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readingspells 's review for:
Small Island
by Andrea Levy
I have had this on my shelf for over 10 years. I don't know why I never picked it up I always seemed to pass it over for other things until now.
I wonder if I had read it 10 years ago it would have impacted me as much as it did now. It felt particularly poignant in the present climate in the UK with the Windrush scandal and people like Gilbert and Hortense being threatened with deportation after living here most of their adult lives.
This book is a slow starter and I really struggled in the first quarter. I thought about discarding it but 10+ years on my shelf meant I just couldn't do it and I am glad I didn't because eventually it captured me and by the end...well it made me cry.
I think it showed so powerful how everyone is diminished by racism. That Queenie's internal racism results in her giving up her child. The Bernard's experiences in India only serve to darken and confirm him racism. That being part of a colonising force meant his experience was violent and dangerous and heightening his dislike of 'others'. Colonisation fails them all really in some way. The British Empire is the real villain there is no doubt about that.
Although at the end you feel that maybe Gilbert and Hortense have more of a potential for a future than Bernard and Queenie who are so crippled by the expectations on them, race, class, gender etc that they are shadows of the people they really are beneath all that.
A powerful and thought-provoking read. It might have taken me years to get to it but it was a worthy read in the end.
I wonder if I had read it 10 years ago it would have impacted me as much as it did now. It felt particularly poignant in the present climate in the UK with the Windrush scandal and people like Gilbert and Hortense being threatened with deportation after living here most of their adult lives.
This book is a slow starter and I really struggled in the first quarter. I thought about discarding it but 10+ years on my shelf meant I just couldn't do it and I am glad I didn't because eventually it captured me and by the end...well it made me cry.
I think it showed so powerful how everyone is diminished by racism. That Queenie's internal racism results in her giving up her child. The Bernard's experiences in India only serve to darken and confirm him racism. That being part of a colonising force meant his experience was violent and dangerous and heightening his dislike of 'others'. Colonisation fails them all really in some way. The British Empire is the real villain there is no doubt about that.
Although at the end you feel that maybe Gilbert and Hortense have more of a potential for a future than Bernard and Queenie who are so crippled by the expectations on them, race, class, gender etc that they are shadows of the people they really are beneath all that.
A powerful and thought-provoking read. It might have taken me years to get to it but it was a worthy read in the end.