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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This felt like my Everest; I wanted to keep reading more but it was not an easy read. Partially due to the writing in patois (definitely got used to it eventually though) but also bc of the multiple multiple intertwining stories. So brilliant and worth the effort
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Rape, Murder
I learned a lot about Jamaica, and the gang subcultures. - before my knowledge was limited to Bob Marley, Rastafari and cricket - "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey".
But i found it heavy going, and was never really gripped enough to care what happened to the characters.
Still, a brave and innovative style and structure and I am glad that I read it.
But i found it heavy going, and was never really gripped enough to care what happened to the characters.
Still, a brave and innovative style and structure and I am glad that I read it.
Holy shite. Not an easy read, but worth learning the language, immersing oneself in the stories.
A literary challenge that will keep you thinking. An admirable piece of work.
Just to precede my review, I’d rate the first half of the book 2/5 while the second half scores 5/5. Before the story turned into high gear, it just wasn’t clicking for me. When I lose patience with a book, I tend to just skim through it until I get to the end, glazing over details rather than absorbing each word and sentence. The first half of A Brief History of Seven Killings made me do just that. However, the second half truly gave the book its identity as an arresting modern epic.
I was really looking forward to reading this and I had high hopes, basing off the fact that it won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Like what most reviewers say, I’d agree that the story was of epic proportions. The literary critic in me praises Marlon James’s ambitious plot, which could easily be adapted for a blockbuster film or a video game. Divided into five parts spanning nearly 700 pages, the opening two parts of the novel could have well been Grand Theft Auto: Kingston 1976—I could just imagine it very well. On the other hand, it was the reader in me that started to lose patience halfway down the book. I force-fed myself the words, mostly the Jamaican dialect, inching closer to the end, counting off each page until I could just finally achieve the big picture. And then I could walk away, on to reading my next book. I was already prepared to disappoint my initial expectations but I’m glad I kept my patience.
While I found the writing in the first half of the novel difficult to digest, I do commend the authenticity that Marlon James provided by telling the story through monologues. He chose to unfold an epic multifaceted story by not using an omniscient perspective, instead going through each character, each voice, to move the plot forward. He infused Jamaican patois and slang words, giving each character his or her own voice, not to mention being equally masterful in portraying the non-Jamaican characters. Reading through the dialect gave me difficulties which eventually turned to impatience when characters just started to ramble, bogging me down throughout the middle part of the book. Hence I started skimming and gave up trying to grasp details. At that point, I couldn’t appreciate it while I read but felt like I only could once I’ve finished it so I soldiered on.
From then on, I relentlessly blazed through the fourth and fifth parts in less time than it took me to finish the first. It was grippingly impeccable all the way to the end. As the plot moved to America, things started heating up and my opinion on the book warmed correspondingly. The story quickly evolved beyond its premise and my initial impression: I seemed to have contained A Brief History to be a simple fictional retelling of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, but it eventually escalates into a bloody, compelling epic of violence, gang wars, and drug cartels—an epic with proportions I honestly wasn’t expecting to be so extensive.
I was really looking forward to reading this and I had high hopes, basing off the fact that it won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Like what most reviewers say, I’d agree that the story was of epic proportions. The literary critic in me praises Marlon James’s ambitious plot, which could easily be adapted for a blockbuster film or a video game. Divided into five parts spanning nearly 700 pages, the opening two parts of the novel could have well been Grand Theft Auto: Kingston 1976—I could just imagine it very well. On the other hand, it was the reader in me that started to lose patience halfway down the book. I force-fed myself the words, mostly the Jamaican dialect, inching closer to the end, counting off each page until I could just finally achieve the big picture. And then I could walk away, on to reading my next book. I was already prepared to disappoint my initial expectations but I’m glad I kept my patience.
While I found the writing in the first half of the novel difficult to digest, I do commend the authenticity that Marlon James provided by telling the story through monologues. He chose to unfold an epic multifaceted story by not using an omniscient perspective, instead going through each character, each voice, to move the plot forward. He infused Jamaican patois and slang words, giving each character his or her own voice, not to mention being equally masterful in portraying the non-Jamaican characters. Reading through the dialect gave me difficulties which eventually turned to impatience when characters just started to ramble, bogging me down throughout the middle part of the book. Hence I started skimming and gave up trying to grasp details. At that point, I couldn’t appreciate it while I read but felt like I only could once I’ve finished it so I soldiered on.
