I have shamelessly ‘borrowed’ or adapted the first question for this introduction from a website called ‘BookBrowse’:
‘Small
Island’ is alternately narrated by four characters—Queenie, Hortense,
Gilbert, and Bernard. How does this narrative style
contribute to the drama of the story? Did you find certain narrators
more compelling? If you were to choose one narrator to tell the story,
which would you chose? Why?
This
book, like ‘Queenie’ last month, deals with race relationships, so I
wondered if we could also consider the following question:
Bearing
in mind our reading of ‘Queenie’, how have social attitudes towards
race changed since 1948? In what ways might they be the same?
Hello Ladies,
ReplyDeleteThis month definitely finds me in the “be careful what you wish for” camp. We have had extensive rain throughout the east coast and wonderfully all dams are full, all fires extinguished and everything is lush and green again, however there has also been extensive flood damage and the mozzies are now in plague proportions. It is really shocking the extremes of weather we are having.
Sue, I hope all is well with you, I saw some of the damage done by Storms Ciara and Dennis in the south, were you affected?
Katie I was thinking about your comment on all the different styles, places and cultures we have visited in our book club.
I agree with you so much, I even find my own reading choices have expanded and I choose such different topics than I would have previously. My favourite author is Barbara Kingsolver and I would never have been introduced to her fiction writing if it had not been a suggestion here on our blog. So grateful for that and for so many other wonderful reads and for you both and your insightful comments that often let me see things from different perspectives, such a joy.
Small Island started out slowly for me and I admit I was a little discouraged looking forward at the size of the novel, but as soon as Gilbert’s narration began I was hooked and read it with much enthusiasm. I found his character made the story more engaging and more vibrant. I actually came to really enjoy the change of characters in narration and found I was better informed and got to know characters so much better. Some parts of Bernards story I found so difficult to read, his racist diatribe to Queenie after he returned to London made my heart ache. In the 2 pqrt BBC drama adaptation of Small Island Bernard is played by Benedict Cumberbach, and I thought this was masterful casting so that’s definitely who my Bernard looked like.
It was me changing my choice last month that put these two novels so close together and I’m actually glad I did. It has given me a chance to really reflect and ask the question.
What if anything has actually changed ?
They are both so different with time and place settings yet the themes of race discrimination and violence are very similar.
Ms Levy spent some time describing the different attitudes of GI’s and British servicemen. Superficially it seemed the GI’s were so much more racist, I wondered if this was more about our cultural personalities and less about racism. Americans and Australians are generally [ whoa, sorry massive generalisation coming] more outspoken and loud than our British brothers. Bernard’s hate speech was as virulent as any the GI’s used and Queenie’s neighbours and friends no less racist than the GI’s also. I’m sorry, I realise there is no such thing as more or less racist, I think I mean the violence with which it is expressed.
I would like to think we have evolved in our thinking and attitudes since 1948 and in many ways I believe we have. Although the re emergence in white supremacy groups and far right attitudes in recent years seems to suggest otherwise.
The casual racism language displayed by Queenie and others in Small Island seems familiar to parts of Queenie the novel. Perhaps it is this casual racism that is so pervasive, indoctrinated and unrecognised in our society that is more dangerous and unchanged than the enemy in plain sight. Ms Levy seemed to be highlighting this in her novel set in 1948 and also I thought so in our previous story set in 2019 by Ms Carty-Williams .
I very much enjoyed this novel, thank you Sue.
Hello to you both!
ReplyDeleteNancy, I’m glad to hear that the terrible fires are out! Hopefully the weather will level out and you can have something that isn’t one extreme or another. Sue, I hope everything for you is going well. The weather here has been so crazy. One day it’s winter, the next spring, and then the very next day it’s winter again! The flu hit our house with Lillian being the first victim. But all of us are much better now.
Once again Sue you have surprised me with another book I don’t think I would have picked up. So moving! I’m always so fearful of picking up war novels as I am aware of my own horror at the concept of war and, to me, needless human suffering. Governments go to war but it is the common man who pays the price for it. I think Narrow Road to the Deep North was my absolute favorite of your war choices (so much so that I kept my copy!) But Small Island is a close second.
