The Living Mountain is a short piece of writing that is rich in allegory and meaning; it comes from a dream brought on by anxiety surrounding the AnthThe Living Mountain is a short piece of writing that is rich in allegory and meaning; it comes from a dream brought on by anxiety surrounding the Anthropocene and its connotations: it comes from nervousness about the future in the wake of our attitude towards the natural world.
This takes on the form of a fable, one that highlights exactly what can go wrong if we dominate nature and cultivate too much of her riches and resources; it is a story that is very ecologically aware and one that is cautionary and intelligent: it is a very timely and important piece of writing. I find myself drawn to more and more books like this, books that engage with issues of ecology and the environment.
“How dare you speak of the Mountain as though you were its masters, and it were your plaything, your child. Have you understood nothing of what it has been trying to teach you? Nothing at all?
Amitav Ghosh is becoming one of my favorite writers because of the way he tackles environmental crisis and the way he situates it in a postcolonial space. And this is strikingly important, I have only ever seen a small handful of writers do this. When he talks about the mountain he is talking about nature as an entity, as a living system that we cannot control or should never attempt to do so. When he talks about invaders attempting to take all its resources, he is using the fable as an allegory for colonialism and its impact on the natural world.
Overall, this is a strong short story and I would love to see more of these from him. This would fit perfectly in a collection of them addressing similar themes.
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Gun Island is a beautifully written and clever novel that deals with myths and legends, environmental crisis and how our place in the world is fueled Gun Island is a beautifully written and clever novel that deals with myths and legends, environmental crisis and how our place in the world is fueled by uncertainty and catastrophe.
Amitav Ghosh is a writer whose work I've come to admire greatly. This novel deals with several themes that consider the difficulties of living in the modern world; it engages with displacement and identity, refuge and relocation: it captures the ever changing and ever evolving nature of a multi-cultural metropolis in the wake of increasing urbanization. It also captures the issues asylum seekers face as they cross boarders into the unknown. In the wake of tornedos and a shifting natural landscape, people are forced to evolve and adapt into something new: it’s a book written under the ever reaching and ever increasing shadow of climate change as we begin to enter an unrecognisable space. It's remarkable and potent.
“We’re in a new world now. No one knows where they belong anymore neither humans nor animals.”
Such is the dilemma of the protagonist, Deen Datta. He is a rare book dealer with Bengali background feeling at odds with his comfortable New York life. He feels out of place and like he has lost a sense of his true heritage. He goes on a quest to discover the details of The Gun Merchant, a fictional character evident in Bengali oral tradition, and in doing so learns a lot about himself, the world and life itself. The story is a slow burn, and in taking it cautiously Ghosh reveals the interconnected nature of the themes and characters.
I’m impressed with the number of themes Ghosh has engaged with here, and he has engaged with them carefully and sensitively. I’ve read a lot of his non-fictional work and I can see a lot of his interests pouring through into the narrative here. For me, he occupies a completely unique place in the fictional world because of what he addresses (and how he address it.) He is certainly an author that explores his ideas creatively through the act of writing.
I’m going to end my review by sharing a quote that sums up a large part of the central motif behind this novel here:
“Only though stories can invisible or inarticulate or silent beings speak to us; it is they who allow the past to reach out to us.”
And we can use them to inform the present. We can use them to understand the changes we are facing. I liked this novel, a lot.
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“It is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more.”
The Pearl is a moral allegory in narrative “It is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more.”
The Pearl is a moral allegory in narrative form; it is a revealing and instructional tale. At its very core, the novel establishes that wealth (in the form of a pearl) is not the answer to all our problems. In fact, it can create many more problems than it solves.
When Kino finds the treasure, he dreams of the opportunities it can bring him. He wants to get married in a big fancy church and he wants to send his son to school. However, when he attempts to sell it, he finds himself cheated by merchants (who see him as a dumb uneducated animal) and the object of envy from his neighbors. He finds himself in a dangerous situation as he is targeted by thieves and those who would do him, and his family, harm just to get their hands on the pearl. Kino becomes obsessed with protecting it and protecting the dreams he thinks it can realize.
Set against a backdrop of racial prejudice and a disparity of wealth and opportunity, the short work depicts the rural Mexican experience in the face of a modernizing world. Kino has more decency and respect for others, but often finds himself treated as lesser. He has better values, though for all his good intentions, he doesn’t quite grasp the opportunistic nature of the world. Human greed and materialism are virtues many live by. The Pearl works towards establishing how dangerous and foolish such virtues are.
