Haiti

I am just sad for Haiti and Tuesday's earthquake. At the same time, the international response is just life affirming. There is plenty of good in the world.

Any Known Blood

This 1997 novel by Lawrence Hill absorbed my full attention until I had read the 5o5 pages. After that I read the two page acknowledments that Hill makes at the back - usually these are a few words to the front of the novel, then I turned to the front again, reread the blurb, read the endorsments made by critics, and looked to see if there was anything else to read. I read every word, including that the cover art is a detail from The Kiss, 1887 (oil canvas), by Theodore Jacques Ralli, courtesy of Getty Images. I found the novel quite a pleasure to read, you can tell.

The story centers around Langston Cane the Fifth who was born of a black father and a white mother, who is a little bit lost and who seeks to find his way by exploring the lives of the four Canes before him. What he finds isn't all glorious, but all sheds light on who he is and helps him to make peace with his father as well as himself, helps him find direction for his life, and in the process brings an estranged brother and sister together. That might sound pretty ordinary, but don't worry, the stories that achieve this are not. Hill takes you to the trenches of France in the second World War, you go to the underground railroad, to an encounter with the Klan, to a village in Mali. It's not all harrowing mind you; there are a few erotic scenes, plenty of humour, and lots of lively, interesting dialogue.

I like something that Mill says to Langston; "[forty] is young enough if you know where you're going". I am pushing forty myself and often feel pressed for time, but I do find that when I have a clear map and a time line in front of me, I feel a lot younger. Lots of other stuff resonated with me, like Langston calls himself a wretched athiest. I'm not an athiest, but I was wretched when I went along with christianityand I am just as wretched now that I have rejected most of it, and have no likelihood of ever becoming a Moslem, Hindu or Sikh.

Apparently, Any Known Blood takes its title from a phrase that would be known to most Americans and Canadians, but not to a West Indian of average education such as myself. But I am familiar with the idea that the slightest trace of black blood, no matter how far back it goes, makes any blonde-haired, blue-eyed person black. Aside from being entertaining, this novel is also obviously educational. For instance, it enabled me to attach greater significance to the name John Brown, which hitherto, had meant the same as John Doe to me. Actually, John Brown is to the United States what Cudjoe and Tacky are to Jamaica in the sense that the violent uprisings they led did not deal a final blow, but they helped paved the way to the abolition of slavery.

I have to mention something about the structure of the novel. It is layered so that the five Canes all get their stories told, this causes the novel to span 150 years. The story is not told chronologically; it shifts backward to one of the Langston Canes, then forward to the last who is the narrator, then backward again. Cane the Fifth tells the story Nathan Zuckerman style; he is a fictitious character writing the story of some other fictitious characters. The story is also told with the aid of letters and various documents like Y0-yo's opinion pieces and the record of a court proceeding. All of this shifting about, far from being confusing, helps to connect me to the fifth Langston, becuase he is in effect looking toward himself from several different perspectives.

Another fantastic read.

Ole Ya

Apprenticeships aren't very common in Jamaica any more, or maybe they are under a different name or in a different form. But it used to be routine that a young person could go "learn a trade"- and this meant working as an apprentice to a tailor or mechanic or so. Case in point, Marcus Garvey left his home in St. Ann and went to work as an apprentice for a printer in Kingston. Nowadays you learn a trade in high school or at a post secondary vocational institution, most often something under the umbrella of HEART Trust/NTA.

Well, back in the day, some unscruplous persons would take an apprentice under their wings, with the sole purpose of extracting as much cheap labour from them as possible. The way to drag out the training period was to teach the poor apprentices little or nothing, so what they would do was just have them do tasks that required no skill at all, like hand me this tool, or deliver that package, or hold this thing. Yes, "Hold this" is standard English for ole ya.

Over time, "ole ya" became rich with meaning. For instance a person who spent ages as an apprentice but never actually acquired mastery of the trade got called Ole Ya. If someone underestimated your ability by constantly assigning you tasks that did not require much intelligence, you might begin to think they were taking you for Ole Ya.

