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Small Island
It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.
533 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Andrea Levy
28 books620 followersAndrea Levy was an English novelist, born in London to Jamaican parents. Her novels chronicled the experiences of the post-World War II generation of Jamaican immigrants in Britain. She was one of the first black British authors to achieve both critical and commercial success. Her novel Small Island won several major literary prizes: the Orange Prize for women's fiction, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year award.
Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,422 reviews
June 30, 2016
Books like this are why I study English literature at university, books like this are why I read so ferociously. Ferocious reading? Now that’s an interesting image. But, honestly, I’m careful when I read. I wouldn’t want to scratch those pages! But, I’m digressing here.
This book is an eye-opener; it is an excellent teacher of part of English cultural history. Could you imagine fighting for a country not your own, and then being treated by the citizens of that country like dirt? Those you ended up saving, those you helped to win the war, view you as a ruffian and a scumbag just because of the colour of your skin. Such was the thankless attitude of the British public when black soldiers returned from the war. West Indian soldiers fought and died for the commonwealth, and when they tried to enter the heart of it, dreary England, they were treated as second class citizens.
Now I’m, of course, speaking in generalised terms. Not everyone felt and acted this way, but there was enough of it for Andrea Levy to write such a powerful novel depicting the realities these men faced. This is a great story, completely character driven that much so I’m going to divide the remainder of my review into two to discuss the most complex characters.
The raptured wife- Hortense- She is attracted to this idea of England. She has grown up reading English novels, listening to the white man’s education, and has eventually gone on to teach the same value to her pupils. For her, this idea of England is something she has always wanted. Unfortunately, for her, it doesn’t exist, at least not for a black woman in 50s England. When she finally makes it to the land of her dreams, she realises how secluded and isolated she is. Nobody wants her in their country; her strength resides in her dignity and a will to carry on regardless of what others think. She is the most complex character in the novel, and the one I enjoyed reading about the most. When I l look back on this novel in a few years’ time, I will remember Hortense before anyone else, and her struggle to receive the respect she deserves.
The representative of the stupid English patriarchy and a casual racist- Bernard Bligh-He is outdated and incredibly repulsive, this figure of foolishness represents how small minded some people can actually be. His journey is one of stupidity and selfishness. He is emasculate and slightly insecure, so joining the army for him is a way to prove his manliness and escape his pointless marriage. The man simply doesn’t know how to behave in the bedroom! I will say no more, other than that his wife is a poor soul for marrying such a stoic creature. He witnesses some real heroes in the army, and despite his continued fear, he even commits one himself. Contrastingly, Gilbert is a real soldier; yet, when Bernard returns he has the audacity to put on the superiority act. He such a repulsive man to read about, but his type is one that infests history.
Final Thoughts - this wasn’t told in chronological order; it’s structure, time frame and narrative were in a carefully chosen order. It slowly, and ever so delicately, began to reveal the reasons behind the character’s choices, and it was such an effective technique. It’s like Levy slowly peeled away the layers of the characters, and revealed them one step at a time. This was an excellent piece of literature; I studied it on a postcolonial module, and fell in love with the brutal realism behind the words. Levy is an excellent storyteller.
This book is an eye-opener; it is an excellent teacher of part of English cultural history. Could you imagine fighting for a country not your own, and then being treated by the citizens of that country like dirt? Those you ended up saving, those you helped to win the war, view you as a ruffian and a scumbag just because of the colour of your skin. Such was the thankless attitude of the British public when black soldiers returned from the war. West Indian soldiers fought and died for the commonwealth, and when they tried to enter the heart of it, dreary England, they were treated as second class citizens.
Now I’m, of course, speaking in generalised terms. Not everyone felt and acted this way, but there was enough of it for Andrea Levy to write such a powerful novel depicting the realities these men faced. This is a great story, completely character driven that much so I’m going to divide the remainder of my review into two to discuss the most complex characters.
The raptured wife- Hortense- She is attracted to this idea of England. She has grown up reading English novels, listening to the white man’s education, and has eventually gone on to teach the same value to her pupils. For her, this idea of England is something she has always wanted. Unfortunately, for her, it doesn’t exist, at least not for a black woman in 50s England. When she finally makes it to the land of her dreams, she realises how secluded and isolated she is. Nobody wants her in their country; her strength resides in her dignity and a will to carry on regardless of what others think. She is the most complex character in the novel, and the one I enjoyed reading about the most. When I l look back on this novel in a few years’ time, I will remember Hortense before anyone else, and her struggle to receive the respect she deserves.
The representative of the stupid English patriarchy and a casual racist- Bernard Bligh-He is outdated and incredibly repulsive, this figure of foolishness represents how small minded some people can actually be. His journey is one of stupidity and selfishness. He is emasculate and slightly insecure, so joining the army for him is a way to prove his manliness and escape his pointless marriage. The man simply doesn’t know how to behave in the bedroom! I will say no more, other than that his wife is a poor soul for marrying such a stoic creature. He witnesses some real heroes in the army, and despite his continued fear, he even commits one himself. Contrastingly, Gilbert is a real soldier; yet, when Bernard returns he has the audacity to put on the superiority act. He such a repulsive man to read about, but his type is one that infests history.
Final Thoughts - this wasn’t told in chronological order; it’s structure, time frame and narrative were in a carefully chosen order. It slowly, and ever so delicately, began to reveal the reasons behind the character’s choices, and it was such an effective technique. It’s like Levy slowly peeled away the layers of the characters, and revealed them one step at a time. This was an excellent piece of literature; I studied it on a postcolonial module, and fell in love with the brutal realism behind the words. Levy is an excellent storyteller.
October 16, 2024
Almost seventy years ago, on 22nd June 1948, the passenger ship HMT “Empire Windrush” sailed into London’s Tilbury docks. Several of these large troop ships had been acquired at the end of the Second World War by the British government, and all were renamed “Empire”, followed by the name of a river; in this case a little river in Oxfordshire. But the word “Windrush” came to symbolise something far greater. It was to give its name to an entire generation of people, all of whom had emigrated from the Caribbean to Great Britain.
In 1948, the “British Nationality Act” had just been passed. This conferred British citizenship on all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony. The “Empire Windrush” had been en route from Australia to England via the Atlantic, when it docked in Kingston, Jamaica, to pick up servicemen who were on leave. The ship was nowhere near full, and so an advertisement was placed in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship, for anybody who wanted to come and work in the UK.
It was a popular idea. Many former servicemen, who had served alongside British troops in the Second World War, jumped at this opportunity to return to Britain with the hopes of rejoining the RAF. Others wanted to see what the “mother country”, heralded as a land of opportunity, was like. The resulting group was the first large group of 492 Caribbean immigrants to Britain. It famously began a wave of migration from the Caribbean to the UK, and can be thought of as the start of our modern British multicultural society.
The novelist Andrea Levy’s father was on that ship, and in her early books she wrote about her contemporaries: other children of the “Windrush generation”, and their efforts to find a way of being both black and British. In her fourth novel, Small Island, she has envisioned the struggles of the pioneering Windrush generation itself.
Small Island has won the Orange Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (another of Britain’s top literary prizes) in 2004. One of the judges remarked that it is:
“a brilliantly observed novel of a period of English history that many people seem not to know much about”
“a masterful depiction of a society on the verge of major changes.”
The novel interweaves the stories of four people, all of whom are affected by the historical context, which involves World War II, the British Empire, and the effect of colonialism on those living in Jamaica.
It begins in 1948, as England is recovering from the war. Gilbert Joseph is one of nine children of an alcoholic Jewish father and a Jamaican mother. He is also one of several thousand Jamaican men who had joined the RAF, to fight against Hitler, during the Second World war. Marrying enables him to buy his passage on the Windrush, and he excitedly books a passage to return. But his expectations are sorely dashed. Returning to England as a civilian, he finds himself treated very differently. London is shabby, decrepit, filled with sour-looking people who never smile. The food seems to him like flavourless mush. This grey place is far from the golden city of his dreams. In desperation, he remembers a wartime friendship with Queenie, a butcher’s daughter who used to live in the country before she married. Gilbert knocks at her door, at 21 Nevern Street, London, hoping she will offer him accommodation.
Queenie Bligh, a working-class Englishwoman, remembers Gilbert, and allows him lodging, although it is not what he is used to. Queenie’s house has been damaged by German bombs and has fallen into disrepair because she cannot afford the upkeep of such a large building. The poor conditions and squalid dirty room shocks his new bride, Hortense, who soon joins him. Hortense too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. She had thought of England as a promised land—everyone was happy and rich in England. But when she joins her husband she finds a cold and woebegone place, with drabness and filth everywhere. People never smile, and seem unkempt and rude, taking no pride in their appearance. There is no colour or life. Even Gilbert is not the man she had thought he was. And she cannot understand Queenie at all.
Hortense is the least sympathetic character. She is educated, but very conscious whilst growing up in Jamaica, that her “golden skin” makes her seem “superior”. She is a village snob, narrow-minded, and insecure; genuinely ignorant of the world. On arriving in England, she has every expectation that it will be an upmarket version of her teacher-training college in Jamaica. Hortense begins by despising the apparently feckless Gilbert and the circumstances to which he has brought her. She looks down her nose at working-class Queenie, and firmly rejects the idea that she has anything in common with the other slum-dwelling migrants.
But Hortense soon discovers that her precious qualifications are worthless in the British education system, and that her status is precisely the same as that of any other black migrant. The revelation almost destroys her self-esteem, but it also sets her on a path to self-discovery, beginning to understand Gilbert’s strength, and Queenie’s kindness in this new challenging, unfamiliar world they all inhabit.
Queenie herself has a difficult life, looking after her missing husband’s taciturn father, and meeting much opposition from her neighbours, who do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers. Queenie recognises the differences between white people and black people, but pays little attention to them. In any case, she has little choice about this, as she has been left on her own, not knowing when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. She too has had her dreams dashed. To support herself, Queenie must rent out rooms.
Gilbert and Hortense attempt to adjust not only to a new country but to each other. The relationships of all three are soon disrupted by the
The structure of the novel lends itself well to creating a page-turner. All four characters take turns in telling their stories, and the heading of each chapter is the name of the narrator, to avoid confusion. Not that there would be much confusion, as Andrea Levy has captured the voice and vernacular of each of the four perfectly. There will be several chapters about “Gilbert” or “Queenie”, “Hortnese” or “Bernard”. They may be set within just a few days in 1948, or as flashbacks, “Before”: in a time zone which comprises a great deal of the novel.
Andrea Levy’s grip on the language of each of the characters is superb. There is lot of confusion in Britain even now, about the nature of Caribbean dialects. This has led to a kind of dumbed down homogenisation of a pseuodo-black accent. Black authors who grew up in London or Birmingham have tended to consolidate different types of speech, from different regions and classes in the Caribbean islands, blending it into a kind of street slang, or a language familiar from some pop music, complete with missing consonants and apostrophised accents. Andrea Levy however, reproduces the rhythm and content of her characters’ speech, whether they are village Jamaican, or Jamaican speaking carefully inflected English. Even more impressive, she does the same for her English characters: American G.I. or cockney white working-class. Queenie sounds every bit like a Londoner brought up in the early part of the last century and Bernard sounds like a man who has served in the Far East. It is remarkably authentic.
Many of the incidents of racism are unexpected to an English reader, even one like me, who can (just) remember a mere decade later. These few years after the war are largely forgotten in the history books, save for references to the continuing rationing, queuing and food shortages. But the shameful way black citizens were sometimes treated, are often ignored, or pushed aside. There were reasons, or at least triggers. The British people were just not ready for large scale immigration. Newcomers were seen as taking much-needed jobs, or food, when the country was still getting back on its feet. Most people will have been conflicted. Yet to expect another person to step aside because of the colour of their skin, was inexcusable, and a salutory lesson to those now who are complacent that Britain has been a country with comparatively little racial prejudice.
Shortly after this was set, the British government began to actively recruit from the Caribbean and encourage people to come to Britain to live and work. There were plenty of jobs in post-war Britain, so industries such as British Rail, the National Health Service and public transport began to actively recruit from Jamaica and Barbados. Even though Afro-Caribbean people had been encouraged to journey to Britain through immigration campaigns created by successive British governments, many new arrivals were, like Gilbert and Hortense a little earlier, to endure prejudice, intolerance and extreme racism from some sectors of white British society. Some of the early Afro-Caribbean immigrants found that private employment and housing was denied to them, on the basis of race. Trade unions would often not help them, and some pubs, clubs, dance halls and churches would bar black people from entering. Housing was in short supply because of wartime bombing, and the shortage led to some of the first clashes with the established white community.
Clashes continued and worsened into the 1950s, and riots erupted in cities including London, Birmingham and Nottingham. There were tensions in some areas for over a decade, until the passing of the “Race Relations Act” of 1968. This Act of Parliament made it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins. It also created the Community Relations Commission “to promote harmonious community relations”. This was later to be renamed the Commission for Racial Equality, and now we have the “Equality and Human Rights Commission”.
I have no doubt of the authenticity of the book, as it pertains to that time. Andrea Levy not only has the anecdotal reports of the time from her parents, who will have often told her of their migrant experience, but she rigorously adheres to historical fact, including many well-recorded details. For instance,
All these instances fit well into an historical novel, as well as providing greater substance to the characterisation, and giving a context to the attitudes of different parts of society at the time. The reliance on historical fact allows Andrea Levy a distance, which enables her to be both objective and compassionate. But Andrea Levy’s imagination and insight illuminate these old stories in such a persuasive way, that the reader can almost believe she was there at the time, and is recording her own experience. They are exciting to read, as well as providing much food for thought, questioning attitudes to discrimination. There are many types of prejudice working in this novel, and they are not always the ones the reader expects.
