A book that my boss lent to me to re-establish my faith in the Men
Booker Prize after I was forced to read an absolutely pathetic novel – Anne
Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, which
had been shortlisted for the prize last year – for my office’s book club.
I read the first 100 pages of this book with the same ease with which I
had read the opening chapter of The Sound
and the Fury (i.e. not a lot, being constantly lost in a prose that was
simply too challenging for me), but after that rough start Jamaican Patois
started to make sense, at least relatively.
Two characters stood out for me: the girl who runs away from Kingston
(whose internal monologues felt like they had been written by Zadie Smith,
despite the fact that the very end of her story is rather predictable) and the
deceased politician who concludes most sections of the book (his description of
the Singer’s illness and death is one of the most beautiful pieces of
literature that I’ve read in a while). I didn’t find the book’s violence to be as
Tarantino-esque as many reviewers presented it to be. Actually, I found the
book violent, but not that violent.
Being nearly 700 pages, at times I felt that James could have got to the
point more quickly, but then again he was probably doing it on purpose to offer
a more vivid picture of the modus operandi (or vivendi?!?) of Jamaican gangs.
Most of all, the book is a wonderful display of how much impact one musician
(the Singer is – surprise! – actually Bob Marley) has had on the life of his
own country. It’s also kind of funny to see Marley always mentioned as “the
Singer” while Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff are called by their names.
Also, because of this book I’ve spent the last 24 hours listening
non-stop to the soundtrack of The Harder
they Come.
