
A Small Place
Jamaica Kincaid
1988
81 pages
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FTC disclosure: I bought this one from Powells. I lurve Powells. Except maybe you could talk to them about their slow shipping? It’s agony waiting for an order!
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The Antigua that I knew, the Antigua in which I grew up, is not the Antigua you, a tourist, would see now. That Antigua no longer exists. That Antigua no longer exists partly for the usual reason, the passing of time, and partly because the bad-minded people who used to rule over it, the English, no longer do so. p. 23
I’m not quite sure what to make of this book, which is a collection of essays about the post-colonial state of Antigua. Kincaid is angry, rightly so, but she also seems to take it a little far, stereotyping all English as “bad-minded” and “pitiful” and “miserable.” She is also critical of the post-colonial Antiguan government, with its inefficiency and corruptness.
There’s an interesting Mother Jones interview with Kincaid, in which she talks about how she seeks the truth over positivity. She says “I think life is difficult and that is that” and that she is not interested in the pursuit of happiness. Which I find incredibly depressing. But then at the end of the article she admits to being very lucky, so now I don’t know how to reconcile that with all the anger and negativity in both her book and the interview. And with the fact that she was sent to New York to be an au pair and send money back home, but once in New York she cut off ties with her family, didn’t send money home, and pursued her own life. Which is totally her right, but also sounds a bit like the pursuit of happiness to me.
Anyways, I’m not saying that we should all keep our head in the sand and ignore the bad things. I don’t think that at all. And I know that not everyone has the luxury to pursue happiness. But I just get the impression she completely poo-poo’s it, along with American attitudes, and I just can’t go that far. Either that, or she’s just feeding us a line. What do you think?























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