I'm laughing but it's not funny. Lots of talented people never really scale any great heights, and end up as Ole Ya for years and years and years, sometimes a whole lifetime. The reasons must be complex and depend on all sorts of situations, but still take a shot at it and tell me why.

Exit Ghost

I have to tell you I am a little lost where the subject matter is concerned in this novel,but I read the whole thing through because I so like his style of writing, and there is so much to be learnt about the craft by reading someone so accomplished as Philip Roth.

The novel is somewhat about facing death, it's about stuff we fear and stuff we desire, but it is largely concerned about writing about these things. It's about the purpose of writing, why people, no, why great writers write (and why the not so great shouldn't write), what value their writng has for mankind. There is also a huge concern that the rest of us, the ones who read,often don't get it, and those who don't read at all are just as much to be pitied, in Jamaica we hiss our teeth at such condescension and say "what a piece o fassness". The large issues are out there to see, as plainly as I just outlined them, but the nuances are a little finer and a little harder to put one's fingers on. For instance, do writers write about themselves? To what extent? For example, did Nathaniel Hawthorne write about his own guilt? Well, I might as well ask, does Philip Roth write about his own erotic thoughts in his old age? Perhaps I ask because I don't get it?

So on to what I really enjoyed about this novel. In the first place the narrator is Nathan Zuckerman. I met and fell in love with Zuckerman from "The Human Stain" and now I am sworn to reading all in the Zuckerman books, in whichever order I get them. Zuckerman is an old recluse whose cancer is in remission (or has been removed or whatever) and who is at the mercy of incontinence and impotence. From his New England hideaway he authors several best sellers and maintains his very private existence inspite of being world renowned. I find the construct very appealing- Roth is writing the novel, but he does it in such a way that Zuckerman comes alive and seems to be the real writer. I also like Zuckerman's unrelenting frankness about his own physical, psychological and emotional condition. To me Zuckerman is more real than Roth.

"Exit Ghost" is apparently the last of the Zuckerman books, as is suggested by the title; "Ghost" being Zuckerman the ghost writer, and Zuckerman's mental faculties being as deteriorated as it is in this novel. He can't remember what restuarant he told Amy to meet him at. He can't remember what he did or did not say to Kliman. He gets bouts of confusion. Also, since "The Ghost Writer is the first of the Zuckerman books, it stands to reason that "Exit Ghost" most be the last.

But did you notice my triplet? Zuckerman, I mean Roth, brought the technique to my attention. I've seen it many times before and have probably used the technique myself, but not consciously. He mentions Joseph Conrad's copious use of triplets and he uses them generously himself. Look at this:

Who among your contemporaries will be the last to die? Who among your contemporaries is least likely to die? Who among your contemporaries will not only elude death, but will write with wit, precision, and modesty of his amused bafflement at successfully pulling off eternal life?

Wit, precision and modesty- look, a triplet of nouns within a triplet of questions.

Something else he does in this novel held me reading to the end. See the title Exit Ghost? Well within the novel Zuckerman writes a play in which he enacts his fantasy about the alluring Jamie. Zuckerman makes his exit from the play within the novel, from the novel itself, from novel writing, and probably from life. Sophistication itself.

On the flap of the cover it says that Roth won the Pullitzer Prize in 1997 for American Pastoral (not one of the Zuckerman books) and that just about every other year after that he's one prestigious award or other. I admire his craft and had a good laugh once in the novel- like I did while I read Human Stain, but I will read only his novels between some comics, children's books and mysteries.

