writing - short chapters often looking at the same incident through different peoples eyes.

So why only 3 stars? Mostly because I found the first 100 pages slow going. I think if it had not been a novel with the Guyana link I would have given up. However having persevered I am glad I continued to the end, I felt it got much better as the plot expanded to the family and situation immediately outside of the confines of the 4 walls of the house. On reflection when I reached the end I could understand why the author spent so much time in what seemed repetetive chapters about physical abuse of a young girl Bethany Bettany at the start of the book, but it did make me nearly give up reaching the end.

I would read something else by Fred D'Aguair.

Bethany Bettant, 22 Jun 2005
D'Aguiar presents a perfect example of the effect ignorance can have on a child's life. Through the family's ignorance Bethany Bettany has a very confused and troubled childhood. D'aguiar also emphasises the differences between the cultures and the result of particular things depends on the perception.

happy i am me, 12 Nov 2002
This work has an overall musicality that pulses with reggae and scat. I could only think, as I poured through the pages, of how happy I am to have been born in my time, and not to have lived through the utter desperation of slavery in the pre-bellum south.

I love the female narrative and think this was exquisitely done, and probably the most powerful of all of them, and I could have heard more from her. The end for me dropped off in intensity and focus a little, and became a little reflective, when I guess I wanted to see more details about how this offspring's life unfolded.

I think it's sad, and lovely, and playful at the sametime. Definately worth the read.

Freedom . Just A Word?, 22 Nov 2000
The latest book from celebrated poet Fred d'Aguiar is a novel in verse form relating the story of Faith, a black slave and her white lover, Christy. Spanning the years from the American Civil War to the present and showing us how little we appear to have learnt about racism and its haunting roots d'Aguiar uses words like weapons to drive his message home. As narrated by the son of Faith and Christy the novel also peels back society's attitude to mixed marriage and exposes the raw predjudice inside. Using the ottava rima verse form favoured by Byron this is a compelling and avidly readable book despite its subject matter which some may find heavy going. They should not be deterred as d'Aguiar's sparkling way with words and pin-sharp humour lift it way above the humdrum and the moribund.As the inside cover says, " read it fast like a novel,savour every word like a poem" The only addition I can make to that is return time and again to rejoice at d'Aguiar's spellbinding language and his eternal, heart felt message.

happy i am me, 12 Nov 2002
This work has an overall musicality that pulses with reggae and scat. I could only think, as I poured through the pages, of how happy I am to have been born in my time, and not to have lived through the utter desperation of slavery in the pre-bellum south.

I love the female narrative and think this was exquisitely done, and probably the most powerful of all of them, and I could have heard more from her. The end for me dropped off in intensity and focus a little, and became a little reflective, when I guess I wanted to see more details about how this offspring's life unfolded.

I think it's sad, and lovely, and playful at the sametime. Definately worth the read.

Freedom . Just A Word?, 22 Nov 2000
The latest book from celebrated poet Fred d'Aguiar is a novel in verse form relating the story of Faith, a black slave and her white lover, Christy. Spanning the years from the American Civil War to the present and showing us how little we appear to have learnt about racism and its haunting roots d'Aguiar uses words like weapons to drive his message home. As narrated by the son of Faith and Christy the novel also peels back society's attitude to mixed marriage and exposes the raw predjudice inside. Using the ottava rima verse form favoured by Byron this is a compelling and avidly readable book despite its subject matter which some may find heavy going. They should not be deterred as d'Aguiar's sparkling way with words and pin-sharp humour lift it way above the humdrum and the moribund.As the inside cover says, " read it fast like a novel,savour every word like a poem" The only addition I can make to that is return time and again to rejoice at d'Aguiar's spellbinding language and his eternal, heart felt message.

You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

Interesting, worth reading after a slow start, 23 Mar 2007
I bought this immediately more because it was a novel written by a Guyanese and based in Guyana and I love all things Guyanese. You certainly would not need to know anything about the country to enjoy this book. It is an interestingly written insight into family, cultures, pyshcology and how distorted our view can be to life if we do not know or wish not to accept the truth. I liked the style of writing - short chapters often looking at the same incident through different peoples eyes.

