Customer Reviews

Confessions of Nat Turner (Vintage Classics)

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If William Styron has done us a disservice it's that he's unleashed upon America the concept of political correctness. The backlash against this book, to a large extent, is what started it all. Some of the criticism is on-target, but much is unfair.

Slaves typically have been depicted in one of two ways: as the simple-minded shuffling watermelon-eating darkie, or as the noble African struggling valiantly against the tyrannical white plantation.

One depiction is overtly racist, and the secondly is unrealistically romantic (and in it's own way demeaning).

What Styron gives us is "none of the above". What he tries to depict is a reality that is often overlooked or not acknowledged: that chattel slavery in the American South was a ruthlessly and crushingly effective system; so effective that throughout its history (from the 1600's through the Emancipation Proclamation) there were only two armed rebellions.

Slavery was obviously a great evil; it is equally obvious that as a mechanism for suppressing the enslaved it was remarkably effective. It follows that this mechanism will have an effect on the suppressed. Chattel slavery was, in many cases, a "breaker of spirits".

The depiction of the slaves in this book is not always positive. What Styron tries to show (sometimes successfully) is that slavery was a heavy weight, and that the slaves who bore this weight were not always noble. This is what many readers have found offensive, and why the book has been labeled "racist". This was not my impression (my background: I'm an African American raised in Texas.)

This is a novel full of ugliness and negative characters. There is not a single fully sympathetic character in the entire book, black or white. In this way, it is an exploration of the evil of slavery.

This novel is not a history lesson; and in that many readers accept the fiction as fact Styron might have done us an additional disservice. Styron himself acknowledges this in the forward of the recent addition. The controversy surrounding Confessions is not what it once was, but I'd encourage anyone who has deliberately avoided the book because they've been told it is racist to read it and decide for yourself.

I have always admired Styron's bravery in handling difficult subjects. Styron is a novelist in the classic tradition, and is concerned with depth of theme and pyschological motivation--two things that are sneered at in todays academic climate. Yes, it is a problem straying into the political arena--but Styron achieves the important task of humanising Nat Turner--making him real, and not some dusty abstract fictional personage--consigned to the footnotes of History. Racism has many faces, and as I read Styron's novel, I became angrier and angrier, as the palpable, grinding and dehumanising aspects of America's slave legacy was unfolded in Nat's story. The ending was incredibly powerful. I urge people, of all creeds and colours, to read this book and keep an open mind. Styron is NOT a racist, but a HUMANIST.The story he tells has eternal relevance, and is told with integrity and great literary skill. A book should stand alone, but I hope some day that this novel is made into a film. Its story is too important to remain locked within the literary arena.

William Styron had the misfortune to publish "The Confessions of Nat Turner" in the late 1960s. The timing was such that Styron had the odd experience of a) being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the book and b) being shunned by many, black and white, for having had the temerity to put himself in the mind of a black slave when he himself was a white Southerner.

The color of Styron's skin doesn't matter anymore than it should for anyone else. "The Confessions of Nat Turner" is a brutal accounting, from Nat Turner's point of view, of the events that led up to the only long-term revolt in the disgraceful history of American slavery. We see the beginnings of Turner's musings when, as a young and extraordinarily intelligent slave, he fights mentally against his enslavement. It's when the dam bursts and he decides to fight physically that his downfall begins. There is a suggestion of perhaps not mental illness, but a messianic complex here in Styron's rendering of Turner. It works, for a character in a novel, but some readers will be taken aback by the fact that Styron makes Turner somehow mentally unstable.

As with all books, the uninitiated reader wants to know: is it a good read? It is. It's propulsive and majestic and the kind of book you don't want to end. Styron handles the ending with great delicacy and restraint. "The Confessions of Nat Turner" is a sustained and detailed portrait of a compelling figure in early American history. It is a masterpiece.