Overall, it is a very good novel with a powerful central motif. It is, however, somewhat vanilla, and unemotional in its narrative power. The story falls just short of greatness as it fails to capture the intensity of the human experience with its bland diction and expression. The characters don’t really drive the story forward, the pearl does, and because of the brevity of the work they never really establish themselves or develop (until the reversal at the end.)
Moreover, the novel lacks a certain sense of drive and plot. Compared to the complexities of The Grapes of Wrath it’s a bit of a basic story. Indeed, the characters from of Of Mice and Men are well crafted and deeply flawed individuals by comparison. The ones here don’t quite have chance to shine. For me, this is very much a weak novel by a great writer who has done much better. It’s certainly worth a read, but I feel it could be a much better price of writing.
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This is a compelling case that links climate change with colonial history. Indeed, The Nutmeg’s Curse is scholarly, erudite and straight to the point This is a compelling case that links climate change with colonial history. Indeed, The Nutmeg’s Curse is scholarly, erudite and straight to the point and this really is quite surprising considering how it links together ideas that are far apart in time but couldn’t be closer in concept.
Mindset is important and understanding how destructive imperialistic behaviour can be. Empires always have a dark history, but the ideas discussed here go far beyond people, races and history. They transcend time because unfortunately they have become an intrinsic human value. It’s about attitude, the wrong attitude: it’s about the misguided sense of superiority humans have towards the landscape, each other, and the earth.
"To see the world in this way requires not just the physical subjugation of people and territory, but also a specific idea of conquest, as a process of extraction.”
A sense of entitlement and ownership pervades our interaction with the world and this has led to much bloodshed and the destruction of natural land. In this Ghosh links colonialism with climate change, cultural annihilation with terraforming and through this he very firmly establishes that we are still making the same mistakes. We still have not learnt. And that’s terrifying because we continue to treat each other and the earth as a commodities.
“The project of terraforming enframes the world in much the same way that the Banda Islands came to be seen by their conquerors: this is the frame as world-as-resource, in which landscapes (or planets) come to be regarded as factories and “Nature” is seen as subdued and cheap.”
Renaming is another way of conquering the landscape because it erases the meanings behind the original inhabitants and locations: it eliminates cultural past. When the Banda Islands were conquered in the 1621, the original inhabitants were massacred and the European invaders began to change everything: they made it their own. They altered the island so they could extract and harvest Nutmeg, an extremely valuable resource at the time. They cared nothing about the consequences of their actions: they simply wanted wealth and resources regardless of the death and damage they caused. Ghosh parallels this parable with climate change and our continuous plundering of the natural world. And this narrative device works extraordinarily well.
Ghosh wrote this during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and on the cusp of the Black Lives Matters protests, and I found his personal experiences of both quite moving. Part of his own personal grief comes through in the writing as he laments historical cases of colonial injustice. Crucially, Ghosh understands that the pandemic was completely our fault. It’s our own warping and twisted of the natural world that allowed such a virus to be born. This piece of information is vital moving forward because if we continue to treat nature and animals as a mere commodity then we will continue to make the same horrific and damaging mistakes. The same can be said about the spark that lit the protests, we simply cannot treat other people in such an unjust and cruel way. It is this misguided sense of superiority and ownership that continues to create problems.
"As we watch the environmental and biological disasters that are now unfolding across the Earth, it is becoming even harder to hold on to the belief that the planet is an inert body that exists merely in order to provide humans with resources."
Ghosh is a very impressive writer. I found his case here so engaging that I went out a bought three more of his books after reading this. I will also be keeping my eye out for whatever else he may write on these themes. I feel like Ghosh is describing something here that has not been quite written down before or theorised at any length, and it’s quite ground-breaking the way he puts these themes and ideas together. I feel like a learnt a great deal from this book.
These are, indeed, very important words; they strike at the heart of reality and reveal the truth of not only colonial injustice but environmental catastrophe: they are one and the same.
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This has such a loaded title, and it has offended a lot of white people. Ironically, these same people are the ones that need to read the book the mosThis has such a loaded title, and it has offended a lot of white people. Ironically, these same people are the ones that need to read the book the most. Case in point, just look at the second highest rated review on Goodreads.
It actually made me cringe.
When Eddo-Lodge says “I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race” she is not closing the conversation, as she has been often accused. Instead, she is opening it; she is challenging people to understand her frustration when dealing with ignorance. The problem is, as a black feminist, she was constantly faced with a viewpoint that completely excluded, downplayed and was deaf to her own ideas and experience. It’s easier to deny the suffrage of others than admit you may be part of the problem and cause. The title is a strong indictment, and white people need to make the effort to understand it.
“Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent.”
So, there are two issues at play here which Eddo-Lodge presents eloquently. There is the race issue and then there is the feminist issue. The legacy of slavery is still apparent today. This is a fact. History cannot be erased nor can systemic racial prejudices that do, indeed, linger (despite the denial whites often display.) The biggest problem here is this strong (almost offended) denial by whites and the shutting-down of black voices not to mention a complete ignorance about the truth of black British (and American) history. Eddo-Lodge has completely got to the heart of the matter here. Speaking as a white male, we need to listen and we need to do so much better.
The feminist issue is two pronged and more complex. Within a social justice movement fighting for women’s rights, Eddo-Lodge found herself faced with white activists who only represented and cared about some women’s rights. Within organisations, there was a clear disparity about which women were being liberated from the yoke of misogyny. And this is problematic. Here was an example of an unintended, yet still blatant and inexcusable, structural form of racism. Simply put, this is white privilege.
“White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.”
This absence is down to a matter of perspective and a lack of understanding, empathy and thought about the perspective of others. It’s easy to deny what we haven’t experienced. It’s easy to ignore a problem we are causing. And this is something we all need to come to terms with fully. This isn’t an issue that can be brushed off. It’s something that needs to be tackled full on. The only way to do that is through education, through learning where the problems originated from, how they persist and then from there we can work towards removing them.
My point here is that Eddo-Lodge is a fantastic educator. As with Edward’s Said’s Orientalism this is mandatory reading for everybody in our modern world and especially for those that wish to understand race relations (which should be everybody.)
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Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a fantastically imaginative and powerful piece of writing. It has been a few years since I read it, and I have been wRalph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a fantastically imaginative and powerful piece of writing. It has been a few years since I read it, and I have been wanting to try some of his other work since. And this short story collection seemed like a good place to see what else he has to offer.
His prose here is simple and elegant with slight touches of greatness that would not be fully manifest until Invisible Man. There are hints of a great writer here, of someone who has a little more honing to do.
The injustice of the African American experience is explored and captured from many different angles with a multitude of voices. From molestation and fondling on a train, to persisting and ignorant stereotypes, Ellison presents the racism prevalent in the southern states of America. His writing is highly evocative of colour and a constant awareness of colour in order to identify people and things. Colour clearly defines much of who and what people are here. It is the main descriptor he uses for objects also. It is important to him, and it is the first thing he mentions when describing anything.
The title story “Flying Home” is perhaps the most poignant articulation of such themes. After awakening from a plane crash, and unable to walk because of a broken ankle, the pilot feels humiliated only because he fears that he may help perpetuate the “stupid ignorant” black stereotype condescending and racist whites used. He wanted to learn to fly so he could (figuratively and literally) rise above such reductionist labels placed on him, and because a bird collided with his plane, he is brought back down to earth. The story is effective because it shows the societal fears the blacks had as they experienced continued institutional racism.
"When you must have them judge you, knowing that they never accept you mistakes as your own but hold it against your whole race - that was humiliation."
Overall, this is a good collection of stories that often feature vehicles such as planes and trains that suggest great movement across the landscape. And I would like to think that this sense of movement is a subtle hope that perhaps things were slowly starting to move forward for the African American people.
It must be said though, there is nothing present here that Ellison does not do better in the Invisible Man, hence my quite conservative rating. If you want to see what he is really about, start there.
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I’ve been looking for a book like this for a very long time, a book that – at its very core – tackles the environmental destruction associated with syI’ve been looking for a book like this for a very long time, a book that – at its very core – tackles the environmental destruction associated with systematic imperialism.
Now let me try to unpack that a little. I write these words as my own home (my planet) is being destroyed by mass scale consumerism, as our ever-growing appetites and population continues to decimate our own forests and natural land. This is not a new phenomenon, but as we advance technologically, we have become more adept at destroying ourselves. We continue to expand without any thought of the consequences. Time is ticking and Earth is in a sorry state.
The humans in The Word for World for Forrest have already destroyed their planet’s natural world, so they look outward and attempt to colonise other worlds to harvest their natural resources (namely wood.) Again, these humans have not a thought of consequences and by extension care little for the indigenous populations of their colonies.
