Even now, I think that some people have found the topic of the plantation life in Jamaica pre-and post- the ending of slavery, a difficult one to think about, and do not know how to approach it. Well read this book – it’s a good way in. I read it for book club (Black Reading Group) not long after it came out. The subsequent discussion was a joint one with the Afro-Caribbean Book Club. This meant that we discussed The Long Song in a multi-racial group that included white and Asian readers and not only the black African and Caribbean members who would usually be at the reading group meetings. So maybe it was not so surprising then we were made to understand that this book told a universal story since the caste system in India is equal to slavery and thus it was not a story worth telling. Well the answer is that this book’s universal story is that the way we treat one another has a direct impact on how people will feel and respond for generations. In the book people never really recover from the heartless attitudes that are wilfully and thoughtlessly considered their lot. I wish I’d thought of this answer in response to the point made at book club - but you know how it is - the words never quite come at the right time.
I understand that Levy wanted to show that horrible things did not happen all the time, and that years of harmony existed. I think that this does work well in the book. So there is romance, lust, parties, banter, jealousy and moments when a more relaxed, if not comfortable for all, life seems to exist.
The thing that I love most about Levy, is her use of language and turn of phrase, it is so perfect – particularly when replaying the voices of Jamaican’s in particular, but of all her characters in general.
Ezra was so surprised when, a few weeks later, he found a grinning massa Goodwin standing within his doorway, that he dropped the calabash he carried, which spilled the dirty water it held over the massa’s boot.
‘Ezra, Ezra do not worry yourself about that, for I have something important I wish to ask you.’ The massa began before saying, ‘Are you happy, boy?
Trick – this be a trick, Ezra thought, as the massa waited for his reply. Happy? Come, he had never heard that asked of him in the whole of his days and had no notion of what he should reply.
But the massa carried on. ‘Ezra, listen carefully to me,’ while leaning in close, like he had some secret for Ezra to learn. ‘Why do you not leave your provision lands and work just for me? I will pay you a good wage, better than any one in this parish. Enough for your rent, your food, and fine clothes for any wife you may wish to keep. You would want for nothing. And think, with that money upon your person, you would have not need to walk all the way to your lands, for you would have pennies enough. Imagine, you would not need to attend market every week – you could sleep in a hammock or go to church on a Sunday. And in the evenings you could have leisure to do whatever it is that you enjoy to do within the evenings. What do you think on that Ezra?’
Ezra recalled that he had replied only, ‘But me ground done feed me dis long time,’ before the massa Goodwin held up his hand to halt Ezra’s speech. He then stepped a pace back to call for Miss July.
And there was Ezra’s proof! For Ezra always believed that the massa Goodwin did not understand negro talk. In walked Miss July her face set with a house servant’s sneer, like some bad smell was distressing her nose. And the massa said, ‘Please say what you were saying again.’
So Ezra spoke that he did prefer to work upon his own grounds, for labour in the cane fields was hard and long, and yet he got no profit from the crop he planted, fed and cut. But the toil upon his grounds rewarded him with produce that was his to keep. The massa then turned to Miss July who repeated all that Ezra had just spoken, but with a bakkra’s exactness. And the massa’s eyes dimmed as he listened.
Then the massa began to say again what he had already said – about the hammock, the church, the pennies, and the fine clothes for a wife- but with his voice raised. Come, he ended with a cry of, ‘Savvy dat, boy?’ that was so loud it did wake his pickney that was bound across to Miss July’s breast. And as the pickney did holler, the massa did begin to cajole.
‘Well, boy, will you not do as I suggest? Will you? Say you will, and there will be an end to it. Come on Ezra, say you will work for me alone.”
And Ezra, trapped within his own hut by one ‘gwan high-high’ house servant, her bewailing pickney, and the massa’s persistence, soon realised that, no, he was not happy, he was not happy at all!
The one thing that I did not respond to is the humour, both in this book and in the discussions around this 2010 Man Booker list generally, where there is a view that the books are humorous – relative to previous years, is what I think they mean, as well as within each book. I did not feel the humour of The Long Song, there were wry light smile moments, as there are episodes that could be described as comic farce – as in the extract above, but for me the humiliating, heartbreaking and scary moments stood out far more than any of the funny ones. As I say this is an important book, beautifully written and I sincerely hope that it wins. I want more people to read this book, as I would like more people to properly understand this part of our (the British:West Indian) shared heritage.
I don’t get this book and have no idea how it has got this far in the Man Booker. Set in three parts: the follower, the lover and the guardian, these states are also the mindset and role of the main character. This person who might be the author himself – he’s called Damon too, travels about South Africa, Lesotho; through Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, to Tanzania; Greece, Switzerland and India. (Naturally on the dust cover the African nations don’t get a mention – it just says “Africa.”) In a Strange Room is supposed to be a travel book, it might be a memoir, and so it might be completely true, but it might be fiction. Some are saying that it should not be up for the Man Booker prize since it’s really a series of short stories – rather than a true full novel. I don’t mind that, I just wanted it to be an engrossing read, but If I had not been reading it for book club, I would have given up on it. It was tedious. For me it fails as a travel book, as I am none the wiser about the places visited – except to be reminded of the ones I had been too already. All the characters and experiences are unpleasant, difficult and awkward – generally all three at the same time.
You might be surprised that I think, as with Levy, that Galgut writes beautifully providing moments of such insightfulness:
‘He watches, but what he sees isn’t real to him. Too much travelling and placelessness have put him outside everything so that history happens elsewhere, it has nothing to do with him. He is only passing through. Maybe horror is felt more easily from home.’
Spoiler alert – recognising that I may be encouraging you to read this book, so skip this para if you think you might get it. The section that I thought was tremendously well told and did have me on tenterhooks, was the last section – The Guardian. Here Galgut is looking after a friend with serious clinical depression. After her suicide attempt he has to take care of her in an Indian hospital. Suicide is illegal and the local police wait for the patient to recover so that they can arrest her. Galgut just about survives through the kindness of strangers, only to have the friend succeed in the deed in when she’s back in South Africa. The stress and anxiety of this section is absolutely brilliant – exhaustingly so – it actually feels like a different book. Though it occurs to me, belatedly, that this might be deliberate since the character is supposed to be more mature and established than he was in the earlier sections.
I know that there are dim, bored relatively wealthy people moving about the world looking to lose or find themselves and not particularly interested in the places that they turn up in or the people they come across, as they believe themselves superior. Galgut evokes that meaninglessness state of ‘I could be anywhere’ along with the disdain for local people, really well. I, however am interested in places and people and would have liked to have finished the book feeling that I had an inkling of a place I’d not been to or that I understood (though not necessarily liked) these people a bit better. I shall be so disappointed if this book wins the Man Booker prize. Galgut is Coetzee-lite, I would rather that he won it for a third time than this– though of course, as you know, he (Coetzee) did not make the list this time.
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