Pride and Prejudice

They made me read Great Expectations and Silas Marner. I tried on my own to read Anna Karenina (and failed after 50 or so pages). I read The Great Gatsby one day when I had run out of what to read (turned out to be loads of fun though). But there was no drudgery at all to reading Pride and Prejudice. In my book, this is by far the easiest classic to read. And the funniest! You are bound to love Jane Austen's wit in Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennett's sardonicism is chuckle-inducing, Mrs. Bennett's dunceness could only be captured by a playful mind, and Lizzy's sassiness is not only entertaining, its inspiring, even now when women are all liberated and what not. Aside from the cleverness of it, the novel also has value as a sort of history, and a commentary on family life at the time (and not everything has changed since then!).



I read the novel after seeing the movie starring Kara Knightly and Matthew McFadyen. Judi Dench adds her usual vigor, as Lady Catherine de Bourgh.



I enjoyed the movie so much I had to read the novel; because I know how unfaithful Hollywood can be, I had to go read for myself. They didn't do badly this time. Except, I'm befuddled as to how they came to depict Mr. Collins as being ridiculously short, when Jane Austen clearly said he was tall and heavy. In the novel, the fantastic passion between Darcy and Lizzy is expressed only through the spoken word, which makes it even sexier, if you ask me. But you know Hollywood, sexual tension is expressed through, well... sex, so they exaggerated just a little, but the thing is, if decorum had allowed it back then, Austen might have served up a raunchy scene, so Hollywood taking a little liberty here or there, is not being unfaithful to the essence of the novel.

The long and short of this post is; Pride and Prejudice makes a fantastic read.

Three Songs for Courage

Well I have to tell you, I chuckled a whole lot while reading this. Maxine Trottier has a penchant for creating humour with the use of exaggeration and original metaphors. The narrative flows quite easily and is a pleasure to read. There's plenty of oogy stuff inside there so if you are even slightly anal rententive, don't read. Yup, this is the oftenest I've seen the words 'fart' and 'snot' in print. But for me, all the grosseroo is an authentic part of of the story and doesn't subtract from the value of the novel.

On the matter of authentic, I think Trottier does a convincing job of rendering a male protagonist. Intriguing stuff. It didn't seem false at all. But I had to wonder how did she do her research? What did she do to get inside of the male experience?

Never mind that, I am wholly satisfied with the outcome of the novel, infact, it's one of the more worthwhile novels I've read in a while, and I'm not just saying that because I wept helplessly all of two times. I'm satisfied because Trottier showed that redemption comes in ways that we don't expect.

The major issue that underpins the whole novel is what happens to a person who kills another human being. If you kill someone, how do you live with that? It doesn't matter if you kill someone in war, you know, in service to your country, or if you kill someone because you are just plain evil, or if you kill someone to avenge an evil killing. In any case, how do you live with taking a human life?

In the novel, we get a sense of the answer from four characters. Two veterans of war lead years and years of dysfunctional existence. A young man commits murder and at first seeks to drown his senses with booze, but recovers soon enough to desire to kill again. Then there is our protagonist- Gordon, a good person, a good kid (and you will love the backdrop of the fifties, the rock and roll, the pampadoor, the fast cars) who is almost consumed by his desire for revenge. Any which way you take it, you leave the novel feeling that once you kill someone, you are defiled in a way that you never recover from, this is the gem that emerges from the well designed Three Songs of Courage.

I say it is well designed because of who Injun Joely turns out to be, a surprise, but quite plausible. Quite a number of details just woved themselves well throughout. Two thumbs up for an excellent plot also because Lancer had to die, we knew that, but how, without Gordon defiling himself? Right, so we get to the redemption bit.

Injun Joely is redeemed by his self-sacrificial act, it's as if he finds a release from these years of feeling guilty about the senseless killing of war. This release, ironically comes in the form of a justified killing, but living with the fact is by no means easy. Injun Joely also saves Gordon from himself. So Gordon's dad's prayer is answered, for now. His boy will grow into a fine man, cheating Chance, who would just as soon have one little incident at Kitchie's ruin a promising future.

Good for all you have read this novel already, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you haven't read it yet, there's still plenty I haven't told you, it's definitely worth the read.

By the way, doesn't the guy on the cover look somewhat like Matt Damon?

