Book #5: Mr. Potter - Jamaica Kincaid
"In this luminous, bewitching new novel, Jamaica Kincaid tells the story of an ordinary man, his century, and his home. The island of Antigua comes vibrantly to life under the gaze of Mr. Potter, an illiterate taxi chauffeur who makes his living driving a navy blue Hillman along the wide open roads that pass the only towns he's ever seen and the graveyard where he will be buried. The sun shines squarely overhead, the ocean lies on every side, and suppressed passion fills the air.
Kincaid conjures up a moving picture of Mr. Potter's youth - beginning with memories of his father, a poor fisherman, and his mother, who committed suicide - and the outside world, that presses in on his life. Within these confines, Mr. Potter struggles to live at ease: to buy his own car, to have girlfriends, to shake off the encumbrance of his many daughters, one of whom will return to Antigua after he dies, to tell his story with equal measures distance and sympathy."
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It took me a while to get into this book. I had trouble with the ebb and flow of the writing. Kincaid's writing is almost more poetry than prose, and the sentence structure definitely takes some time and focused attention at first. But this is one of the reasons I wanted to take this literary journey - I wanted to challenge myself to read beyond the bounds of books I would normally select. And when I encounter writing styles that give me pause, I want to stop and ask myself why. Is that me? My expectations? My white American ideas of writing norms? This book made me take that step back. And once I did, and I got over myself a bit, I enjoyed the journey.
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