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A review by millennial_dandy
In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming
5.0
This was my first taste of Caribbean literature, and George Lamming didn't disappoint. 'In the Castle of My Skin,' written when the author was just 23 years old, is a gorgeous novel that does what all great works do: captures human truth. And in this case, Lamming captured the soul of mid-century Barbados as well.
I imagine it would be nearly impossible for writers from countries subjugated to colonialism not to have that impact their work given how entwined with the development of the culture of the colonized a legacy of colonialism is (just one of the many tragedies of such a history). And though that legacy exists, initially, on the fringes of the narrative, as the protagonist grows up and his sense of awareness broadens, so too does this legacy become more of a prominent root of the antagonism that seems will inevitably shred the identity of the village where 'In the Castle of My Skin' is set.
This becomes incredibly obvious in the very last pages of the novel when the protagonist reconnects with a friend recently returned from a stint in America on the eve of his own departure from the island.
In a brilliant speech, his friend, Trumper, describes that though he had mixed feelings about his time in America, he gained an understanding of race there that illuminated not only a solid identity for him to internalize, but also of just how successful the British (whom he calls "the great administrators") were at building a system of oppression in a way the Americans had failed to do. He uses the example of how each nation performs exclusion. In Barbados, he explains, the British put up signs on certain buildings that say 'members only'.
In Barbados, he goes on, this method serves to pit the villagers against each other as they scrabble for small crumbs of power and status so that they then don't focus on the white families living true lives of decadent privilege on the hill. All of the people with whom they come into direct power struggles are other Black folks: Mr. Slime (who swindles the villagers in order to use their money to buy up land for himself) and the overseer (who enforces the white landlord's ownership of the village properties). Thus, the myth that they can one day be 'members' continues to propagate.
But in America, Trumper explains, the more blatant 'us' vs. 'them', divided along racial lines, had the unintended side effect (one still felt to this day) of creating solidarity among Black Americans.
This is hands down the best, most succinct explanation of the paradoxical reality and artifice of race I've ever read in fiction or otherwise. It's something I'd imagine most people of color, especially Black people, are acutely aware of just through life experience, but something I think that white people have a really hard time understanding much less acknowledging.
This is the reason that Black culture is a real thing, created out of something artificial, and 'white culture' isn't a real thing, and it's why I think a lot of people find the 'colorblind' approach to racial justice...annoying (?) to say the least.
Though this pointed exploration of race and power dynamics is what makes up the strong backbone of arguably the entire novel, much of the emotional core comes from how much of a love letter from Lamming to Barbados this is.
His descriptions of the island and its nature and his portraits of the villagers are rendered in loving detail, from the scenes of the kids chasing crabs down by the beach, to them just walking through the village and encountering its people, an extended description of the narrator's mother cooking his final meal before he leaves for Trinidad. It's all just absolutely lovely.
Because of this heavy use of vignette, the 'plot' as such doesn't follow traditional pacing, which, if you go in expecting that will make it feel like things are just dragging along without anything much actually happening until the last third, but if you're willing to meander and just sort of exist from scene to scene, I think it's an incredibly rewarding reading experience.
Highly, highly recommend.
I imagine it would be nearly impossible for writers from countries subjugated to colonialism not to have that impact their work given how entwined with the development of the culture of the colonized a legacy of colonialism is (just one of the many tragedies of such a history). And though that legacy exists, initially, on the fringes of the narrative, as the protagonist grows up and his sense of awareness broadens, so too does this legacy become more of a prominent root of the antagonism that seems will inevitably shred the identity of the village where 'In the Castle of My Skin' is set.
This becomes incredibly obvious in the very last pages of the novel when the protagonist reconnects with a friend recently returned from a stint in America on the eve of his own departure from the island.
In a brilliant speech, his friend, Trumper, describes that though he had mixed feelings about his time in America, he gained an understanding of race there that illuminated not only a solid identity for him to internalize, but also of just how successful the British (whom he calls "the great administrators") were at building a system of oppression in a way the Americans had failed to do. He uses the example of how each nation performs exclusion. In Barbados, he explains, the British put up signs on certain buildings that say 'members only'.
There be clubs which you an' me can't go to, an' none of my people here, no matter who they be, but they don't tell us we can't. [...] An' although we know from the start why we can't go, we got the consolation we can't 'cause we ain't members. In America they don't worry with that kind o' beatin' bout the bush. (p.296)
In Barbados, he goes on, this method serves to pit the villagers against each other as they scrabble for small crumbs of power and status so that they then don't focus on the white families living true lives of decadent privilege on the hill. All of the people with whom they come into direct power struggles are other Black folks: Mr. Slime (who swindles the villagers in order to use their money to buy up land for himself) and the overseer (who enforces the white landlord's ownership of the village properties). Thus, the myth that they can one day be 'members' continues to propagate.
But in America, Trumper explains, the more blatant 'us' vs. 'them', divided along racial lines, had the unintended side effect (one still felt to this day) of creating solidarity among Black Americans.
'Sometimes here the whites talk 'bout the Negro people. It ain't so in the States [...] There they simply say the Negroes,' said Trumper [...] There ain't no "man" and there ain't no "people." [...] It make a tremendous difference not to the whites but the blacks. [...] That's how we learn the race. 'Tis what a word can do. Now there ain't a black man in all America who won't get up an' say I'm a Negro and proud of it. We all are proud of it. I'm going to fight for the rights o' the Negroes, and I'll die fighting. That's what any black man in the States will say. He ain't got no time to think 'bout the rights o' Man or People or whatever you choose to call it. It's the rights o' the Negro, 'cause we have gone on usin' the word the others use for us, an' now we are a different kind o' creature. [...] You'll hear 'bout the Englishman, an' the Frenchman [...] An' each is call that 'cause he born in that particular place. But you'll become a Negro like me an' all the rest in the States an' all over the world, 'cause it ain't have nothin' to do with where you born." (p.297)
This is hands down the best, most succinct explanation of the paradoxical reality and artifice of race I've ever read in fiction or otherwise. It's something I'd imagine most people of color, especially Black people, are acutely aware of just through life experience, but something I think that white people have a really hard time understanding much less acknowledging.
This is the reason that Black culture is a real thing, created out of something artificial, and 'white culture' isn't a real thing, and it's why I think a lot of people find the 'colorblind' approach to racial justice...annoying (?) to say the least.
Though this pointed exploration of race and power dynamics is what makes up the strong backbone of arguably the entire novel, much of the emotional core comes from how much of a love letter from Lamming to Barbados this is.
His descriptions of the island and its nature and his portraits of the villagers are rendered in loving detail, from the scenes of the kids chasing crabs down by the beach, to them just walking through the village and encountering its people, an extended description of the narrator's mother cooking his final meal before he leaves for Trinidad. It's all just absolutely lovely.
Because of this heavy use of vignette, the 'plot' as such doesn't follow traditional pacing, which, if you go in expecting that will make it feel like things are just dragging along without anything much actually happening until the last third, but if you're willing to meander and just sort of exist from scene to scene, I think it's an incredibly rewarding reading experience.
Highly, highly recommend.