The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Image sourced from Lee Cannon

This is a novel of two parts. The first part is set in modern day, looking at the lives of Sabine and George as 70-something expats living in Trinidad. They have been there since Trinidad achieved it's independence and there is lots of discussion regarding what is still wrong with the country 50 years on. But more importantly, there is a lot going on with George and Sabine. And you're not sure what is happening, or what the history is. It slowly is revealed as the part, and the book goes on however.

The second part of the book is set 50 years earlier. It tells the story of George and Sabine coming to Trinidad as newly weds from London. The story is told from Sabine's perspective mainly, so you find out what it is like as a woman particularly on the island, where work wasn't an option as it would be for a man. But from Sabine, we get a look at the independence movement and the political atmosphere on the island from the observations in the street and the domestic house workers.

If I'm honest, the story was okay. I didn't like Sabine, so that made it hard. But the themes explored in the story, race, class, expat workers, political independence and agency was all well handled. I learnt a lot about Trinidad and it's history. I had a demonstration from my Trinidadian friend what steupsing was, which is important.

But the saviour was the writing, which was beautiful, descriptive and immersive. The descriptions of the island and the environment were invocative. I felt like I was on the island, looking at the flowers or iguanas, and feeling the heat. It lost the Prize-Formerly-known-as-Orange to The Lacuna, which I also enjoyed a lot more, but I can see why it was a contender.

Valmiki's Daughter - #46

Image sourced from here

I was overly excited to read this book. I have a friend at work who is from Trinidad and Tobago. We hear all these wonderful stories about her homeland, and I was hoping for a bigger insight into this world.

But what I got is a transplantation of the overly oppressive elements of Indian society in a lovely tropical location. I will have to ask her about this, as that is the cultural background she is from (as opposed to Afro-Caribbean) but she funnily enough went home for the Christmas break so I have to wait until I get back to work. But this was entirely at odds to conversations we had had. And that was worrying to me from the outset. Two possibilities for this. One is my friend's childhood and young adulthood was abnormal. Or the book written by a expat living in Canada was abnormal. So I was slightly on edge.

Valmiki is a rich, successful doctor on Trinidad. He has a wife and two daughters. He sleeps with lots of exotic, foreign women. We also find out in the first quarter, even the first fifth of the book, that he is actually gay (I say gay not bi, as he seems to have absolutely no feelings towards the women besides his wife, and that just seems to be companionship, not love at all)and sneaks off into the forest to go hunting with a group of lower class men (class is a BIG deal apparently...), one of which he has had a long term sexual relationship with. This is apparently a giant elephant in the room as his wife knows and it's all about keeping up appearances.

But then he is so upset about a fight with his wife and eldest daughter as she wants to play sport. And this is wrong and not to be tolerated apparently, more by wifey than him, but it sets off alarm bells for him. And I'm here thinking "Oh here we fricking go". Then there is a big deal about what his intelligent daughter wears. This is an reoccurring theme, about how she likes jeans, a cotton shirt and leather Indian shoes. If I wanted to read a book about clothes I would find the equivalent of Sex in the City in paperback. For disclosure's sake, that's what I wear substituting tshirt for shirt as I feel like it, and shoes would be thongs or skate shoes. But the whole time I'm reading this I'm getting "DO YOU GET IT????? She won't wear a dress!!!! SHE'S A LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If the author had taken a 2x4 and painted "She is a lesbian" on it, and then smacked me literally over the head with that, it would have been more subtle.

Enter the French girl who apparently goes both ways, because all French girls do.   ...    Really? Is that not incredibly offensive to put peoples sexuality down to a nationalistic stereotype???

And then the end. The ending made me want to throw up over the entire book.

Just. No.

When I get back to work I'm asking my friend for a proper Trini read as this was bollocks. Not very grown up that final assessment, but I really did not enjoy much of this book at all and at 398pp I'm entitled to call it names.

Midnight Robber - #34

Image sourced from here

Sick of all those sci fi books where the entire universe seems to be painted with an Anglo-Western brush in an American accent? Then this is the book for you.

Midnight Robber is set in a world where it's not the Americans or the Euros or the Asians who have colonised. This is a world evolved from and is so obviously Caribbean. It is the story of a girl called Tan-Tan who lives in this technologically advanced world, but then her father commits a crime that results in him being sent to a parallel world. Tan-Tan sneaks off with him, not knowing  that means never coming back. It's the story of Tan-Tan in this other other world, dealing with not only a more primitive version of her world, but also the creatures and other species in it that come right out of her Anansi stories.

This book is fantastic. It takes a well known theme of colonised, technologically advanced, new worlds and throws it on it's head. It's world building is phenomenal in my mind. I bought it all. A world where people don't have to do hard labour anymore and look down on those who do. Implants in your head feeding you information. Sending criminals away to a different version of your world so you don't have to deal with them. The culture of the douen. The tie ins to all the Anansi mythology and stories (some of which my Trinidadian friend had just told us about at dinner the other day). Loved it.

Not only that, it's written in a form of Creole. I assume it's pretty anglicised so those of us outside of the Caribbean cultures (and no doubt Creole changes from island to island) can understand it. But it adds a whole new element to immersing you into that world. It's clever. Each part of the book starts with a folklore story as well, so you feel you are sitting around a fire being told a story by a wise woman.

Because of this language however, I would say that it took me a lot longer that normal to read the first third of the book. You can't skim this one. You have to think through the sentences. You have to flip the words round and make them fit. You have to think back to what "doux-doux" or "pickney" meant. This gets easier though, as you get used to the grammar being not quite how we use it, the rhythm of the language, and words that get used again and again fall into your own vocab (like the above). It gets faster as the story gets faster. You get whisked along with it.

But for me, the climax failed. I couldn't relate to Tan-Tan anymore. She became someone I couldn't understand or empathise with. She was so incredibly selfish. All the other characters I loved though and felt so strongly for them, but not Tan-Tan. Then the ending for me was disappointing. One because I thought it was a lame end for Tan-Tan's story. But mainly it forgot about all those other characters I fell in love with in the book. I once again thought I was on to a 5 star read and the last 70 or so pages failed me.

It was sad, but I am so glad I read it. I am going to read more of Nalo Hopkinson's stuff as others who have said the same as me have recommended other reads of hers. I wanted a different sci-fi with an immersive world, and that's what I got. I wanted to start reading more books that had won awards like the Hugo, and I can see why it was shortlisted (it lost to a Harry Potter and was against a Song of Ice and Fire book. Tough competition). And it threw me into a culture I didn't know much about. And when it comes down to it, that's why I'm doing this challenge.