Where are You Now?

This one started off something of a drag but soon captured my attention. It's about a promising young man who disappears and soon after begins to make annual calls to his mother on mother's day. That story line by itself is intriguing. For a while I felt like Mary Higgins Clarke was taking things too wide and wasn't going to be able to tie things up, but she managed quite well. I didn't suspect the vilian till almost when she was about to reveal him, or even how the story would turn out until close to the end, but that's just me - someone from a big city like New York and with some knowledge of how the wealthy live, would have picked it up sooner.

The major questions this novel poses are how well can we know even our own? And, what do you do if you even suspect that someone in your family is a sociopath?

Yertle the Turtle and other stories

You're right, it is a title from Dr. Suess.

Yertle was king of all he could see but that was not enough, for he could only see the pond in which he lived. So he ordered nine turtles to stack themselves up so he could climb higher and see more.

But soon he found that that was still not enough so he ignored Mack's pleas (Mack is the turtle at the bottom of the stack) and ordered more and more until he had about five thousand, six hundred and seven (that rhymes with heaven, you see). But just as Yertle was beginning to enjoy the view, Mack burped and his burp toppled Yertle's throne!

And today, the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,

Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.

And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free

As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

A fantastic allegory, which is just the thing to follow Sphere, which had a lot also to do with power. The "other Stories" in the collection are just as wonderful. One titled Gertrude McFuzz who wanted two feathers like Lolla-Lee Lou, and the other titled "The Big Brag", about a rabbit who felt he was better than everyone else. Lots of fun to read, Angel Girl and the Little Gentleman enjoyed them thoroughly.

Michael Crichton's Sphere

Sphere, the 1987 thriller, by ER writer Michael Crichton, certainly lived up to Newsweek's rave that it's a page turner.

Yep, I turned page after page and gobbled the book off in a Jiffy. But when I was done I had indigestion.

The nail biting suspense, the action, the juicy science fiction - like a Stephen Hawking lecture come alive -had me telling Angel Girl and the Little Gentleman "No I can't look now" until all 371 pages had been downed.

But afterwards I hissed my teeth- like I often do after I've stayed up late watching some crappy movie and must deal with the consequence the following day when I'm sluggish getting out of bed - and said "I could beat myself". Chruups.

I'm sorry, any novel about time travel is going to end up with all sorts of issues that can never be resolved. You can never sort them out and say yeah well that makes sense, not even in the context of the world created by the writer. And if mankind ever achieves time travel, we can't credit Crichton the way we did Verne - for Crichton has the benefit of all sorts of physicists and what not saying it is possible we just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Whereas Verne concocted a spacecraft and submarine out of his own imagination; truly avant-garde.

Then a couple of things that seemed to have significance just petered out to nothing, leaving me saying "huh?". For instance there is something that keeps gradually changing appearance, and I thought, surely this must have some bearing on the outcome of the novel, Crichton will tell me in a little while why this thing is changing and show me some connection with the action taking place. Wrong, that never happened.

Then the pschological conflict gets resolved in a way that New York Times says is "exactly the way [it] should be". Sure, it's the way it should be, but it's certainly not the way it would be; come on, which human being is going to come in possession of dizzying amounts of power and voluntarily give it up for the good of humanity? And here not one, not two, but three characters say, 'Gee, it's not good that I should have such an inordinate amount of power, let me destroy it'.

So after reading this novel, I wonder if Sphere isn't riding on the popularity of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery.

Tek Kin Teet Kibba Heart Bun

Kin teet is Jamaican for laughter.


Kibba means cover.

Bun stands for burn.



When translated you get someting like 'use laughter to cover pain'.



This is by no means saying be a stoic. Not at all. We Jamaicans are open and unabashed where grief and distress are concerned. We are not ashamed to let it all out. Even on national TV. Especially on national TV.

'Tek kin teet kibba heart bun', is not a saying that intends for you to live in denial and not come head on with whatever it is that is emotionally distressing.

