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Andrea Levy: Small Island

oldboy

oldboy

New Member
Small Island wins Whitbread

http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?hl=e...nsiders/guides/articles/16145797?source=Metro

im reading it at the mo>>and its just developing nicely
bit slow start but i think it's improving as the characters come thru


seems some qulams re the judging tho>>>
GUARDIAN
But last night an acute question mark was raised over the Whitbread's method of picking its winners by the disclosure that the three judges in each section at the shortlisting stage do not read all the books entered by publishers for the longlists, which in some cases total more than 100 .
 
Small Island by Andrea Levy

Outstanding is how I would describe the double award winning novel - The Orange Prize 2004 and the Whitbread Best Novel 2004 - these awards alone don't a good book make but this novel is superb in so many areas. Superb characterisation, brilliant description, excellent dialogue and an entertaining plot - it all comes together in a level of perfection that few books I have read seem to attain. Strangely the novel itself is quite different to what I had expected having read the short blurb on the back, read and heard short reviews from its prize awards. It’s a multifaceted novel - yes as the blurb says it deals with Jamaicans immigrating to England in the late 1940's and it does deal highly intelligently with the problems they faced. But that is just one part of this story - I don't know why the media reviewers have appeared to me to concentrate on this single aspect of the novel.

Yes it does deal with the Jamaicans who served in the commonwealth forces during WW2 and those that decided to try their hand back in England after the war but it also deals with an English couple and their lives that led them to the horrors of WW2 in the blitz and to service in the RAF abroad. Two women Hortense in Jamaica and Queenie in England both have dreams and aspirations that appear to be placed on them by their families. Their hopes and expectations appear to match one another but the war steps in and it effects each differently. The world is turned upside down for everyone during the war and the Jamaican men who enlist find a very different world to the one they had expected outside Jamaica, as does the English man who enlists and finds himself in India and Burma during the war against the Japanese. Very much alike and yet very different the characters try to evolve as their world and society changes around them, their hopes and dreams count for nothing during the war and by wars end the bleak post war world is very different.

The descriptive passages, of Jamaica, of London during the Blitz and of the war in India and Burma are truly outstanding making this a joy to read as the author has obviously studied areas of history she writes about. The wartime passages alone are some of the best I have ever read outside of a first person WW2 autobiography - the Blitz, the war in Burma, troops stationed in India and the immediate post war effects on the servicemen. I was stunned by the quality of this writing - yet couple this with the underlying human message within and the superb realistic dialogue makes this a truly "unputdownable" book. The naiveté of the characters when they come face to face with the other cultures, the inevitable racism that comes from ignorance yet the realisation that we are all basically the same and the realities of life after the war on every ones dreams is so well handled with a subtle innocence by the author. It would have been easy to let the message become strident but the gentleness within the narrative never lets this happen and this is the real power within this book. The message the book has for us all could have been lost in a less well-presented novel. Coming to terms with poverty on their own doorsteps, with other races and cultures the characters meet on their own journeys of self discovery we are taken with them and we are able to see how the whole world is really a Small Island. This should be the must read for everyone this year and I wonder what I will read this year that could beat it. Don't read the 50 word reviews that accompany this book everywhere and wonder if this book is of interest - read it now and be stunned as I was. If I delve too deeply here I may give away some of the best bits so I will leave this with a superb recommendation - this book goes straight into my top ten without a second thought. An outstanding achievement I recommend this book to everyone.
 
January 2006 Book of the Month
Small Island by Andrea Levy

Amazon.com
Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, Small Island, deftly brings two bleak families into crisp focus.... As the chapters reverse chronology and the two groups collide and finally mesh, the book unfolds through time like a photo album, and Levy captures the struggle between class, race, and sex with a humor and tenderness that is both authentic and bracing. The book is cinematic in the best way--lighting up London's bombed-out houses and wartime existence with clarity and verve while never losing her character's voice or story.
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I purchased this book with some book vouchers that I got for Christmas, and will be reading it very shortly. I can't wait to see what other people think of this book that I have already heard so much about.
 
I love the flow of her writing. It is a little unlike my usual fare, but the characters are well thought out, and there is a likeable quality about all I have encountered so far and do not seem stereotypical one bit. I'm not too far along in the book yet though. I'll have to step on it! :)

I do enjoy the telling of the story from different points of view, and find it effective.
 
MonkeyCatcher said:
I purchased this book with some book vouchers that I got for Christmas, and will be reading it very shortly. I can't wait to see what other people think of this book that I have already heard so much about.
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Ditto!! I am hoping to start it next but one, or something like that... before the month is out anyway. And I too, can't wait to see what other people think of this book. I have high hopes for it!
 
I'll stick my neck out and say I think Small Island is one of the greatest novels of the 21st century so far! It has won all three awards in the last year and deserves them all. For the uninitiated, here's a brief overview.

The 'today' of the novel is 1948, when Queenie Bligh has given up waiting for her husband Bernard to come back from his service in the Second World War, and to make ends meet has let rooms in her house out to immigrants from Jamaica, among them Gilbert Joseph and his wife Hortense. And that is Small Island in a sentence. But it takes us back through the four main characters' lives before and during the war, each speaking to us in their own voice. The ventriloquism is elegant and brilliantly managed, making us sympathetic to all the characters in turn, and gripped by their flowingly told stories; so much so that when they come into conflict at the end of the novel, we are as torn as they are, and don't know which way to turn.