Hortense is as prejudiced as any other character in the novel. While living in Jamaica, she does not feel a victim of this. Quite the reverse, as she seems to revel in the special attention she is given, because her skin is more golden than black. Her father, who was light-skinned, had an affair with a dark-skinned country woman. When Hortense was born, he took the baby to his brother’s home and paid to have this lighter skinned family raise Hortense, while her natural mother was sent away to Cuba.
Hortense may not up to now not been a victim of racial prejudice in her youth, but she is very conscious—and guilty—of social prejudice. She looks down on people who speak what she considers to be substandard English, whatever the colour of their skin. When Hortense moves to London, she cannot understand why people cannot understand her, commenting on how hard she studied in Jamaica to learn “proper” English. She knows she is speaking grammatically correct sentences, rather than using the more “common” forms of English which some of her fellow Jamaicans use. She cannot understand why she needs to constantly repeat herself to other British people, as if she were speaking a foreign language. It takes living in London for a while, before she listens more carefully to people, and realises that she has a strong accent of her own. As Hortense used to look down on people in Jamaica for how they spoke, people in London now look down on her.
For me, Andrea Levy’s most powerful achievement in Small Island is the authenticity of the character’s voices. Segregation was never part of Britain’s way of life, but ignorance led to much confusion by ordinary people, whether white or black. We see how even this covert English racism was all the more heartbreaking for those from the colonies, because it involved the crushing of their ideals. Many had spent all their lives revering the “mother country” and were proud to be British citizens, fighting for King and country. They had been educated to a high standard, and knew more about the different cities and areas of Britain than many who had lived here all their lives. Yet often they would meet with incomprehension, as the white British often assumed they were from Africa, and had never heard of the West Indies.
Gilbert can reel off the names of England’s canals, and list the major industries of each English town. He is astonished to then discover that most English people can’t even find Jamaica on a map. “How come England did not know me?” he asks. Hortense’s shock is even greater. She is stunned to find that ordinary people in the street cannot understand her carefully correct speech, and assume her to be stupid. She cannot make herself understood by a London taxi driver, despite the fact that she won a prize for reciting Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” at school. And when she reaches the employment office for teachers, clutching her excellent qualifications and references, she is mortified to discover that all her training and experience counts for nothing in England. No one will explain why; they merely refuse to interview her. When she tells them that in that case she will enrol in teacher classes in London, they merely laugh at her. Her colour says it all. No one will hire Hortense because she is black.
It would be easy to contrast the two very different lives of Queenie and Hortense, or the prejudiced Bernard with Gilbert, or even to make the two forge a miraculous friendship. But Andrea Levy does not take the easy way out, in order to make a satisfying but predictable story. Instead, she points up and contrasts Gilbert’s experiences as a Jamaican in the RAF with the lot of black G.I.s in the United States forces.
Gilbert is caught off guard by prejudice. When he first enlists in the RAF, he is taken to the United States to be trained. His supervisor explains to the Jamaican troops that they are special black people, different from US black G.I.s. American negroes have few rights in the States, and so are not treated as well, but the Jamaican servicemen are given special privileges, because they are different. However, when they arrive in England, they find that they are not to be given the jobs they had been promised. Gilbert and others had wanted to fly, but instead they become clerks and drivers of jeeps and trucks.
The American bases are strictly segregated, with the black and white G.I.s never socialising. The black G.I.s, even in England, are viewed as second class citizens by their superior officers, and are given passes for leave on different days. Not only that, but the leave is to be taken in different towns, unbeknown to the residents of those English towns.
Gilbert, being both black and British, therefore presents the Americans with a problem. His white RAF comrades have no problem, but the Americans certainly do. An odd situation results, where a black subject of the British Empire is seen to have “superior black skin”, and treated as if he were white:
“We were allowed to live with white soldiers, while the inferior American negro was not. I was perplexed. No, we were all perplexed. We Jamaicans, knowing our island was one of the largest in the Caribbean, think ourselves sophisticated men of the world. Better than the ‘small islanders’ whose universe only runs a few miles in either direction before it falls into the sea.”
Small Island has many shades of inference, and a dual literal meaning. As an English reader, I assumed it would refer to Great Britain, viewed as a “jewel of the Empire” at the time of the book. Through Gilbert, I learned that for the inhabitants of Jamaica, the largest island in the West Indies, “Small Island” would refer to any of the rest of the Caribbean. But Gilbert goes through a change. When he returns to Jamaica after the war, he understands for the first time that he too is a “small islander” in the eyes of the rest of the world, or at least of those he has met.
Bernard too, has also been changed by his wartime experiences. It would be tempting to slightly mitigate Bernard’s racism, by making both men realise what they have in common, but Andrea Levy’s book is more subtle, and does not fall into such an easy trap.
There are many shades of prejudice explored in the novel, including the complex relationship between colour and class. Hortense is perhaps the least likeable character in the novel, initially. She is light-skinned, and has been brought up as a lady. At first, Hortense despises Gilbert for what she sees as his coarse manners, and looks down on Queenie for being less educated than she is. As the book progresses, we see how Hortense develops respect for those she initially despised. She begins to understand the challenges black Britons were facing, and the difficulties of those who were struggling against post-war conditions, whilst accepting the new immigrants in their community. It is one of the most moving aspects of the book.
Small Island is too thoughtful a novel to resolve everything in a neat package, tied with a fancy ribbon, by means of some convenient deus ex machina. Andrea Levy does have a surprise in store however, which catches most of its characters and its readers off-guard. Yet Gilbert, Hortense, Queenie and Bernard all remain trapped by their circumstances, and in their own stories. They are all more sympathetic to us than they are to one another.
It is not a conventional happy ending, but it is an ending fit for the time, and one which offers them hope. We are left with the realisation that war causes casualties everywhere: both physical and psychological, as well as individual and societal. Small Island sometimes makes the reader appalled at the intolerance recorded by history, but it is ultimately an uplifting and thought-provoking read.
In 1948, the “British Nationality Act” had just been passed. This conferred British citizenship on all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony. The “Empire Windrush” had been en route from Australia to England via the Atlantic, when it docked in Kingston, Jamaica, to pick up servicemen who were on leave. The ship was nowhere near full, and so an advertisement was placed in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship, for anybody who wanted to come and work in the UK.
It was a popular idea. Many former servicemen, who had served alongside British troops in the Second World War, jumped at this opportunity to return to Britain with the hopes of rejoining the RAF. Others wanted to see what the “mother country”, heralded as a land of opportunity, was like. The resulting group was the first large group of 492 Caribbean immigrants to Britain. It famously began a wave of migration from the Caribbean to the UK, and can be thought of as the start of our modern British multicultural society.
The novelist Andrea Levy’s father was on that ship, and in her early books she wrote about her contemporaries: other children of the “Windrush generation”, and their efforts to find a way of being both black and British. In her fourth novel, Small Island, she has envisioned the struggles of the pioneering Windrush generation itself.
Small Island has won the Orange Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (another of Britain’s top literary prizes) in 2004. One of the judges remarked that it is:
“a brilliantly observed novel of a period of English history that many people seem not to know much about”
“a masterful depiction of a society on the verge of major changes.”
The novel interweaves the stories of four people, all of whom are affected by the historical context, which involves World War II, the British Empire, and the effect of colonialism on those living in Jamaica.
It begins in 1948, as England is recovering from the war. Gilbert Joseph is one of nine children of an alcoholic Jewish father and a Jamaican mother. He is also one of several thousand Jamaican men who had joined the RAF, to fight against Hitler, during the Second World war. Marrying enables him to buy his passage on the Windrush, and he excitedly books a passage to return. But his expectations are sorely dashed. Returning to England as a civilian, he finds himself treated very differently. London is shabby, decrepit, filled with sour-looking people who never smile. The food seems to him like flavourless mush. This grey place is far from the golden city of his dreams. In desperation, he remembers a wartime friendship with Queenie, a butcher’s daughter who used to live in the country before she married. Gilbert knocks at her door, at 21 Nevern Street, London, hoping she will offer him accommodation.
Queenie Bligh, a working-class Englishwoman, remembers Gilbert, and allows him lodging, although it is not what he is used to. Queenie’s house has been damaged by German bombs and has fallen into disrepair because she cannot afford the upkeep of such a large building. The poor conditions and squalid dirty room shocks his new bride, Hortense, who soon joins him. Hortense too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. She had thought of England as a promised land—everyone was happy and rich in England. But when she joins her husband she finds a cold and woebegone place, with drabness and filth everywhere. People never smile, and seem unkempt and rude, taking no pride in their appearance. There is no colour or life. Even Gilbert is not the man she had thought he was. And she cannot understand Queenie at all.
Hortense is the least sympathetic character. She is educated, but very conscious whilst growing up in Jamaica, that her “golden skin” makes her seem “superior”. She is a village snob, narrow-minded, and insecure; genuinely ignorant of the world. On arriving in England, she has every expectation that it will be an upmarket version of her teacher-training college in Jamaica. Hortense begins by despising the apparently feckless Gilbert and the circumstances to which he has brought her. She looks down her nose at working-class Queenie, and firmly rejects the idea that she has anything in common with the other slum-dwelling migrants.
But Hortense soon discovers that her precious qualifications are worthless in the British education system, and that her status is precisely the same as that of any other black migrant. The revelation almost destroys her self-esteem, but it also sets her on a path to self-discovery, beginning to understand Gilbert’s strength, and Queenie’s kindness in this new challenging, unfamiliar world they all inhabit.
Queenie herself has a difficult life, looking after her missing husband’s taciturn father, and meeting much opposition from her neighbours, who do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers. Queenie recognises the differences between white people and black people, but pays little attention to them. In any case, she has little choice about this, as she has been left on her own, not knowing when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. She too has had her dreams dashed. To support herself, Queenie must rent out rooms.
Gilbert and Hortense attempt to adjust not only to a new country but to each other. The relationships of all three are soon disrupted by the
The structure of the novel lends itself well to creating a page-turner. All four characters take turns in telling their stories, and the heading of each chapter is the name of the narrator, to avoid confusion. Not that there would be much confusion, as Andrea Levy has captured the voice and vernacular of each of the four perfectly. There will be several chapters about “Gilbert” or “Queenie”, “Hortnese” or “Bernard”. They may be set within just a few days in 1948, or as flashbacks, “Before”: in a time zone which comprises a great deal of the novel.
Andrea Levy’s grip on the language of each of the characters is superb. There is lot of confusion in Britain even now, about the nature of Caribbean dialects. This has led to a kind of dumbed down homogenisation of a pseuodo-black accent. Black authors who grew up in London or Birmingham have tended to consolidate different types of speech, from different regions and classes in the Caribbean islands, blending it into a kind of street slang, or a language familiar from some pop music, complete with missing consonants and apostrophised accents. Andrea Levy however, reproduces the rhythm and content of her characters’ speech, whether they are village Jamaican, or Jamaican speaking carefully inflected English. Even more impressive, she does the same for her English characters: American G.I. or cockney white working-class. Queenie sounds every bit like a Londoner brought up in the early part of the last century and Bernard sounds like a man who has served in the Far East. It is remarkably authentic.
Many of the incidents of racism are unexpected to an English reader, even one like me, who can (just) remember a mere decade later. These few years after the war are largely forgotten in the history books, save for references to the continuing rationing, queuing and food shortages. But the shameful way black citizens were sometimes treated, are often ignored, or pushed aside. There were reasons, or at least triggers. The British people were just not ready for large scale immigration. Newcomers were seen as taking much-needed jobs, or food, when the country was still getting back on its feet. Most people will have been conflicted. Yet to expect another person to step aside because of the colour of their skin, was inexcusable, and a salutory lesson to those now who are complacent that Britain has been a country with comparatively little racial prejudice.
Shortly after this was set, the British government began to actively recruit from the Caribbean and encourage people to come to Britain to live and work. There were plenty of jobs in post-war Britain, so industries such as British Rail, the National Health Service and public transport began to actively recruit from Jamaica and Barbados. Even though Afro-Caribbean people had been encouraged to journey to Britain through immigration campaigns created by successive British governments, many new arrivals were, like Gilbert and Hortense a little earlier, to endure prejudice, intolerance and extreme racism from some sectors of white British society. Some of the early Afro-Caribbean immigrants found that private employment and housing was denied to them, on the basis of race. Trade unions would often not help them, and some pubs, clubs, dance halls and churches would bar black people from entering. Housing was in short supply because of wartime bombing, and the shortage led to some of the first clashes with the established white community.
Clashes continued and worsened into the 1950s, and riots erupted in cities including London, Birmingham and Nottingham. There were tensions in some areas for over a decade, until the passing of the “Race Relations Act” of 1968. This Act of Parliament made it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins. It also created the Community Relations Commission “to promote harmonious community relations”. This was later to be renamed the Commission for Racial Equality, and now we have the “Equality and Human Rights Commission”.
I have no doubt of the authenticity of the book, as it pertains to that time. Andrea Levy not only has the anecdotal reports of the time from her parents, who will have often told her of their migrant experience, but she rigorously adheres to historical fact, including many well-recorded details. For instance,
All these instances fit well into an historical novel, as well as providing greater substance to the characterisation, and giving a context to the attitudes of different parts of society at the time. The reliance on historical fact allows Andrea Levy a distance, which enables her to be both objective and compassionate. But Andrea Levy’s imagination and insight illuminate these old stories in such a persuasive way, that the reader can almost believe she was there at the time, and is recording her own experience. They are exciting to read, as well as providing much food for thought, questioning attitudes to discrimination. There are many types of prejudice working in this novel, and they are not always the ones the reader expects.
