Ilyon Woo, "Master Slave Husband Wife" | J. Sanction, "Mad House at the End of the Earth"

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두 권의 (비소설) 책을 반반씩 읽었다.  한인계 미국 작가 Ilyon Woo의, 뉴욕 타임즈 10 Best Books (5 Best  비소설) 2023에 든, "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom" (2023)은 노예 부부가 남부를 탈출해서 보스턴에 머물며 '노예폐지' 순회강연에 참여하는 데까지를 다룬 전반부를,Julian Sanction의 "Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antartic Night" (2021)는 남극 탐험선이 1898년 3월 5일 남극 빙하에 갇힌 후, 70일간 해가 안 뜨는 겨울과 60일간 해가 안 지는 여름도 겪고서, 일 년이 지나서야 탈출에 성공해 되돌아오는, 그리고 그 후의, 이야기인 Part II를 읽었다. 

 

 

 

 

뉴욕 타임즈 서평: Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

 

아래는 책 본문에서:

 

Superficially, little changed following the sale -- the shape of his days remained as it had been before -- but on a deeper level, everything had transformed. Denied his last chance to say good-bye to his sister, William had experienced a rage so powerful that, as he would recall, it stopped his tears, seemed to set his mind aflame, made him crave power for vengeance. It was on that day that he resolved one day to run. (p. 40)

 

Whether or not they had children while enslaved, this much is clear: the Crafts had their future children in mind when they resolved to be free. They were huunted -- "above all," as they would later say -- by "the fact that another man had the power to tear from our cradle the newborn babe and sell it in the shambles like a brute, then scourge us if we dared to lift a finger to save it from such a fate." It was to defy this fate, a new reiteration of the central trauma of their own childhoods, that they vowed to put their lives on the line. (p. 72)

 

This welcome was, as William and Ellen would long remember, the "first act of great and disinterested kindness" they had received from White people. For Ellen, it was a transformative moment, one where her "fears and prejudices vanished" and she came to believe "that there are good and bad persons of every shade of complexion." The Quaker woman's hands were quite possibly the first White hands that willingly come to her aid. (p. 136)

 

 

 

 

 

 

뉴욕 타임즈 서평: Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton