The Long Song

[Dulra]

Anyone watching?
I think it is really good and superbly acted. It is set in Jamaica in the last days of slavery it is an equal mix of tragedy, brutality and humour. Last nights episode was hard to watch the master is full of good intentions but his "plan" was completely messed up and he was using both women appallingly. Doesn't look like it will end well for either. I know things were really complex back then and the black Jamicans were really viewed as sub human but it is so hard to watch how they are treated especially knowing that they were treated that way.
What do other people think of it? I was surprised there was no thread on it

How futile a situation for the people to be granted their 'freedom' with still so much overwhelming poverty, inequality and prejudiced.

Also that freedom perhaps wasn't everything they expected. Obviously they had rights as free people but they still had to work hard. Freedom didn't turnout to mean "just like the white land owners"

I'm not sure Robert was always a bastard as such. I think he was tipped over the edge by the whole rotting harvest thing and pushed back into the more expected "slave owner" mentality, seeing all black people as animals.

I prefer documentaries where everyone has some bad and good in them

They did though.

I don't think Robert was evil but he was naive and a coward. And an extreme example of how all white people are intrinsically racist.

Mmmm if it came out of him like that in the end then he must have always had it in him.

I didn't really see the humour in it though

all white people are intrinsically racist.

Er ... OK. If you say so...

I wanted to avoid something depressing but still went for this... that ending though😩. I guess it just shows the reality that many slaves faced, ultimately there was no happy ending for them. Even for July, she got her “happy ending” after many years of hardship and loss.

I think that Robert was good initially but idealistic and he didn’t know how to handle the freed slaves. It seemed like he had some kind of mental illness at the end when he wanted nothing to do with July. Like he wanted to block out any thought of her. How heartbreaking to be rejected by someone who loved you so much and promised you so much, and then for him to so cruelly take her child away😭

I've only watched the first episode I really enjoyed it! A reminder of what people will do (of all races, colours and creeds) when they have the freedom to behave in any way they like. Power does indeed, corrupt.

I don't think Robert was good, I think he was evil all along.

Ah I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking along those lines!

also, I haven't read the book, but didn't the narrator say Robert promised his father he wouldn't have sex till he got married...so his justification for waiting to have sex with July was to marry Caroline first....thereby announcing to the viewer what kind of man we were dealing with...?

I am so going to read the book!

I found it too simplistic in a "white people bad, black people good" sort of way.

Gosh that statement is very offensive. You really need to read some books about slavery. Then come back and tell us if you still think the same.

I like it.

But I watched it as a Jamaican with slave ancestors.

It was ok, but I think it was presented for a British audiences palate.

The patois was off... the folk songs they sung were changed and standardised for people to understand.

Also something to note July's mother would have been a child so about 13/14 when she had her and July herself would have been just a child when she slept with the free slave. But I understand that reality would be too difficult to put in tv form.

It's a good series and I found myself tearing up during the entire series. I found the end... taking her daughter really sad... I've heard family tales of children, light skin children being taken by slave masters.

I hope they do more like it I also watched small island after this and found that good as well.

I just finished all 3 eps today and it was so so good. I haven’t read the book but I’m definitely going to now.

There’s so many things to unpack in this show. Robert was too idealistic and naive till business made him hate the workers and, seeing as they were all black, by default hating July. I think Caroline did have something to do with it though especially with the look she gave July when they were leaving like it was like a “haha, he’s mine now”

Yes I agree that he turned against July because she was 'like the others' in his mind

Whilst this was uncomfortable to watch at some points, I enjoyed the whole series... and actually, it led me to watch the 'Imagine' documentary with Andrea Levy being interviewed by Alan Yentob, with my 14 year old son (who surprised me by knowing about The Windrush Generation, and would interrupt every now and then with the solitary comment: "That's a bit racist, isn't it, Mum?", and yes; yes it was!). I'm reading the book and whilst I agree with Lenny Henry that there is more characterisation in the novel (because... d'uh!), never having been to Jamaica and certainly not then, without the TV series, it's difficult to imagine.

I think that Robert, like so many slave owners back then, was abusing his authority over July, by sleeping with her. I think he was considerably younger than Caroline, and because he knew his father would have had a fit at the thought of his son with July... he slept with her, allowing her to fall in love with him, whilst he was simply in love with the idea. His true colours came out in the end, but up until that point it was like watching a teenager defying their parents, if that makes any sense?

What I want to know is about Emily's life, though. Did she know, as she grew up, that she was Robert's daughter? Was she raised as their child, by him and Caroline? Did she believe that Caroline was her mother? What happened to her...?! Was she a servant in their home, or their daughter? Did she know about July? Did they ever tell her about her actual mother, so far away in Jamaica (I suspect, from what we know of both their natures, they would have slung it at her to hurt her)?

Did July ever tell her recovered son about Nimrod? About what happened to him? I thought, watching the series (I'm only on the first chapter of the book) that it was Nimrod whom she loved, even when she was claiming to love Robert. And I'm bizarrely glad that she tried to be there for Kitty at the end - I was expecting there to be eye contact between them, right up until it was too late. A PP is right: Kitty would have been a young teenager when July was born. It might have been nice if there had been some semblance of recognition between July and Tam Dewer... but I think I "get" why there wasn't.

My son now wants to watch both 'Small Island' and this series, having only the 'Imagine' documentary/interview to go on. He knows about the slave trade, and about how some people fought in Parliament to abolish it - but I'm not sure how much he knows. Either way, Andrea Levy's books ought to be read in schools - I think they're actually more relevant than Thomas Hardy, or some of the other authors whose work is currently being read, given the free society in which we move. Another poster mentioned the Holocaust - perhaps Andrea Levy is the Anne Frank of slavery...?

I think that Robert, like so many slave owners back then, was abusing his authority over July, by sleeping with her. I think he was considerably younger than Caroline, and because he knew his father would have had a fit at the thought of his son with July... he slept with her, allowing her to fall in love with him, whilst he was simply in love with the idea. His true colours came out in the end, but up until that point it was like watching a teenager defying their parents, if that makes any sense?

Although he was 'against' slavery and seemed like an abolitionist at the start, he certainly benefited from it. He saw the best opportunity: marry Caroline who was frankly desperate to marry again and still have July as his mistress. I honestly don't think he really loved her. That was a show for July to stay being like a submissive 'wife' and servant. He certainly fetishised her since she was different and exotic but definitely not love. The narrator even said he kept his virginity till marriage and he went to July instead of Caroline. And when he started to put all the workers in one box in his mind, he put July in there too. She was all the same as them in the end. Caroline may have had some influence in that though, she just wanted her husband to herself.

That was his opinion all along, all he did was keep her sweet by going to her nightly and openly favouring her over everyone including Caroline.

Excellent show, although hard to watch, I want to read the book now too.
Roots is also currently on IPlayer which I've not seen yet but will be watching at some point.

So sad but glad she found her son.

Frustrating that Robert was so unyielding and obstinate