From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

The Confessions of Nat Turner

William Styron

Discussion: 2016 Read Harder Challenge

Why we're reading this: This book is great for the Read Harder- a modern classic, published in the 60s and historical fiction set…more
[close] This book is great for the Read Harder- a modern classic, published in the 60s and historical fiction set before 1900s

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2016 Read Harder Challenge

* Read Harder Challenge Plans: 2016
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What Members Thought

Feb 07, 2013 Kecia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer_prize, times_100_best, usa

This was a powerful book, one that will stay with me for a long, long time.

I was recently watchig the PBS series on the Abolitionists. In one of the programs they made a passing reference to the slave uprising led by Nat Turner. Wait? Nat Turner? Isn't that the name of one of the books on Time's 100 Best Novels list. Yes. I had never heard the story of Nat Turner. My curiousity sparked, I moved The Confessions of Nat Turner to the front of the line.

Before I started reading I surveyed reviews her This was a powerful book, one that will stay with me for a long, long time.

I was recently watchig the PBS series on the Abolitionists. In one of the programs they made a passing reference to the slave uprising led by Nat Turner. Wait? Nat Turner? Isn't that the name of one of the books on Time's 100 Best Novels list. Yes. I had never heard the story of Nat Turner. My curiousity sparked, I moved The Confessions of Nat Turner to the front of the line.

Before I started reading I surveyed reviews here on Good Reads. I quickly realized that there is a brohaha over the story. Styron fictionalized Nat's story. OK, that happens all the time. What's the big deal? When I went to the library to check the book out, I found it in the FICTION section. Isn't that a clue that this is not non-fiction? And while all of this occuring the news is full of similar stories, historians want the movie Lincoln changed to correct historical inaccuracies...because...I dunno, someone may think it's a documentary? Politicians want parts of Zero Dark Thirty changed because they say it is not accurate. Again, it's a movie! Then there was the Manly Library in Sydney who joked that they were moving Lance Armstrong's books to fiction. I once had an argument with my Dad over the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. He simply could understand the concept of a metaphor. Sigh.

What's a girl to do? This girl read Styron's novel as if it was a novel. Gasp! Seriously, I read it as fiction. But I also requested the actual confessions (or rather the historical version) of Nat Turner from the library. Enough of that.

There are those who believe in the unfallable righteousness of the United States, but our country's story has some really dark chapters. Perhaps no chapter is darker than the years in which humans could legally be held in bondage and treated as only 3/5ths human.

The story is told in the first person and I found it to be intensely personal. With each page I turned I was side by side with Nat. Listening to the story of his relegious fanatasim and the ever growing rage. Oh the rage! I felt the rage in my bones...but my 21st century privilege wanted Nat to back down. Live your life as an example Nat, not as an excuse.

This is a beautifully told and powerful novel. Nat (the fictional Nat) will stay with me for a long, long time.

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Sep 07, 2013 Cat rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, pulitzer-prize-winners

I can't believe we didn't study this in school. I grew up 70 miles away from Jerusalem and I don't remember any teacher ever once mentioning the name Nat Turner, despite countless field trips to colonial Williamsburg and Monticello. I felt conflicted about how William Styron unapologetically appropriates the story of a black slave, when he is a white male, but then feel that perspective taking is what fiction is all about. If we didn't give authors license to write from points of views that aren ...more

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