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thequeenofsheba3's review
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Violence
Moderate: Classism, Colonisation, and Slavery
Minor: Confinement
nini23's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
4.0
Psychologically taut, bleak and disturbing book. About a solitary elderly lighthouse keeper on in island off the coast of an unnamed African country named Samuel and a refugee who washes up on the beach. Before the refugee's arrival, we are exposed to Samuel's meager existence and his day-to-day life: stones he has to break down to repair a crack in the breakwater, his chores of taking care of the chickens and vegetable garden, his aches and pains, the indignity of aging. The supply boat comes once a week but otherwise he has been completely alone for the past twenty plus years he's been on the island.
An Island gives a feeling of claustrophobia as two strangers who do not speak a common language are moored on an island and living in close quarters at the lighthouse keeper's tower. Samuel seethes about another mouth to feed and care for, his solitude broken. He vacillates between gruff kindness, impatience and paranoid aggression. The days they spend together are numbered in chapters The First Day, The Second Day etc ratcheting up the tension slowly but surely.
Samuel's traumatic backstory slowly emerges in flashbacks: the verdant valley he and his family lived in was burnt and destroyed by colonizers, they were evicted and move to a slum in the city, his father was involved in the country's Independence movement and crippled, post-independence conditions did not improve for the common people, the President was killed by the military and a Dictator took his place, young Samuel was involved in the People's Faction resistance movement in opposition to the Dictator, he spent 23 years in prison where he was an informant to avoid torture, upon release his parents and son had passed away, his sister and his niece and nephew begrudged feeding him (see the cycle?) so he took the job of lighthouse keeper. Oh, and his baby mama which is the main reason he joined the resistance movement (to impress her) became a prostitute. At the present time, the supply boat brings fresh news of corruption, fraud, military intervention, the possibility of another revolution or coup on the mainland.
On learning Samuel's story and the unnamed African country's, what struck me is the cyclical nature. Colonization, Independence, President, Dictator. Xenophobia, possessiveness, modernization. The pride that Samuel's father exhibited in having been involved in gaining the country's independence is reflected later in his daughter-in-law's satisfaction in being part of the resistance, both with nothing to show for it. The refugee family that were Samuel's neighbours having fled their own country post independence civil war, it's like a history carousel, whose turn is it next, round and round.
Violence is what's emphasized, the violence that humans are capable of inflicting on each other. Over territory, resources, wealth, power. This is what is reflected in the microcosm of the interaction between Samuel and the refugee, what makes it uncomfortable to read. Samuel descends into paranoia that the refugee is a murderer and wishes him harm, wishes to seize the island for himself. So much to ponder, even why are Samuel's chickens attacking and bullying the red hen? Are we humans no better than animals, always predisposed to violence? Do we all cling to the idea 'this is mine, mine, not yours' and are willing to kill over it? Perhaps not in times of plenty but under strained circumstances?
I wish I could quote from the book especially those about violence and Samuel's spiraling thoughts about the island belonging to him. However the copy I have of this book is an uncorrected proof and the publisher has instructed that we refrain from quoting. As well, there's been discussion of keeping the African country generalized and unnamed which the author addresses in an interview: "I want to be very clear about this, that I don’t believe in reducing Africa to a single country. But in this case, I wanted to use an allegorical means to examine a very complex issue. To take what has been done to Africa in various forms over the centuries, and examine that in a very simple way with just these two protagonists." The two interviews with the author I found were both illuminating, especially with the issue of appropriation: https://www.textpublishing.com.au/blog/interview-with-karen-jennings and https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/05/ive-been-poor-for-a-long-time-after-many-rejections-karen-jennings-is-up-for-the-booker
Thanks to Hogarth, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This edition of An Island's publication date is projected to be May 2022.
An Island gives a feeling of claustrophobia as two strangers who do not speak a common language are moored on an island and living in close quarters at the lighthouse keeper's tower. Samuel seethes about another mouth to feed and care for, his solitude broken. He vacillates between gruff kindness, impatience and paranoid aggression. The days they spend together are numbered in chapters The First Day, The Second Day etc ratcheting up the tension slowly but surely.
