The Book of Night Women
Ratings11
Average rating4.5
This novel by noted Jamaican author Marlon James, The Book of Night Women, was going to be a hard act to follow for me considering that I thought that his next, A Brief History of Seven Killings, was a modern classic. Yes I have read these out of publishing order but it has made no difference. This too can be considered the same, a modern classic.
The Book of Night Women is gripping! It is written in patois/slave dialect and that may take some getting used to by causal readers but for those that are up for the challenge it is an education of both the history and the spiritual times of slave era Jamaica and with that the never ending question of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Let's take that one step further, James, a male author may have also given us a feminist tale of female inhumanity to their fellow man. And it could be argued that all this was justified such is the powerful story he has presented. This is a violent book in both action and language but also strangely beautiful at times.
Highly recommended.
My hurried, inadequate review: The harrowing story of a slave called Lilith on a Jamaican sugar cane plantation in the late 18th century. The story is told in the 3rd person in Jamaican patois, and you don't find out until the very end who the narrator is, when it really packs a punch.
Lilith's story is of a young woman with no family that she knows of (at first), at the mercy of a brutal institution and people who don't believe she is fully human, coming to find a place for herself in the world. Her relationships with fellow slaves are prickly, even with the people she feels sympathy for. The terrible things that happen to people around her make you aware that it is not safe for anyone to be too vulnerable. Lilith also seems to have a knack for self protection. People who try to harm her come to bad ends of various kinds.
When Lilith finally does encounter someone who wants to be kind to her, it is a tainted (and doomed) relationship. It develops in the midst of planning a slave rebellion which is then violently put down. Through the rebellion and the cruel punishment that came after, Lilith seems to find a place for herself to exist between enslaved blacks and free but brutal and depraved whites.
I loved this book because of how complicated Lilith and her world were. White overseers could father children with slaves and not see them as people to care about. Lilith could long for love but be prevented from living it out because of her social situation. The uneasiness in this book seemed real–people were living in a mess.
OK, close enough to the end of 2017 for me to determine my favourite reads. The Book of Night Women is my 2017 BEST FICTION.
This book gets a lot of literary praise - and it is hard to argue with that. It is exceptionally well crafted, with an intricately woven story, with very realistic events, and graphic violence. I really enjoyed the written dialect, which was consistent and easy to pick up on, but lent a truer voice to the narrator.
The brutal life of a slave, almost impossible to survive, is the focus of the novel, along with examining the interactions of slave with master, slave hierarchy and hierarchy within the white characters. Set on the Montpelier Estate in the late the century and early 19th century, the events follow a recent uprising on the nearby island of Saint Domingue, which had resulted in the slaves taking control of the island.
Maybe a few minor spoilers below...
The slave characters are almost all female, with the exception of a lunatic who remains chained up for the most part. It is the head house slave Homer who takes in Lilith, the damaged mulatto orphan girl, and brings her into a circle of women who are plotting an island wide slave uprising & rebellion. The author plays on what happens to a girl so brutally treated who is also treated with kindness. As the Lilith develops from a girl to a woman, she is tested by each relationship she establishes especially Homer and Robert Quinn, the Irish overseer who she eventually makes home with.
The depictions of violence were brutal and detailed, and although the book is fictional, it seems that they were probably very representative of what had taken place. If you are not a fan of horrific treatment, and plenty of swearing, this one may not be for you.
Five Stars.