So why only 3 stars? Mostly because I found the first 100 pages slow going. I think if it had not been a novel with the Guyana link I would have given up. However having persevered I am glad I continued to the end, I felt it got much better as the plot expanded to the family and situation immediately outside of the confines of the 4 walls of the house. On reflection when I reached the end I could understand why the author spent so much time in what seemed repetetive chapters about physical abuse of a young girl Bethany Bettany at the start of the book, but it did make me nearly give up reaching the end.

I would read something else by Fred D'Aguair.

Bethany Bettant, 22 Jun 2005
D'Aguiar presents a perfect example of the effect ignorance can have on a child's life. Through the family's ignorance Bethany Bettany has a very confused and troubled childhood. D'aguiar also emphasises the differences between the cultures and the result of particular things depends on the perception.

happy i am me, 12 Nov 2002
This work has an overall musicality that pulses with reggae and scat. I could only think, as I poured through the pages, of how happy I am to have been born in my time, and not to have lived through the utter desperation of slavery in the pre-bellum south.

I love the female narrative and think this was exquisitely done, and probably the most powerful of all of them, and I could have heard more from her. The end for me dropped off in intensity and focus a little, and became a little reflective, when I guess I wanted to see more details about how this offspring's life unfolded.

I think it's sad, and lovely, and playful at the sametime. Definately worth the read.

Freedom . Just A Word?, 22 Nov 2000
The latest book from celebrated poet Fred d'Aguiar is a novel in verse form relating the story of Faith, a black slave and her white lover, Christy. Spanning the years from the American Civil War to the present and showing us how little we appear to have learnt about racism and its haunting roots d'Aguiar uses words like weapons to drive his message home. As narrated by the son of Faith and Christy the novel also peels back society's attitude to mixed marriage and exposes the raw predjudice inside. Using the ottava rima verse form favoured by Byron this is a compelling and avidly readable book despite its subject matter which some may find heavy going. They should not be deterred as d'Aguiar's sparkling way with words and pin-sharp humour lift it way above the humdrum and the moribund.As the inside cover says, " read it fast like a novel,savour every word like a poem" The only addition I can make to that is return time and again to rejoice at d'Aguiar's spellbinding language and his eternal, heart felt message.

happy i am me, 12 Nov 2002
This work has an overall musicality that pulses with reggae and scat. I could only think, as I poured through the pages, of how happy I am to have been born in my time, and not to have lived through the utter desperation of slavery in the pre-bellum south.

I love the female narrative and think this was exquisitely done, and probably the most powerful of all of them, and I could have heard more from her. The end for me dropped off in intensity and focus a little, and became a little reflective, when I guess I wanted to see more details about how this offspring's life unfolded.

I think it's sad, and lovely, and playful at the sametime. Definately worth the read.

Freedom . Just A Word?, 22 Nov 2000
The latest book from celebrated poet Fred d'Aguiar is a novel in verse form relating the story of Faith, a black slave and her white lover, Christy. Spanning the years from the American Civil War to the present and showing us how little we appear to have learnt about racism and its haunting roots d'Aguiar uses words like weapons to drive his message home. As narrated by the son of Faith and Christy the novel also peels back society's attitude to mixed marriage and exposes the raw predjudice inside. Using the ottava rima verse form favoured by Byron this is a compelling and avidly readable book despite its subject matter which some may find heavy going. They should not be deterred as d'Aguiar's sparkling way with words and pin-sharp humour lift it way above the humdrum and the moribund.As the inside cover says, " read it fast like a novel,savour every word like a poem" The only addition I can make to that is return time and again to rejoice at d'Aguiar's spellbinding language and his eternal, heart felt message.

You can understand the way there life was from this book, 19 May 2000
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.

plain and simple, yet full of complications, 07 Mar 2000
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man, 15 Oct 1999
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.