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kelsea's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery and Racism
Moderate: Sexual violence, Misogyny, and Violence
bessadams's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Sexism, Slavery, and Racism
Moderate: Child death, Violence, and Death of parent
kirstym25's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Rape
Moderate: Violence, Racial slurs, and Classism
introvertsbookclub's review
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Trying to summarise this novel feels impossible because it is so rich and full. I don’t tend to reach for historical fiction but this was worth the exception. Only Zadie Smith could write a novel with so many interlocking characters and storylines and not only maintain interest and intrigue throughout, but also deliver a tidy and satisfying ending.
Smith’s character studies and the perspectives she writes from are always my favourite part of her novels, especially this one in which she favoured forgotten figures over the big names of the day. Her portrayals are nuanced and humorous, and she always seems to be winking to the audience at the expense of her characters. She revels in small details and contradictions, like her protagonist Mrs Touchet being a vocal abolitionist but hesitating to take a Black man’s hand, in a way that leads to bigger discussions about the society and period in which she is writing.
It is difficult to imagine how the experiences of enslaved people on a Jamaican plantation and the society that they creatr for themselves, and a literary circle of shoulder-rubbing and back-stabbing men, including Charles Dickens, could occupy the same novel. But Smith explores how colonial occupation of places like Jamaica is funding British society but keeing the poor out of work, and how debates in Britain over freedom, worker rights and land ownership, are shaping the lives of enslaved people around the world who are given no say in their own futures even after the abolition of slavery. The case of Mr Tichbourne, a man accused of falsifying his identity in order to claim a large inheritance, with the support of Mr Bogle, a former page to the family born on a Jamaican plantation, unites the novel’s various threads – the rights of men and women (black and white, enslaved and free), the tensions between the working and upper classes, colonial profiteering in the aftermath of slavery, the necessity of protective laws in place of individual morals and religious leanings, and the question over which stories get to be told and who gets to tell them.
There are so many elements to this novel, and even more ways in which they are influencing one another. It is a triumph, an all-consuming read that keeps you asking questions beyond the final page.
Smith’s character studies and the perspectives she writes from are always my favourite part of her novels, especially this one in which she favoured forgotten figures over the big names of the day. Her portrayals are nuanced and humorous, and she always seems to be winking to the audience at the expense of her characters. She revels in small details and contradictions, like her protagonist Mrs Touchet being a vocal abolitionist but hesitating to take a Black man’s hand, in a way that leads to bigger discussions about the society and period in which she is writing.
It is difficult to imagine how the experiences of enslaved people on a Jamaican plantation and the society that they creatr for themselves, and a literary circle of shoulder-rubbing and back-stabbing men, including Charles Dickens, could occupy the same novel. But Smith explores how colonial occupation of places like Jamaica is funding British society but keeing the poor out of work, and how debates in Britain over freedom, worker rights and land ownership, are shaping the lives of enslaved people around the world who are given no say in their own futures even after the abolition of slavery. The case of Mr Tichbourne, a man accused of falsifying his identity in order to claim a large inheritance, with the support of Mr Bogle, a former page to the family born on a Jamaican plantation, unites the novel’s various threads – the rights of men and women (black and white, enslaved and free), the tensions between the working and upper classes, colonial profiteering in the aftermath of slavery, the necessity of protective laws in place of individual morals and religious leanings, and the question over which stories get to be told and who gets to tell them.
There are so many elements to this novel, and even more ways in which they are influencing one another. It is a triumph, an all-consuming read that keeps you asking questions beyond the final page.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, and Violence
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