Tournament of Books discussion
This topic is about
An Island
2023 TOB General
>
An Island
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Bretnie
(new)
-
rated it 3 stars
Dec 18, 2022 07:38PM
Space to discuss the play-in contender, An Island by Karen Jennings.
reply
|
flag
I didn't like this book much. I look forward to reading comments from readers who liked this book so I can learn what I missed. I finished this a few weeks ago and already I'm forgetting details. Things I remembered:
I LOVED the cover art. It's mesmerizing, mysterious, eye-catching, gorgeous - it was the best thing about this book.
The framing device of a guy washing up on shore was not at all important the story and I was annoyed by that because I expected that to be important. All we need is for Samuel to be an old guy living somewhere isolated so that he spends all his time in his memories. We don't need a mysterious stranger who does not speak the language.
I was excessively distracted by trying to guess where this was really set (and where the mysterious guy with the "guttural language" was from). Why didn't Jennings just pick a real place? I thought that weakened this book, it made all the described atrocities imaginary, since the place is imaginary. I think she was trying to show that this could happen anywhere in Africa, but that didn't work for me.
I'm guessing the point was to show us how miserable Samuel's life was, but the result was that this was a miserable book that I did not enjoy.
I think this book is a fascinating depiction of the isolation one experiences in prison and how jarring and overwhelming the city is when he can’t find a way back into society. And then she writes so well of the paranoia that one develops when isolated and having no one to confide in or to give you a reality check. This novel still haunts me…
Nadine in NY wrote: "I didn't like this book much. I look forward to reading comments from readers who liked this book so I can learn what I missed..."First, I'll second the appreciation of the cover. I think it is the best in the tournament. And yet it didn't make either of the "best covers of 2022" that I stumbled across.
As for the castaway - I really think that's what makes the difference for this book. That is, if the castaway plot didn't resonate, then I agree, the book probably won't either.
The castaway plot: a refugee comes ashore near dead, the host feels the normal human sympathy, but doesn't understand the refugee and worries about what risks he might bring - either as himself or from the forces driving him to flee. The uncertainty of their communication and our host's fears about his motives (and a little bit his fears of having to share his home) lead to an act of violence. When we see it play out on the level of two individuals, it seems both awful and tragic.
But that plot directly echoes the plot in the lighthouse keeper's past - with refugees coming to his country and first being tolerated, and then welcomed as they begin to contribute, and then destroyed out of an unwarranted paranoia about what they are taking away from the native peoples.
The parallels between the large past events and the small current events of the story allow us to take a tired story of unwanted refugees and enable us to see it with new eyes. Putting both those plots together shows us how external forces drive weak but not intrinsically bad people into these terrible acts.
Tim wrote: "But that plot directly echoes the plot in the lighthouse keeper's past - with refugees coming to his country and first being tolerated, and then welcomed as they begin to contribute, and then destroyed out of an unwarranted paranoia about what they are taking away from the native peoples."I did not put this together at all but I think its such a excellent observation. Thanks for shifting my perspective on it a bit.
Tim, I really appreciate you spelling this out in this way! It made me appreciate the book more since I struggled with the book - mainly it was just a sad read with characters that were always struggling. But looking at it from this perspective makes me respect what it was doing much more.
I loved this novel and it broke my heart, for all of the reasons Tim mentions. I can't say it any better than he did.I also think this book is an interesting compare & contrast with 2 a.m. in Little America.
I also enjoyed this little fable. I thought there was an interesting tension between the experience of being a political prisoner for decades compared to the self-imposed exile on the island.
Tim wrote: "But that plot directly echoes the plot in the lighthouse keeper's past - with refugees coming to his country and first being tolerated, and then welcomed as they begin to contribute, and then destroyed out of an unwarranted paranoia about what they are taking away from the native peoples."You can extend it out to the European colonizers driving the native peoples - including Samuel's family - off their land, and also down to the level of Samuel's chickens always attacking and trying to drive off his poor red hen. Is it just in the natural order of things to be in opposition, often violently, to what we identify as the Other, even if it is not harming us? Including that chickens subplot makes me suspicious she's taking a pretty bleak view of reality.
Lee wrote: "Tim wrote: "But that plot directly echoes the plot in the lighthouse keeper's past - with refugees coming to his country and first being tolerated, and then welcomed as they begin to contribute, an..."Wow I didn't even see the parallel with the chickens.
Lee wrote: "Tim wrote: "But that plot directly echoes the plot in the lighthouse keeper's past - with refugees coming to his country and first being tolerated, and then welcomed as they begin to contribute, an..."Oh, yes. Bleak!
The ending is heartbreaking.
This was by far my favorite of the play-in books. Samuel’s loneliness warred with his paranoia. Prison can do that to people.
I really liked it. I liked the writing, and I was really impressed by the author's way of portraying the aftermath of colonialism followed by despotism. Mostly, I deeply appreciated it as a portrait of someone clearly suffering from PTSD, with no psychobabble or triteness. Tim, your observations are spot on and they also add to my admiration for this author and her structuring of this book.
I appreciated reading these comments. Unfortunately for me, this is another book in a row that I did not care for. I understood the allegory of a post colonial African country and that the island was a symbol for something else but all of this still didn’t make me like or enjoy the story more. I wish there was one character in it that I could have felt more for. Actually I liked the men that came in the delivery boat. The best I could feel was that I did not dislike it too much.
This was my favorite of the play in round, although mostly because I didn’t like the other two at all. I gave the four stars for reasons other folks have already explained better than I could. I love the chicken as both a symbol and a catalyst for they way things ended.
I liked this one and gave it four stars. My Volcano was a two star read for me. I’m about to start 2am in Little America, but I expect I’ll like An Island best out of the play-in round. For me, the way the narrative flows so seamlessly backwards and forwards in time is one of the loveliest aspects of this novel. I think the style mirors what actually happens inside a human brain as it goes about the daily exercise of living-Focusing on details in the present and then slipping into scenes from the past and then back to the present. This was well done here, in my opinion.
