Flight to Canada
by Ishmael Reed
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Ishmael Reed's parody of slave narratives—the classical literature of the African American tradition—which redefined the neo-slave genre and launched a lucrative academic industrySome parodies are as necessary as the books they answer. Such is the case with Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed's scathing, offbeat response to conventional anti-slavery novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin. Though Flight to Canada has been classified by some as a "post race" novel, the villains and the heroes are show more clear. Three slaves are on the run from the Swille plantation. Among them, the most hotly pursued is Raven Quickskill, a poet who seeks freedom in Canada, and ultimately hopes to return and liberate others. But this particular Civil War–era landscape is littered with modern elements, from Xerox copiers to airplanes, and freely reimagines historic figures as sacred as Abraham Lincoln. A comedy flashing with insight, Flight to Canada poses serious questions about history and the complex ways that race relations in America are shaped by the past. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author. show less
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Member Reviews
A very sharp and funny satire (and more than satire, commentary) on Uncle Tom's Cabin and its popularity. This review is a rather gross simplification of a great novel, actually.
This book, a satiric take on black slavery, had a few funny moments. And maybe I'm just too dumb to get it, but I didn't find myself enjoying it quite as much as I thought I would. I think most of it has to do with the fact that I'm not as familiar with the Civil War era history as I wish I were and therefore, some of the funnier quips just didn't register. It had some interesting notions of identity based on cultural heritage, but not much else (in my opinion). Perhaps everything just went over my head or perhaps it just wasn't there to begin with. Either way, this book was a quick read so I might try it again some day when I'm more familiar with both postmodernism and the Civil War but for now, I'm just going to put it to the side and show more let smarter people enjoy it :) show less
Usually, I'm not a fan of satire, (it goes over my head), but wow, this book is crazy!
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Black Authors
384 works; 32 members
Author Information
68+ Works 3,951 Members
Poet and novelist Ismael Reed was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on February 22, 1938 and grew up in Buffalo, New York. After attending the State University of New York at Buffalo, he moved to New York City, where he became a co-founder of the East Village Other, a journal of experimental writing. From New York, he moved to Berkeley, California, show more and started the Yardbird Publishing Company. Reed's fiction draws upon myth, magic, and ritual to produce a literature that attempts to be larger than life. He has been called an ironist, whose explorations of United States history in general and African American history in particular reveal deep scars in the culture that no amount of technology can heal. Reed tries to incorporate multimedia and nonlinear techniques into his writing style. He has defended his eclectic techniques with spirit, however: "Many people call my fiction muddled, crazy, incoherent because I've attempted in fiction the techniques and forms painters, dancers, film makers, musicians in the West have taken for granted for at least 50 years, and the artists of many other cultures, for thousands of years." His other published books include: six collections of poetry, including: New and Collected Poems, 1964-2007; eight collections of essays, most recently Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers (2010); Gethsemane Park; The Reed Reader (2000); Blues City: A Walk in Oakland (2003); and six plays, collected by Dalkey Archive Press as Ishmael Reed, The Plays (2009). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1976
- People/Characters
- Raven Quickskill
- Important places
- Virginia, USA
- Epigraph
- "Evil dogs us." --James Bertolino
- Dedication
- For Skeleton Fixer
- Blurbers
- Baldwin, James
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 392
- Popularity
- 79,175
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.46)
- Languages
- Dutch, English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 3
