while you're ahead…

Ok, one more then we rest for a day or so…

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid.

This was part of my college reading list, but don’t let this scare you, it’s really rather good and not hard to read. Lucy leaves her family and her home in Antigua to work as a nanny for a wealthy white upper class family in Manhattan in the 60/70s.

It’s written in the first person – it’s based on Jamaica’s own experience – and you really get to know her, by the end of the books. Her love/hate relationship with her mother, her new life in America, her relationship with Mariah, the lady she works for, and you live with her in her search for who she is, for understanding the world she left. Lucy is confused and homesick and angry and sarcastic and most of all fierce. You’ll cheer for her all the way even when she’s not the most sympathetic person, or the most lovable. The time swings back and forth from her present life to her growing up on the Island, and the two culture are very very different.

I had never heard of Jamaica Kincaid before and I wonder why. She has a very distinctive voice and she’ll make you work though. It’s a book that needs to be read slowly because every line is powerful and mustn’t rushed or understimated.

Definitely worth it.

They had somehow all been to the islands — by that, they meant the place where I was from — and had fun there. I decided not to like them just on that basis; I wished once again that I came from a place where no one wanted to go, a place that was filled with slag and unexpectedly erupting volcanoes, or where a visitor was turned into a pebble on setting foot there; somehow it made me ashamed to come from a place where the only thing to be said about it was ‘I had fun when I was there’

I have Indian blood in me,’ and underneath everything I could swear she says it as if she were announcing her possession of a trophy. How do you get to be the sort of victor who can claim to be the vanquished also?

Day three of the bookathon… (only another 5 to go, but if you behave I’ll give you a break soon.

Brit(ish), by Afua Hirsch

In Britain, we are taught not to see race. We are told that race does not matter. We have convinced ourselves that if we can contort ourselves into a form of blindness, then issues of identity will quietly disappear.

The premises of this book lie in ‘the question’: where are you from?

Afua Hirsch is a British citizen, but because she is the daughter of a black Ghanaian woman and white English man, all her life she’s questioned her identity, is she white? is she black? what does it mean to be British? … people will ask you, where are you from… where are you really from?…

It’s superbly well written, informative and easy to ready… but don’t think it’s an easy read. It’s well researched, personal and universal at the same time and asks profound questions on the issues of belonging and what is our identity?

Why is it more of a question of citizenship? Is your identity your culture? what you look like? your traditions? Your past? Is it a choice? And when you come from two different cultures… do you have to choose? do you pick one above the other?

She writes the book as a memoir, her story, her experience of growing in white privileged Wimbledon, life as a minority at Oxford University, her attempt to find herself living and working in Africa and why that didn’t work out… I found it absolutely riveting. I wanted to say brilliant but it’s the wrong word. Let’s just say it’s a brilliant book, that deserves to be widely read.

Another day another book…

The lonely life of Biddy Weir by Lesley Allen

I’m really in two minds about this book.

The good part: it talks about bullying in an unflinching, painful (I almost wanted to skim reads some pages… I might have done… shhh), raw way. The consequences of bullying, the thinking of the perpetrator and the devastating effects on the victim…. all this was well written, and most of all it’s not glamourised in the least. It’s sad, heartbreaking and infuriating knowing that there are people out there going through this.

Biddy Weir grows up without mother, alone with a father who doesn’t know how to raise a child and pretty much ignores her (although he loves her very much – cue his obsessive relation with his own mother). Biddy is different, and gets bullied mercilessly throughout her school life until on a field trip, it all comes to an end…

The bad part: CLICHES’ city… unnecessary cliches everywhere… the picture perfect cottage by the sea, the ‘larger’ than life eccentric therapist with madly coloured hair, the lesbian teacher, the victim with the amazing secret talents… to name but a few. It didn’t need them. It trivialised the whole thing. AND (spoiler alert)… the end was too neat and wrapped up in a slightly unrealistic and simplistic bow.

It has 4 1/2 stars on Goodreads… I gave it a three.

Worth a read? It certainly makes you think about how you treat people and gave our bookclub lots to think about… so perhaps, yes.

Let me know what you think.

So… the piles of books waiting to be talked about is getting taller and taller, so this week I’ll go through all of them and then I’ll feel better and all caught up. It might be just one thing ticked off my HUGE list but I have to start somewhere, right? You know that feeling of too many balls in the air? or spiralling out of control? Yeah, that.

Anyway, first up:

‘Why I’m no longer talking to white people about rate’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge.

Let me start with one thing: this book should be compulsory for everyone.

In 2014 Reni published this blog post. (do read it, please). It sparked a huge conversation that needed to be had and the book expanded from this.

It’s humbling, it’s a bit of a slap in the face and a huge eye opener. We, white people need to realise that racism doesn’t exist, that conversations must be had and that it’s not always about ‘us’. We can’t keep seeing/filtering our thinking and our world through our white filter, as only ‘we’ are the norm, the measuring device.

This book will also open your eyes to the structural racism in this country. Yes it’s there. About our biases and our white priviledge. It’s not always a comfortable read, but let’s face it, why should it be?

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.”

One to gift to everyone you know.

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey

Beautifully written. If you like historical novels set in Medieval times, atmospheric description, interesting characters, deep meditations on faith and the meaning of life and an intriguing story… this is for you.

It was impulse buy; you know how it’s hard to resist buying the chocolate bar by the till? well, I’m the same with books… I’m the gullible dream customer who goes in for something specific and grabs the latest recommendation sitting invitingly by the check out. Pathetic, really. The thing is… I haven’t been disappointed by doing this yet so… I keep going…

(One of these days I’ll show you the stupid pile of books waiting to be read by my bed. There are probably doctors for this kind of disease!)

This is what the blurb at the back says:

Intriguing, eh?

Anyway, this one was a splendid read. Intriguing set up too, basically the book starts on day 4: we meet the characters and start getting to know their personalities and the place where they live – nature is a huge part in the book. Then each subsequent chapter is an ‘earlier’ day… day 3 and then 2 and then 1… At first it’s a little confusing because we get explanations for things we’d already had about and made up our mind of only to be corrected if you wish… but it keeps you on your toes and it stops you from thinking ‘oh yeah I bet it was him, or I bet this is what happened’. You’re both paying total attention and are immerse in the story (the writing is so good) because if you miss a little it gets confusing when you will read after what did happened before (still with me?) and at the same time you’re kind of hovering above it all because … you don’t know the ‘before’ yet. It’s a very intriguing writing device.

I really liked the flawed main character, his thoughts, his attitude, his human frailty. And I loved the description of the land and how important the people connection to it, and how inextricably linked everything was to the weather and the passing of the seasons…( was at the time (15th Century).

It reminded me a little to the CJ Sanson’s Shardlake’s books, which if you like historical novels are a total MUST read.

I highly recommend it. (although in the interest of honesty… I got a little confused at the end… never mind, I still enjoyed it very much!)