Reviews for Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century

The average rating for Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-06-05 00:00:00 Konrad Bawelkiewicz Michelle Richmond, lives in California...(not 'too' far from me). I knew she was from Alabama, but until now...all the other novels I've read by her have taken place in Northern California ( written so well...a reader would think she was a Bay Area native).... so, it was a treat to read the collection of these short stories...all linked to Alabama --( coming or going). Michelle gives us a 'Southern - historical flavor of the what's driving the community ... in particular, one extended family from the 'natives' from Alabama... and in particular....'woman'. We witness woman breaking free...( dancing naked in San Francisco)... All woman who leave the south - who come to San Francisco...dance naked in public at least once in their lives....didn't you know it's an initiation to the city? Ha! :) Many themes that run through these stories are about finding freedom, strength, dependable souls to trust...and one's own voice. In one of the stories Grace is talking with her boyfriend Ivan. She has had it with his stories, his lies, and is trying to tell him she wants to break up. We can see Grace feels pretty down on 'all men ' at the moment, too. From 'her' shoes we almost can't blame her. I got the impression the poor girl has never experienced a healthy male/female relationship... Then,...to top things off, Howard Stern comes on the radio. "He's interviewing a leading child psychologists, quizzing her on the size of her breasts. He wants to know if her breasts get in the way of her social work. She wants to know if his stupidity gets in the way of his career. She postulates that Howard Stern was breast-fed until the age of 10 or so and thus his fascination with the mammary glad. She suggests that he wants to sleep with his mother". "Whoa-ho!, he says. "Easy Baby. I'll tell you who I want to sleep with. I want to sleep with your mother!" "Howard's sidekick, Robin, tells him to behave." Ivan and Grace continue on their car drive....( in silence) "A couple of minutes later we exit the turnpike, then drive for a long time toward the shore. It begins to rain. The windshield wipers of our plastic Rent-A-Car keep sticking, and every couple of minutes I have to lean out the window and lift the wipers from the glass to get them moving again." "Our route takes us through broken-down towns that all look pretty much the same: old factories with soot-scarred windows, bent cars parked permanently in driveways, filthy little grocery stores with big white banners in the windows, advertising pork roast and pampers. Ivan watches the slick road while I watch the odometer. It clicks off the miles with a slowness that reminds me of Alabama, Sunday drives with my parents and sisters through green empty places that inevitably ended at some abandoned length of railroad, crossing signals long defunct." While Michelle Richmond explored the growth of several family members..be it religion, sexuality, parenting, education, birth, guilt, fears, grief, laughter, love, ... she has our emotions in the palm of her hands...and from rain - to sunshine- to low white hills -to chilly nights..and muddy tracks from tires on a car in untouched snow, Michelle's writing is quite beautiful.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-07 00:00:00 Josh Gregg Short stories can be a hit or miss. This definitely feel into the in-between. The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress was sort of recommended to me by a group member in a challenge. She said it was good and short.. so I decided to take a gamble on it. Now this is filled with some short stories, which I took with a grain of salt. Sometimes I like them and other times I don't. Since I have never read a book by this author before, I went in with zero expectations. Each story in this book is focused on one family. They are told by four sisters and they are quite unique in their own way. I liked them but I felt like something was a bit off. Whether it was the length to each story or what it was actually about. Then there are the actual characters and some were also likable or relatable but then other's were just weird or crazy. Other than that, the overall flow of the book was a bit off as well. Again, I just think it was the way the stories changed from short, to a big longer, to one page, and all over again. I probably would've liked it a bit more if they were all the same length.