Books: The Idea of Hope

THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER by William Styron. 428 pages. Random House. $6.95.

In the summer of 1831, a force of 60 Negroes led by a mad, messianic slave named Nat Turner cut a red swath through the Virginia Tidewater country, slaughtering every white man, woman and child in their path. Although it was suppressed in two days, the rebellion claimed 55 victims. Its leader died on the gallows with 16 of his men. His body was flayed and the flesh rendered into grease; some souvenir-minded Virginian sliced a money purse out of the skin.

History has little more than that to say of Nat Turner's revolt. But readers will not fail to recognize that the shadow of Nat Turner darkened the streets of Newark and Detroit in the summer of 1967—and hovers still. This novel goes beyond a mere retelling of history to show how the fettered human spirit can splinter into murderous rage when it is goaded beyond endurance.

Black Man's Eyes. Styron's narrative power, lucidity and understanding of the epoch of slavery achieve a new peak in the literature of the South. The customary view, whether of willow-shaded plantation avenues or red clay roads leading to sharecroppers' cabins, has been white. Styron surveys the same landscape, but attempts to see it through the eyes of a black man.

Nat Turner's story is told in the first person, and some readers will feel that it is told almost too well; at times the narrator's lyrical style suggests Styron more than Turner. Most of the time, though, the author's impersonation rings true enough. Nat Turner was not only literate but eloquent: he left a 20-page confession, which was published the year after his death. From this personal account, as well as from a thorough familiarity with the literature of slavery and with Virginia's Tidewater region, Styron re-creates the rebel's career.

Nat must have been what the book makes of him: a black man born in bondage, conscious of his chains, but spoiled by the sweet taste of humanity that some of his masters allowed. "I will say this, without which you cannot understand the central madness of nigger existence," he explains. "Beat a nigger, starve him, leave him wallowing, and he will be yours for life. Awe him by some unforeseen hint of philanthropy, tickle him with the idea of hope, and he will want to slice your throat."

Foretaste of Freedom. The idea of hope comes from a kindly farmer, Samuel Turner, whose surname Nat assumes. When the young slave steals a book, his master sees proof that Nat is no less a man than himself. An educational experiment begins, during which the pupil absorbs the rudiments of scholarship along with a bitter truth: "The preacher was right. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."

Samuel Turner has plans to free his pet slave. The prospect appalls Nat: servitude and this loving master are all that he has known. Yet the foretaste of freedom, as Styron insists throughout the book, can only excite growing hunger. In one morning, in one glimpse of the possibilities of the future, Samuel Turner converts Nat forever into a hu man being burning to be free.