And this is where the novel gets real interesting because one thing that really stood out to me – perhaps because of my own reading and background as an animal rights activist – is the association of animals with the “primitive” population. For the invading humans to morally justify enslaving them and to destroy their world (or habitat), they are considered less than human. They are associated with cows and rats and monkeys to make it easier for the colonisers to brutalise their planet. Their forests are cut down and harvested without a second thought, like we destroy the amazon rainforest because it only affects animal life and not us directly (in the present.)
For me, there is much to discuss here. Without going into too much depth about this distorted and destructive viewpoint, the novel brings out strikingly important themes about the nature of imperialism, colony, and slavery. Arguments for environmental justice are irrevocably linked with how we treat other humans and their cultures, and how we view the notion of what is "animal" and how it should be treated.
And because of this, I argue that it is an extremely important work of science-fiction because we could learn from it as a society. And this is why art is so radically essential. We have a distant future, and a distant alien world, we are dealing with intergalactic politics and racism across humanoid species, but the allegory is not too far from today.
And that's truly terrifying.
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The last time I read a book with this much narrative confidence, power and authority was back in January when I tackled Midnight’s Children.
It's rareThe last time I read a book with this much narrative confidence, power and authority was back in January when I tackled Midnight’s Children.
It's rare that a book comes with a voice this strong. Like Rushdie’s novel, Smith creates a present that is pervaded by the past. Her characters are very aware of their ancestry, and they really struggle to reconcile with it in the modern world. Are they Indians? Are they British? Are they black or white? Or are they a little bit of everything? Because of their duality, they struggle to find themselves in the modern metropolis. They don’t quite know who they should be, so they cling to and project ideas they are far removed from. And it’s all a little tragic, to see such confusion.
“...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.”
Every character Smith has conjured up here could be someone you’d encounter in real life; they are all very real people and they are faced with some very real problems. However, the issue I had with the novel is that we simply do not stay with them for long enough for them to develop. We glimpse them, nothing more. I’d even hesitate to actually call this a novel; it’s more like four loosely related novellas slapped together with a very small amount of glue to bind them. It’s close on collapsing.
As such, this doesn’t have a plot per say. It’s more like four separate character studies. And it does work to an extent; it captures a large part of the contemporary space, but as a novel it feels fragmented with little to no cohesion. Some sections were better than others, with characters who were more flawed and interesting to read about. To make this a little clearer, I feel like I need to write four seperate reviews in order to talk about his book properly and rate each section differently.
I’m not going to do that, but I hope you get my point; it’s quite a difficult book to talk about because it doesn’t feel like a normal book. Smith followed a similar model in NW but that came together as it captured the city is what trying so hard to evoke whereas this feels very much apart. I can see why many other users on here have chosen not to rate it.
It's a very powerful debut, but I did not enjoy all of it. A mixed bag for me.
The truth in this quote sends shivers down my spine. It's so real, like all of Smith's writing:
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yoursThe truth in this quote sends shivers down my spine. It's so real, like all of Smith's writing:
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”
The novel concerns itself with identity in the modern space. Who am I? And who are you? Are questions that the characters find themselves plagued with. But identity is not simple in a globalised world. To be British (or American) is a far reaching term.
Smith’s characters find themselves with a dilemma. Who are they supposed to be? Do they cling to their cultural norms or do they simple exist freely and become whatever it is they wish to be? Some fall into stereotypes and preformative behaviour. Others shift around not quite knowing who they are and what race they belong to. And the true success of Smith’s writing here resides in representation: she aims to represent everybody and anybody. With her evocation of multiculturalism, she captures the heart of the modern world.
Much of the plot occurs in the realms of academia, at a stuffy university obsessed with high grades and elitism. Even the title of the novel shows Smith preoccupations with words and ideas. And a huge part of this demonstrates how academics can often be detached from the truth (and pleasure) associated with art because of their outlandish and over the top theories that only serve the advancement of their own intellectual quests rather than appreciating the art for what it is. And it’s a very valid point.
So this is such a fantastically clever piece of writing that’s fiercely original; yet, at the same time, plays homage to its literary forefather: Howards End by E.M Forster. Here’s what Smith says in the acknowledgement section of my copy:
“It should be obvious from the first line that this is a novel inspired by a love of E. M. Forster, to whom all my fiction is indebted, one way or the other.”