Like you Nancy, I couldn’t get into the novel initially because of Hortense. I admit that I didn’t like her until the very end. It was Gilbert who really won me over for this novel. In my copy of Small Island on page 116, Gilbert’s comparison of England to a revered distant relative and the harsh reality of that relative was very powerful for me. It was probably the strongest page in this book for me. With all that being said, I guess I would have to say that Gilbert was a very compelling narrator to me. I felt so much sympathy toward him. Queenie was a close second for enjoyable narrators. I found Bernard and Hortense pretty dreadful so I was grateful that Gilbert seemed to have the most narrations.
As for the question regarding social attitudes, I feel that I am gravely inept in deciding if we are better now than we were 70 years ago. I never particularly noticed racism when I was younger and I believe the state I live in is pretty evenly mixed in regard to races. My attitude has pretty much always been: if you are nice to me, I will be nice to you. Racial ethnicity has no bearing on that to me. Every interaction with the American GI’s in this novel did, however, make me cringe. I was so deeply ashamed of those soldiers. I know they were fictitious but I’m sure Ms. Levy didn’t just make those attitudes up. The only thing I could think of was: “I hoped my grandfather was never like those men when he served in Korea. “ I have never heard him utter a cruel or derogatory word against anyone but who knows when it comes to young men in a foreign country during war.
I did find the ending to be so completely wonderful. I know they were fictional but I did truly hope Hortense and Gilbert would have a happy life together with little Michael. Call me sappy! Very much enjoyed this novel! I fear my March pick will be nowhere near as enjoyable. (But hopefully I am wrong)
Thank you again, both of you, for bringing me out of my boring comfort zones and into new and different stories!
Just a quick side note. I did talk to my colleague from Jamaica regarding some of the Jamaican nomenclature and most particularly regarding the “sucking teeth”. I don’t know about you both but while reading this I did try to “suck” my teeth and couldn’t quite figure out what they were during. So I consulted her regarding the matter. She laughed about how much of “home” I was bringing back to her while asking my silly questions regarding her native country. She did say that “sucking” your teeth was an extremely high sign of disrespect in Jamaica. I had her do it for me and subsequently tried to “suck” my teeth behind her which made her laugh even harder.
ReplyDeleteHello Ladies
ReplyDeleteFebruary has bought a number of storms to the UK, but here in East Yorkshire we seem to have escaped the worst. No floods, though the back fence was blown down. Hope Gracie is adjusting to the pace of Brisbane life, Nancy, and that green land has continued to flourish but that mosquitoes are in retreat. A friend of Jay’s from Melbourne is making a brief stopover with us and does not seem unduly worried about the fires. Perhaps some of us have lower anxiety thresholds! How are you, Franklin and the children doing, Katie? From my perspective in life, I can’t imagine where you get the energy to get through life. I watch my nieces and nephews ‘relaxing’ with their children and am filled with admiration.
And all that’s before research into sucked teeth. Is this the same colleague to whom you referred regarding Marlon James ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’?
Since I set some questions, I’ll try to answer them. I did think that using four narrators contributed enormously to the success of the novel. Clearly, it gives more insight into the characters, their motivations and experiences and the change in language style maintains interest. I thought the most compelling narrator, and the one I would use if I had to make a choice, was Gilbert. He was amusing, honest and insightful – a very engaging story teller. And it was through his experiences one was better able to understand the depth and impact of the racism of the times.
I hate to say this, but if we assume that both books are reliable accounts of black people’s experiences in Britain, then very little has changed over the years. I’m completely with you regarding casual racism, Nancy. There seems to be more racial integration in Queenie’s professional world, though this has not necessarily resulted in a better life for black women, or a better racial mix at parties. The means of expressing racism appears to have become more sophisticated, but perhaps this is due to social media. (I don’t use social media, so I‘m making a wild guess here based on Queenie’s experience towards the end of “Queenie”)
It has to be said that the recent Brexit votes and arguments have revealed much the same feelings about people coming over to take jobs which white people could/should do, and using resources such as education and medical services to which they have no rights. And people who arrived as children on the Windrush are being sent back, by our government, to a country of which they have no knowledge. Too painful and shameful to dwell on. And as for the abuse given to black footballers . . .
I’ve rather moved away from the evidence presented in the books. I apologise. Briefly, much the same is happening today, but perhaps to a lesser degree. There again, is racism just not as well publicized as once it was? And there is so much knife led, black on black gang warfare, that it receives huge publicity. Or maybe I’m being taken in by the publicity?
Much love to you and your families, ladies,
From a temporarily depressed
Sue