Instead, its just a way of saying comedy and laughter are good for soothing sorrows.

So look for comedy, create merriment, laugh nuff.

Miguel Street

"Like the great masters of the past, V.S. Naipaul tells stories which show us ourselves and the reality we live in. His use of language is as precise as it is beautiful. Simple, strong words, with which to express the humanity of all of us." David Pryce-Jones

Recently I was telling a colleague of mine that I still remember stories from Response, a collection of short stories written by such West Indian greats as Merle Hodge and Michael Anthony. That's how she came to tell me that she still remembers stories from Miguel Street, Naipaul's third work of fiction. These are books we read in grade nine, need I tell you, a long time ago. I had read stories from Miguel Street but never the whole collection, and now my curiousity was piqued.

Now reading from the perspective of an old goat who has seen and done quite a bit is somewhat different from reading as a fourteen year old on the cusp of adulthood, so Miguel Street won't be etched in my mind the way Response is.

But it is a memorable read nonetheless. It is a collection of short stories but it resembles a novel, being unified by the same narrator, same characters and the same location. So each chapter is really a biography of one or another of the flawed, stroke, ordinary people who live on Miguel Street. I say biography because although the stories are no more than ten or so pages long, and center around everyday events in the characters' lives, one still walks away with the sense of being told what drives that person's life.

I absolutely enjoyed reading the Trini dialect, and fancied that my attempt at producing the accent was authentic. The second World War as backdrop provides interesting insights into how the world scene can affect us, the little dots on the map. There is plenty from the landscape of West Indian life in general and Trinidadian life in particular, with treats from cricket, popular calypsoes at the time and much more.

"[Naipaul] just annoys me so much... I think probably the only people who'll say good things about him are Western people, right- wing people." Jamaica Kincaid

It seemed to me that most of the men in Miguel Street are dysfuntional; they beat their wives- or are beaten by their wives, or they live in some concocted version of reality, or have some sad notion of masculinity, or are puny in some way or other. Two women get a story all to themselves. One has eight children each for different men, that's the only way she could remain in control of her life, yet she regrets the path of her life for she drives her teenage daughtor who becomes pregnant to suicide (so it looks to me). The other woman runs off with a pitiful loser who beats her to a pulp before she eventually goes back to lounging on her doctor husband's lawn in her short shorts.

A condescending treatment of his own? Or the truth about people in general?

I found Miguel Street a whole lot easier to read than A House for Mr. Biswas. I never read Mimic Men but it is highly recommended by my father, so it's on my list of to read. V.S Naipaul, the author of Miguel Street and fourteen other works of fiction as well as several works of nonfiction is the 2001 Nobel laureate for literature.

Duppy know who fi frighten!

A duppy is a ghost. Sometimes we use the word to mean a stupid person, or an ugly person, but mostly we mean ghost. Duppies feature prominently in our folklore, the most famous of them being Annie Palmer the white witch of Rose Hall.



Then there is a whole legion of them that arose from the wreckage of the train crash at Kendal in 1957. My mother tells this story of one of her cousins- and part of the story is this study in genealogy, for she digresses by habit, and she loves to trace our family tree. But anyway the cousin in question was a taxi driver in Kingston in the 1950s and he told her that one day he picked up a lady and carried her to a certain upscale address. Upon arrival the lady asked him to wait while she went inside to get the fare. He waited ten minutes and Miss Lady did not return so he honked, at which time someone came out to talk to him. Well you can imagine the rest... no body had entered the house, and the description mom's cousin gave of the woman suited someone from that house who had died in Kendal crash.



My mother has lots of duppy stories up her sleeve, even now I enjoy listening to them. My favourite ones are of the pranks she played on her scaredy cat older sister when they were children. Like the time she and Aunt Pearlie were coming from Hillsborough late one moonlight night, and mom stopped under a cotton tree (a favourite hangout spot for duppies) and started screaming in terror. Aunt Pearlie grabbed on to her and nearly went mad with fright, screaming louder and more frantically than her wicked sister. Mom had to stop the nonesense when she realized that Aunt Pearlie might squeeze the life out of her.