On a basic level, she’s copied the plot and narrative progression of Forster’s novel, but she has transported it to the modern world. Instead of early twentieth century arguments over class and money, the characters worry over race and identity. As strange as it may sound, despite the clear similarities, the novel is not remotely derivative or over reliant on Forster. Smith has used his words as a platform to tell her story a hundred years later with modern characters and modern issues. And it’s, quite easily, one of the best literary adaptations I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
And I can’t quite believe it’s been almost two years since I last read a Zadie Smith novel, I’d almost forgotten how brilliant she is! Next on my list is her debut White Teeth. I hope I enjoy it as much as this one....more
Invisible Man is an extremely well written and intelligent novel full of passion, fire and energy: it’s such a force to be reckoned with in the literaInvisible Man is an extremely well written and intelligent novel full of passion, fire and energy: it’s such a force to be reckoned with in the literary world, and not one to be taken lightly.
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
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The biggest question the novel raises evolves around identity (or lack thereof) in a world that demands we conform and meet the expectations of others. The unnamed protagonist becomes invisible, well he feels invisible, because the world cannot accept his opinions, desires and intellectual freedom: he must think, act and talk in a way he is told; thus, his personality vanishes as he becomes what he must.
He cannot form his own identity because every time he creates a sense of individualism he is knocked back because his expression of self does no adhere to someone’s wishes. And this lack of self prevents him from finding any sense of belonging because wherever he goes he is not himself. And this isn’t just about blackness in the face of a white society. This isn’t just about the postcolonial state of slavery and hybrid identity in the face of a supposed freedom from the shackles that bound the blacks to their masters; this is about American society at large: it’s about the world at large.
“When I discover who I am, I'll be free.”
And that’s what makes the novel so powerfully emotive and raw. The narrator enters many different communities and societies, each of which impose an idea upon him about the way in which blacks should behave. Some argue for perpetuating the stereotypical uneducated negro, some suggest that the blacks should be violent and reclaim there lost African heritage and others suggest for science and rationality in dictating the future of blacks in America. In each instance the narrator finds himself detached and separate; he plays an inauthentic role in trying to adhere to ideas about himself that he does not feel are right.
So as he walks through the world lost and confused, dazed and downtrodden, he tries to find himself and fails miserably. The language Ellison tells the story through is remarkable and perceptive; he has a ridiculously keen ear for dialogue and speech patterns that allow the narrator to express himself in way that demonstrates his disillusionment with the world. He is not a happy man, and this is not a happy book. It bespeaks the blindness of society, ideology and those that profess to act in our best interests.
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
As I write these words, I’m about to begin my second read of this spectacular novel. There’s just so much in here that one read is simply not enough....more
Achebe is an angry man and in everything he writes he is full of rage and frustration at a world that denies the voice of his brothers. This passion iAchebe is an angry man and in everything he writes he is full of rage and frustration at a world that denies the voice of his brothers. This passion is persuasive and powerful: his voice is commanding.
He doesn’t play around with words, instead preferring to cut straight towards the harsh truth of reality. Africa is dramatically unrepresented in Western media, literature and politics. White men and European leaders gather to discuss the economic future of Africa; they put into place action plans that seek to alter the future of the continent. The ideas are cold and will cause suffering to the people, a fact the white man cares not for.
"Africa is people"
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Simple words, but when delivered to such a gathering of leading authorities Achebe silenced the room. The white man is so detached from the realities of the people that he has forgotten (or simply doesn’t care?) about this simple truism. Again, western representation of Africa is to blame. People have become so desensitised to African culture.
And it is because of this that Achebe writes so strongly against Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It is a book that portrays the blacks as primitive and incapable of any sense of sophisticated society. What these writers don’t seem to understand is that technological advances are not necessarily the same as civilisation, morality and simple human decency.
This is a great edition, full of many of Achebe’s most powerful pieces. They are not words to be missed.
I’ve read a lot of fucked things in literature, though it is extremely rare that I read something so messed up that it makes me hate the book.
It takesI’ve read a lot of fucked things in literature, though it is extremely rare that I read something so messed up that it makes me hate the book.
It takes a lot to put me off. I read Lolita without any complaints about the paedophilia because sometimes it is necessary to show despicable things in order to create art. I’ve read stage pieces by Sarah Kane which involve genital mutilation and all sorts of brutal sex acts, but, again, it was necessary for the piece. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus centres on a very brutal rape, that much so that people fainted when it was performed (and that was in 2014 at Shakespeare’s Globe in London), though it was needed for the nature of the revenge plot.
However, sometimes the brutality can be a little too much. This book contains an explicit child rape scene and vivid animal cruelty. Granted, you could make the same argument to defend The Bluest Eye as I did for the texts I mentioned above though, for me, it was just too awful to read. The scenes held absolutely nothing back. I am not a person easily shocked or put off by such things, though it was too much even for me.
