Reviews for Caribbean Culture and British Fiction in the Atlantic World, 1780-1870

The average rating for Caribbean Culture and British Fiction in the Atlantic World, 1780-1870 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-28 00:00:00 John Dupont The Caribbean colonies, especially Jamaica, were of central importance to the British E/empire; they were not relegated to the side and ignored. Incidents such as the Morant Bay rebellion (1865) in Jamaica - or more specifically, what to do about the harsh quashing of that rebellion, led by Governor Eyre - were hot potatoes in Victorian Britain. And Tim Watson does a great job of showing just how important Jamaica and the other colonies were in the West Indies: he ploughs through historical documents with aplomb, and engages with literary analyses with skill, as can be seen in his keen awareness of how Jamaica (etc.) - and the controversies that issues to do with Jamaica bring up - finds its way into the plot of, say, George Eliot's Felix Holt. As well as acknowledging the importance of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and the crazy ideas of (as George Stocking puts it) 'hereditarian racialism' that came about thereafter, Watson also brilliantly shows how ideas of citizenship, enfranchisement and Empire come about in response to perceptions of Jamaica at the time. It's really bloody interesting to flip the perspective; essentially it's not too different to Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads insofar as it gets us to look at what we think we know through another vantage point. Well done, Watson. One of Watson's missions seems to be to get us to appreciate more finely one certain Samuel Ringgold Ward - a black, American-born spokesman for black rights but also (paradoxically (at least seen this way until Watson elucidates upon Ward's apparent contradictions)) an advocate for British control and rule in Jamaica. As I read about Ward, I simply got the sense that he was a real person, not some mythic figure, and Watson does well to paint him thus. He's someone who, for example, quite clearly took someone's money and didn't give it back, but he evidently cared deeply about black people's progress in Jamaica and elsewhere. He clearly had his own internal conflicts and changes of ideas, but he still remained essentially consistent. How hard must it have been for him and others like him, such as Frederick Douglas! The first section of the book looks at Simon Taylor, a wealthy and established planter in Jamaica. This first chapter does well to show how those in control of slaves used records and data to hide or disguise the cruelty of slavery. This leads in nicely to show how this mode was reworked later for opposite purposes. Having myself written about Cynric R. Williams's Hamel: the Obeah Man, it was a joy to read Watson's analysis of this novel. His overall argument surrounding this text - that, as abolitionists hijacked the plantocratic realist forms for their own means, the planter classes turned to romance - is hard to argue against. The romantic ideas of Jamaica made Victorians nostalgic and wax lyrical about the 'good old times', when slaves were a simple-minded flock, carefully looked after by their masters. Of course, this is all nonsense but it's interesting to be aware of this faux-representation attempted by pro-slavery adherents. Overall, Watson nails it in this finely written book. He remains objective and thorough throughout. If you're not interested in Jamaica in the 1800s, you might find this book a tad slow, but if you are interested, get it read!

Review # 2 was written on 2012-11-28 00:00:00 Hana Atya I hadn't read any works by either Charles or Mary Lamb prior to reading this biography of their lives together. Brother and older sister -- which one was the true caretaker of the other? Mary, who murdered their mother? Charles, who forgave Mary and even excused her? Mary, who may been bipolar? Charles, who spent many an evening with literary colleagues...and liquor? A very fascinating and tragic story. Passages and my reflection... ...Charles Lamb speaking of friend, John Rickman: "the finest fellow to drop in a nights about nine or ten oClock, cold bread & cheese time, just in the wishing time of the night, when you wish for someone to come in, without a distinct idea of a probable anybody." (p 112) "In and out of the scene wandered Samuel Taylor Coleridge...he was prone to 'Coleridgizing,' as Charles Lamb liked to say, dominating all conversation with his fascinating self-referential, transcendental monologues." (p 113) ...from a letter written by Mary Lamb: "I have lost all self confidence in my own actions...I never feel satisfied with anything I do--a perception of not being in a sane state perpetually haunts me...which as I am so sensible of I ought to strive to conquer." (p 153) "She cycled into irrationality, 'sadly rambling,' as Charles put it...only loosely connected to the people and world around her." (p 256) ...Charles, writing about Mary: "When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is not obscurred, not buried; it breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows that have gone over it." (p 262) This story, so fascinating and yet so tragic...how different it might have been for Mary today, with mental health treatments being advanced. And yet that last quote reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend whose son suffers with schizophrenia. This year, I will walk with her -- the annual Walk for Mental Health on Santa Monica beach. We will walk, we will talk -- and we will pray for those whose lives are "sadly rambling." More Quotes: "Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes' sermons ? Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears. Winter evenings -- the world shut out -- with less of ceremony the gentle Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale -- These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud -- to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one -- and it degenerates into an audience. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness." (from DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING, Charles Lamb)