Hortense is as prejudiced as any other character in the novel. While living in Jamaica, she does not feel a victim of this. Quite the reverse, as she seems to revel in the special attention she is given, because her skin is more golden than black. Her father, who was light-skinned, had an affair with a dark-skinned country woman. When Hortense was born, he took the baby to his brother’s home and paid to have this lighter skinned family raise Hortense, while her natural mother was sent away to Cuba.
Hortense may not up to now not been a victim of racial prejudice in her youth, but she is very conscious—and guilty—of social prejudice. She looks down on people who speak what she considers to be substandard English, whatever the colour of their skin. When Hortense moves to London, she cannot understand why people cannot understand her, commenting on how hard she studied in Jamaica to learn “proper” English. She knows she is speaking grammatically correct sentences, rather than using the more “common” forms of English which some of her fellow Jamaicans use. She cannot understand why she needs to constantly repeat herself to other British people, as if she were speaking a foreign language. It takes living in London for a while, before she listens more carefully to people, and realises that she has a strong accent of her own. As Hortense used to look down on people in Jamaica for how they spoke, people in London now look down on her.
For me, Andrea Levy’s most powerful achievement in Small Island is the authenticity of the character’s voices. Segregation was never part of Britain’s way of life, but ignorance led to much confusion by ordinary people, whether white or black. We see how even this covert English racism was all the more heartbreaking for those from the colonies, because it involved the crushing of their ideals. Many had spent all their lives revering the “mother country” and were proud to be British citizens, fighting for King and country. They had been educated to a high standard, and knew more about the different cities and areas of Britain than many who had lived here all their lives. Yet often they would meet with incomprehension, as the white British often assumed they were from Africa, and had never heard of the West Indies.
Gilbert can reel off the names of England’s canals, and list the major industries of each English town. He is astonished to then discover that most English people can’t even find Jamaica on a map. “How come England did not know me?” he asks. Hortense’s shock is even greater. She is stunned to find that ordinary people in the street cannot understand her carefully correct speech, and assume her to be stupid. She cannot make herself understood by a London taxi driver, despite the fact that she won a prize for reciting Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” at school. And when she reaches the employment office for teachers, clutching her excellent qualifications and references, she is mortified to discover that all her training and experience counts for nothing in England. No one will explain why; they merely refuse to interview her. When she tells them that in that case she will enrol in teacher classes in London, they merely laugh at her. Her colour says it all. No one will hire Hortense because she is black.
It would be easy to contrast the two very different lives of Queenie and Hortense, or the prejudiced Bernard with Gilbert, or even to make the two forge a miraculous friendship. But Andrea Levy does not take the easy way out, in order to make a satisfying but predictable story. Instead, she points up and contrasts Gilbert’s experiences as a Jamaican in the RAF with the lot of black G.I.s in the United States forces.
Gilbert is caught off guard by prejudice. When he first enlists in the RAF, he is taken to the United States to be trained. His supervisor explains to the Jamaican troops that they are special black people, different from US black G.I.s. American negroes have few rights in the States, and so are not treated as well, but the Jamaican servicemen are given special privileges, because they are different. However, when they arrive in England, they find that they are not to be given the jobs they had been promised. Gilbert and others had wanted to fly, but instead they become clerks and drivers of jeeps and trucks.
The American bases are strictly segregated, with the black and white G.I.s never socialising. The black G.I.s, even in England, are viewed as second class citizens by their superior officers, and are given passes for leave on different days. Not only that, but the leave is to be taken in different towns, unbeknown to the residents of those English towns.
Gilbert, being both black and British, therefore presents the Americans with a problem. His white RAF comrades have no problem, but the Americans certainly do. An odd situation results, where a black subject of the British Empire is seen to have “superior black skin”, and treated as if he were white:
“We were allowed to live with white soldiers, while the inferior American negro was not. I was perplexed. No, we were all perplexed. We Jamaicans, knowing our island was one of the largest in the Caribbean, think ourselves sophisticated men of the world. Better than the ‘small islanders’ whose universe only runs a few miles in either direction before it falls into the sea.”
Small Island has many shades of inference, and a dual literal meaning. As an English reader, I assumed it would refer to Great Britain, viewed as a “jewel of the Empire” at the time of the book. Through Gilbert, I learned that for the inhabitants of Jamaica, the largest island in the West Indies, “Small Island” would refer to any of the rest of the Caribbean. But Gilbert goes through a change. When he returns to Jamaica after the war, he understands for the first time that he too is a “small islander” in the eyes of the rest of the world, or at least of those he has met.
Bernard too, has also been changed by his wartime experiences. It would be tempting to slightly mitigate Bernard’s racism, by making both men realise what they have in common, but Andrea Levy’s book is more subtle, and does not fall into such an easy trap.
There are many shades of prejudice explored in the novel, including the complex relationship between colour and class. Hortense is perhaps the least likeable character in the novel, initially. She is light-skinned, and has been brought up as a lady. At first, Hortense despises Gilbert for what she sees as his coarse manners, and looks down on Queenie for being less educated than she is. As the book progresses, we see how Hortense develops respect for those she initially despised. She begins to understand the challenges black Britons were facing, and the difficulties of those who were struggling against post-war conditions, whilst accepting the new immigrants in their community. It is one of the most moving aspects of the book.
Small Island is too thoughtful a novel to resolve everything in a neat package, tied with a fancy ribbon, by means of some convenient deus ex machina. Andrea Levy does have a surprise in store however, which catches most of its characters and its readers off-guard. Yet Gilbert, Hortense, Queenie and Bernard all remain trapped by their circumstances, and in their own stories. They are all more sympathetic to us than they are to one another.
It is not a conventional happy ending, but it is an ending fit for the time, and one which offers them hope. We are left with the realisation that war causes casualties everywhere: both physical and psychological, as well as individual and societal. Small Island sometimes makes the reader appalled at the intolerance recorded by history, but it is ultimately an uplifting and thought-provoking read.
March 8, 2021
Accession
Small Island is a keenly examined story exploring the prejudices that existed, and still do, around racial inequality in post-WWII Britain. The novel flips back and forward from 1948 to a time before the war when two Jamaicans, Gilbert and Hortense dream of immigrating to Britain. Hortense has an image of Britons being the standard to which she aspires. In the war, Gilbert served in the RAF in service of his new home, his new identity, and a “Mother Country” worth risking his life for. Queenie and Bernard are two white Britons and offer the alternative couple for which many of the racial divides and commonalities are portrayed.
Queenie whose husband, Bernard, also fought in the war does not return when the war ends and she takes in tenants to help with income – most of them, Caribbean, including Gilbert. Each of the four main characters has a voice in the story and they are used with great aplomb in delivering the narrative and atmosphere of the novel. They are developed with so many intriguing personality traits and motivations that this is the aspect of the novel that deserves the greatest praise. In their relationships and their interaction with society at large, the horrible treatment of blacks builds an outrage as we see it for all its ugliness.
Andrea Levy crafts a wonderful book that tackles many of the acerbic realities that faced communities in England when more people immigrated to Britain following their participation in the War. A country they felt owed them. The storytelling is wonderfully created to illustrate how the lives of immigrants emerged rather than simply being reported. In addition to the blatant racial attacks, the subtleties of racism and intolerance are carefully drawn to provide a scope that is profoundly effective. Not to be lost in the characterisations, Andrea Levy brings to life the scenes of post-war London with richly detailed images that capture a country getting back on its feet after such a destructive war. The mix of emotions from devastation to hope, from loss to a new beginning and from opportunities to abuse are starkly given light, and often humour helps with a balance throughout the story. The ending didn’t connect as well with the rest of the book as I’d hoped.
Small Island has been dramatized for TV and is a book included for student literature courses, and deservedly so. I would recommend reading it as it is becoming one of the modern classics in British history.
Small Island is a keenly examined story exploring the prejudices that existed, and still do, around racial inequality in post-WWII Britain. The novel flips back and forward from 1948 to a time before the war when two Jamaicans, Gilbert and Hortense dream of immigrating to Britain. Hortense has an image of Britons being the standard to which she aspires. In the war, Gilbert served in the RAF in service of his new home, his new identity, and a “Mother Country” worth risking his life for. Queenie and Bernard are two white Britons and offer the alternative couple for which many of the racial divides and commonalities are portrayed.
Queenie whose husband, Bernard, also fought in the war does not return when the war ends and she takes in tenants to help with income – most of them, Caribbean, including Gilbert. Each of the four main characters has a voice in the story and they are used with great aplomb in delivering the narrative and atmosphere of the novel. They are developed with so many intriguing personality traits and motivations that this is the aspect of the novel that deserves the greatest praise. In their relationships and their interaction with society at large, the horrible treatment of blacks builds an outrage as we see it for all its ugliness.
Andrea Levy crafts a wonderful book that tackles many of the acerbic realities that faced communities in England when more people immigrated to Britain following their participation in the War. A country they felt owed them. The storytelling is wonderfully created to illustrate how the lives of immigrants emerged rather than simply being reported. In addition to the blatant racial attacks, the subtleties of racism and intolerance are carefully drawn to provide a scope that is profoundly effective. Not to be lost in the characterisations, Andrea Levy brings to life the scenes of post-war London with richly detailed images that capture a country getting back on its feet after such a destructive war. The mix of emotions from devastation to hope, from loss to a new beginning and from opportunities to abuse are starkly given light, and often humour helps with a balance throughout the story. The ending didn’t connect as well with the rest of the book as I’d hoped.
Small Island has been dramatized for TV and is a book included for student literature courses, and deservedly so. I would recommend reading it as it is becoming one of the modern classics in British history.
August 29, 2007
I loved this book, but I realize that I am very biased because I am Jamaican, and have many relatives who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica, so the characters were immediately real and recognizable to me.
Some reviewers have complained that her use of dialect was heavy-handed, but from my perspective, she actually tones down Jamaican Patois (also called Jamaican Creole) significantly to make it understandable to non-Jamaicans. On a visit to Jamaica last year, I heard her interviewed and she said she was writing as much for Jamaicans as for a wider audience, and she knew the book wouldn't ring true to us if the characters didn't speak patois much of the time.
I think it's a fascinating look at the first wave of West Indian immigrants to the place they had been taught to think of as the "mother country", and the responses they received from white Britons when they arrived. I particularly liked the part that was set in the Jamaica of the 1940's. Thought the ending was a little too neat, but it didn't diminish my love of the book.
Some reviewers have complained that her use of dialect was heavy-handed, but from my perspective, she actually tones down Jamaican Patois (also called Jamaican Creole) significantly to make it understandable to non-Jamaicans. On a visit to Jamaica last year, I heard her interviewed and she said she was writing as much for Jamaicans as for a wider audience, and she knew the book wouldn't ring true to us if the characters didn't speak patois much of the time.
I think it's a fascinating look at the first wave of West Indian immigrants to the place they had been taught to think of as the "mother country", and the responses they received from white Britons when they arrived. I particularly liked the part that was set in the Jamaica of the 1940's. Thought the ending was a little too neat, but it didn't diminish my love of the book.
June 6, 2022
One of the most moving - and funny - books I’ve read in a long time <3
December 17, 2018
"No man is an island." Said John Donne. But the reality is, everyone is. At least in their minds. That is what this novel tells us.
This is the story of four people. Hortense Roberts, a teacher; Gilbert Joseph, an airman (both Jamaicans); and the British couple Victoria ("Queenie") Bligh and the bank clerk Bernard Bligh. But it also the story of two nations, England and the West Indies, as reflected in the very private lives and thoughts of these people.
Both Hortense and Gilbert want to escape from their small island of Jamaica to the "Mother" country England right, the capital of the British Empire, which they consider themselves proud to be part of: Gilbert even things himself entitled, as he has fought for his country in the Second World War, which has just ended. Unfortunately for them, the mother does want to have to do anything with these "coloured" sons and daughters. The latent racism of the white man, which was subdued during the war, has come to forefront with a vengeance in the abject poverty of post-war England. So the Jamaicans find themselves unwelcome visitors on the English shore.
Hortense has married Gilbert, partly because he looks like her childhood crush Michael, and partly to get a passage to England. Gilbert has also married Hortense because she has promised to finance his trip abroad - but also because he is sexually attracted to her. In England, they lodge at the house of Queenie Bligh, whom Gilbert had fancied at one point of time: in dismal lodgings to the horror of Hortense. The neighbourhood is unhappy at Queenie's taking in of coloured lodgers. And the situation is worsened by the return of Bernard Bligh from India, where he had been posted during the war. Bernard, colonialist and racist to the core, wants these blacks out of his house - something which Queenie refuses to countenance.
And as tensions mount, there is the sudden unexpected denouement which throws the whole story off its wheels. The climax, when it comes, is comprised in equal measures of tragic irony and slapstick comedy - and then it all winds down to a softly sentimental finale.
***
Andrea Levy uses her characters as metaphor. The tensions of race and nation are encapsulated in the voices of her four protagonists. In this, she resembles Paul Scott. But whereas Scott's voice is poignant and multilayered, rather like that of Faulkner, Levy's is extremely blunt. There is no sugar-coating: I found all her protagonists except Queenie rather unlikeable, though one could sympathise with them. She has done a brilliant job of creating multiple voices, with totally different ways of expressing themselves. At the same time, there is a unity to the narrative.