The Republic of Wine is the only other book to make me feel this unnerved (because of baby cannibalism.) It made me want to vomit as the writing here did.
The Bluest Eye was way too much for me. It was overly symbolic, melodramatically brutal and displayed no hope or optimism. I did not enjoy a single page....more
In a rather ironic piece of narration, E.M. Forster sums up my opinion of this book perfectly:
“Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to beIn a rather ironic piece of narration, E.M. Forster sums up my opinion of this book perfectly:
“Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.”
Indeed, this book was so terribly dull. Ordinary, bland and mundane are all words that spring to mind. Nothing happened other than a single piece of melodrama that somehow managed to dominate the book.
I understand why this book is so widely read and studied. From a critical postcolonial perspective, there are lots of juicy bits in here to dissect. There’s a lot to talk about, and I could easily write an essay on it because it raises so many important debates about race and national identity in the wake of colonialism. Seeing the true face of India becomes a difficult task because it has become so obscured with foreign influence and prejudices.
Indeed, the book is fiercely anti-imperialist and presents a compelling case for the benefits of an independent India. It also highlights the injustices the Indian native faced. Colonial rule is never good, and the coloniser always thinks his ways are better to the detriment of local culture, education and employment. He takes over and ruins everything despite how much he naively believes that he is improving the life of those he is oppressing.
Despite all this the plot has no energy. There were perhaps a few chapters, no more that forty pages or so, where the narrative managed to gain some momentum. The protagonist was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t do and the bits leading up to his trial were quite engaging. When the verdict was eventually reached the rest of the novel dribbled on. There was no story left! Yet it continued for another hundred pages. This meant that for a relatively short book, this felt like a really, really, long book.
This is a book I SHOULD have liked
I was really surprised at my reaction to this. This is a book that appeals directly to my interests; yet, it just seemed so painfully convoluted and dull. I did, however, really appreciate E.M. Forster’s prose. He is a very skilful writer and a wordsmith, his sentences and paragraphs roll into each other perfectly. (This seems like a generic point, though I only make it because the surface level of his writing is so eloquent in places.) It’s just a shame the plot did not carry the same level of mastery. It just needed to be tighter and more focused to be effective.
Like Heart of Darkness it occupies an uncertain place in the cannon of English literature; it’s not quite radical enough (and prejudice free) to be fully anti-colonial yet is still demonstrates the need for change. It’s a book I could study, but never one I could enjoy. Although I didn’t like this, I will still be trying another one of E.M. Forster's novels in the future....more
Go Set a Watchman is a novel about growing up; it is a story about seeing the world as it truly is and not how we wish it to be. Not everything is perGo Set a Watchman is a novel about growing up; it is a story about seeing the world as it truly is and not how we wish it to be. Not everything is perfect and not everything can be separated by such a simple barrier as black and white.
“Had she insight, could she have perceived the barriers of her highly selective, insular world, she may have discovered that all her life she had been with a visual defect which had gone unnoticed and neglected by herself and those closest to her: she was born colour blind.”
I understand why many readers did not enjoy this book. After To Kill a Mockingbird they were likely expecting certain things; they were probably expecting something similar, something with the power to evoke the power of childhood and all the adventures that go with it. They were probably expecting more childhood antics from Scout and Jem. That’s not this book, though that doesn’t necessarily mean this book is bad. It is something entirely different.
This book seeks to break through those early ideas Jean had of the world. In To Kill a Mockingbird she saw the world with a child’s eyes and could not comprehend that the world is a complex place. She worshipped Atticus as a hero, though no man is completely just in his actions: no man is perfect. Atticus has always been a white knight to Jean, a crusader for justice, though the real world is an endless stream of grey. And as such this book shatters the assumptions of its predecessor.
“Blind, that’s what I am. I never opened my eyes. I never thought to look into people’s hearts, I looked only in their faces.”
Have you ever loved a racist?
A strong question, though one that needs answering. What do you do if your family hold views that are uncompassionate? What do you do if they meet and discuss with renowned racists that call themselves your neighbours? You love them more, that’s right. You try to show them the error of their ways and you try to teach them that they are, in fact, wrong.
Atticus, for all his rhetoric in the defence of injustice, has become old and not quite ready to step into this new world. Segregation is coming to an end and he fears for the future of his country. He fears for a country that may come to be governed by uneducated blacks and controlled by their inexperience. He wishes to keep the separation laws, though in his misguidedness he defeats his own arguments. His ideas would only seek to stem the flow of history. He should be looking forward and looking for ways to make all men equal.