Just so you know, man duppy and woman duppy do not laugh the same way. Man duppy laugh 'ha-ha', and woman duppy laugh 'cre keh keng keng'. So says Ernie Smith (I believe). I wanted to find you that song, but only found this one:






If you see a menacing duppy, the way to scare the daylights out of him is to hurl a slew of expletives at him, and I don't mean the mild ones like 'dyam' or 'rahtid'. You have to give him the hard core ones like 'bumbo-rass claat' and he will flee in terror. There are easier, less profane ways of scaring a duppy; like wearing your clothes on the wrong side, or wearing red underwear.



So you see, duppies aren't all powerful, they have to choose the weak and the helpless, otherwise they might find themselves spooked out of their wits. That's why in Jamaica we say "Duppy know who fi frighten".



But when we use that saying we really aren't talking about ghosts. We are talkning about bullies or anyone who would exploit others if given the chance, such as in the case of a supervisor intimidating an employee who doesn't know his rights, an onlooker might say "duppy really know who if frighten, eenh?"

Pitcherie Inna Hawk Back

That's the best I could do with the spelling of pitcherie. I'm told that it's called the kingfisher in other places. It's a small bird that looks almost exactly like the mocking bird (which I'm told is the same as the nightingale) except it has a longer beak and a devilish look (I swear) about the eye, and some spiky feathers on the back of his head that makes him look like a gangster. We have plenty of both up here, much to my neighbour's displeasure. My neighbour is not a bird hater, but he's a bee-keeper. And bee-keepers and pitcheries are natural enemies because pitcheries eat the bees you see. Nightingales on the other hand only sing their hearts out for you. It's a true thing I'm telling you, Harper Lee didn't make it up. They echo the melody of other birds with their own little embellishments; it's the sweetest sound to wake up to. We mostly hear them in the spring time here.

But I'm telling you about the pitcherie. That is a tallawah bird, boy. I've seen them attack hawks. There will be this huge commotion in the azure world and when you come out to see what's going on, lo and behold this pitcherie will be wreaking havoc on a hawk, a bird two or three times its own size. A bird that country people hide their chickens from, for hawks enjoy a good chicken meal as you might well know. It is such an awe-inspiring thing to see the pitcherie out manuevering the hawk and sinking his formidable beak into the back of shrieking, tormented bird that someone made a proverb out of it.

Whenever a smaller, seemingly weaker person dominates another, or whenever someone pesters another person to distraction, in Jamaica we say to that person, "you come in (you're like) a pitcherie inna hawk back".


Tallawah: "sturdy, strong, not to be underestimated; tough, stubborn." Dictionary of Jamaican English; second edition edited by F. G. Cassidy and R. B. LePage; Cambridge University Press 1967, 1980; page 436.

When Plantain Want Dead him Shoot

I'll have to hazard a guess as to what this well known Jamaican proverb means. Shoot means to put out fruit. Plantain is a cousin to bananas, it can be fried, boiled, roasted or used as a filling in pastry - not usually a pie, more likely plantain tart. It is sweet when ripe and has a mellow flavour. When green it is starchy and bland and the flavour is usually enhanced with salt, pepper, onion or garlic.

After a plantain plant bears and you harvest the fruit, you generally cut the plant down because it will eventually die anyway. If you are too lazy to cut the plant down, you are merely encumbering the ground and having this useless plant compete with productive ones for space and nutrients.

Now, to map an interpretation of the proverb directly to this, I'd have to say that when you feel you've lived long enough, just put on your best show. But strangely that's not how I've heard this saying used. Here is a context in which it might be used - young Susan is blossoming, vivacious and confident, maybe laughs too much in her granny's mind. Granny is worried that some man is is going to come along and pick her cherry (and as far as Granny can see) blight her whole future. So Granny seeing this, hrumphs and issues the cryptic warning; when plantain want dead him shoot.