And the metaphor works, without being intrusive. It is what saved this novel from being the tripe it could easily have been - especially with the contrived and convoluted narrative.
This is the story of four people. Hortense Roberts, a teacher; Gilbert Joseph, an airman (both Jamaicans); and the British couple Victoria ("Queenie") Bligh and the bank clerk Bernard Bligh. But it also the story of two nations, England and the West Indies, as reflected in the very private lives and thoughts of these people.
Both Hortense and Gilbert want to escape from their small island of Jamaica to the "Mother" country England right, the capital of the British Empire, which they consider themselves proud to be part of: Gilbert even things himself entitled, as he has fought for his country in the Second World War, which has just ended. Unfortunately for them, the mother does want to have to do anything with these "coloured" sons and daughters. The latent racism of the white man, which was subdued during the war, has come to forefront with a vengeance in the abject poverty of post-war England. So the Jamaicans find themselves unwelcome visitors on the English shore.
Hortense has married Gilbert, partly because he looks like her childhood crush Michael, and partly to get a passage to England. Gilbert has also married Hortense because she has promised to finance his trip abroad - but also because he is sexually attracted to her. In England, they lodge at the house of Queenie Bligh, whom Gilbert had fancied at one point of time: in dismal lodgings to the horror of Hortense. The neighbourhood is unhappy at Queenie's taking in of coloured lodgers. And the situation is worsened by the return of Bernard Bligh from India, where he had been posted during the war. Bernard, colonialist and racist to the core, wants these blacks out of his house - something which Queenie refuses to countenance.
And as tensions mount, there is the sudden unexpected denouement which throws the whole story off its wheels. The climax, when it comes, is comprised in equal measures of tragic irony and slapstick comedy - and then it all winds down to a softly sentimental finale.
***
Andrea Levy uses her characters as metaphor. The tensions of race and nation are encapsulated in the voices of her four protagonists. In this, she resembles Paul Scott. But whereas Scott's voice is poignant and multilayered, rather like that of Faulkner, Levy's is extremely blunt. There is no sugar-coating: I found all her protagonists except Queenie rather unlikeable, though one could sympathise with them. She has done a brilliant job of creating multiple voices, with totally different ways of expressing themselves. At the same time, there is a unity to the narrative.
And the metaphor works, without being intrusive. It is what saved this novel from being the tripe it could easily have been - especially with the contrived and convoluted narrative.
May 6, 2015
I wanted to enjoy this book because I am a West Indian now and did the reverse journey - first world UK to backward little Caribbean island, but the journey was a lot more enjoyable than the book.
I finished it by an act of will and apart from odd scenes of violence or lasciviousness, it didn't hold my attention. It was such an easy read that the pages flowed into each other leaving no trace on my brain at all. Like the sea washing the sand clean with each wave, so did each page disappear from my memory as the next one was read.
Bye Small Island, I've moved on and forgotten you now...
I finished it by an act of will and apart from odd scenes of violence or lasciviousness, it didn't hold my attention. It was such an easy read that the pages flowed into each other leaving no trace on my brain at all. Like the sea washing the sand clean with each wave, so did each page disappear from my memory as the next one was read.
Bye Small Island, I've moved on and forgotten you now...
February 12, 2024
فازت هذه الرواية بجائزة اورانج 2004 للكتابة النسائية
كتبتها أندريا ليفي الروائية بريطانية من جذور كولمبية
ماتت الكاتبة في
February 14, 2019
بالمرض الخبيث
القراءة لها تدخل ضمن قرائتي لسلسة الجوائز
.........
رواية جيدة
لكنها طويلة نوعاً استغرقت مني أياماً لانتهي منها
تدور الرواية بين 4 شخصيات هم محور القصة
كل فصل في الرواية يخص أحدهم أو بلسانه ويكتب بطل الفصل كعنوان للفصل
جاءت الرواية قليلة التشويق فلا توجد لهفة لمتابعة موقف أو مأزق أو توقع نهاية
لكن بالنظر للعمل ككل فهو جيد
هذا العمل ضمن مكتبتي ولم اندم علي اقنائه
July 26, 2013
Mixed feelings about this one; read very easily and the historical context is one that interests me. However it did not really do what I thought it set out do, which was to chronicle the early years of the Windrush generation. There are four narrators; Hortense and Gilbert from Jamaica and Queenie and Bernard who are English (although Bernard feels like a bit of an add on, arriving in the last quarter of the book). That makes the book feel a little disjointed. A great deal of time is also spent with the earlier lives of three of the protagonists. Too much time, I think for the length of the novel. I think Levy is trying to write three novels in one. Firstly, life in Jamaica and Britain in the late 1920s and 1930s; Secondly, the war and the experiences of West Indian servicemen and interactions with locals and GIs. Thirdly, Windrush and beyond. That's all too much for one novel to take. As a consequence all three areas suffer. I also felt that the characters lacked something, which again may be as a result of trying to cram too much in. On the whole I prefer David Dabydeen's more thoughtful approach to the topic.
One part that did ring true was the racism in the white community, which I remember from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I particularly remember the unthinking and irrational nature of it which Levy portays well. This was a source of puzzlement to me as a child as I saw my elders behaving in ways which I thought were rude and inhuman. Levy describes the surprise and disappointment of the new arrivals as the encounter post-war London.
All in all a bit of a varied mixture which tried to do too much.
One part that did ring true was the racism in the white community, which I remember from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I particularly remember the unthinking and irrational nature of it which Levy portays well. This was a source of puzzlement to me as a child as I saw my elders behaving in ways which I thought were rude and inhuman. Levy describes the surprise and disappointment of the new arrivals as the encounter post-war London.
All in all a bit of a varied mixture which tried to do too much.
December 25, 2019
Small Island is the fourth novel of the British author Andrea Levy, portray the life of the Jamaican immigrants in England after WW2, and their struggle to establish new life in a society of white majority
a story of post war migration, narrated from four different perspectives - two white and black couples
Levy handled the themes of empire, colonialism and war, focussing on the topics of racism, identity and mixed race
a story of post war migration, narrated from four different perspectives - two white and black couples
Levy handled the themes of empire, colonialism and war, focussing on the topics of racism, identity and mixed race
April 29, 2021
By page 100, I wanted Andrea Levy to be my friend and I was heartbroken to learn that she died in 2019. By page 300, I was gobsmacked by her range and wanted to ask her how she did it. And by the end, I just wanted to say thank you.
I knew nothing about West Indian people in England during World War II. Nothing about British and American GI’s treatment of Black people then. I knew nothing about the British Empire’s specific movements and battles. But everything and everyone felt true because Andrea Levy has perfect pitch for voice and full character.
I roared with laughter at fantastically arrogant Hortense at her first sight of her naked husband. And any writer who loves bowel and birthing humor has my heart. Whether Levy was writing Jamaicans, American GIs, white women, war, or anything and anybody, the dialogue was effortless and true, and I know this because when characters are true, the reader can identify, no matter how unfamiliar she is with a culture or time.
Not only is this a wonderful historical novel—written in multiple characters’ perfect voices and spanning pre-war Jamaica, both Great Wars, and 1948 England—but this book educates and should be on the list of anybody who is filling in their never-taught-by-white-school knowledge of Black history.
I knew nothing about this story until I read Goodreader Margitte’s review. And as Margitte said, this book deserves all the praise and prizes it has received. I only wish Andrea Levy were still here so that I could thank her.
Here’s Andrea Levy’s website: https://www.andrealevy.co.uk/
And here’s a trailer for the book that Andrea Levy made for its tenth anniversary in 2014; I highly recommend watching it. It made me feel even more heartbroken that I’ll never get to meet her in-body: https://youtu.be/WyUR6gZyYLE
I knew nothing about West Indian people in England during World War II. Nothing about British and American GI’s treatment of Black people then. I knew nothing about the British Empire’s specific movements and battles. But everything and everyone felt true because Andrea Levy has perfect pitch for voice and full character.
I roared with laughter at fantastically arrogant Hortense at her first sight of her naked husband. And any writer who loves bowel and birthing humor has my heart. Whether Levy was writing Jamaicans, American GIs, white women, war, or anything and anybody, the dialogue was effortless and true, and I know this because when characters are true, the reader can identify, no matter how unfamiliar she is with a culture or time.
Not only is this a wonderful historical novel—written in multiple characters’ perfect voices and spanning pre-war Jamaica, both Great Wars, and 1948 England—but this book educates and should be on the list of anybody who is filling in their never-taught-by-white-school knowledge of Black history.
I knew nothing about this story until I read Goodreader Margitte’s review. And as Margitte said, this book deserves all the praise and prizes it has received. I only wish Andrea Levy were still here so that I could thank her.
Here’s Andrea Levy’s website: https://www.andrealevy.co.uk/
And here’s a trailer for the book that Andrea Levy made for its tenth anniversary in 2014; I highly recommend watching it. It made me feel even more heartbroken that I’ll never get to meet her in-body: https://youtu.be/WyUR6gZyYLE
May 21, 2007
Fantastic novel, a real eye opener! Small Island is a novel that connects continents in wartime. It takes the reader from Jamaica to England and on to India in the days of the second World War. Four main characters connect the dots. A Gilbert, a young Jamaican who joins the RAF to fight Hitler but finds himself fighting racism instead; Queenie, a young white woman who takes in Jamaican Lodgers; her husband Bernard, who is fighting the Japs in India; and the Jamaican girl Hortense, who travels to England, the revered Mother Country, to try her luck as a teacher...
Andrea Levy's writing is absolutely delicious. Never a word too much, never a detail too many, so full of life and colour; I simply devoured the book. But added to that it is a great read on interracial relationships and interactions in England during the Second World War, where Jamaicans, Americans, Brits and many others tried to make sense of skin color, race, social status, and what all that should signify when surviving the same war. Where mainstream history books talk about the war in terms of Europeans, the Canadians, the Americans and the Japs, Small Island sheds a much needed light on all those who fought the war.
A must read for Literature Lovers, and a must read for those who are interested in interracial relationships, culture (ex)change, race and racism, the Caribbean, and the Second World War.
Andrea Levy's writing is absolutely delicious. Never a word too much, never a detail too many, so full of life and colour; I simply devoured the book. But added to that it is a great read on interracial relationships and interactions in England during the Second World War, where Jamaicans, Americans, Brits and many others tried to make sense of skin color, race, social status, and what all that should signify when surviving the same war. Where mainstream history books talk about the war in terms of Europeans, the Canadians, the Americans and the Japs, Small Island sheds a much needed light on all those who fought the war.
A must read for Literature Lovers, and a must read for those who are interested in interracial relationships, culture (ex)change, race and racism, the Caribbean, and the Second World War.
February 3, 2022
Even if the storyline was a little naive sometimes I have to give this book five stars because it was beautiful and I couldn't put it down.
UPDATE: this seems to be the first review I have ever written on Goodreads. Gaze upon my humble beginnings!
UPDATE: this seems to be the first review I have ever written on Goodreads. Gaze upon my humble beginnings!
July 25, 2024
2004 Women's Prize Winner.
Popsugar Challenge 2021 - A book that has won the Women's Prize for fiction
I really didn't think this would make me cry but the words on the last page! The last image in my head! I'm sobbing.
Four characters, four back stories, four perspectives.
Gilbert is drafted from Jamaica to help fight Hitler for the motherland. Bernard is drafted from London to India to fight the Japanese.
Queenie and Hortense are both reluctant wives and the backbone of this story. Two women, both from small islands who collide in Earls Court. There's only a matter of weeks between the first page and the last but so much happens.
This is my first book that features the Windrush Generation, and it was uncomfortable on many levels. There is so much I didn't know about Windrush but what really got me was how much loyalty the Jamaicans had to the British whereas the British had no idea where Jamaica was. The motherland called; they volunteered their lives to help. After we shoved their help back in their faces.
These characters and this plot will stay with me, it's so impacting, and I learnt so much here. I will definitely be looking up the TV adaptation.
I went into this book totally blind and I'm so glad I did.
A brilliant read for fans of historical fiction.
Popsugar Challenge 2021 - A book that has won the Women's Prize for fiction
I really didn't think this would make me cry but the words on the last page! The last image in my head! I'm sobbing.
Four characters, four back stories, four perspectives.
Gilbert is drafted from Jamaica to help fight Hitler for the motherland. Bernard is drafted from London to India to fight the Japanese.
Queenie and Hortense are both reluctant wives and the backbone of this story. Two women, both from small islands who collide in Earls Court. There's only a matter of weeks between the first page and the last but so much happens.
This is my first book that features the Windrush Generation, and it was uncomfortable on many levels. There is so much I didn't know about Windrush but what really got me was how much loyalty the Jamaicans had to the British whereas the British had no idea where Jamaica was. The motherland called; they volunteered their lives to help. After we shoved their help back in their faces.
These characters and this plot will stay with me, it's so impacting, and I learnt so much here. I will definitely be looking up the TV adaptation.
I went into this book totally blind and I'm so glad I did.
A brilliant read for fans of historical fiction.
July 14, 2015
Story around the ship The Windrush, told through the eyes of two Jamaicans and a British couple and in two distinct times (1948 and "before").
Hortense, the main narrator to begin with, is interesting but unsympathetic (very snobbish and judges people by how dark their skin is).
Interesting glimpse into the different ways black people were viewed and treated by US forces, British forces and various British civilians, which is different again from Bernard's views of India and its inhabitants.
