Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990) Charles Johnson's National Book Award-winning text is his third published novel.  It is also his second fictional treatment of American slavery (Oxherding Tale was the first).  A prolific cartoonist, critic, and contributor to television -- and also a professor of English at the University of Washington -- Johnson is one of America's leading contemporary novelists.  His major works include:  • Half-Past Nation-Time (1972)  • Faith and the Good Thing (1974)  • Oxherding Tale (1982)  • Being and Race: Black Writing Since 1970 (1988)  • Dreamer (1998)

Pre-reading questions:

• Begin this book on the acknowledgments page, which will give you some feel for how Johnson went about preparing the novel.  Then be sure to read the dedication, the epigraphs, and the opening journal inscription ("Laud Deo...").  How, in particular, do the epigraphs prepare you for the tale?  What do they leave you to expect from the novel?  What sorts of topics or issues do they foreground?
• The rough translation of the Aquinas epigraph is: "In a way, man is everything."
• For the full text of Robert Hayden's poem "Middle Passage" (the source for the second epigraph), click here: The Academy of American Poets - Poetry Exhibits - Robert Hayden.
• A tip: as you read, pay attention to the dates of each entry.  They will help you keep track of the passage of time during the journey.
• Another tip: keep a dictionary handy, though don't be frustrated if you can't find all the unusual words Johnson uses in it.  Johnson mixes in a number of 19th-century terms and particularly nautical language.  What's the effect of this kind of writing style?
• At the same time, the text has a very contemporary feel -- even at times an anachronistic one.  What's the effect of this mixing of time periods?  Playful?  Disconcerting?
• We've returned once again to a first person narrator.  How would you characterize the tale-telling voice of Rutherford Calhoun?  What are his verbal habits, his biases, his preoccupations?
• Why do you suppose Johnson decided to tell this tale in the form of a journal?
• What other stories, or kinds of stories, do you feel being invoked here?  Why so many allusions to other tales?
• This is a novel about the slave trade.  It's also, at times, a very funny book.  Are these modes compatible, or do you find the humor jarring?
• Some readers find this a particularly "cinematic" text -- in places, it almost feels as though you could translate the rousing action directly to the screen.  Do you think this is deliberate?  Why or why not?  What effect does this particularly dramatic or visual writing have on the tale being told?
• At the same time, many of the book's passages have a particularly "philosophical" quality.  What do you make of these moments?  Are they well integrated with the sea tale, or do they stand outside it?
• What kind of journey is at the heart of this book?  Physical?  Spiritual?  Something else?
• Who -- or what -- is the Allmuseri God?
• How satisfying do you find the ending of the novel?  Why?

Web links:

• Charles Johnson Writing Award and Web Site (Southern Illinois University)
• Charles Johnson (Contemporary Authors)
• Charles Johnson's Tale Of Slaving, Seafaring And Philosophizing (Eleanor Blau, NYTimes)
• Misadventures In The Slave Trade (Thomas Keneally, NYTimes book review)
• 'Middle Passage' and 'Morgan' Win (on Johnson's National Book Award victory)
• "Ideology Said to Split Book Award Jurors" (NY Times article on the National Book Award voting)
• Interview with Charles Johnson
• B.A.D. Current Issue (synopses of critical essays on Middle Passage)
• Oregon Live: FrontList -- Deep impact -- June 22, 1998 (interview with Johnson)
• Timeline: The Atlantic Slave Trade
• Exploring Amistad: Race and the Boundaries of Freedom in Antebellum Maritime America
• On Paul Gilroy and the Black Atlantic