Jean is starting to understand that people’s motives are driven by more than what she sees on the surface. Her memories begin to change as she comprehends an alternative perspective. The world she thought she knew, the world she thought she loved, does not really exist. She perceived it wrong and coming to terms with it tests her individuality, her courage and her strength in the face of tyranny.
Go Set a Watchman is a fantastic book, and in many ways it does transcend the naivety of To Kill a Mockingbird. However, I don’t think it should be read unless you have already read Mockingbird. The books speak to each other, as age does to youth, and should be read together....more
The fact that a man such as Martin Luther King spent time in prison demonstrates the fundamental wrongness that permeates humanity.
Laws are there to The fact that a man such as Martin Luther King spent time in prison demonstrates the fundamental wrongness that permeates humanity.
Laws are there to protect people, though which people are they protecting? MLK understood that the laws of society are not necessarily true laws, or what he saw as god’s laws, and he knew that they needed to be fought and changed for the betterment of mankind. His rhetoric is honest, compassionate and full of purpose.
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King’s word were powerful and heroic. Despite the hatred that was thrown at him, he only had love to give in response. And that bespeaks the moral integrity of such a man. He could have rallied his followers to a more aggressive approach, though he never stooped so low. He knew what the world needed to heal, and he put as much of it out there as possible. Certainly, an example to follow for any invested in activism. Even here he only has kindness to impart.
The fact that he died at the hand of violence shows how feared he was and how strong he was becoming. If MLK saw the face of the world today he would be proud at how far we have come, and he would also understand how much further we still have to go.
This letter is testimony to his unshakable will in the face of tyranny....more
Carpentaria is an aboriginal epic; it’s a soaring story full of imagination that gives voice to Australia’s Indigenous population, though it is also hCarpentaria is an aboriginal epic; it’s a soaring story full of imagination that gives voice to Australia’s Indigenous population, though it is also horribly uncomfortable to read and even harder to enjoy.
Alexis Wright works directly with oral tradition, with folktale and myth, to interpose her narrative with as much authenticity as possible; she brings tribal legends into the modern space, asserting how important such things are to the remaining members of the civilisations that were almost destroyed. It’s an angry narrative, one oozing with frustration. The Aboriginals have lost their home and are forced to live in the most undesirable of locations in a nation that is rightfully theirs. Their birth-right has been usurped: their land stolen.
And the land is of such vital importance in understanding this novel; the Aboriginals are connected to it on a spiritual level. They understand it and care for it in ways the colonisers are completely dumb to. They speak to it, and it speaks back to them. They use it thwart the efforts of the white man and eventually attempt to destroy him with it. Magic is combined with faith and belief making it very hard to determine what is actually real within the story and what is a mere matter of an alternative understanding of reality.
This forms the crux of my conflicting opinion of the novel: I just don’t know quite what to take from it. Perhaps if I was an Australian I would understand it more and even more so if I was an Indigenous Australian: it may speak to certain readers on a stronger level, though I do think it of vital importance that we should read the writing of many authors on a wide global scale (not just the popular white western Eurocentric volumes that bombard the shelves and dominate the literary cannon.) It just so happens that this one is rather difficult. I feel like I need to read it again to conceptualise it, but I enjoyed the reading process so little that I will never bring myself to do so.
It’s a novel that really needed to be written, and it’s a novel that ought to be better known. At times it reminded me of modernist fiction in the vain of James Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s nonlinear and extremely confusing at times. I would not recommend this to readers who have not read similar fiction before, fiction that spirals in circles and messes with your mind as you try to put the pieces together and form an interpretation of what is actually happening.
Overall it’s an important piece of writing, but not one I, or many other readers, will engage with....more
Kintu opens with unbridled authority and mercilessness. In just a few pages a man has been hunted down by an angry mob in Uganda. He is then brained wKintu opens with unbridled authority and mercilessness. In just a few pages a man has been hunted down by an angry mob in Uganda. He is then brained with a concrete slab; his woman is left in widowhood and has the hard task of dealing with her man's debt. Blood flows easily, and quickly, when your family's steps are haunted by a curse that spans generations.