Linguistic contrasts too: educated Jamaicans alternating between local patois and overly-formal King's English. And which is the eponymous "small island"?
Hortense, the main narrator to begin with, is interesting but unsympathetic (very snobbish and judges people by how dark their skin is).
Interesting glimpse into the different ways black people were viewed and treated by US forces, British forces and various British civilians, which is different again from Bernard's views of India and its inhabitants.
Linguistic contrasts too: educated Jamaicans alternating between local patois and overly-formal King's English. And which is the eponymous "small island"?
September 18, 2013
A well researched, well written book with surprising twists and turns. The author manages to show compassion for all the characters and write the story in such a way that this international bestseller speaks to
a very wide audience. The humor is the the glue which keeps the story riveting and a delight to read despite the hardships and dire circumstances the characters had to endure.
Hortense Joseph, an immigrant from Jamaica, settles in London in 1948, after leaving her beloved island for a better life; a new beginning. As a British colony, the island's men went to fight on the British side, only to discover afterwards, when they immigrated to England, that they were actually regarded as second class citizens and unwelcome. The Brits did not regard them really as British subjects when they exchanged their colonized island for Mother England. Gilbert Joseph, Hortense's husband, an intelligent, kind man, struggles to find lodging and work, but eventually meets Queenie, a white landlady, who's difficult, uncompromising husband Bernard is also still at war. She takes them in, but the neighbors are furious. Wherever the black people moved in, the whites moved out in no uncertain terms.
Andrea writes in such a way that the reader can almost smell the streets of London, experience the might of exploding bombs, and stand mesmerized by the events as it unfolds.
The saga ends on a surprising note. This book deserves the accolades it received.
Listen to this Podcast interview with the author about this book.
a very wide audience. The humor is the the glue which keeps the story riveting and a delight to read despite the hardships and dire circumstances the characters had to endure.
Hortense Joseph, an immigrant from Jamaica, settles in London in 1948, after leaving her beloved island for a better life; a new beginning. As a British colony, the island's men went to fight on the British side, only to discover afterwards, when they immigrated to England, that they were actually regarded as second class citizens and unwelcome. The Brits did not regard them really as British subjects when they exchanged their colonized island for Mother England. Gilbert Joseph, Hortense's husband, an intelligent, kind man, struggles to find lodging and work, but eventually meets Queenie, a white landlady, who's difficult, uncompromising husband Bernard is also still at war. She takes them in, but the neighbors are furious. Wherever the black people moved in, the whites moved out in no uncertain terms.
Andrea writes in such a way that the reader can almost smell the streets of London, experience the might of exploding bombs, and stand mesmerized by the events as it unfolds.
The saga ends on a surprising note. This book deserves the accolades it received.
Listen to this Podcast interview with the author about this book.
December 29, 2014
[4.5] Middlebrow fiction as it should be done: entertaining, readable but not without substance; a book you still look forward to picking up when you're using most of your spare time for things other than reading. Levy makes this kind of writing look easy, but there must be a lot of paddling going on under the surface to make the novel glide so smoothly. No surprise that this was made into a BBC drama - it certainly has that Sunday evening TV feel: characters are entirely believeable as personalities, and there's an excellent mixture of the soapy (drama, big coincidences) and the detail of everyday life in the past, the well-trodden and the less so. Accessible literary fiction set in the present can easily become dreary, but Small Island spans enough time, and an eventful enough time, that there's always something really happening, not just people staring into space and thinking whilst driving or cooking for pages and pages.
It could be difficult to argue with someone who wanted to call this an issue novel (about racism). But maybe it depends on background: I just didn't see it that way. My grandparents came to Britain in the same decade as Gilbert and Hortense. Okay, if they walked through an area where no-one knew them or their names, they wore clothes that fitted in perfectly and they didn't speak, they would have been able to go about unremarked, unlike the Jamaican immigrants. But that wasn't the way most people lived in the forties. I still remember hearing about the racist bullying that went on in those days (worst between kids) and my incredulity that they weren't automatically assumed to be somewhat heroic due to the war. As a kid I thought not in terms of colour but simply people who were, like me, [partly] "not from here" in a non-pejorative sense, and those who were. My first school best friend was Indian, and I felt more at home with her than with the children who seemed entirely English. So although American commentators on race in particular (from a culture that has different attitudes to immigration that are more closely tied to colour) make strong divides between black and white, my gut feeling gives more affinity with Gilbert and Hortense.
Before reading a lot of identity politics material, it never seemed necessary to explicitly and defensively point out the awareness I'd always had that people from different countries or ethnic groups will have differing experiences related to that - that was just, well, duh.
On page 525, there is a speech by Gilbert which points out among other things, "no better, no worse than me - just white" which is fantastic as a balanced middle ground between the racists and the contemporary extremes of the internet social justice warrior tendency. (Surprised that paragraph isn't a GR quote.)
The more aggressive racism of America is a significant feature of the book. When the story follows Jamaican RAF volunteers during the war, it's white GIs who are violent, threatening and active proponents of segregation; the Brits are merely rude on a frequent basis, and , then as now, the UK brand of racism / xenophobia is as much about immigration as about colour, with the large numbers of recently-arrived Czechs, Poles, Belgians and even Jews (despite knowing what they’d gone through), as well as the Windrush Jamaicans, being a focus for rants by racist characters. Although once West Indian men start in working class jobs in England after the war - when they manage to secure a job in the first place - some colleagues are almost as unpleasant as the American soldiers.
Arguably, Queenie’s bank clerk husband Bernard is too easy a ‘villain’, a prejudiced, conventional man who has few redeeming features other than perhaps punctuality. Remember the old geek / nerd/ dork etc distinctions? Bernard is a dork or dweeb: he has the ineptitude and narrow-minded rigidity without better than average skills, and his context and anger means he’s not Pooterishly amusing. The more complex character of Queenie demonstrates that some racism is unthinking and conformity to attitudes a person grew up with – a person who could be educated out of it, especially by first hand experience. With Bernard it’s more ingrained and connected to other aspects of his character. His narrative was bloody irritating to read and gave me all the more sympathy for Queenie: she had gone out with him because he was presentable, attentive and seemed like the right sort according to received opinion, and ended up marrying him simply so she didn’t have to return to her parents. Having been involved with a couple of similar types for short periods when I was younger, as rebound or for other expedient reasons, it made me very grateful that times had changed.
‘Small islanders’ is the Jamaican characters’ term for people from the smaller West Indian islands - yokels and hicks, basically. Travelling abroad they come to regard both Jamaica and the fabled imperial Mother Country of GB (who turns out to be so uncaring and unwelcoming) as small islands too. It must be no accident that ‘small island’ and ‘small-minded’ sound similar. Stifling old-fashioned attitudes are almost everywhere. Even Queenie, who’s bravely anti-racist by the standards of her time and community, has no shortage of assumptions that would be unacceptable now. One of the quieter tragedies of the novel is the similarity in personality and opinions between Queenie and Hortense: the barriers that exist in everyone’s heads make it impossible for the two women even to realise all the ways in which they’re alike, let alone become friends as they may have been able to several decades later.
Small Island is a school text these days, and I think that’s a good thing. There are plenty of technical and character aspects for essays, plus some history and politics to make it seem worthwhile to kids who aren’t interested in further literature study. Perhaps it’s more likely to be used in schools with a good racial mix where it’s only preaching to the converted, though some teachers will probably introduce it to areas where kids would benefit from thinking more about these topics before they go to university or work. Still, it’s easy to criticise curricula and say how standards have fallen – I would have approved more if this was a GCSE rather than an A-Level book
It could be difficult to argue with someone who wanted to call this an issue novel (about racism). But maybe it depends on background: I just didn't see it that way. My grandparents came to Britain in the same decade as Gilbert and Hortense. Okay, if they walked through an area where no-one knew them or their names, they wore clothes that fitted in perfectly and they didn't speak, they would have been able to go about unremarked, unlike the Jamaican immigrants. But that wasn't the way most people lived in the forties. I still remember hearing about the racist bullying that went on in those days (worst between kids) and my incredulity that they weren't automatically assumed to be somewhat heroic due to the war. As a kid I thought not in terms of colour but simply people who were, like me, [partly] "not from here" in a non-pejorative sense, and those who were. My first school best friend was Indian, and I felt more at home with her than with the children who seemed entirely English. So although American commentators on race in particular (from a culture that has different attitudes to immigration that are more closely tied to colour) make strong divides between black and white, my gut feeling gives more affinity with Gilbert and Hortense.
Before reading a lot of identity politics material, it never seemed necessary to explicitly and defensively point out the awareness I'd always had that people from different countries or ethnic groups will have differing experiences related to that - that was just, well, duh.
On page 525, there is a speech by Gilbert which points out among other things, "no better, no worse than me - just white" which is fantastic as a balanced middle ground between the racists and the contemporary extremes of the internet social justice warrior tendency. (Surprised that paragraph isn't a GR quote.)
The more aggressive racism of America is a significant feature of the book. When the story follows Jamaican RAF volunteers during the war, it's white GIs who are violent, threatening and active proponents of segregation; the Brits are merely rude on a frequent basis, and , then as now, the UK brand of racism / xenophobia is as much about immigration as about colour, with the large numbers of recently-arrived Czechs, Poles, Belgians and even Jews (despite knowing what they’d gone through), as well as the Windrush Jamaicans, being a focus for rants by racist characters. Although once West Indian men start in working class jobs in England after the war - when they manage to secure a job in the first place - some colleagues are almost as unpleasant as the American soldiers.
Arguably, Queenie’s bank clerk husband Bernard is too easy a ‘villain’, a prejudiced, conventional man who has few redeeming features other than perhaps punctuality. Remember the old geek / nerd/ dork etc distinctions? Bernard is a dork or dweeb: he has the ineptitude and narrow-minded rigidity without better than average skills, and his context and anger means he’s not Pooterishly amusing. The more complex character of Queenie demonstrates that some racism is unthinking and conformity to attitudes a person grew up with – a person who could be educated out of it, especially by first hand experience. With Bernard it’s more ingrained and connected to other aspects of his character. His narrative was bloody irritating to read and gave me all the more sympathy for Queenie: she had gone out with him because he was presentable, attentive and seemed like the right sort according to received opinion, and ended up marrying him simply so she didn’t have to return to her parents. Having been involved with a couple of similar types for short periods when I was younger, as rebound or for other expedient reasons, it made me very grateful that times had changed.
‘Small islanders’ is the Jamaican characters’ term for people from the smaller West Indian islands - yokels and hicks, basically. Travelling abroad they come to regard both Jamaica and the fabled imperial Mother Country of GB (who turns out to be so uncaring and unwelcoming) as small islands too. It must be no accident that ‘small island’ and ‘small-minded’ sound similar. Stifling old-fashioned attitudes are almost everywhere. Even Queenie, who’s bravely anti-racist by the standards of her time and community, has no shortage of assumptions that would be unacceptable now. One of the quieter tragedies of the novel is the similarity in personality and opinions between Queenie and Hortense: the barriers that exist in everyone’s heads make it impossible for the two women even to realise all the ways in which they’re alike, let alone become friends as they may have been able to several decades later.
Small Island is a school text these days, and I think that’s a good thing. There are plenty of technical and character aspects for essays, plus some history and politics to make it seem worthwhile to kids who aren’t interested in further literature study. Perhaps it’s more likely to be used in schools with a good racial mix where it’s only preaching to the converted, though some teachers will probably introduce it to areas where kids would benefit from thinking more about these topics before they go to university or work. Still, it’s easy to criticise curricula and say how standards have fallen – I would have approved more if this was a GCSE rather than an A-Level book
July 19, 2012
I'm trying to figure out my reaction to this book, other than the fact that I loved it. I have a hard time putting into words my feelings about this book.
Small Island is the story of four people in the aftermath of WW II. Levy is concerned with the experience of immigrants and racial issues in post War London.
I dont think the story could have been told in a shorter span, and it is one of those that you understand why it won the awards that it did. I didn't find the dialect annoying or hard to follow. Of the four central characters, I found Bernard the hardest to relate to, though this does seem to be Levy's intention. She has to capture a certain type, after all, for the book to work. I also have to say that while I have never really liked Benedict Cumberpatch in anything I've seen him, I think he was perfectly cast in the television adaption of this book. He really is Bernard to a "T".
While all of the three remaining characters are relatable and human, the one that stands out the most is Hortense. This is because her voice is so stand alone, so independent, so different, and so nailed. Levy doesn't need any description of Hortense, she just needs to let Hortense speak and the reader can see her. That's good writing.
The book comments on the immigrant experience of traveling to a new country and realizing reality doesn't match the stories. This is combined with various racial conflcits, racism, as well as classism. Because of the alternately viewpoints, the reader has a far clearer picture of what is driving each of the characters, more than the characters themselves. The most interesting part, at least for this reader, was watching the interplay of class and race conflict. Hortense is just as bigoted in her way as the English people are racist in thiers.
The story deals with the two set of couples (Queenie and Bernard; Hortense and Gilbert) and highlights the similarities and differences of each. Both women marry for something other than love. In many ways, the book is also about a married life where neither partner is sure of the other.
