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39th out of 130 books
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37 voters
At the Bottom of the River
Jamaica Kincaid's inspired, lyrical short stories
Reading Jamaica Kincaid is to plunge, gently, into another way of seeing both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her voice is, by turns, naively whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean--family,...more
Reading Jamaica Kincaid is to plunge, gently, into another way of seeing both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her voice is, by turns, naively whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean--family,...more
Paperback, 96 pages
Published
October 15th 2000
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published 1983)
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I'm sure there are some merits of this book, but I'm too busy to search for them, even though this book is 88 pages of triple-spaced prose. This is my fourth Jamaica Kincaid book (her first) and I think I can officially put myself in the "I'm not a fan" category.
It's amazing that this book was received as well as it was. This is the type of book that people in the rest of the US think New Yorkers read and write, the type of book people use as an example of why they don't read books, they type o...more
It's amazing that this book was received as well as it was. This is the type of book that people in the rest of the US think New Yorkers read and write, the type of book people use as an example of why they don't read books, they type o...more
Something that needs to be read more than once. Something that should be read aloud by someone who can perform.
My favorite piece is "The Letter From Home," which is beautiful. She starts with chores and moves on to life, happening. "I shed my skin; lips have trembled, tears have flowed, cheeks have puffed, stomachs have twisted with pain... the hyacinths look as if they will bloom -- I know their fragrance will be overpowering; the earth spins on its axis, the axis is imaginary..."
In "Blackness"...more
My favorite piece is "The Letter From Home," which is beautiful. She starts with chores and moves on to life, happening. "I shed my skin; lips have trembled, tears have flowed, cheeks have puffed, stomachs have twisted with pain... the hyacinths look as if they will bloom -- I know their fragrance will be overpowering; the earth spins on its axis, the axis is imaginary..."
In "Blackness"...more
Terrible. My winning streak of good books is over. I read a few of Jamaica Kincaid's essays at graduate school, which were good. Perhaps I just chose the wrong novel because there was nothing redeeming about it. Horrible style and use of repetition... I understand its purpose but the execution fails. Waste of time. Nothing memorable about it all. Found myself indifferent and also skimming parts.
I loved a lot of things about this book. The first two stories especially are brilliant surprising strange lyric wonderful. I love the way a consciousness and and story unfolds in a non-traditional, without the awkwardness of exposition or introduction. Some of the later stories miss that specificity of moment and scene that drives the first two pieces, and become overly abstract in my opinion, moving in a weird dream-like way that, like many re-telling of dreams, seems to make sense only to the...more
This is a book of stories so lyrical as to at times seem surrealistic, sometimes told in the not-very-naive voice of a child. Kincaid has certain material -- her family life on the island of Antigua -- which she repeats in various manners book to book. Here it is presented at its most dreamlike, a brief, beautiful volume unlike anything else I've ever read.
Yum. I should have known that this would be amazing. I loved everything else of hers, why did I put this one off? So that I would have an artsy treat to read in the park one sunny day!
No matter how you feel about Ms. Kincaid, there is no denying the talent. Her sentences probe and cauterize all the way down but never lose the fluidity and beauty that can transcend.
I loved this book, but I read it as poetry. I recommend reading this book aloud, and reading it more than once. If you read it like a novel, you'll be disappointed.
Like listening to Debussy or looking at a Monet painting: very imagistic, very impressionistic. At first, I was annoyed with the repetition, but that lasted only briefly. Kincaid's prose is more poetry than story and, at times, absolutely stunning.
Her oft anthologized "Girl" is the first story in this collection. Although "Girl" is wonderful, I wouldn't say it was the best. I think my least favorite was the title piece.
Her oft anthologized "Girl" is the first story in this collection. Although "Girl" is wonderful, I wouldn't say it was the best. I think my least favorite was the title piece.
More lyrical vignettes of island life than short stories, but quite interesting and evocative. Would probably be best appreciated read aloud.
