It's just won all the literary awards around, and although that might normally put me off a little, I was curious to see how this lives up to the hype. The answer: it does, a thousand times over. The story of Jamaican soldiers and their wartime experiences in small-minded England, it's told in several different character voices, in the first person, with beautiful clarity, restraint, pathos and humour. How often does that happen? The narrative central to the book is cleverly woven and yet the ending is still suprising; there are moments that are so lovely and lightly writeen that they make you want to weep, and also moments of broad humour mostly in the cultural clashes and expectations on both sides; Gilbert the shocked Jamaican soldier who expects England to be, if not grateful, at least politely glad that he's coming to help fight their war; the English almost-widow who refuses to believe that Gilbert's young Jamaican wife, newly arrived, can speak English, or that there are food shops in Jamaica. There's an extraordinary scene in a cinema when Gilbert is asked to sit seperately from his white female friend and her elderly father, and then sees, with the help of the usherette's torch, the back 3 rows of black soldiers, suffering silently, even as the usherette denies there's a problem.
Lush.

Anna
I loved this book too. The characters really stayed in my head after I finished it. Don't know if you have ever heard Andrea Levy being interviewed, but she comes across as a lovely woman. Haven't read anything else of hers though - has this made you buy any others?

Oo-err, actually I really hated the book. I thought it was very slow, dull and I didn't care about any of the characters. Still, what do I know? I always enjoyed "Kane and Abel" and am a secret Jilly Cooper fan!!...

)

A
xxx

I shouldn't really be posting, as I haven't actually read beyond the first 10 pages. But I can say that it's the only novel I've picked up in the last few weeks - months, perhaps - that's made me deeply, deeply wish I hadn't sworn off fiction in the interests of getting my own first draft done. What a fascinating, beautifully written opening.

Emma

Anne
Sorry to hear you hated it! Did you finish it, I wonder? I'm finding as I get older and have such limited time that it is a slightly thrilling pleasure to abandon books I'm not enjoying.

I really, really tried to finish it, Caroline - but I gave up about halfway through - and yes, I did get that frisson of guilty pleasure at doing that!

Actually, I'm having the same problem right now with "A Short History of Tractors" - feel I might be about to abandon that as a bad job too.

I obviously have no taste!!

!!

A
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I actually cried at the end of this. The prose was exquisite and Andrea Levy's contribution to UK-centric multicultural writing deserves all the praise it gets. I loved it. S

Just finished it today.

Normally I steer clear of award-winning literature as I've often found it overhyped and over-worthy. But Small Island was a dazzling exception.

I was amazed at the way she wrote in four distinct voices throughout the story: two Jamaicans, Hortense and Gilbert, and the English couple Queenie and Bernard. They were all human, with foibles, faults and humour. I was fascinated by Bernard, a buffoon and racist, but somehow - to me, at least - strangely sympathetic. When he asks Queenie at the end why they can't keep her black baby it was an extraordinary moment.

Great stuff!