From then on, I relentlessly blazed through the fourth and fifth parts in less time than it took me to finish the first. It was grippingly impeccable all the way to the end. As the plot moved to America, things started heating up and my opinion on the book warmed correspondingly. The story quickly evolved beyond its premise and my initial impression: I seemed to have contained A Brief History to be a simple fictional retelling of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, but it eventually escalates into a bloody, compelling epic of violence, gang wars, and drug cartels—an epic with proportions I honestly wasn’t expecting to be so extensive.
A tough one this - getting the "voice" of the book is difficult 'cos there are so many voices. Even once you have sorted the vocabulary, it’s still sometimes hard to figure out who says what (even the characters sometimes complain about this!)
The first chapter* is poetic, brilliantly written, which caught me and kept me going, and it sparkles in places, but I did not find it an accessible novel. Stream-of-consciousness, very violent. Still sorting it out in my head, and not at all sure if, being this difficult, it’s good literature.
*Why do so many writers do this? Is it an editors' trick?
The first chapter* is poetic, brilliantly written, which caught me and kept me going, and it sparkles in places, but I did not find it an accessible novel. Stream-of-consciousness, very violent. Still sorting it out in my head, and not at all sure if, being this difficult, it’s good literature.
*Why do so many writers do this? Is it an editors' trick?
Phenomenal. Incredible storytelling through the perspectives of several characters involved in post-colonial Jamaica throughout the 70s and 80s. The changing dialects and states of mind (dead, on drugs, etc) of the narrators kept me engaged and also brought home one of Marlon’s key themes: you can’t escape where you came from. Even if you no longer ‘chat bad’.
Themes~
- Cycle of poverty and violence, kept in tact by the weapons and looming threat of Babylon. The fact that escaping to New York or Miami held the same fate for Jamaican boys as staying in the Kingston ghettoes. CIA handing out weapons, politicians in JLP and PNP using boys as pawns.
- Complicated relationship with peace. Never attainable because peace between gangs would result in police violence against all. Something that everyone craves but no one has ever considered a possibility. “Even people who usually expect the worst did, if for only two or three month start to think peace a little then a lot”
- The Singer’s role in Jamaican history and perception. It’s not about him. But it kinda is? He’s the only thing many of us know about Jamaica and this event was so pivotal (see above quote) but he’s still not considered Jamaican enough because he escaped the ghetto.
- Josey Wales is just an awesome character. Sooo well done. And the final image that Nina has of her encounter with him on the night of the shooting.. chills. Can totally picture this untouchable man.
Quotes ~
“Not a single old man in the ghetto.” - Papa Lo
“If it no go so, it go near so” - Jamaican proverb
“Now is shit for so long that people grow up in shit thinking shit is all they is... maybe that too big for one book... watch me asking you to write the whole four-hundred-year reason why my country will always be trying not to fail.” - Tristan Phillips to Alex Pierce. Might be how James felt approaching this book.
Themes~
- Cycle of poverty and violence, kept in tact by the weapons and looming threat of Babylon. The fact that escaping to New York or Miami held the same fate for Jamaican boys as staying in the Kingston ghettoes. CIA handing out weapons, politicians in JLP and PNP using boys as pawns.
- Complicated relationship with peace. Never attainable because peace between gangs would result in police violence against all. Something that everyone craves but no one has ever considered a possibility. “Even people who usually expect the worst did, if for only two or three month start to think peace a little then a lot”
- The Singer’s role in Jamaican history and perception. It’s not about him. But it kinda is? He’s the only thing many of us know about Jamaica and this event was so pivotal (see above quote) but he’s still not considered Jamaican enough because he escaped the ghetto.
- Josey Wales is just an awesome character. Sooo well done. And the final image that Nina has of her encounter with him on the night of the shooting.. chills. Can totally picture this untouchable man.