There is tragedy and comedy everywhere in Small Island, and Levy seems incapable of misjudging the tone, whether she wants to depict casual racism, tender young friendship, cold middle-class romance, or the numb relentlessness of twentieth century warfare. The writing is frequently beautiful, and she has a way of approaching a new scene sidelong, rather than head-on, that brings the reader into it with freshness and curiosity. Minor characters come alive. If she puts a foot wrong, it may be in the particular details (can't give it away) of the central coincidence which drives the major 'twist' of the book - the world's not that small an island, surely - but if you already love the book by then, like me, you'll shrug and let it go.

Small Island, then, is an exceptional achievement, an outright, downright, upright, leftright masterpiece. There's something for everyone - the formal artistry of the four voices, the back-and-forward structure, the crossing and recrossing of fates, the heartwrenching losses, and the sparky dialogue. I read it in January last year and knew immediately that it would be my favourite book of the year (in a year which went on to be populated by Chekhov, Flaubert, Tolstoy and others). And it was.
 
Actually, I have been a bit side tracked lately. :eek: But I am remedying the situation asap.:) I am only about a third of the way thru, so can't really comment beyond what I did above.

For me its kind of bogging down a bit, but I like the characters so will of course continue. The fact that Hortense even married Gilbert just amazes me. And to go clear across the world for a man she doesn't seem to love or care about that much.......I suppose I am not really the adventurous sort in real life, only in books.
I am hoping more sense is made of that marriage/move later down the road.
 
Shade said:
Well I'm glad my enthusiasm has encouraged so many others to read Small Island!
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Your enthusiasm certainly didn't encourage me as I read it over a year ago. ;) I truly enjoyed this book and have been trying to think about what I want to write here. Sadly, I've read close to a hundred books in the meantime, so I had even forgotten the main character names. I'm amazed that you can write such a detailed review so long after reading it.

What I do remember thinking was that Small Island was sure to be one of the best books I read in 2005, ambitious thinking for January of 2005. I was right though. Historical fiction is such a difficult thing to truly do well, but Levy really made me feel like she was writing from first-hand experience rather than from a history book.

If she puts a foot wrong, it may be in the particular details (can't give it away) of the central coincidence which drives the major 'twist' of the book - the world's not that small an island, surely - but if you already love the book by then, like me, you'll shrug and let it go.
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I totally agree with this assessment. I'll also not get into it, but that was the one bit of the entire story that just didn't click for me. I found that "mini plot" to be mildly annoying and detracting from the rest of the story. I understand that the circumstances needed to be set up for Gilbert and Hortense's marriage, but I just wish it had been dropped at that.

I'm honestly surprised and disappointed that this book hasn't become bigger in the states.
 
I love this book

I'm a new member to Book Forum and have just passed the midway point on Small Island. It is absolutely marvelous! I haven't read all of the posts yet, and will do so when I finish the book - which will probably be all too soon. I'm sure I'll miss reading this when I'm finished.
 
Shade said:
Well I'm glad my enthusiasm has encouraged so many others to read Small Island! :rolleyes:
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I'll be reading this one in a couple of weeks. I picked it up in the library and read the back of it, but it didn't seem like my kind of book so I put it back. :eek: However, I've read so many good reviews of it, that I think I'll give it a shot (once I finish all my other books).
 
wenzdaze said:
I'm a new member to Book Forum and have just passed the midway point on Small Island. It is absolutely marvelous! I haven't read all of the posts yet, and will do so when I finish the book - which will probably be all too soon. I'm sure I'll miss reading this when I'm finished.
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Welcome to TBF, I'm sure you'll love it here. I can identify with "missing" a book once you've finished reading it, that happens to me a lot.

I've got this (Small Island), and Palindrome Hannah waiting to read after I've finished my current read. I'm not sure which to read first, but think I will give myself a short break from horror and read this one.

I am looking forward to it too, on the basis of all the good reveiws I've read of it.
 
read it last year. think it won a booker or similar?
loved it - great dialogue and characters. a nice fun read

some of the plotlines / eras / characters i preferred to other parts. i think the h&g relationship in the UK was my favourite but this carried you thru the other more minor bits. would defo recommend

and am i the only 1 to have heard they are making a TV series?
 
Small Island

I read this book last year and it became one of my favourite reads for 2005. It's a brilliant book and quite amusing in parts if I remember.:D
 
Re the TV series. I hadn't heard, but I'm not surprised. Chin up, mehastings: if it brings more people to the book, it's a good thing.
 
Like many my age I soon forget what I have read but some things that are important to me in a book are all in Levi's "Small Island"
Is the charaterisation so good as to make you have feelings , sympathy, love, hate etc, for the characters. Do I care what happens to them or that good old phrase, "what happens next. Is the writing a pleasure to read, is it observant. Levi's writing was all of these and was at times tender and funny. damn good book from any point of view I would say. Best book I have read for years.
Peter 72 in the shade
 
I just finished this book and I loved it. There's not really much I can add after Shade's /fabulous/ review, other than to say that I agree with every word. The characters were so well rounded - this is one of few books that I have read where I have actually /cared/ for the characters, where each of their truimphs and defeats were mine also.

The writing was extremely to my liking also - managing to get everything across effectively with simple, yet beautiful language. It really felt like I was there, which made the book extremely compelling. I sat down today intending to read for 1/2 an hour to an hour and came to about 3 and 1/2 hours later, after finishing the book.

The thing that really impressed me about the book, however, was the ending. Just great. Levy could have made it so cheesy, but instead she made it extremely realistic. I especially liked the fact that
Hortense never found out that Michael was the father.
That really made the ending just that much better.

Great read - it will be one of my favourites for 2006, no doubt about it.
 
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