false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170245806m/44001.jpg 44001 15 Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, <I>Small Island</I>, deftly brings two bleak families into crisp focus. First a Jamaican family, including the well-intentioned Gilbert, who can never manage to say or do exactly the right thing; Romeo Michael, who leaves a wake of women in his path; and finally, Hortense, whose primness belies her huge ambition to become English in every way possible. The other unhappy family is English, starting with Queenie, who escapes the drudgery of being a butcher's daughter only to marry a dull banker. As the chapters reverse chronology and the two groups collide and finally mesh, the book unfolds through time like a photo album, and Levy captures the struggle between class, race, and sex with a humor and tenderness that is both authentic and bracing. The book is cinematic in the best way--lighting up London's bombed-out houses and wartime existence with clarity and verve while never losing her character's voice or story. <I>--Meg Halverson</I> 573909 2004 Small Island: A Novel total:1193|5:234|4:521|3:326|2:92|1:20| 1193 4436 1794 210 5 5 false false Mon Aug 06 23:21:30 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 21:20:31 -0700 2007
Some reviewers have complained that her use of dialect was heavy-handed, but from m...more...]]> 4 3 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 01:28:38 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 03:15:18 -0700 2007 ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 14:13:52 -0700 2007 Mon May 21 14:43:30 -0700 2007 Small Island is a novel that connects continents in wartime. It takes the reader from Jamaica to England and on to India in the days of the second World War. Four main characters connect the dots. A Gilbert, a young Jamaican who joins the RAF to fight Hitler but f...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Aug 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 07:28:17 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 24 10:26:11 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Apr 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Feb 11 02:29:51 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 10 08:30:32 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Wed Nov 14 18:53:43 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 14 18:58:11 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Wed Sep 05 13:54:40 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 13:54:40 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 14:38:30 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 02 12:10:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Mar 25 00:56:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 00:56:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Oct 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 08:15:21 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 08:29:49 -0800 2009
I tend t...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 23 01:58:48 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 23 02:20:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 27 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu May 21 09:17:44 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 09:17:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 true false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu May 14 05:09:12 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 05:41:34 -0700 2009
The story is set in Jamaica and the UK. Gilbert and his wife Hortense struggle to find the 'mother country', t...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:31:20 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:31:20 -0800 2009 Levy, the child of parents who sailed from the Caribbean in the first wave of postwar immigration, fictionalizes the immigrant experience in her fourth novel. Relying on memoirs and oral histories, she describes in heartwrenching detail the lives of four individuals in 1948 England. Her plain, humor...

more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 16:08:55 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 11 04:45:48 -0800 2009 Small Island does deal with a period of history that is quite often ignored—the first great wave of emigration from Jamaica to the UK from the late 1940s onwards. As a recreation of that time, I f...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 05 17:38:06 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 19:56:41 -0800 2008 1 What I didn't like:
- I found the structure (4 distinct character voices scattered in time and place) sometimes confusing to follow, but came to understand why the author used the technique -- parts of the ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 17:44:59 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 18:31:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 07:17:06 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 07:21:03 -0700 2009
Their is alot of interesting character development and it gets VERY interesting as lives intersect in an slightly, but not annoyingly, contrived wa...more...]]> 3 0 false true Sat Feb 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 07:56:25 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 08:04:19 -0800 2009 1
Interestingly at some point I disliked all four main characters, and only Gilbert and Hortense were able to redeem themselves in my eyes. I did not like how the end was dealt with and I thought Queen...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 15 15:09:53 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 15:12:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=44001