The Book of Jamaica

by Russell Banks

"A truly excellent novel. . . . The morbidly fascinating little twists of human existence are all love, sex, life and death, beauty and horror—the works."  —  Chicago Sun-Times In The Book of Jamaica , Russell Banks explores the complexities of political life in the Caribbean and its ever-present racial conflicts. His narrator, a thirty-five-year-old college professor from New Hampshire, goes to Jamaica to write a novel and soon becomes embroiled in the struggles between whites and Blacks. He is especially interested in an ancient tribe called the Maroons, descendants of the Ashanti, who had been enslaved by the Spanish and then fought the British in a hundred-year war. Despite this history of oppression, the Maroons have managed to maintain a relatively autonomous existence in Jamaica. Partly out of guilt and an intellectual sense of social responsibility, Banks's narrator gets involved in reuniting two clans who have been feuding for generations. Unfortunately, his attempt ends in disaster, and the narrator must deal with his feelings of alienation, isolation, and failure.

Genres: Fiction, Travel, Literature, Novels

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Russell Banks was a member of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He has written fiction, and more recently, non-fiction, with Dreaming up America. His main works include the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter, and Affliction. The latter two novels were each made into feature films in 1997.

Reviews

[Jo]

It had some interesting plot lines, but overall , I would skip it .

[Nina Sankovitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russell Banks' The Book of Jamaica is a strange and mesmerizing mixture of fact and fiction. Set in the 1970s, a decade after Jamaica's independence from Great Britain, it is the story of conflicting cultures and one man's journey to understand where similarities lay and where differences abide. He is on a mission to research the Maroons of Jamaica, descendants of ex-slaves who ran away from their owners in the late 17th century, fought the British for decades, and won immunity and land of their own, so long as they stayed out of the way of the governing Brits. But his research soon widens to the variety of relationships that exist on the island, including the uneasy alliance between Maroons and Rastafarians, the economic power struggle between white landowners and newly empowered Black Jamaicans, the shifting balance between corrupt policemen and equally corrupt celebrities, and his own personal relationships with his wife, with other women, with his white landlord, and with the Black Jamaicans with whom he becomes enthralled.

Our narrator is a man running away from himself and looking for answers about how to live his life, although he himself doesn't acknowledge either truth about himself. He proclaims, "At this time of my life I, like most Americans, believed more in the essential sameness among people than in their difference. I thought I could learn to know what it was like to be a Maroon. I could not then see any conflict between that belief and my ambition to replace a point of view with a vision." Danger hinted at, but not understood, until it is too late.

He finds much to admire in the lives of the Black Jamaicans he meets ("Survival, to me, was something one took for granted, and therefore it was more than likely that , placed in similar circumstances, I would not survive") and much to disdain in the lifestyle of the whites ("with their fashion designer gowns and jackets, their cut-crystal cocktail glasses, their parquet floors and real estate holdings"). Instead of finding himself through rejecting the White culture and trying to align himself with the underclass' ways of understanding life, the narrator loses his grip on his own reality and fails to understand much at all. His efforts to repair an old rift between Maroon sects leads to tragedy and his attempts to live on precepts of simplicity lead to complications beyond his imagination.

Worst of all, he loses himself completely by the end of the novel: the first person telling of his story shifts into a second person addressing him as "you" and then into a third person narration about "Johnny", which is not even his real name but a name given to him by Black Jamaicans, a generic name given for a "good American." Good he may be, but lost he becomes, lost and bloodied and alone, and sent packing back to America.

The Book of Jamaica is a chilling allegory about an infant nation fighting to become independent not only in name but in fact, and about a fractured man struggling to become whole. Both country and man balance precariously between fact and fiction, between what they know is true and what they wish for, between what they want and what they fear, and between dream and nightmare. It's a fine line between finding your true self, who and what you were meant to be, and losing yourself -- your soul -- forever.

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[Cissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second or third time I've read this book (in a few years), and I see more interesting subtleties with each reading. I am drawn into the story, but find it a little disquieting. It's interesting the way the book is written from 3 slightly different perspectives of the same narrator. It's as though "Johnny" moves through three different versions of himself over the course of the story, and then in the third version, the narration changes to third person, and he's no longer who he was at the start of his Jamaican immersion--he has become alienated from his former self--a professor from the States--as well as from the Jamaicans he tried to understand.

[Monkey King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite Banks book but a good read.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've really liked some of his later novels, but this was a complete mess, structurally and stylistically, with a purpose ultimately divided against itself. The out-of-order chronology serves no constructive purpose, with the only consequence to delay necessary context and investment in the characters, and to waste time with a mystery in the beginning about which the reader has no reason to care, and which is barely even mentioned later in the book. The connection of the opening mystery (and much of the events later) to historical figures and places is often just distracting. He overlays on what may or may not be fact an ultimately superficial and possibly racist narrative--white man gets spiritually lost when he is at first attracted to the exotic natives, then repelled by their savagery. The perspective shifts from first-person to third over the course of the book, perhaps to indicate the protagonist's dissociating mental state, but this too proves to be just a distracting, poorly implemented device.



The prose often descends into rambling, pretentious attempts at insight, and is otherwise mired in what seems like wasteful detail--minute detail of landscape, what peripheral characters are wearing and drinking, and repetition of what is presented as history of the island and its people. Minor scenes are also repetitious without advancing the narrative or further developing character. Very little of this is meaningful to the story, and is only important if it was true rather than the author's invention. Perhaps Banks should have written a non-fiction book on the history of the Maroons of Jamaica, or a memoir on his own experiences there (presuming he was there for research). But that would have taken far more discipline than this book shows he had at the time.

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to comment on; Russell is an amazing prose writer, and some of his other books are genuine masterpieces. This is an uncomfortable book to read..it's written in a kind of experimental post-modernist style, with the person of the narrator and his name as well as the names of several other characters changing throughout the book. I guess it might resemble a post-impressionist Cubist painting, with different persons and points of view and names and alternate versions of events serving up a very real sense of what Jamaica might have been like at the time of his writing, but leaving the reader unsure about what just happened and what it all might mean.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Russel Banks is among my favorite authors. The first book of his I read was Continental Drift. Afterward, I read every other book he wrote (except this one) and I would give them all 5 stars. I tried to read this book twice and each time I stopped. The storyline just did not resonate with me

[Kelly Kittel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this while in Jamaica traveling to and through many of the places in which these tales were set, which made for relevant and interesting fare. Just spent time in Port Antonio and do wish I knew how much of the Eroll Flynn story is true. Learned from reading this that Russell Banks, who recently died and who I've long admired since reading Rule of the Bone, taught at New England College when I was a student there. So what a damn shame that i never took a class from him, to put it mildly. And since I went on to become a PC Volunteer in Jamaica, how much we might have had in common as he is clearly a fan of the yahd.

[Jessica Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel tells the story of an author from new England who goes to jamaica to write a novel. While the book is a great lesson about the history and politics of jamaica, it really felt like yet another riff on the old Heart of Darkness theme, which made me want to read something by a Jamaican next time around.

[Norman Weatherly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very informative read, I learned a lot about Jamaican culture and politics. As a novel, it was a good read as well as being informative. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history and culture of Jamaica as well as the people who live there or used to live there.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really beautiful depiction of life and politics on Jamrock with super-interesting and textured characters…but I thought the story itself was a little…meandering.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book was a struggle, but I rather enjoyed the second half a great deal.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about a 70s northeastern liberal artsy professor who decides to spend a bunch of time in Jamaica trying to "study" the Maroon people... but in the end is just estranging himself from his family and upper class white American culture, and wants to be seen by Black Jamaicans as "one of them". Banks acknowledges the lameness of the professor's efforts a little bit- but not as much as he validates them.

I was disappointed by this book. It definitely gave some good insight into Jamaican life, which is why I wanted to read it... but in Rule of the Bone, Banks was able to provide just as much insight with a really engaging story. This story got better as the book went on, but it felt sort of detached the whole time- I wasn't involved emotionally with any of the characters or anything that was happening, and I think it's because Banks wasn't either.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have given up on this if not for Wendy's recommendation, and found it well worth reading. Seemed disjointed and out of synch but that corresponds with the protagonists frame of mind and probably also meshed with "Johnny's" increasing obsession with the Maroons, not to mention the rum imbibed and ganja injested. Serendipitously I followed this read immediately with Russell Banks Rule of the Bone which is partially set in Jamaica.

[Martina · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is much that is good about this book from the subject matter to the prose and its brave effort to interrogate colonialism and race. The problem is that it doesn't fulfill its contract with the reader. The opening pages promise a murder mystery and hint towards a psychological thriller that never materializes.

[Ryan Lincoln · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mildly interesting story about an american academic whose "research" in Jamaica becomes something of an obsession. Filled with some unique characters and often made me want to get back to Jamaica as soon as possible.

[Maureen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Russell banks has written some of my very favorite books, Rule of the Bone, Affliction, and the Sweet Hereafter. I gave up on this one 132 pages in. Just didn't grab me and was completely bored by it. If it had been my first read by Banks it would have been the last

[Kam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Russell Banks and I was interested in reading about Jamaica and the Maroons, slaves who rebelled and live free in the mountains. The Caribbean islands have a mystic about them complete with Rastas and rich white people. This book is about you and who you really are.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the rich historical background hi brings to his stories

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

His best I think.

[Liam McNamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoying this book thus far, also recommended my Russel Banks was "Rule of the Bone"

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Some parts were so spot on, I'd have to guess it was more non fiction than fiction.

[Anne]

loved it

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow Burn, Compelling, Different, Insightful, Sad, Pessimistic