Small Island

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Critics

• 'Small Island' by Andrea Levy

  Small Island is one of those books that has been sitting in my reading queue for two or three years. I was prompted to dig it out when Simon wrote a rather glowing review of it. The deal was cemented when several more of you chipped in on this post a ... (read full critics)

  readingmatters published on Tue, 28 Sep 2010

• Roots manoeuvre

  Small Island by Andrea Levy 448pp, Review, £14.99 Andrea Levy's narrative switches between four protagonists. The first, Queenie, is Gilbert's white landlady; they met during wartime when he came over as an RAF recruit. Returning on the SS Empire Win ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

6 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  I've loved this book!
  The characters are so polyedric and dynamic, the story is interesting and nice to follow, the writing is intriguing and clear.
  Most of all I loved the fact that all my first impressions about the protagonists were wrong. Everyone is presented under a light that slowly ... (continue)

  I've loved this book!
  The characters are so polyedric and dynamic, the story is interesting and nice to follow, the writing is intriguing and clear.
  Most of all I loved the fact that all my first impressions about the protagonists were wrong. Everyone is presented under a light that slowly shift and illuminate different part of the same person.
  Beautiful.

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  Alice said on Feb 4, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  London - 1948

  The plot is interesting but the book didn't get me at all...

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  Mati said on Mar 16, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  I have already read some really enjoyable books this year and this one rates very highly amongst them. A well written novel about War, Love, Prejudice and the British Empire. In all innoncence I had no idea that racial prejudice ran so high in the UK during and just after the Second World War.
  ... (continue)

  I have already read some really enjoyable books this year and this one rates very highly amongst them. A well written novel about War, Love, Prejudice and the British Empire. In all innoncence I had no idea that racial prejudice ran so high in the UK during and just after the Second World War.
  Synopsis:Amazon.co.uk
  It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.

  Highly recommended,an easy read that is difficult to put down.

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  Lindyloumac said on Oct 26, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Last summer I read "Every Light in the House Burnin'", Levy’s first novel, but I was a bit disappointed. Despite the interesting setting, London in the 1960s from the point of view of a young girl of Jamaican origins, there was something missing. The remarks on the racial relations between the Jacob ... (continue)

  Last summer I read "Every Light in the House Burnin'", Levy’s first novel, but I was a bit disappointed. Despite the interesting setting, London in the 1960s from the point of view of a young girl of Jamaican origins, there was something missing. The remarks on the racial relations between the Jacobs and a predominantly white society were not explored enough and sometimes I found the story a bit dull. However, I decided to read Small Island, Levy’s most recent novel to date, because it is supposed to be her best (it won the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Whitbread Prize and the Orange of Oranges) and I must say that this time I was not disappointed.
  The novel is told in four voices: Gilbert’s and his wife Hortense’s, who travel from Jamaica to England just after the Second World War, and then from the point of view of an English couple, Queenie and Bernard. Andrea Levy said: "None of my books is just about race, they're about people and history". As a matter of fact, there is a lot of history in the book: for example the involvement of Jamaican people in the Second World War and in the Royal Air Force and their relations with American soldiers, their racism and their reactios to black British soldiers (America still had the so-called Jim Crow laws). There is also much about people in the novel: Levy writes about the displacement of English soldiers in remote areas of Asia and the experiences and impressions of the first Jamaican immigrants just after the war, together with the climate of austerity and poorness that England was experiencing at the time.
  There is some irony and funny moments in Small Island, a thing that reminds me of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000), one of my favourite novels. There is a profile of Andrea Levy in the book section of The Guardian (here) and one of the questions that arises is why Andrea Levy didn’t have the same success as Zadie Smith with her novels about black people in London, at least until Small Island came. I think that the answer is the humour: Andrea Levy can use some humour (Hortense’s nickname, “Miss mucky foot”, or Gilbert’s failed “bee business” are some fine examples), a thing that is always appreciated.
  One thing that shocked me in the novel are the differences between the Jamaican couple and the Londoners. There is no doubt that Jamaica was settled at the time: Hortense truly believes that she is British and wants to be considered as such. She is and educated young lady and her skin is light, something that she thought English people would immediately notice. She is shocked by the fact that English people can be poor, ugly and dark-skinned as well. She expected to live in a fine house with a back garden, instead she finds a city almost completely destroyed by bombs, a country impoverished by the war, where she must adapt to live in a cold, badly-furnished room with just a small sink and a toilet at the bottom of the stairs.

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  Stefania Memole said on Aug 28, 2009 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  The story of two Jamaican immigrants in London and the woman who takes them in as lodgers. Told from the point of view of different characters, this is evocative, witty and moving.

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  Andy Neads said on Jan 28, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  This is a Whitbread Book of last year. It deals with the very difficult subject of racism and handles it with flair.

  Recommended.

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  Tracy W said on Apr 11, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• eBook 422 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0755359712
• ISBN-13: 9780755359714
• Publisher: Headline
• Pub date: Apr 30, 2009
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

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