Quotes ~
“Not a single old man in the ghetto.” - Papa Lo
“If it no go so, it go near so” - Jamaican proverb
“Now is shit for so long that people grow up in shit thinking shit is all they is... maybe that too big for one book... watch me asking you to write the whole four-hundred-year reason why my country will always be trying not to fail.” - Tristan Phillips to Alex Pierce. Might be how James felt approaching this book.
Let us begin this review of A Brief History of Seven Killings as we should. With a glib remark on the irony of the title? No. With a plot synopsis? Negative. With a review of the author's biography, previous work, and general critical standing. Stop. None of this is what matters. No, let’s begin right where we should and state the objective fact: A Brief History of Seven Killings is just Marlon James absolutely flexing on everyone.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Marlon, surely you won't write two-thirds of the book in varying depths of Jamaican patois?
MJ: Yes, I think I will.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Ok, but obviously you wont end a section of the novel with back-to-back-to-back-to-back chapters of gangbangers being fed cocaine and having their nascent addictions leveraged to coerce them into murder?
MJ: Absolutely I am going to do that, yes.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Stream of consciousness first person accounts of the deaths of those same addict gang members?
MJ: YOU KNOW THIS.
PROSPECTIVE READER: But surely it would be too much to include frustrated CIA agents, floundering American magazine journalists, and cryptic Cuban terrorists?
MJ: LIGHT WORK SON.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Do you really think you can weave a seven hundred page tapestry of dozens of characters around the figure of Bob Marley, only never call him Bob Marley, call him simply “The Singer”, somehow making him both the central figure of the book, but also less a character than a spirit haunting the spaces between the characters, the chapters, the words?
MJ: HOLD MY BEER.
A Brief History of Seven Killings brims with style, with skill, and with ambition. It’s more self-assured than a debut and overflows with the audacity of a young author drunk on the discovery of his literary powers. Could it be shorter? It could be. There are one or two extraneous characters and threads of story. Still, these are minor quibbles given the book’s overarching excellence in voice and affection.
It is long, and it can be difficult, but it is artful and it is rewarding. Find yourself feeling warmly towards horrible, murderous men. Find yourself tangled in the life and mind of Nina, the complicated female lead. Find yourself using pidgin profanities like “bombocloth” and decrying minor inconveniences as “Babylon business”. Find yourself between the pages of A Brief History and find yourself thankful for it.
4.5/5
PROSPECTIVE READER: Marlon, surely you won't write two-thirds of the book in varying depths of Jamaican patois?
MJ: Yes, I think I will.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Ok, but obviously you wont end a section of the novel with back-to-back-to-back-to-back chapters of gangbangers being fed cocaine and having their nascent addictions leveraged to coerce them into murder?
MJ: Absolutely I am going to do that, yes.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Stream of consciousness first person accounts of the deaths of those same addict gang members?
MJ: YOU KNOW THIS.
PROSPECTIVE READER: But surely it would be too much to include frustrated CIA agents, floundering American magazine journalists, and cryptic Cuban terrorists?
MJ: LIGHT WORK SON.
PROSPECTIVE READER: Do you really think you can weave a seven hundred page tapestry of dozens of characters around the figure of Bob Marley, only never call him Bob Marley, call him simply “The Singer”, somehow making him both the central figure of the book, but also less a character than a spirit haunting the spaces between the characters, the chapters, the words?
MJ: HOLD MY BEER.
A Brief History of Seven Killings brims with style, with skill, and with ambition. It’s more self-assured than a debut and overflows with the audacity of a young author drunk on the discovery of his literary powers. Could it be shorter? It could be. There are one or two extraneous characters and threads of story. Still, these are minor quibbles given the book’s overarching excellence in voice and affection.
It is long, and it can be difficult, but it is artful and it is rewarding. Find yourself feeling warmly towards horrible, murderous men. Find yourself tangled in the life and mind of Nina, the complicated female lead. Find yourself using pidgin profanities like “bombocloth” and decrying minor inconveniences as “Babylon business”. Find yourself between the pages of A Brief History and find yourself thankful for it.
4.5/5
adventurous
challenging
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Freakin’ amazing, both as a novel and as an audio production