It's a shame that this book has been shrouded in accusations of racism and bigotry, because it detracts from the simple fact that "Nat Turner" is a beautifully written, impressively narrated and horribly affecting novel. Styron's Nat is a fully realized, memorable and finely-drawn character, whose insights into slavery and human nature in general, linger long after the closing words. In the end he emerges, not so much as a hero, but as a human pushed to the brink by circumstances beyond his control. An essential read for anyone who enjoys novels which plumb the depths of the human condition.

This is a stunningly intense and powerful novel. The novel is written as the final confession of Nat Turner following his brutally violent slave revolt of 1831. The account is fictionalized though relies heavily on historical facts for its basis.

The novel is painfully tragic as Styron masterfully portrays Turner's existence within the deep south during slavery. Styron's novel is filled with many tragic ironies that mirror the strange logic of slavery and oppression. Turner is initially uplifted by the power of religion, but eventually uses the Bible and bizarre visions to justify his brutal revolt. Throughout the novel, Styron is even-keeled, never passing judgment on Turner, ultimately allowing the reader to come to his/her own conclusions. The novel is vivid and necessarily graphic in places as Styron depicts the harsh slave world where violence leads to more violence.

This is an important novel to read, for it gives important insight into how history shaped American race relations. Styron caught a lot of flak for writing this book (he is Caucasian), but ultimately, I believe his detractors are closed minded. His portrayal is simply stunning, and you needn't be white or black to understand Nat Turner's plight, but merely be a human.

This is one of the most moving, intense novels I've ever read. It is a fictional account of the 1830's uprising led by the slave Nat Turner in Southampton, Virginia, which culminated in the deaths of nearly seventy white men, women, and children, and Turner's own execution.

The ethics of this novel are the only thing which keeps me from giving it a full five stars. I do not fully understand the controversy surrounding it. Apparently African Americans of the 60's objected to the work not simply because it was written by a white southern man, but because of the frank depictions of Nat's secret sexual desire for a white female in the story. It has been pointed out to me that many feel that this is a case of a folk hero being (deliberately?) maligned in some way by one who cannot possibly empathize with Turner (Styron being white), and while there is some merit in that arguement, I myself found the sexual aspect justified in terms of the character's development - as a fictional interpretation (although I felt it detracted somewhat from his character -and seemed a little...easy). I can see how without any empirical evidence to support the notion that Turner held this desire, it might anger some people. Yet, this is only a fictional work. If some Frenchman were to write a novel about George Washington and portray him as lusting after little boys, I could see how an American might be angered, and yet I have faith that the majority of people would shrug it off as a simple piece of fiction. Which is what this is. A brilliant, engrossing work of fiction. People seeking facts about the insurrection should not look to fiction, though admittedly there is a lot less in the way of source material beyond the actual Confessions as they exist in historical record when compared to this novel. I still feel Styron did an excellent job of extrapolating a story from a dictated (and probably heavily interpreted) confession. Sadly, no one in this world will ever know the truth of Nat Turner's early days. His history begins and ends with his Confession.

Taken alone, this novel is still a very interesting read, though I'm not exactly sure if it deserved a Pulitzer Prize. If there was any book written by a white man of the sixties which DID deserve this prestigious award, it must be `Black Like Me.' I was not around in the sixties, but I can see that this novel might have gone a long way towards fostering an understanding (at least for white people) of the horrors of chattel slavery in America.

Styron's portrayal of the day to day hardships of Nat Turner's life both external and internal are extremely vivid. The characters that populate the story, both slave, free, and master, are all very human, never degenerating to the lazy stereotypes of the shiftless and abasing Stepin Fetchit or the entirely brutal Simon LeGree (though these extremes are shown to exist). No one is entirely evil and no one is entirely good, just as in reality. The internal struggles of Nat's personality are also quite well realized, as he wrestles with the question of God, and his own self-worth (and those of his people). All in all, a striking novel by a talented writer.

