Small Island

Small Island by Andrea Levy

Reviewed by Claudine

This book brings the racial discrimination of England in 1948 up, close and personal through the accounts of Gilbert Joseph and Hortense, who later marries Gilbert and moves from Jamaica to join him in London, to find it vastly different from what she had expected. The part where she attempts to get a job as a teacher but is met with callous ridicule makes you bristle with indignation at the shabby reception she receives, based on nothing but her skin colour. Many move to London hoping to have a shot at leading a better life, only to meet with obstacles one after another, in all areas of life. Gilbert could not even find lodging upon arriving in London as no one would willingly rent out rooms to black people at that time.

But it’s not a book that acts as a mouthpience to lash out at white people and Levy provides balance through the account of Queenie Bligh, who takes in Jamaican lodgers, to the annoyance of her neighbours who think that ‘darkies bring down a neighbourhood’. Through Queenie, we observe the disapproval which white people face in helping the Jamaicans who move to England after their tour of duty in World War 2. Finally through Bernard, Queenie’s husband, who serves in India for a few years, we see an inner transformation, if somewhat faint, from disdain of black people to a point where he is willing to at least comtemplate raising a half-caste baby. The story concludes by bringing all to a realistic but painful end with afterthoughts.

It’s definitely a book worth your time as it captures so well the spirit of survival among the black people in a then very white-dominated London and of kindness and generosity and personal struggles of individuals who dare to think and act differently despite societal pressures, in a period of upheaval and transition.

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Reviewed by Claudine

The story begins innocently enough with Kathy H. who identifies herself as a ‘carer’, narrating stories from her childhood in a boarding school at Hailsham. As she narrates her time spent in this school, you get a feeling that something is terribly wrong with the school, its system and guardians. You wonder why the teachers are called guardians, why the students are reminded of how special they are and what kind of donations these students are to make later in life. No mention is made of parents and you get a feel that these students are herded involuntarily towards something sinister. As you read on, Ishiguro subtly and suspensefully leads you into the horror of the story as you discover who they are and what they are ultimately used for.

At the heart of the story is the question of what makes one human? Is it a series of quantifiable human experiences? To be creative and artistically expressive? To love and be loved? To cherish relationships and time spent with loved ones? The journey that Kathy and her friends take to seek the answers to these questions in the race against time is heartbreaking and you cannot help but hope desperately for them, towards the end, that they could attain their deepest desires - the freedom to live as they wish and to delay the fate set for them, if only for a period of borrowed time.