Samuel's traumatic backstory slowly emerges in flashbacks:
On learning Samuel's story and the unnamed African country's, what struck me is the cyclical nature. Colonization, Independence, President, Dictator. Xenophobia, possessiveness, modernization. The pride that Samuel's father exhibited in having been involved in gaining the country's independence is reflected later in his daughter-in-law's satisfaction in being part of the resistance, both with nothing to show for it. The refugee family that were Samuel's neighbours having fled their own country post independence civil war, it's like a history carousel, whose turn is it next, round and round.
Violence is what's emphasized, the violence that humans are capable of inflicting on each other. Over territory, resources, wealth, power. This is what is reflected in the microcosm of the interaction between Samuel and the refugee, what makes it uncomfortable to read.
I wish I could quote from the book especially those about violence and Samuel's spiraling thoughts about the island belonging to him. However the copy I have of this book is an uncorrected proof and the publisher has instructed that we refrain from quoting. As well, there's been discussion of keeping the African country generalized and unnamed which the author addresses in an interview: "I want to be very clear about this, that I don’t believe in reducing Africa to a single country. But in this case, I wanted to use an allegorical means to examine a very complex issue. To take what has been done to Africa in various forms over the centuries, and examine that in a very simple way with just these two protagonists." The two interviews with the author I found were both illuminating, especially with the issue of appropriation: https://www.textpublishing.com.au/blog/interview-with-karen-jennings and https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/05/ive-been-poor-for-a-long-time-after-many-rejections-karen-jennings-is-up-for-the-booker
Thanks to Hogarth, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This edition of An Island's publication date is projected to be May 2022.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Colonisation, and Violence
the_bitchy_booker's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is a book about trauma, about the past breaking in on you, about how memory lives in your body and cannot be escaped, and about how loneliness sharpens who you are into a fine point that doesn't wear away with time in the way you expect that it should.
Samuel is a lighthouse keeper living alone on an island off the mainland of the country that was once his home. He bears within him the memory of fleeing the countryside as a child, removed by colonizers. The memory of his father crippled in the fight for independence. The memory of his own imprisonment after attending a rally against their dictator. Becoming an informant there under threat of torture, despised by everyone. The memory of being released from prison and finding his sister wants nothing to do with him, his infant son died long ago, the mother of his child a prostitute who abandoned him. A lifetime of poverty, of his own terrible actions, a tide of violence within him that he has never been able to fully restrain or release.
These memories break through his current reality: a stranger, the survivor of an illegal refugee boat, has washed up on his island. He is, by turns, deeply suspicious of and grateful to the stranger. Their overall wordless relationship is characterized by Samuel's own paranoia and the shape of his past.
<Spoiler>He finally murders the stranger by bludgeoning him to death with a rock
The endless ebb and flow of the ocean, wearing away the island, unceasing, is like the pattern of fear and violence that made up his life finally coming to fruition in the same way that the sea wears away the coastline into itself; the island life is hard, relentless, amplifying who he is and has always been. Finally he is returned to his isolation there, unchanged, unchanging as the sea which never could be restrained.
Samuel is a lighthouse keeper living alone on an island off the mainland of the country that was once his home. He bears within him the memory of fleeing the countryside as a child, removed by colonizers. The memory of his father crippled in the fight for independence. The memory of his own imprisonment after attending a rally against their dictator. Becoming an informant there under threat of torture, despised by everyone. The memory of being released from prison and finding his sister wants nothing to do with him, his infant son died long ago, the mother of his child a prostitute who abandoned him. A lifetime of poverty, of his own terrible actions, a tide of violence within him that he has never been able to fully restrain or release.
These memories break through his current reality: a stranger, the survivor of an illegal refugee boat, has washed up on his island. He is, by turns, deeply suspicious of and grateful to the stranger. Their overall wordless relationship is characterized by Samuel's own paranoia and the shape of his past.
<Spoiler>He finally murders the stranger by bludgeoning him to death with a rock
The endless ebb and flow of the ocean, wearing away the island, unceasing, is like the pattern of fear and violence that made up his life finally coming to fruition in the same way that the sea wears away the coastline into itself; the island life is hard, relentless, amplifying who he is and has always been. Finally he is returned to his isolation there, unchanged, unchanging as the sea which never could be restrained.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Abandonment, Colonisation, and Torture
Minor: Rape
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