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Title: A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid ISBN: 0374527075 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (Pap) Pub. Date: 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89
Rating: 4
Summary: A Caribbean jeremiad
Comment: "A Small Place," by Jamaica Kincaid, is a nonfiction prose piece about the Caribbean island of Antigua. The author bio at the beginning of the book notes that the author was born on Antigua. A lean 81 pages, this is nonetheless a powerful text.
Kincaid discusses British colonialism, the corruption of the Antiguan government, racism, and greed. It seems to me a key question raised by the book is whether post-colonial Antigua is worse than colonial Antigua. The book is very much haunted by the spectre of New World slavery.
This book is a dark, angry jeremiad. I think it works better when seen as an extended prose poem rather than as an essay. As the latter, it could be criticized as full of invalid generalizations and undocumented claims. But as a poetic/prophetic text, it is chillingly effective.
Ultimately, Kincaid's vision of the human condition is extremely negative But her haunting, almost hypnotic prose really held me. I recommend the book to anyone planning a trip to a poor country for their own pleasure.
Rating: 3
Summary: Fascinating use of tense and voice
Comment: Like other reviewer, I was little put off by Kincaid's politics.
But the first thing that struck me about this book was the tense and voice. Second person (?you do this, you do that.....?) isn?t very common in literature, so when I see it, it has an immediate effect on me. Now, in one sense, I admire the choice of this tense. It allows the narrator to talk directly to the reader, informing him or her. It also gives the narrator some freedom to literally paint a scene in the reader?s mind. Instead of going to all the trouble to create the hundreds of details necessary to allow the reader to place himself or herself in Antigua, Kincaid can accomplish this in one sentence. Granted, she goes on to provide the details (she points out the cars, the roads, the hospital, the beach, the sun, etc.) but as she does this she has some additional room with this tense to comment on these details and actually point out their significance.
Using this tense also lets Kincaid convey her opinion of the typical tourist who comes to Antigua. Using the second person present tense makes the book flow more like a conversation, and as such, allows me to imagine one particular narrator, a very specific person who is telling me this story and painting these pictures in my mind, filling in the details and their significance as we go along. And if I am not a middle class or upper middle class white American who travels to other countries, this works very well. If I am not a middle or upper class Briton, this also works. But if I am, as are many of the people who buy and read contemporary literature, this would put me out a bit. In fact, it would pretty well alienate me to this narrator. Kincaid?s narrator pretty clearly says she wishes the tourists would stay home, she despises the English, she disdains the concepts of democracy and capitalism, and doesn?t think much of the people who do. Now on the one hand, using this tense and voice makes the narrator very real, very tangible as a character. We hear the narrator?s opinions on almost everything, so the voice becomes distinctive and individual. On the other hand, what this narrator says can be very challenging to some readers. Kincaid has obviously made some choices about what she has to say and how she sees her readership.
Starting in second person, the narrator focuses on building the scene in the reader?s mind, helping the reader see himself or herself in Antigua. The first sense we get of the narrator is from the asides (?Or worse, European?). The first time the narrator identifies herself is on pg. 10 (?of the people like me...?). I think this relates to the gradual change in voice that becomes evident at the beginning of chapter 2.
At the beginning of chapter 2 (after the illustration) the voice changes from a heavy second person to a slightly more traditional first person. Kincaid starts the chapter with ?The Antigua I knew....? and goes on to stay more focused on the first person voice. For me, this reinforced the conversational aspect of the book, the give and take as the focus moves from one speaker to the other. Even though it is always Kincaid?s narrator talking, the first chapter?s emphasis on the reader (you, you, you) is followed by the second chapter?s emphasis on the narrator (I, I, I). This more closely approximates the rhythm of a real conversation and keeps the essay relaxed and moving forward for me.
Small Place Section Stands Out Because of Voice Change Again
On page 52, the narrator changes voice again. In this section, the narrator stops talking primarily about herself and the reader and speaks in a more essayistic voice about Antigua as a whole. ?In a small place, people cultivate small events.? For me, this served to draw attention to this section. Not only because the voice changed, but also because the meaning of the book?s title is revealed in this section. The effect on me as reader is to keep my attention. The general feeling I come away with is an essay that starts with me, moves to the narrator, then moves to Antigua in general.
Last Section Entirely Third Person
The final change in voice occurs in the last section. The last chapter is totally in third person. The narrator has completely dropped the reader (you, you, you) and herself (I, I, I) and begins to speak in straightforward, third person omniscient point of view about Antigua. She even drops into the essayists questions (?What might it do to people...?) in this section. Ending the book in this voice, to me, lent credibility. If she had stayed in the first or second person voice all the way to the end, I might have more easily dismissed the book as biased or too personal. But slowly moving across the voice spectrum, ending in traditional third person, lends an aura of objectivity to the end.
All in all this was a fascinating change ue of tense and voice to tell a compelling story.
Rating: 1
Summary: The selling out of the West Indies
Comment: Unfortunately, I had to buy A Small Place for my University of Michigan class on Latin America. I'm horrified that students and people will believe the West Indies is such a bad place from this book. Horrified. Believe me, I was born and lived in Barbados, an island close and similar in attitude to Antigua. Many everyday activities in Barbados that occur in Antigua are turned into Dateline "controversy of the week" issues. People, it's not that serious! What's worse, she doesn't even touch the real issues of the Caribbean. Not to mention, Jamaica Kincaid wrote the account as a longtime resident of the US. She doesn't even sound like a West Indian; she sounds like a pampered, naive North American who believes every nation that doesn't have a McDonald's on every block is third world, to exaggerate. White superiority is the myth this book perpetuates, and the West Indies is once again made out as a "Banana Republic." What's worse, half of the book's claims aren't even true, nor do natives consider them major issues. A warning to North Americans and Westerners alike; take this book with a grain of salt, most of this account is cornball, "what people want to hear" bull. Unfortunately, most people will believe this "tragedy." Please don't. I'm never believing anything Western media says about the rest of the world again.
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Title: At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid ISBN: 0374527342 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (Pap) Pub. Date: 2000 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Marx in Soho : A Play on History by Howard Zinn ISBN: 0896085937 Publisher: South End Press Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid ISBN: 0374525625 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: East, West: Stories by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0679757899 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy ISBN: 0060977493 Publisher: HarperCollins (paper) Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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