Or here is another scenario Marlon is extra energetic today and he is up to all sorts of mischief and making a complete nuisance of himself. Pappa is quickly losing patience and will reach for a strap in a moment, but before he does so he prepares Marlon; when plantain want dead him shoot. If Marlon gets the message he will stop the tomfoolery.

Do they say anything like this in your neck of the woods?

The Painted Canoe; Funny and Serious Side by Side

Ok so I'm having my second read of Anthony Winkler's "The Painted Canoe". I saw "Going Home to Teach" and "The Great Yacht Race" neither of which I've read as yet, but I chose "The Painted Canoe". I used the other library card to get "Hop on Pop" from Dr. Suess for the Little Gentleman.

"The Painted Canoe" begins with a point blank description of the unspeakably ugly Zechariah Pelsie. You would think that the description would totally descredit Pelsie and make the reader have no faith at all in him, but it is not so at all. I respect Pelsie and treat him almost as if he's real. For instance, I was telling myself this morning that Pelsie is right; people bother God too much about things they can and should do for themsleves.

Yes, Pelsie is an illiterate, but he is wiser than plenty. In fact, one of the critics who has given kudos to this novel comments that it is an 'exploration of the triumph of folkwisdom over cold scientific criticism'.

I wanted to read something by Winkler because I recently read a review of his reading at Calabash, and I felt like kicking myself for missing only the premiere Literary event in the Caribbean - again. But what can I tell you, there is no way I'm going to tek show off and spend my little much and go down to Senty, and then in the two weeks before payday I'm using my credit card to survive, and be owing Mas Ken my fare. Nope. Next year maybe.

So in this review in the Gleaner, I got a reminder of how intelligent Winkler is. I also found out he is a white dude, not so young anymore, who was often beaten by a black teacher for being of the privileged class in Jamaica. Incidentally, I'd written my last post about Jackass saying the worl nuh level, before I read that newspaper review. Winkler grew up on the privileged side of things, but his behind had the disadvantage of having to face the whip of Mr. Inferiority Complex every week.

I chose to reread "The Painted Canoe" rather than pick something new because I wanted to relive Pelsie stranded out at sea, and Pelsie facing a terminal disease. I needed an antidote to this thread that I had wasted my time reading, and to regain my confidence that some people have an indomitable will to survive, some people construct their own purpose, and all of us, specks that we are, make a footstep in time because we existed. So, as ugly and fool-fool as Pelsie is, he has something inside that drives him to survive even the most daunting odds.

Now Winkler is the master of hilarious, if you don't believe me, see for yourself, here are the first two or so pages from "The Lunatic".

Jackass seh de worl no level

Jackass is not widely known for his mental acumen, in fact somewhere along the line his name became synonymous with 'idiot' as in the famous quotes below.


“Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.” Paris Hylton

"Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one” Sam Rayburn

But as Mark Twain suggests, poor Jackass has been maligned; “Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.”

Now take this astute observation by Jackass; "de worl no level". Jackass is simplifying the Orwellian remark that "all men are created, equal but some are more equal than others". As far as Jackass can see, disadvantage and privilege are both as much part of life as hill and gully are part of the natural terrain here in Jamaica.

We use this expression when we come across unfairness, depending on the context we might also say "Puss and dog nuh have the same luck".

Encyclopaedia Brown

I can't imagine how I forgot to mention Leroy "Encyclopaedia" Brown in this list of series that I read as a child. So now he gets a post all to himself. Encyclopaedia is this boy genius who solves his detective father's cases right there at the dinner table. Well, actually he carries out a process of deductive reasoning and leaves you the reader to figure the rest out. After you have racked your brain somewhat you can go to the back of the book to see what answer Mr. Sobol, the series creator, has supplied.

Encyclopaedia often comes into wranglings with Bugs Meany the school bully, but as you might expect, brain generally triumphs over brawn, and by the end of the story, Bugs walks away looking like the total dimwit he is and Encyclopaedia again has earned his name.

