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kaleidoscopictears's review
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.75
siria's review against another edition
3.0
Hand Me Down World is the tale of a migrant from sub-Saharan Africa who leaves her job as a hotel maid in Tunisia to go to Berlin in search of the son who had been taken from her. The novel is told from a variety of different perspectives, the people whom Ines—the migrant—meets as she slogs from Sicily up over the Alps and towards Berlin. In some places their stories align; in others they disagree, as one might expect given the vagaries of individual memories and perspectives, the desire for self-preservation. The voices are largely distinct; Jones does a pretty good job of establishing these briefly-encountered people, although some chapters were a little too gimmicky for me (I'm thinking particularly of the elderly woman who collects snail shells).
As a study of identity and of how migrants—particularly non-white migrants—are treated in the West, I think that Hand Me Down World is largely successful. Yet some of Jones' techniques are, I think, problematic. I understand, from a literary point of view, what Jones was trying to do by never telling us Ines' real name or where she was originally from. Yet given the long history of white Western authors using characters of colour as nameless proxies to discuss issues relevant to them, it made me uneasy to finish the book still without a firm sense of who the protagonist was a as a person.
As a study of identity and of how migrants—particularly non-white migrants—are treated in the West, I think that Hand Me Down World is largely successful. Yet some of Jones' techniques are, I think, problematic. I understand, from a literary point of view, what Jones was trying to do by never telling us Ines' real name or where she was originally from. Yet given the long history of white Western authors using characters of colour as nameless proxies to discuss issues relevant to them, it made me uneasy to finish the book still without a firm sense of who the protagonist was a as a person.
bzzzzzz's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
There was a wonderful variety of characters in this book—diverse in the best sense: a snail collector, a blind old man, a New Zealander—all sorts of people. I also thought the style of writing was clever. But there was too much Inappropriate Content™, it damaged my brain a bit, which is extremely unfortunate. The discrepancies in different accounts of the same events were very good, I liked that.
mandi_m's review against another edition
Customer review from Jo...
A young black African woman works as a maid in a hotel in Tunisia. She meets Jermayne, one of the guests, also black. He teaches her to swim and makes her pregnant. He returns to the hotel for the birth of the child, together with his wife, and they both disappear with the baby.
The young woman’s search for her son is told through the words of various people she meets on the way – her supervisor at the hotel, an inspector (of what?), a truck driver who gives her a lift and forces her to perform oral sex, a snail collector, a group of alpine guides. She spends time in the sea, is washed up on a beach in southern Europe, is befriended by a woman who finds her hiding under an upturned boat, and we learn she is an illegal immigrant.
In Berlin she finds a job looking after a blind man. We never know her real name but she calls herself Ines, after the woman she stayed with. She moves through the low life of Berlin, among the homeless and illegal. She makes a friend called Bernard and they spend time at the zoo as well as caring for her blind employer. She steals objects to sell for money.
All the time she is searching for her child but we see it only through the eyes of others who observe her movements. She finally meets Jermayne again and the child, who is now three. There’s much more, detailed scenes of events and people who seem just accessories to the story. Ines remains in the background, remote, unemotional, non-disclosing, and I found it difficult to be interested in her or her fate.
Ultimately, she gets together with Jermayne’s wife and discovers the true extent of the deception that robbed her of her child. The ending is sudden. I found the book disturbing, unsatisfactory, so many changes of narrator – yet absorbing at times. Perhaps a close re-read would reveal a more coherent picture.
A young black African woman works as a maid in a hotel in Tunisia. She meets Jermayne, one of the guests, also black. He teaches her to swim and makes her pregnant. He returns to the hotel for the birth of the child, together with his wife, and they both disappear with the baby.
The young woman’s search for her son is told through the words of various people she meets on the way – her supervisor at the hotel, an inspector (of what?), a truck driver who gives her a lift and forces her to perform oral sex, a snail collector, a group of alpine guides. She spends time in the sea, is washed up on a beach in southern Europe, is befriended by a woman who finds her hiding under an upturned boat, and we learn she is an illegal immigrant.