And I think that is why I am having trouble naming what is so wonderful about this book. There is so much going on in terms of theme. If done incorrectly, it would fail, but Levy does it brillantly. The book is so balanced that you don't even realize until you put it down what she did. The ending is not a happy ending; nor a sad one really. It is a realstic ending, despite a contrived point concerning it. It's realism puts the reader on shakey ground It's an ending that makes you think about everything Levy has been writing about. It reminds of a movie I saw on the Sundance Channel called Cass. The movie was about a football holigan who was black but raised by a white family when that was not the normal. The movie was about more than beating up fans of the opposing team. This book is something more than advertised. It brings to light a time that was overshadowed by the time before, and than, more importantly, gets the reader to think about everything in the world.
Update: I feel that I should point out that I like Mr. Cumberpatch in Sherlock as well.
Small Island is the story of four people in the aftermath of WW II. Levy is concerned with the experience of immigrants and racial issues in post War London.
I dont think the story could have been told in a shorter span, and it is one of those that you understand why it won the awards that it did. I didn't find the dialect annoying or hard to follow. Of the four central characters, I found Bernard the hardest to relate to, though this does seem to be Levy's intention. She has to capture a certain type, after all, for the book to work. I also have to say that while I have never really liked Benedict Cumberpatch in anything I've seen him, I think he was perfectly cast in the television adaption of this book. He really is Bernard to a "T".
While all of the three remaining characters are relatable and human, the one that stands out the most is Hortense. This is because her voice is so stand alone, so independent, so different, and so nailed. Levy doesn't need any description of Hortense, she just needs to let Hortense speak and the reader can see her. That's good writing.
The book comments on the immigrant experience of traveling to a new country and realizing reality doesn't match the stories. This is combined with various racial conflcits, racism, as well as classism. Because of the alternately viewpoints, the reader has a far clearer picture of what is driving each of the characters, more than the characters themselves. The most interesting part, at least for this reader, was watching the interplay of class and race conflict. Hortense is just as bigoted in her way as the English people are racist in thiers.
The story deals with the two set of couples (Queenie and Bernard; Hortense and Gilbert) and highlights the similarities and differences of each. Both women marry for something other than love. In many ways, the book is also about a married life where neither partner is sure of the other.
And I think that is why I am having trouble naming what is so wonderful about this book. There is so much going on in terms of theme. If done incorrectly, it would fail, but Levy does it brillantly. The book is so balanced that you don't even realize until you put it down what she did. The ending is not a happy ending; nor a sad one really. It is a realstic ending, despite a contrived point concerning it. It's realism puts the reader on shakey ground It's an ending that makes you think about everything Levy has been writing about. It reminds of a movie I saw on the Sundance Channel called Cass. The movie was about a football holigan who was black but raised by a white family when that was not the normal. The movie was about more than beating up fans of the opposing team. This book is something more than advertised. It brings to light a time that was overshadowed by the time before, and than, more importantly, gets the reader to think about everything in the world.
Update: I feel that I should point out that I like Mr. Cumberpatch in Sherlock as well.
September 9, 2018
This was a very heartfelt and moving story.
I throughly enjoyed Levy’s writing style. It was so picturesque that I felt like I was also in Jamaica, England, and India along with the stories’s characters.
This story was a warm breath of fresh air on a cool early fall day.
I throughly enjoyed Levy’s writing style. It was so picturesque that I felt like I was also in Jamaica, England, and India along with the stories’s characters.
This story was a warm breath of fresh air on a cool early fall day.
March 20, 2020
Character-driven historical fiction set in 1948 (and flashing back to “Before”) about two mismatched couples, Britons Bernard and Queenie, and Jamaicans Gilbert and Hortense. It tells a story of the migration of the two Jamaicans to post-WWII London, and the differences between their expectations and the realities. Though Gilbert has served in the RAF, fighting in WWII for the “Mother Country,” he and Hortense experience racism and intolerance.
In Jamaica, Hortense dreams of living in England, where she believes she will have a much better life. She agrees to fund Gilbert’s journey in return for his promise to send for her once he gets settled in London. Gilbert aspires to law school. He is educated but can only find work as a driver. Queenie suffers through the Blitz in London. She takes in Caribbean tenants, including Gilbert, to earn rental income. Bernard’s military service takes him to India, where he endures a variety of traumatic ordeals. When he fails to return, Queenie decides he has died in the war.
The strength of this novel lies in the characters. Levy weaves together multiple voices into a thought-provoking narrative that sheds light on the history of race and class in Britain. Each of the four tells his or her story in first person, so the reader becomes well-acquainted with them. Some are more likeable than others, but all feel authentic. The writing is richly detailed, providing a vivid sense of what life was like at the time in England, India, and Jamaica. Parts of this story are gut-wrenching and engender a feeling of outrage at the racial hatred directed toward the Jamaican characters. The author uses sarcastic humor to help develop the characters’ relationships and provide a break between harsh scenes. The ending is particularly emotional and well-crafted, providing a ray of hope for the future. It should appeal to those interested in modern classics or the history of multiculturalism in England.
In Jamaica, Hortense dreams of living in England, where she believes she will have a much better life. She agrees to fund Gilbert’s journey in return for his promise to send for her once he gets settled in London. Gilbert aspires to law school. He is educated but can only find work as a driver. Queenie suffers through the Blitz in London. She takes in Caribbean tenants, including Gilbert, to earn rental income. Bernard’s military service takes him to India, where he endures a variety of traumatic ordeals. When he fails to return, Queenie decides he has died in the war.
The strength of this novel lies in the characters. Levy weaves together multiple voices into a thought-provoking narrative that sheds light on the history of race and class in Britain. Each of the four tells his or her story in first person, so the reader becomes well-acquainted with them. Some are more likeable than others, but all feel authentic. The writing is richly detailed, providing a vivid sense of what life was like at the time in England, India, and Jamaica. Parts of this story are gut-wrenching and engender a feeling of outrage at the racial hatred directed toward the Jamaican characters. The author uses sarcastic humor to help develop the characters’ relationships and provide a break between harsh scenes. The ending is particularly emotional and well-crafted, providing a ray of hope for the future. It should appeal to those interested in modern classics or the history of multiculturalism in England.
November 10, 2009
Well, it was pretty good. It has a lot of heart. Levy is a writer who sometimes teases the reader by dangling a big splodgy sentimental cliche in front of them only to swerve round it at the last moment. She's no fool. I've been looking for novels about immigrants, I read The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (which was kind of a drag) and I have Petropolis sitting on my shelf (hope that will be better). (Further suggestions welcomed). Small Island is about (two) Jamaicans coming to 1948 London, who they met, what they'd all done in the war, and so forth. One section which raised my eyebrows was a fantastically anti-American description of the racist US army in which the gruesome behaviour towards black GIs was not only condoned but enshrined by the army authorities, compared to which the common or garden British racism comes across as pretty mild. Still, as a white reader, I do have to ask myself if people were so very horrible to Jamaican immigrants in Britain, and the food being so very appalling, and the weather so horribly cold, why would they put up with it all and stay? Levy presents the total hostility and miserable conditions in grim squalid hard-up London 1948 without confronting this question, which may well be naive, but still deserves an answer. I think a great companion piece to this novel will be White Teeth, also by a smart black British female writer. That one's been on my shelf forever.
March 26, 2021
I'm really unhappy about the ending ☹
London, 1948. Die junge Jamaikanerin Hortense trifft mit dem Schiff in England ein, um zu ihrem Ehemann Gilbert in London zu stoßen, mit dem sie nach kurzer Bekanntschaft einen Deal geschlossen hat: Geld für die Überfahrt nach London gegen Heirat und Vorbereitung einer Wohnung für sie beide. Der Traum vom strahlenden England wird schnell zerschmettert: Gilbert haust in einem einzigen Zimmer, das Land leidet noch unter den Nachwirkungen des Krieges und die Engländer behandeln farbige Menschen, als seien sie minderwertig. Gilberts weiße Vermieterin Queenie, die er noch während seiner Zeit bei der Airforce im Krieg kennengelernt hatte, lebt allein, da ihr Ehemann Bernard auch 3 Jahre nach Ende des Krieges aus diesem noch nicht zurückgehrt ist, sie hat keine Ahnung, wo er sich aufhält, und rechnet nicht mehr mit seiner Rückkehr.
Andrea Levys preisgekrönter Roman aus dem Jahr 2004 hat mir von der ersten Minute an sehr gut gefallen. Die ersten Erzählperspektiven sind die von Queenie und Hortense und vor allem Hortense ist trotz ihrer Naivität eine absolute Sympathieträgerin. Es herrlich, wie gewählt sie sich ausdrückt, vor allem im Kontrast mit den Londonern, die ihre gehobene Ausdrucksweise teilweise gar nicht verstehen, sich aber ansonsten selbstverständlich den „Darkies“ gegenüber als überlegen betrachten. Dies kommt bereits in der ersten Szene auf einer Commonwealth-Ausstellung zum Ausdruck, als ein Afrikaner Queenies Familie sehr höflich und in gehobenem Englisch den Weg weist, der Vater aber bemerkt, die Afrikaner hätten keine Kultur.
Hortenses Naivität wirkt komisch, jedoch gleichzeitig auch traurig, denn sie ist sich überhaupt nicht bewusst, wie sie von den Engländern gesehen wird und dass die Bildung, die sie in Jamaika genossen hat, in England nicht ernstgenommen wird. Sie versteht den Rassismus der Engländer nicht, wieso sagt ihr beispielsweise Queenie, sie habe kein Problem damit, sich mit ihr in der Öffentlichkeit zu zeigen? Sie selbst fühlt sich der schlecht gekleideten Frau mit dem starken Akzent eigentlich überlegen.
Die Geschichte spielt sich abwechselnd in Jamaika und England, später auch in den Übersee-Einsatzgebieten von Queenies Ehemann Bernard ab, es wird zwischen zwei Zeitebenen gewechselt: noch während des Krieges und 1948. Die Perspektiven wechseln ebenso zwischen den vier Hauptpersonen Hortense, Gilbert, Queenie und Bernard.
Das Buch eröffnete mir Einsichten, die ich bisher nie bewusst wahrgenommen habe, so besteht ein deutlicher Unterschied zwischen Briten und jamaikanischen Farbigen einerseits und weißen und schwarzen GIs aus den USA andererseits. Der Rassismus der Amerikaner ist aggressiver, beleidigender als der der Engländer, die sich häufig gar nicht richtig darüber bewusst sind, dass Jamaika zum damaligen Zeitpunkt auch britisch ist. Doch dass etwa Jamaikaner als Kollegen von weißen Frauen arbeiten – undenkbar. Eine Szene, in der Queenie und ihr Schwiegervater mit Gilbert einen Film im Kino ansehen möchten, Gilbert aber aufgefordert wird, sich nach hinten zu den anderen Farbigen zu setzen, mündet in einem Desaster.
„Small Island“ ist ein warmherziger, humorvoller Roman über ein schwieriges Thema, der uns vor Augen führt, wie es der sogenannten „Windrush“-Generation jamaikanischer Einwanderer nach England in der Nachkriegszeit ergangen ist. Der Perspektivwechsel zwischen zwei Jamaikaner*innen, von denen einer sich des Rassismus bewusst ist, die andere nicht, einer Engländerin, die nur wenig rassistisch ist, und einem eingefleischten Rassisten eröffnet unterschiedliche Sichtweisen und hat mir sehr gefallen.
Lediglich mit dem Ende war ich nicht glücklich. Da hatte ich auf etwas anderes gehofft. In jedem Fall ein sehr lesenswertes Buch, das ich wärmstens empfehlen kann.
Die 2019 leider verstorbene Andrea Levy liest ihr Buch selbst und sehr überzeugend, sie spricht perfekt in den verschiedenen Dialekten und bringt die Erfahrungen ihrer Figuren, insbesondere die von Hortense, perfekt zum Ausdruck. Der jamaikanische Akzent ist recht gut zu verstehen, der der Engländer eventuell etwas schwieriger, aber immer noch gut.
London, 1948. Die junge Jamaikanerin Hortense trifft mit dem Schiff in England ein, um zu ihrem Ehemann Gilbert in London zu stoßen, mit dem sie nach kurzer Bekanntschaft einen Deal geschlossen hat: Geld für die Überfahrt nach London gegen Heirat und Vorbereitung einer Wohnung für sie beide. Der Traum vom strahlenden England wird schnell zerschmettert: Gilbert haust in einem einzigen Zimmer, das Land leidet noch unter den Nachwirkungen des Krieges und die Engländer behandeln farbige Menschen, als seien sie minderwertig. Gilberts weiße Vermieterin Queenie, die er noch während seiner Zeit bei der Airforce im Krieg kennengelernt hatte, lebt allein, da ihr Ehemann Bernard auch 3 Jahre nach Ende des Krieges aus diesem noch nicht zurückgehrt ist, sie hat keine Ahnung, wo er sich aufhält, und rechnet nicht mehr mit seiner Rückkehr.
Andrea Levys preisgekrönter Roman aus dem Jahr 2004 hat mir von der ersten Minute an sehr gut gefallen. Die ersten Erzählperspektiven sind die von Queenie und Hortense und vor allem Hortense ist trotz ihrer Naivität eine absolute Sympathieträgerin. Es herrlich, wie gewählt sie sich ausdrückt, vor allem im Kontrast mit den Londonern, die ihre gehobene Ausdrucksweise teilweise gar nicht verstehen, sich aber ansonsten selbstverständlich den „Darkies“ gegenüber als überlegen betrachten. Dies kommt bereits in der ersten Szene auf einer Commonwealth-Ausstellung zum Ausdruck, als ein Afrikaner Queenies Familie sehr höflich und in gehobenem Englisch den Weg weist, der Vater aber bemerkt, die Afrikaner hätten keine Kultur.