There is much to be said about this novel apart from the wrongly alleged "subtle" or "open" racism of its author, William Styron, a rare writer with the dark-red conscience necessary to firmly seat himself in the civil uneasy chair of revisionist sensitive-history. A brief overview of his work in both fiction and memoir shows civil rights to be a cornerstone of his thematic untertaking; thematic material that, for the most part, anglo writers either ignore or address tentatively with small equanimity. One senses, not only in Styron's work, but in his selection of narrative, a deep, vengeful need to understand a psychology and a violence that seems humanly irreconcilable. And of course it is not; Styron's, like any useful imagination, is boundless and capable of understanding all human action, no matter how sinister. Styron must have known many decades ago that what we are for any reason afraid to address satisfactorily will continue in a more destructive form in time. What better hero then, than Nat Turner? It is clear that Styron had as little choice whether or not to address this subject as Nat Turner had to address his situation all those years ago, and for precisely the same reason, to change it.

Written in 1968, Styron's "Confessions" delves deep into the psychology behind Nat Turner's 1831 slave revolt. Almost unbearable in its graphic violence and Biblically-dimensioned heartbreak, the novel (for it *is* fictional) has Turner telling the whole story in painfully honest detail. Styron neither defends Turner nor paints him as crazy; he is less interested in pointing out right or wrong than in trying to understand the broad ironies of the system of slavery and its effects on the people who ran it and were subject to it. Styron's Nat Turner is a man who is both educated and destroyed by his masters; he is both uplifted and misled by the Bible. His hatred is not fueled by the hatred of whites, but by the pity of whites. And when he kills, he is only able to commit one physical murder, though he takes responsibility for 60. The book is often painful to read, especially for one who might think that race relations today have little to do with 19th-century slavery. But in its wealth of detail and its ability to enter into the mind of a complex and criminal mind, it is unique, and should be required reading for every self-termed patriotic American.

The Confessions of Nat Turner is one of Styron's most powerful works, a fascinating exercise in imagination. Styron begins with a true historical event -- a slave rebellion that struck terror into the hearts of white southerners before ultimately being quelled. Styron sees in the psychological tinder box ignited by the rebellion, and in its leader, Nat Turner, a little-understood passion play. Critics who complain that Styron doesn't answer some historical questions: "Gee, Nat's owner didn't treat him so bad, why'd he rebel?" miss the point. What fascinates Styron, and a careful reader, is what the fact of rebellion does to the minds and emotions of those it touches. Besides, anyone who finishes Styron's novel without a sense of why Turner led the rebellion wasn't reading very carefully; the whole novel turns on Styron's hypothetical answer to this question. One of the central conceits of the book is Styron's imagination that Turner could have been fueled by his sense that he had been chosen by God to lead his fellow slaves in an uprising. Styron paints a powerful picture of one driven by the conviction -- whether divinely inspired or delusional -- that he is a vengeful avatar called upon by a higher power to wreak vengeance on the perceived enemies of God. There is an obvious parallel here to the Harper's Ferry uprising led by John Brown (whom Russell Banks, in Cloudsplitter, depicts as similarly driven by mania), as well as to figures like Joan D'Arc. Styron, who wrote a moving memoir discussing his own struggle with mentally illness, has a special fascination with, and sensitivity to, such issues.

Have you ever wanted to say something and then discovered that someone else has said it first and better than you would have? Well, that was my experience upon reading the review written by Christopher Smith at the top of the readers' reviews section.

So, rather than re-hash what has already been ably stated, I will add a few more thoughts of my own.

The controversy over Styron's portrayal of Nat Turner would not be nearly as furious if not for the sheer power of Styron's writing. He drags you into Turner's tortured mind and you can feel Turner's anger, rage and lust. In my case, it pulled me in so tightly during some scenes that the rest of the world was lost to me. All was a breathless rush until that little piece of this tragedy was over and I was able to breathe again. Although I am not entirely pleased with some of the liberties that were taken with the real history of Nat Turner, the writing displayed in this book is really quite exceptional and it merits the 5 stars.