I found this collection arresting, breathtaking when I first read it in 1984. I was motivated to write! And write! And write more.
Flips the script on the definition of what is fiction and what is a short story. Unlike any collection before or after it.
Jamaica Kincaid e' una scoperta incredibile. Uno di quei libri che sai quando lo apri ma non quando riesci a chiuderlo, probabilmente solo alla fine o quando arriva la tua fermata. Una poesia in prosa che racconta di ombre e luci, alterna il dramma alla serenita'. Sono parole quelle di Jamaica Kincaid che scavano ed entrano dentro una dopo l'altra. Una trama di racconti e frammenti di vita che s'intrecciano tra loro senza un'apparente unicita' ma che in fondo appartengono tutti alla stessa stori...more
Feb 17, 2013
Julie Unruh
added it
What a wonderful book of poetry. Though it is in a story, when you read it, it sounds like poetry. Very good book.
I love the rich verbiage that this novel houses. A vivid imagination, dream interpretations, scattered memories interwoven with fantastical, child-like thoughts. I read a chapter at night when I want to relax and induce dreaming. It works.
My advice for this book is, read the stories more than once. Seriously, do it.
Dec 03, 2008
Gayla
marked it as to-read
Picked this up the other day but have only skimmed it so far.
Beautiful imagery, incredibly vivid & surreal. Decidedly NOT plot driven stories, but I love her characterizatons of mother/daughter relationships. Rich and troubling. A quick read; well worth it.
Almost exhaustingly emotional short stories. Loved "My Mother."
Beautiful and concise, this is more poetry than prose.
I enjoyed others books of Jamaica Kincaids. But this isn't one of my favorites. However, I will still read her works. She has an interesting way of writing and storytelling.
A short, but difficult-to-digest read.
Beautiful prose poems.
fluidity and context. stream of consciousness but... not. kincaid's writing tosses in the stream of the surroundings, of other characters. if i have to hear one more person in this class say, "but if that's what she means, why doesn't she just say it that way," i'll stop being a snob and start being a bully. but, who can be that judgmental when even the critics agree that, like it or not, kincaid's writing is defying. it's fucking beautiful.
This is an exquisite little book of short stories, most of which revolve around mother-daughter relationships. Many in the collection were originally published in the New Yorker, and many are reportedly auto-biographical. Most importantly, the stories dance along the line between prose and poetry from the first page, and Kincaid's language is gorgeous and evocative and powerful. I don't think one reading suffices, at least not for me.
First semester of my senior year at Bard, I took this great class with my advisor, Brad Morrow, called Narrative Strategies. We read all these great contemporary books with wildly varied and experimental narrative techniques, and instead of writing papers, we wrote our own fiction, into which we had to try to experiement with the techniques of the authors we were reading. I wish all lit classes were like that!
Before Kincaid's turn toward a more familiar realism this, her first collection of short stories, reflects a modernist out of time, a woman fighting through language's watery deeps to reach something impossible: the music of paradise, the silent sounds of pure happiness. Highly recommended for readers of Beckett, Woolf, or diasporic Caribbean literature more generally.
Usually short stories aren't for me but Jamaica Kincaid has such a way with words. I loved all of the stories in here. Kincaid writes so beautifully I can't help but keep reading. Her stories really capture and inspire you. After I read this book I seached out more of her books, she's one of my favories. Everyone should read them at some point.
just incredible.
The collection begins with one of the most profound short stories I've ever read. "Girl" is economy of language, but not meaning or beauty. The short stories following it are also testament to Kincaid's mysterious and wind-like prose, but nothing comes close to the opening story.
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Jamaica Kincaid is a novelist, gardener, and former reporter for The New Yorker Magazine. She is a Professor of Literature at Claremont-McKenna College.
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“this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming;”
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“Looking at the horizon again, I saw a lone figure coming toward me, but I wasn't frightened because I was sure it was my mother. As I got closer to the figure, I could see that it wasn't my mother, but still I wasn't frightened because I could see that it was a woman.”
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