Hortenses Naivität wirkt komisch, jedoch gleichzeitig auch traurig, denn sie ist sich überhaupt nicht bewusst, wie sie von den Engländern gesehen wird und dass die Bildung, die sie in Jamaika genossen hat, in England nicht ernstgenommen wird. Sie versteht den Rassismus der Engländer nicht, wieso sagt ihr beispielsweise Queenie, sie habe kein Problem damit, sich mit ihr in der Öffentlichkeit zu zeigen? Sie selbst fühlt sich der schlecht gekleideten Frau mit dem starken Akzent eigentlich überlegen.
Die Geschichte spielt sich abwechselnd in Jamaika und England, später auch in den Übersee-Einsatzgebieten von Queenies Ehemann Bernard ab, es wird zwischen zwei Zeitebenen gewechselt: noch während des Krieges und 1948. Die Perspektiven wechseln ebenso zwischen den vier Hauptpersonen Hortense, Gilbert, Queenie und Bernard.
Das Buch eröffnete mir Einsichten, die ich bisher nie bewusst wahrgenommen habe, so besteht ein deutlicher Unterschied zwischen Briten und jamaikanischen Farbigen einerseits und weißen und schwarzen GIs aus den USA andererseits. Der Rassismus der Amerikaner ist aggressiver, beleidigender als der der Engländer, die sich häufig gar nicht richtig darüber bewusst sind, dass Jamaika zum damaligen Zeitpunkt auch britisch ist. Doch dass etwa Jamaikaner als Kollegen von weißen Frauen arbeiten – undenkbar. Eine Szene, in der Queenie und ihr Schwiegervater mit Gilbert einen Film im Kino ansehen möchten, Gilbert aber aufgefordert wird, sich nach hinten zu den anderen Farbigen zu setzen, mündet in einem Desaster.
„Small Island“ ist ein warmherziger, humorvoller Roman über ein schwieriges Thema, der uns vor Augen führt, wie es der sogenannten „Windrush“-Generation jamaikanischer Einwanderer nach England in der Nachkriegszeit ergangen ist. Der Perspektivwechsel zwischen zwei Jamaikaner*innen, von denen einer sich des Rassismus bewusst ist, die andere nicht, einer Engländerin, die nur wenig rassistisch ist, und einem eingefleischten Rassisten eröffnet unterschiedliche Sichtweisen und hat mir sehr gefallen.
Lediglich mit dem Ende war ich nicht glücklich. Da hatte ich auf etwas anderes gehofft. In jedem Fall ein sehr lesenswertes Buch, das ich wärmstens empfehlen kann.
Die 2019 leider verstorbene Andrea Levy liest ihr Buch selbst und sehr überzeugend, sie spricht perfekt in den verschiedenen Dialekten und bringt die Erfahrungen ihrer Figuren, insbesondere die von Hortense, perfekt zum Ausdruck. Der jamaikanische Akzent ist recht gut zu verstehen, der der Engländer eventuell etwas schwieriger, aber immer noch gut.
June 18, 2020
3.5 stars
A somewhat uneven novel more powerful in smaller scenes than in the whole. Yet those moments of racism and discrimination are painfully and effectively rendered, the personal experience emphasising the deep and unconscionable unfairness of asking our citizens of Empire to fight for us and then treating them like shit afterwards. That the character of Bernard represents an England still here is depressing in the extreme.
A somewhat uneven novel more powerful in smaller scenes than in the whole. Yet those moments of racism and discrimination are painfully and effectively rendered, the personal experience emphasising the deep and unconscionable unfairness of asking our citizens of Empire to fight for us and then treating them like shit afterwards. That the character of Bernard represents an England still here is depressing in the extreme.
October 15, 2017
Having now completed the book, below is recorded both how I reacted as I read and at the book’s conclusion.
So far I have read about half and am letting off steam.
I am having trouble with the following:
1.Hortense. I cannot stand this woman; she is so uppity and thinks she is better than everyone else. I don't yet feel empathy for any of the other characters either.
2.I do not appreciate the time shifts. I understand that in this way we are to get a deeper idea of the characters' pasts, and thus their personalities, but the reading becomes disjointed.
3.Clearly, the West Indies and lower-class British dialects are supposed to add flavor and draw a genuine atmosphere of the people and their surroundings. I understand what is said, but I do not enjoy the manner of speech even if it is accurate.
4.The dialects lead me to what I think of the prose style. I do not like it. Too exuberant, too dramatic, too overboard for me. Choppy. Exaggerated. Florid. Too wordy.
5.The immigrant issue. I've been an immigrant too, and I am so sick and tired of all immigrants being drawn as complainers, missing what they have left. This is how they are drawn here. IF you choose and then decide to leave a land, I am not talking about refugees, you do it because you hope, think and assume that the new land holds promise. There should be at least a kernel of the positive in how they see their new home.
6.The book is long and drawn out, boring, too slow.
Racial prejudice is clearly the central theme of the book. That it looks at the situation of Caribbean immigrants in Britain after the war, keeps me reading.
I continue.
*****************
Having continued, and now after completing chapter 28:
Finally, I have run into an episode that I think is well done - the attraction and tension felt between Queenie and when they first meet. Sparks fly. Here is good writing. I wish it had not been necessary to read half of the book to get to it.
*************************
After Completion of the Book.
Character Portrayal:
*My dislike of Hortense has lessened. Her meticulous upper-class British articulation of words represents her attempt to raise herself above the norm, but she also comes to understand that to truly know a person one must look beneath what is most blatantly visible. I see this in how her relationship toward Gilbert changes. Her distain for others softens.
*Although we are given long sidetracks about the four main characters’ past and present lives, I have not come to feel close to any of them. The four main characters are Queenie, Bernard, Hortense and Gilbert. Actually five, since Michael is an important character too. Queenie and Bernard are married, white and Cockney-speaking British. Hortense and Gilbert are newly married Jamaicans who immigrate to their “Motherland”, England. Black of course. They see themselves as privileged and of worth because they are citizens of the “Glorious British Commonwealth”, until they meet the British. Then their eyes are opened. I repeat, the book is very much about the social stigma immigrants from the Commonwealth nations felt in Britain after the war. Michael is Hortense´s cousin’s son. The two are the same age. They grew up together and had from their youth felt a strong attraction for each other. Each of these characters tell their own stories, yet I never came to feel close to any of them. No, not one!
My six complaints above remain, and I must add one more:
7. The plot trajectory is coincidental and over-dramatized, with the end becoming a sweet tear-dripper. Characters filled with oh-so-good intentions, but their fate so sad. How it ends is possible, but I would have preferred a different resolution. That Queenie The story reads as the first of a series. I cannot imagine Queenie ! No reader of this novel could possibly dispute the overabundance of coincidences. Hortense’s Michael meets . And really, that Queenie has managed to hide , is scarcely plausible.
The author’s narration of her own book improves as you continue. The worst is at the beginning when we hear Queenie speaking of her childhood. She sounds as an adult, but she is just a kid. Sometimes, you cannot hear from the intonation if a man or a woman is speaking. All the characters’ voices are forceful and strong. It can be hard to differentiate between the characters, although Hortense you spot right off the bat due to her arrogance. I did like the author’s ability to capture the different dialects – Jamaican, cockney, Queen’s English, American and Indian. What is read is clear and easy to follow, but often over-dramatized. I have given the narration three stars.
The book tackles prejudice against Blacks, particularly immigrants from other parts of the British Empire, after the war. A worthy subject, but I never came to like how the story was told.
So far I have read about half and am letting off steam.
I am having trouble with the following:
1.Hortense. I cannot stand this woman; she is so uppity and thinks she is better than everyone else. I don't yet feel empathy for any of the other characters either.
2.I do not appreciate the time shifts. I understand that in this way we are to get a deeper idea of the characters' pasts, and thus their personalities, but the reading becomes disjointed.
3.Clearly, the West Indies and lower-class British dialects are supposed to add flavor and draw a genuine atmosphere of the people and their surroundings. I understand what is said, but I do not enjoy the manner of speech even if it is accurate.
4.The dialects lead me to what I think of the prose style. I do not like it. Too exuberant, too dramatic, too overboard for me. Choppy. Exaggerated. Florid. Too wordy.
5.The immigrant issue. I've been an immigrant too, and I am so sick and tired of all immigrants being drawn as complainers, missing what they have left. This is how they are drawn here. IF you choose and then decide to leave a land, I am not talking about refugees, you do it because you hope, think and assume that the new land holds promise. There should be at least a kernel of the positive in how they see their new home.
6.The book is long and drawn out, boring, too slow.
Racial prejudice is clearly the central theme of the book. That it looks at the situation of Caribbean immigrants in Britain after the war, keeps me reading.
I continue.
*****************
Having continued, and now after completing chapter 28:
Finally, I have run into an episode that I think is well done - the attraction and tension felt between Queenie and when they first meet. Sparks fly. Here is good writing. I wish it had not been necessary to read half of the book to get to it.
*************************
After Completion of the Book.
Character Portrayal:
*My dislike of Hortense has lessened. Her meticulous upper-class British articulation of words represents her attempt to raise herself above the norm, but she also comes to understand that to truly know a person one must look beneath what is most blatantly visible. I see this in how her relationship toward Gilbert changes. Her distain for others softens.
*Although we are given long sidetracks about the four main characters’ past and present lives, I have not come to feel close to any of them. The four main characters are Queenie, Bernard, Hortense and Gilbert. Actually five, since Michael is an important character too. Queenie and Bernard are married, white and Cockney-speaking British. Hortense and Gilbert are newly married Jamaicans who immigrate to their “Motherland”, England. Black of course. They see themselves as privileged and of worth because they are citizens of the “Glorious British Commonwealth”, until they meet the British. Then their eyes are opened. I repeat, the book is very much about the social stigma immigrants from the Commonwealth nations felt in Britain after the war. Michael is Hortense´s cousin’s son. The two are the same age. They grew up together and had from their youth felt a strong attraction for each other. Each of these characters tell their own stories, yet I never came to feel close to any of them. No, not one!
My six complaints above remain, and I must add one more:
7. The plot trajectory is coincidental and over-dramatized, with the end becoming a sweet tear-dripper. Characters filled with oh-so-good intentions, but their fate so sad. How it ends is possible, but I would have preferred a different resolution. That Queenie The story reads as the first of a series. I cannot imagine Queenie ! No reader of this novel could possibly dispute the overabundance of coincidences. Hortense’s Michael meets . And really, that Queenie has managed to hide , is scarcely plausible.
The author’s narration of her own book improves as you continue. The worst is at the beginning when we hear Queenie speaking of her childhood. She sounds as an adult, but she is just a kid. Sometimes, you cannot hear from the intonation if a man or a woman is speaking. All the characters’ voices are forceful and strong. It can be hard to differentiate between the characters, although Hortense you spot right off the bat due to her arrogance. I did like the author’s ability to capture the different dialects – Jamaican, cockney, Queen’s English, American and Indian. What is read is clear and easy to follow, but often over-dramatized. I have given the narration three stars.
The book tackles prejudice against Blacks, particularly immigrants from other parts of the British Empire, after the war. A worthy subject, but I never came to like how the story was told.
July 13, 2012
Wow. I wish that could be my entire review. It feels like "wow" should be sufficient. But in the interest of getting this book into the hands of as many people as possible, I'll attempt to do this book some justice. With NO Spoilers. No worries.
This is not a book I would normally choose to read. (I read it with a book group.) The description made it seem depressing, and just too "heavy" for me. However, Andrea Levy is such a gifted writer that she is able to breathe humor into even desolate circumstances and situations. I don't want to compare her with God, but "Let there be light" comes to mind. And this lady shines.
The story takes place primarily in England and in Jamaica, with small bits in India and in Virginia, primarily during WWII, and for a short time afterward. It is told from four different points of view throughout: that of two Jamaican citizens, who are black (Hortense and Gilbert), and two English citizens, who are white (Queenie and Bernard).
One of the things I like best about the book is the way it is organized. First, we meet Queenie as a young girl in the prologue. Then, in chapter one, we skip to 1948, to Hortense's point of view in the now, when all four characters are in England.
We get the opportunity to meet each of the main characters when they are young people, and we stay with that person until 1948. At that point, we dip into the now (1948), following several of the characters in short chapters before going back to the childhood of the next character, and once again coming forward now with that person to 1948. It sounds complicated, but it was seamlessly and expertly constructed. It didn't detract from the flow of the story in my opinion, but enhanced it.
The book tackled tough issues like racism and hypocrisy and infidelity and death while making me feel like I was in a rowboat, drifting quietly and effortlessly on a still pond bathed in sunshine. That is the power of Andrea Levy. She made me laugh out loud, several times, while discussing topics of great solemnity and depth, without being irreverent. She has a rare gift.
During the last chapter, I cried, laughed, and sobbed. I could barely read the last paragraph for the tears. After finishing the book, I couldn't stop crying. I was alone, but I felt like I wanted someone to hold me. I felt bereft. I love to read, and I usually read 50-75 books per year, but I can't remember the last time a book moved me this way.
This is a book whose time has come, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is now in my Top 5 All-Time Favorites list. A book to treasure. A book to read again and again. And most importantly, a book I will never forget. Please do yourself a favor and read this book.
This is not a book I would normally choose to read. (I read it with a book group.) The description made it seem depressing, and just too "heavy" for me. However, Andrea Levy is such a gifted writer that she is able to breathe humor into even desolate circumstances and situations. I don't want to compare her with God, but "Let there be light" comes to mind. And this lady shines.