As far as I recall, the series generally came in thin paper backs with bold print, maybe six or so stories to a copy and very nice pencil illustration on every two or so pages. I still am looking at some of those drawing right now in my mind's eye. Well now that I am an old (-er) and a meaner critic, the books seem formulaic, but I must admit they were very easy and very fun to read, and they taught virtues that are worth living by. If you have children, or if there is any of the child left in you, you might want to check this little fellow out.

When time hard mango bear nuff

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Julie, East Indian, Bombay, number 11, sweetie com brush me, Milly, Tommy Atkins, reddie, robin, blackie (known in some parts of the island as greenidge or fine skin), and of course the goodly stringy (a.k.a common mango or hairy) weigh down mango trees all over Jamaica right now. This year all our industries except agriculture have seen a decline, the government has imposed new tax measures, and Jamaica is all around feeling the effects of the global economic downturn and we so happen to be having a bumber crop of mangoes this year. Or is there something to the implied folk belief in Providence? When time hard mango bear nuff, so dem sey in Jamaica.

Traitor's Purse

The fact that I read probably all in the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys series, then went on to read several of the adventures of Hercule Poirot plus all those of Sherlock Holmes, should tell you that I have nothing against the genre. It's just not my favourite. But I've recently widened my repertoire, having discovered Albert Campen. Campen doesn't quite fit into the list above as he is a real detective; all the others are amatuers who are always able to solve the mystery where the clueless police cannot.

Albert Campen was created by Margert Allingham, a British novelist who is credited with bringing the detective fiction to maturity. The BBC produced adaptations of eight of her novels during the 1980s.

This one novel of hers that I've read has piqued my interest. In Traitior's Purse Campen completely loses his memory and must at the same time prevent a... er, what you might call an act of terror; it's bigger in scale than a regular crime as it would affect the whole nation. Considering that the novel is set sometime between the two world wars, what do you think that might be?

If the storyline seems unlikely to you, you're probably right, but Allingham's witty, if archaic style, is engaging. For instance she has Amanda remark about Campen's 'magnificent reticence' which is funny because Campen is keeping his mouth shut so as not to appear stupid. The phrase stuck in my mind because I know someone with a magnificent reticence.

The hint that Campen has grown-up in this novel makes me want to meet the the pre-Purse version of him. The amnesiac Campen wonders about himself, what kind of man is he, if his enemy could so confidently expect to bribe him? He is also less inclined to believe he's the hinge upon which all things rest.

I also liked the reading about the interwar years from someone who lived through the time. It's believed that the arts puts a human dynamic to what all we get from the historians, archeologists and such.

You will find some racist remarks in the novel. Like there is a man 'with the bright little eyes and thin rodent's face of his race', which should evoke an unbecoming "what the..." from anyone living on this side of time.

You will also find a few sexist remarks in Traitors Purse - like Allingham says that Amanda handled a situation manfully- but you'll forgive her for she was still way ahead of her time. For one, our hero's sidekick is a woman. That's a big deal. And she is intelligent, tough and fearless. That's another big contrast to the shrinking violets that grace some of these older novels.

There is no apparent relationship between the novel and the title. Well it might have eluded me.

Barring these (and a very uninviting illustration in the penguin publication I read) Traitor's Purse makes an intriguing diversion.

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Piss in the pot or get up

Pot here refers to what you might know as pottie, chamber pot, chimmy, jordan, john, poe. I grew up with a plain white enamel chimmy with the pretty red flowers on the side. The older folks used a larger variety or sometimes a pail. These were essential amenities, especially at night, as the latrine was a good several feet to the back of the house. Modern life has pretty much done away with all that but in rural areas you will still find a plastic pot underneath many a bed.

The old time saying piss in the pot or get up is a lil old lady's way of saying you should make up your mind, be decisive, take action, do not vacillate.

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