Esi Edugyan

Has M has noted it's impossible to foretell where Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black is headed, as we follow the eponymous narrator over the tumultuous ad enventful course of his young life - from about 8 years old to, in part 3, about 18. What at first seems as if it will about life on a Barbados sugar plantation in 1830 as experienced by a young man evolves into a story about an abortive attempt to build a "flying machine" and then into an escape from slavery to the USA w slave catchers in pursuit and then to a scientific expedition to the Arctic and next to life on the wharves of Nova Scotia where Wash falls in love for the first time w the daughter of one who turns out to be a world renowned what we would today call marine biologist - who it seems will enlist Wash in his studies - and the ever inventive Wash proposes creation of the world's first saltwater aquarium. whew. This cornucopia of plot would be too much in most novels, but EE brings it off. The novel is not quite believable - neither is Great Expectations or Tom Jones really - but she creates each scene and plot element (some of which , like the Barton fight in part 3, seem to be left by the wayside as the plot advances, which is actually quite lifelike) w such confidence and veracity that we are swept along in the onrush of events. I don't know if there's any great meaning to this novel, but it's impressive throughout for its entertainment value and some vividly rendered scenes (in part 3 for ex Wash's deep water dive and encounter w an octopus) and moments of great acuity (in part 3 Wash's account of his sexual loneliness and his fear of approaching too close to the scientist's daughter Tanna - a wise and worldly caution given his race, his status, and his vulnerability, bounty hunters are still, he believes, pursuing him as a runaway.

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