I found this such an effective piece of storytelling, the idea that the history of our ancestors never full leaves us and has the potential to one day assert itself in our present age. Two hundred and fifty years prior to the incident with the concrete slab, a freak accident lead to a fa`ther murdering his own son; it was an accident he never forgave himself for. It set off a chain of events that would shape his life thereafter and ultimately see him torn from the remainder of his family. He is cursed and leaves his village in solitude. Once a respectable man, Kintu Kidda is ruined. His actions have ramifications for all his descendants, for those that been scattered across the globe over the years. Breaking Kintu's curse will finally bring them all together in the conclusion of this hugely dramatic story.
In his novel Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe demonstrated that Africa does not possess a silent culture. African language is formal, developed and intelligent. Here Makumbi plays around with language and storytelling; she writes in English, as Achebe once did, but she also inserts Ugandan words into her prose. Such a narrative technique makes the story distinctively her own, and it's completely unafraid to shout out its voice to the rest of the world like Achebe's writing. Words are, indeed, powerful tools and they have been used here to full effect.
The novel is divided into six separate (yet intricately interconnected) books. I found this very intriguing, hearing about the curse from different perspectives and seeing how it affected people differently across history. Traditional African culture relied on an oral accounting of history, and as such truth can often become distorted and easily turned into myth. Each generation adds a little bit more or takes a little bit away from the original facts. By the end it has become something else, though it is still pervaded by the original ideas as shown here with the original saga of Kintu Kidda.
Despite the time that has elapsed, the original truth of the events in the story can never be changed: they did happen once and they will always exist in the shadows of life. In doing so Makumbi demonstrates how the colonial history of Africa will never fully stop asserting itself in the present. It will never go away, and it's important that it doesn't so humanity can learn from its mistakes and understand exactly what it once did to a people that were essentially their neighbours from across the sea. This novel is, certainly, a worthy study for those interested in postcolonial theory and global literature.
Kintu is a difficult novel to read, and as such it requires a reader who is willing to be patient and put time into appreciating it. Keeping track of all the characters is also difficult, I recommend taking brief notes whist reading and perhaps even researching some of the terminology. As such I would only recommend this to readers who enjoy complex modern novels such as NW by Zadie Smith....more
Midnight’s Children is an absolute masterful piece of writing.
It is entertaining, intelligent, informative, progressive and even funny: it is an aMidnight’s Children is an absolute masterful piece of writing.
It is entertaining, intelligent, informative, progressive and even funny: it is an astoundingly well balanced epic that captures the birth of a new independent nation. I hold it in such high regard.
The children are all fractured and divided; they are born into a new country that is yet to define itself in the wake of colonialism: it has no universal language, religion or culture. The children reflect this; they are spread out and unconnected to each other. As such Rushdie raises a critical question: does India even exist? These children are born on the night of India’s independence, but what exactly are they born into? The mass of land they occupy is yet to establish what it now is: it is something new, a place with an internal battle raging between modernisation and tradition. It’s not the India it was the day before, and it’s certainly not the India it was before the colonisers came.
“What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.”
Saleem, our narrator and protagonist, reflects this. He is a hybrid, born into two worlds. He has powers, powers that allow him to connect telepathically with the other children born into the new nation. They all have their own gifts and they all represent an infectious optimism, a powerful hope that things will start to get better. Their progress in the story, their successes and failures, reflect the development of the new India. As Saleem begins to fall apart, as he begins to lose himself, the optimism begins to shatter and things go terribly wrong: war approaches, death approaches.
Rushdie plays around with reality, warping it and twisting it to the point where its very nature becomes an allegory for the failings of society. The India he has created is both removed and part of the real world. He has used human terms, and human emotions, to personify a country. Through this he demonstrates how it can waver and falter and how it can fail and become a victim to its own passions. It’s an exceedingly clever device. Saleem is egotistical and unreliable, but his life is a physical manifestation of post-independent India. On a character level he actually thinks he is altering events, though he only ever mirrors it.
“Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.”
All great literature should be subjective. All great literature should have a multitude of ramifications. If we go away with one single clean cut meaning or interpretation then the author has failed to some degree. Literature needs to make us think; it needs to make us question the world and our place within it. And Rushdie certainly does that. You may disagree with my reading. I think Midnight’s Children can be seen in a number of different ways, and I’d love to hear what other people thought it all meant.
There’s just so much going on in this book, I could literally write several essays on it. Rushdie draws heavily on Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude by recreating the long drawn out family saga told in the magical realist mode to represent reality in a more truthful way than standard story telling would allow; however, Rushdie transcends it in so many ways. I will be reading The Satanic Verses very soon I think, and I will definitely be writing on Rushdie for my university work.
This is clearly one of the most important novels written in the last fifty years. ...more
Sean Barrs
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Books:
postcolonial
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