The story takes place primarily in England and in Jamaica, with small bits in India and in Virginia, primarily during WWII, and for a short time afterward. It is told from four different points of view throughout: that of two Jamaican citizens, who are black (Hortense and Gilbert), and two English citizens, who are white (Queenie and Bernard).
One of the things I like best about the book is the way it is organized. First, we meet Queenie as a young girl in the prologue. Then, in chapter one, we skip to 1948, to Hortense's point of view in the now, when all four characters are in England.
We get the opportunity to meet each of the main characters when they are young people, and we stay with that person until 1948. At that point, we dip into the now (1948), following several of the characters in short chapters before going back to the childhood of the next character, and once again coming forward now with that person to 1948. It sounds complicated, but it was seamlessly and expertly constructed. It didn't detract from the flow of the story in my opinion, but enhanced it.
The book tackled tough issues like racism and hypocrisy and infidelity and death while making me feel like I was in a rowboat, drifting quietly and effortlessly on a still pond bathed in sunshine. That is the power of Andrea Levy. She made me laugh out loud, several times, while discussing topics of great solemnity and depth, without being irreverent. She has a rare gift.
During the last chapter, I cried, laughed, and sobbed. I could barely read the last paragraph for the tears. After finishing the book, I couldn't stop crying. I was alone, but I felt like I wanted someone to hold me. I felt bereft. I love to read, and I usually read 50-75 books per year, but I can't remember the last time a book moved me this way.
This is a book whose time has come, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is now in my Top 5 All-Time Favorites list. A book to treasure. A book to read again and again. And most importantly, a book I will never forget. Please do yourself a favor and read this book.
July 5, 2019
On the surface, Small Island looks like a book about immigration (specifically, post-WWII Jamaican immigration to the UK), but to me it felt more like a book about the fall of the British Empire.
The book begins with a prologue set in the early 20th century, when a young Queenie visits the British Empire Exhibition, showcasing the empire at the height of its glory. But then the main story - cleverly structured like the spokes of a wheel, with several tales converging to a common point (in a way that, oddly, reminded me of Hyperion ) - shows us the way two world wars changed people’s attitudes and outlooks on life in different parts of the British Empire throughout the first half of the 20th century. The stories all collide in 1948 London, a point after which Britain would never be the same. The colonies are getting unruly as they inch towards independence and the war-torn Motherland is receiving waves of hopeful immigrants from said crumbling colonies.
This book does an excellent job showing-not-telling why so many people from the colonies immigrated to the UK after WWII. I remember learning in university that fighting side-by-side with Brits during the war against a common enemy made Jamaicans, Indians, etc., realise the Motherland wasn’t inhabited by godly overlords, but people who bled and had faults, just like any other human, and this made the idea of emigrating not seem so far-fetched or presumptuous. But Levy conveys all this history-driving crowd psychology through her characters’ stories and decisions in a way that comes across as much clearer than any lecture.
Some of its best moments are the ones dealing with varieties of racism: the tutting racism of the Brits, the benevolent prejudices of Jamaicans like Hortense who think the Brits to be the blueprint for perfection, and the no-holds-barred racism of the Americans, where segregation was still very much a thing in the Forties. I loved that the book points out the weirdness of the US army fighting the Nazis while strictly segregating white and black GIs in their own units.
Oh, also, Levy has a wonderful gift for voices. Each chapter is told from a different POV in the first person and I loved the variety of accents.
The ending was off, though. It felt like one of those cases where the author wrote the ending before the rest of the book, not accounting for the fact that characters will take on a life of their own when she sits down to write the rest. All of a sudden nobody behaves in a way that seems consistent with the characters we came to know during the rest of the book.
Pity, because everything else was wonderful. A very good lite book lifting heavy weights.
The book begins with a prologue set in the early 20th century, when a young Queenie visits the British Empire Exhibition, showcasing the empire at the height of its glory. But then the main story - cleverly structured like the spokes of a wheel, with several tales converging to a common point (in a way that, oddly, reminded me of Hyperion ) - shows us the way two world wars changed people’s attitudes and outlooks on life in different parts of the British Empire throughout the first half of the 20th century. The stories all collide in 1948 London, a point after which Britain would never be the same. The colonies are getting unruly as they inch towards independence and the war-torn Motherland is receiving waves of hopeful immigrants from said crumbling colonies.
This book does an excellent job showing-not-telling why so many people from the colonies immigrated to the UK after WWII. I remember learning in university that fighting side-by-side with Brits during the war against a common enemy made Jamaicans, Indians, etc., realise the Motherland wasn’t inhabited by godly overlords, but people who bled and had faults, just like any other human, and this made the idea of emigrating not seem so far-fetched or presumptuous. But Levy conveys all this history-driving crowd psychology through her characters’ stories and decisions in a way that comes across as much clearer than any lecture.
Some of its best moments are the ones dealing with varieties of racism: the tutting racism of the Brits, the benevolent prejudices of Jamaicans like Hortense who think the Brits to be the blueprint for perfection, and the no-holds-barred racism of the Americans, where segregation was still very much a thing in the Forties. I loved that the book points out the weirdness of the US army fighting the Nazis while strictly segregating white and black GIs in their own units.
Oh, also, Levy has a wonderful gift for voices. Each chapter is told from a different POV in the first person and I loved the variety of accents.
The ending was off, though. It felt like one of those cases where the author wrote the ending before the rest of the book, not accounting for the fact that characters will take on a life of their own when she sits down to write the rest. All of a sudden nobody behaves in a way that seems consistent with the characters we came to know during the rest of the book.
Pity, because everything else was wonderful. A very good lite book lifting heavy weights.
May 10, 2018
The current Windrush scandal / national embarrassment caused me to revisit my review of this book - as the Windrush is crucial to the plot and the author's own parents sailed to England on the Windrush in 1948.
Multi-narrator story – which also moves between the past of the various characters and a present narrative in 1948 that brings them all together about:
Gilbert Joseph – a Jamaican who joins the RAF, but finds himself restricted to being a driver. In Jamaica he raises funds from Hortense to travel to London as a civilian (in exchange for marrying her and agreeing for her to come and join him). As a serviceman he found he was treated much better by the English than either in America or by the white GI’s in London, but as a civilian he realises he has gone back to being a second class citizen and increasingly refuses to submit to prejudice.
Hortense – desperate to escape Jamaica but shocked at the reality of London – both how shabby and decrepit it is as well as how she is seen as inferior due to her colour despite her superior speech, knowledge and training.
Queenie Bligh – When her husband goes off to war she looks after his shell shocked father and meets Gilbert when he returns him after he has wandered. Going to the cinema with Gilbert they provoke a race riot among GIs and Arthur is shot. Seemingly widowed at end of war she takes in coloured ex-serviceman when Gilbert looks her up when he can’t find lodgings anywhere else.
Bernard – her husband, who goes off to fight in the war. Parts when he is in India are a poor attempt at Salman Rushdie style writing (without magic realism) and least convincing and enjoyable. When he returns he is shocked that Queenie has black lodgers.
Very enjoyable book – lightly written but engaging read and convincing portrait of all four main characters (possibly least of all Hortense who is almost ridiculously naïve about the racism in England). The plot twist at end is unconvincing and unnecessary.
Much more interesting and nuanced portrayal of racism and beginning of multi-racial society in England than A Lesson Before Dying which I read immediately before it.
Multi-narrator story – which also moves between the past of the various characters and a present narrative in 1948 that brings them all together about:
Gilbert Joseph – a Jamaican who joins the RAF, but finds himself restricted to being a driver. In Jamaica he raises funds from Hortense to travel to London as a civilian (in exchange for marrying her and agreeing for her to come and join him). As a serviceman he found he was treated much better by the English than either in America or by the white GI’s in London, but as a civilian he realises he has gone back to being a second class citizen and increasingly refuses to submit to prejudice.
Hortense – desperate to escape Jamaica but shocked at the reality of London – both how shabby and decrepit it is as well as how she is seen as inferior due to her colour despite her superior speech, knowledge and training.
Queenie Bligh – When her husband goes off to war she looks after his shell shocked father and meets Gilbert when he returns him after he has wandered. Going to the cinema with Gilbert they provoke a race riot among GIs and Arthur is shot. Seemingly widowed at end of war she takes in coloured ex-serviceman when Gilbert looks her up when he can’t find lodgings anywhere else.
Bernard – her husband, who goes off to fight in the war. Parts when he is in India are a poor attempt at Salman Rushdie style writing (without magic realism) and least convincing and enjoyable. When he returns he is shocked that Queenie has black lodgers.
Very enjoyable book – lightly written but engaging read and convincing portrait of all four main characters (possibly least of all Hortense who is almost ridiculously naïve about the racism in England). The plot twist at end is unconvincing and unnecessary.
Much more interesting and nuanced portrayal of racism and beginning of multi-racial society in England than A Lesson Before Dying which I read immediately before it.
February 6, 2021
A gorgeous book! Just amazing! We are presented with the interwoven stories of different characters from different ethnic and social backgrounds. We sail from Jamaica to Britain on board the Empire Windrush and learn about these first Jamaican immigrants who fought for England in their greatest time of need - the Second World War. Many will ask why fight for Britain? In fact, they considered England as their Mother Country - the country they learnt about at school, whose culture and literature they were steeped in from early childhood. Yes, these Caribbean people read books like Jane Eyre and were taught good English manners on their island. So when they were asked to volunteer to fight for the Mother Country. They didn't hesitate one moment. For them they were part of this big family of nations called the British Empire. Once they arrived, it was an altogether different country from the one they had imagined. Not one Englishman could place Jamaica on a map, most of these British people had an ugly Cockney accent, they wore ragged clothing and houses were dingy if not bombed. Yes, Hortense, there has been a war here... But one of the ugliest things in the post-war nonsense was the racism and abuse these black people have experienced. "No we surely did not fight a war for that... Bring us the country back to the way it was before the war"
I shivered with delight in the final pages.. Such an eye opener on the many things that bind the British people together, whether they want to accept this common heritage or not. I highly recommend this book and will readily go for another of Andrea Levy's novels this year.
I shivered with delight in the final pages.. Such an eye opener on the many things that bind the British people together, whether they want to accept this common heritage or not. I highly recommend this book and will readily go for another of Andrea Levy's novels this year.
December 20, 2011
Rating: 2.5* of five
This woman and I are not a good fit. I read and loathed The Long Song, finding it tedious and contrived. I got this excrescence out of the library because I thought it unfair to judge an author by one book. Hell, I even gave EGGERS more than one book.
Small Island is a mean-spirited, judgmental, and sarcastic book. In the guise of "telling it like it is", Levy manages to make the reader detest every single person she describes as a narrow, unkind, worthless human being. I know that this is perceived by others as ironic and humourous (misspelling deliberate, that was my attempt at ironic distancing, didja see? didja see?), but I don't believe it. She's an angry, angry woman who's out to flagellate a world that doesn't run the way she thinks it should.
And by "she" I mean the authorial "she." I don't know Ms. Levy at all and I don't want to particularly, if she's anything like the books she writes. Scant danger of that, I suppose, since I live on Long Island and she on Small Island.
Hated it. Would burn it if I could, but it's the liberry's copy. It's too late for most of y'all, but not recommended to the point of saying "run away! run away!"
This woman and I are not a good fit. I read and loathed The Long Song, finding it tedious and contrived. I got this excrescence out of the library because I thought it unfair to judge an author by one book. Hell, I even gave EGGERS more than one book.
Small Island is a mean-spirited, judgmental, and sarcastic book. In the guise of "telling it like it is", Levy manages to make the reader detest every single person she describes as a narrow, unkind, worthless human being. I know that this is perceived by others as ironic and humourous (misspelling deliberate, that was my attempt at ironic distancing, didja see? didja see?), but I don't believe it. She's an angry, angry woman who's out to flagellate a world that doesn't run the way she thinks it should.
And by "she" I mean the authorial "she." I don't know Ms. Levy at all and I don't want to particularly, if she's anything like the books she writes. Scant danger of that, I suppose, since I live on Long Island and she on Small Island.
Hated it. Would burn it if I could, but it's the liberry's copy. It's too late for most of y'all, but not recommended to the point of saying "run away! run away!"
July 6, 2020
An enlightening and psychologically explorative historical fiction story.
Set predominantly in 1948 we follow the lives of four people whose stories intertwine past and present; Hortense has moved from Jamaica to London to be with her new husband Gilbert. Gilbert fought in the war and decided to return to England to make a new life for himself.
Queenie lives with her husband Bernard who returns from the war to find Queenie renting rooms to Gilbert & Hortense and is not happy.
Various other storylines weave their way through the narrative in an engaging and skillful way and each character is given their say.
It was a difficult read at times; it's very emotionally charged and we witness a lot of hate and discrimination throughout that I found quite disturbing.
The relationships between the characters were the most interesting part for me and although I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory it was a great read with plenty to think about.
Set predominantly in 1948 we follow the lives of four people whose stories intertwine past and present; Hortense has moved from Jamaica to London to be with her new husband Gilbert. Gilbert fought in the war and decided to return to England to make a new life for himself.
Queenie lives with her husband Bernard who returns from the war to find Queenie renting rooms to Gilbert & Hortense and is not happy.
Various other storylines weave their way through the narrative in an engaging and skillful way and each character is given their say.
It was a difficult read at times; it's very emotionally charged and we witness a lot of hate and discrimination throughout that I found quite disturbing.
The relationships between the characters were the most interesting part for me and although I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory it was a great read with plenty to think about.
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