In Berlin she finds a job looking after a blind man. We never know her real name but she calls herself Ines, after the woman she stayed with. She moves through the low life of Berlin, among the homeless and illegal. She makes a friend called Bernard and they spend time at the zoo as well as caring for her blind employer. She steals objects to sell for money.
All the time she is searching for her child but we see it only through the eyes of others who observe her movements. She finally meets Jermayne again and the child, who is now three. There’s much more, detailed scenes of events and people who seem just accessories to the story. Ines remains in the background, remote, unemotional, non-disclosing, and I found it difficult to be interested in her or her fate.
Ultimately, she gets together with Jermayne’s wife and discovers the true extent of the deception that robbed her of her child. The ending is sudden. I found the book disturbing, unsatisfactory, so many changes of narrator – yet absorbing at times. Perhaps a close re-read would reveal a more coherent picture.
franblog1's review
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
nuluala's review against another edition
4.0
A uniquely written novel which cleverly and slowly expands the reader's understanding of the events leading up to the narrators' experience. Took me a while to get into but got hooked about halfway through!
evamadera1's review against another edition
3.0
I had high hopes for this book when I started. The writing intrigued me and I felt compelled to figure the story out. Unfortunately Lloyd Jones included some absolutely disgusting images which not only did I not want to see (his words create vivid mental pictures) but also seemed so wrong written in his beautiful writing style. They just weren't needed and I can't help but rate a book lower if the author chooses to include things like that. Other than that I would have thoroughly enjoyed the book. Unfortunately this is not a book that I can recommend.
katheastman's review against another edition
4.0
Hand Me Down World covers the story of one woman's journey from Africa across Europe and then follows her life as an illegal immigrant in Berlin. What is unusual about it is that it isn't told from her perspective until near the end of the book. Lloyd Jones uses different points of view to give you a picture of the woman and her journey by telling the story through the people she knows or meets along the way. This device undoubtedly puts the unreliable narrator centre-stage, while also creating distance between the shadowy figure of the central character. It's a disarming technique and, at times, incredibly frustrating but I did feel that it gave a real sense of how illegal aliens live on the fringes of society and how they are, to many people, shadowy figures or ghosts that are barely noticed in day-to-day life.
I read this book as part of a pre-publication book group run on Twitter (#HMDWchat) by the Guardian newspaper. (I could easily have missed out on reading this otherwise, which would have been a real shame.) It was interesting to take part in discussions about a book for which there were no reviews or hype surrounding it to affect how we viewed the book prior to or even while reading it. That so rarely happens these days. As part of the discussions, we were also able to put questions to the book cover designer and the author himself, both of which were illuminating. Even if I hadn't read it in this context, I still would have found it a fascinating read and I believe it's given me an incredible insight into the journey from one continent to another of an illegal immigrant, as well as their struggle to survive once here in Europe.
I read this book as part of a pre-publication book group run on Twitter (#HMDWchat) by the Guardian newspaper. (I could easily have missed out on reading this otherwise, which would have been a real shame.) It was interesting to take part in discussions about a book for which there were no reviews or hype surrounding it to affect how we viewed the book prior to or even while reading it. That so rarely happens these days. As part of the discussions, we were also able to put questions to the book cover designer and the author himself, both of which were illuminating. Even if I hadn't read it in this context, I still would have found it a fascinating read and I believe it's given me an incredible insight into the journey from one continent to another of an illegal immigrant, as well as their struggle to survive once here in Europe.
janerel's review against another edition
5.0
Wow - loved it! A very different type of novel but it worked really well. The first and second parts of the book has each chapter written from the eyes of someone who is influencing the life of the main character at that time. It was a bit disconcerting at first but I soon got into the swing of it and it was a great way of depicting her journey and how others viewed what was happening. The third part of the book was set in one place and written from the view of one character and the fourth part from the main character herself. The final part rounded the story off nicely and gave the main character's side of the story to earlier chapters. Great storytelling :)