"Small Island" book discussion

[mountaingal]

Okay - so I hear that bookclubbers are nearly finished Small Island (yea, the thickness of the book was a surprise to me, too!). We're supposed to start the book discussion on Jan. 8, so I'll open the thread anyway, and folks who are reading the final pages can finish and join us this week. Others who are just starting will have to stay outta the thread until they're ready. [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

[Nunya]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

Yeah I'm just starting (at page 106 now) but I gotta say that mi nuh like Hortense [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif[/img]

Mi trying to understand her (the whole class/colour issue) but lawks, she a stick eena mi craw man... ah mean, even when I should be sympathetic cause a Michael, mi still no care enough fi care...

[mountaingal]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

whipawt di shetmout icon deh? mississ don't get me started on Hortense, at least, not till tomorrow. [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

[Gen]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

not really to keen on the ending...I mean really. tory juss nevah come to bump and I thought it would in the last chapter.

[CeaBee]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

I didn't like the book on the first breeze thru...so i wasn't motivated to read it again....I don't know that i can contribute much to the discussion, but I'll be reading along...

[Wahalla]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

I may miss the subtltiy as I did not read teh book.. I listend to a dramatisation of the book on BBC radio 4 Womans Hour over a ten day period.. .I could not stand the female character, i thought her having an over inflated opnion of herself.. Contempt for her own Jamaican..And anyone who has a guilt complex of sex need help... She reminded me of Tropicana, without her houmour, and she never learnt the lessons that Tropi did...

[Wahalla]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

I may miss the subtltiy as I did not read teh book.. I listend to a dramatisation of the book on BBC radio 4 Womans Hour over a ten day period.. .I could not stand the female character, i thought her having an over inflated opnion of herself.. Contempt for her own Jamaican..And anyone who has a guilt complex of sex need help... She reminded me of Tropicana, without her houmour, and she never learnt the lessons that Tropi did...

[mountaingal]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

Summary - Small Island is the story of Jamaicans and Britons before, during and after World War Two. The story takes starts in Jamaica, in a rural setting, following the life of Hortense, a young brown skinned woman, illegitimate child of a man of some substance in the community who is sent to live with some of his middle class relations, and in so doing, acquires aspirations to a higher class that that which she was born in. From her same district/village are two young men, Michael and Gilbert, who end up migrating to Britain to serve in the war. Hortense marries Gilbert and through him gets to England, to a country which in her imagination was superior and a place suited to her idea of herself. However, she and husband Gilbert come fact to face with the brutal and disillusioning reality of a racist, working class England.

In England their lives are intertwined with an English woman called Queenie (a nickname from her real name, Victoria) who takes in Gilbert and Hortense as tenants when no one else would - an act arising from Queenie's need for economic support after being abandoned by her husband Bernard during the war.

In a shifting of narrative from back and forth, among characters speaking in the first person, the author unveils a story of race, sex, colonialism and imperialism through the everyday struggles of the characters.

[mountaingal]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

As I mentioned in the other thread, I had a very difficult time believing in the characters of this book. I haven't read Andrea Levy before, but I think the scope of what she was trying to achieve may have been beyond her, and I'm actually a little surprised that this book won awards. Her story of life in Jamaica, the foundation for Hortense's character feels sketchy and anomalous - I cannot get over a Hortense dealing with disappointment in love by going to hide in a chicken coop - not the Hortense that thought she was socially superior.

I did not finish this book - not technically. After Chapter 32 - or is it 33 - when the author decides to inflict on the reader a series of narratives from Queenie's husband Bernard, I had enough. Up until that point, Gilbert had not made love to Hortense (as far as I could tell), yet Queenie's romance was well laid out. This book to me has a similar deficiency to that of White Teeth - the black women at the basis of each story end up being the least developed characters; other people's stories are told with richer detail and with greater chance to emotionally engage the reader.

I skipped to the end, and saw the surprise ending, which wasn't really a surprise, and noted sadly that Hortense still seemed to be the unidimensional character she was at the start. I did not care enough about any of the other characters to overcome this missed opportunity of getting to know and like Hortense.

What do you guys think of the book?

[Gen]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

ahhh Ms Mucky Foot [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

Well I just took the characters for what they were because I really don't know how it was in those days...I see what you are saying about "superior" Hortense hiding in the chicken coob...but isn't that what love does to us...turns us into someone completely different and we do things we wouldn't normally do (plus wasn't she just a teen when that happened ? can't remember)

Hortense was never ever in love with Gilbert and probably had no intentions of being intimate with him UNTIL he announced that they were moving into a HOUSE..remember that this is what Hortense wanted all along ..a house with a knocker doorbell or sitten like that....as soon as the house appeared he was allowed into the bed.

I am not sure if some of the other characters were necessary in that would their ommittance have taken away from the story line ?


I skipped over a a lot of Bernard's nonsense..what was the point of his character being that developed...

What was the significance of him getting an erection when he piled on top of the men in the ditch ? I thought for sure the author was going to address someone's homosexuality...kissteet


I would have liked Hortense's character to be more developed...her realization that the Mother country was not all it was cracked up came a bit too late in the book..

I didn't like the ending ..would have liked to see it revealed that Michael was the father of the child.

[Nunya]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

I am just about to start chap 27. So far my impressions:

Hortense - [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70400-talktohand.gif[/img]

Gilbert - [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70409-waytogo.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img] I found his narrative funny and touching in places. Especially when he accepted the money from Hortense and went off to cry, knowing that he had sold himself and that his price wasn't all that much.

Queenie - [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70402-thinking.gif[/img] She is more real to me than Hortense because I can draw from stories that David has told me about women of a similar fibre, from his family or friends of his family, who had been through the war.

Bernard - [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/eek.gif[/img] There's going to a narrative from Bernard??? [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/sick.gif[/img] I've just read the part where, in 'making love' with Queenie, actually, mek mi go find ie, for why should I be the only one feeling sick [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/sick.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif[/img] ...

Bernard would untie his pyjama bottoms, loosen the cord then bunch the fabric into his hand so they didn't drop and spoil the surprise. 'Darling...?'

...

In the early days, his eyes gazed down on mine - his soft, warm breath panting. Later he looked into the distance in the headboard, the corners of his mouth filling with two spots of spot as white as breadcrumbs.

With the concentration of searching for a light switch in the dark, he'd fumble about until evetually, located, he'd stick it in.

Slippery as a greasy sausage sometimes but mostly it was the bark of a tree. And he'd sigh as if lowering himself into a hot bath, his hand creeping up my nightie to lie awkward on my left breast. A held breath that turned him pink, then a grunt that slathered spittle all down my neck, and it was all over.

[Gen]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

forgot to say that I can certainly buy Hortense's character because I know some yard women like that [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70374-lipsrsealed.gif[/img]

[Gen]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

oh my god..the part about the spittle made me want to throw up [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/sick.gif[/img]

[mountaingal]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Geneva</div><div class="ubbcode-body">forgot to say that I can certainly buy Hortense's character because I know some yard women like that [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70374-lipsrsealed.gif[/img] </div></div>
but I don't, and tell the truth - I don't remember much in Hortense's words that would give me an insight into why she thinks it's so important to attach sex to social attainment...which part of the book gets into that? a mussi one a di chapter dem mi no read...

[MrsBlue]

Re: "Small Island" book discussion

<span style="color: #000099"> <span style='font-family: Arial'>I'm in 18 now, trying to catch up. I don't want to read the comments yet, but I couldn't figure out how Celia's love-interest was the man introduced at the beginning as Hortense's husband. [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif[/img] </span> </span>