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4.53 AVERAGE
4.53 AVERAGE
Jamaican version of Educated. I also love reading a book written by a poet, it’s so beautifully written.
wow. what a memoir. i am always in awe of how people remember details in their life in such great detail.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
A few reviewers that I really trust (especially about Caribbean books, like @bookofcinz) said this was a really great read. So, I added it to my "I'm feeling a memoir" list.
In How to Say Babylon, Sinclair tells the story of her life in Jamaica, raised in a Rastafarian home. Starting with a quick overview of her parents' life, to help give context for their adoption of the Rastafarian belief system/way of life, we watch as the home she grows up in becomes increasingly more restrictive and emotionally/physically abusive, and her various attempts to escape and create a separate and refreshed life for herself elsewhere. It was an incredibly emotional read for so many reasons. The experiences she lived through were, at times, incredibly harsh. The connections she has with her siblings and mother are so full of tenderness and support, as well as the normal frustrations of family, but their bonds were just really affecting. And the clear love she has for her country, the land and ocean and natural beauty of Jamaica, is clearly deeply felt and uplifting to read. And her efforts in following her own passions and path are absolutely inspiring.
One really unique thing about this memoir is how internal to Sinclair's - and her family's - experiences it is. You really get a sense of their individual lives and relationships with each other, and the progression of those over time. The external is absolutely included and mentioned, but it feels so background to the nuclear family, which is so telling. And I truly don’t feel like the memoir missed anything by not having that aspect as a greater "player," as it were. There was, to be clear, quite a clear message about the external forces that created the family situation Sinclair had. Specifically, she describes how colonialism both creates the problems (inequality and systemic racism and poverty) and then demonizes the responses (in this case, anti-establishment showing up as Rastafarian lifestyle/livity), which then further breaks down those same communities. Related, patriarchy-wise, this is a haunting meditation on the crucible of womanhood that isn’t chosen, but born into, and then must be survived. The blame and shame and guilt and names-called and burdens and expectations that can so easily crush/smother a person. It squeezes you to read.
And here's the other thing that got me about this memoir: you can tell this is written by a poet - gorgeous, lyrical, evocative. And that means that the emotions, which were always going to be intense given the content, were that much more. The terror and neverending hope and anger and tenderness and effort towards forgiveness (that so reasonably could be denied) and potential for healing that we close with - I cried multiple times. The beauty and nuance of the delivery and perspective, considering how close the author is to the story she's telling, is almost unbelievable. An incredible reading experience.
“There was more than one way to be lost, more than one way to be saved. […] Both had wanted better for me, but only one of them would protect me in the end.”
"There is an unspoken understanding of loss here in Jamaica, where everything comes with a rude bargain - that being citizens of a "developing nation," we are born already expecting to live a secondhand life, and to enjoy. But there is hope, too, in our scarcity, tolerable because it keeps us constantly reaching for something better."
“If Mom wanted to let us loose like bright sparrows upon the world, our father wished to squeeze us back into our eggs, overgrown and silent in his nest, never ready to be hatched under his watchful eye.”
“A thought, I understood then, and its incendiary mind, could outlive itself. A well-made word could outspan carbon, and bone, and halved uranium.”
“Somewhere in the span of our lifetime together, love and hurt had been hatched from the same egg, sisters in crime.”
“There was freedom in knowing something for yourself.”
“Growing up underprivileged, I had long learned that life was never a straight line. I was accustomed to its turbulent crests and falls by now…”
“I had spent all my formative years caged in, but I had spent them wildly dreaming, honing my education by my own hands, molding my own poet self from the clay, never conceding. For I was determined to write myself from out of these margins.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Religious bigotry
Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment
Minor: Infertility, Infidelity
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
First non-celebrity memoir I’ve read in a loonnngg time. Highly recommend.
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Beautifully written language. An interesting and heartfelt memoir. The beginning took a while to warm up/pique my interest but I was highly involved by the end. My lukewarm feelings about the beginning affected my rating but I do believe it’s worth the read.
Parents are complicated. Life is hard. Sometimes people can create something beautiful in this world.
Parents are complicated. Life is hard. Sometimes people can create something beautiful in this world.