Claim Now No Telephone To Heaven Scripted By Michelle Cliff Made Available In Readable Copy
really interesting look into Jamaicas circumstances nearing the end of colonialism, it explores many important topics like colorism, racism, immigration, death, and LGBTQ in a way that is natural and draws the reader in Another wonderful book from my MA class.
In some ways a disturbing story, in other ways it is so poignant, I would highly recommend reading this book, Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book, If I wasnt reading this for class I would have DNFed it, While I appreciate Cliffs writing and what she is trying to express to the reader, I just did not see the point to the novel.
I felt like nothing had happened and was just very confused with the story, The class discussion was nice, but this book was just not for me at all, amazing. An unusual novel. A lot goes on in sequences with different settings Jamaica, New York, London, a succession of European cities back to Jamaica, The main character Clare, whose parents encourage her to take up British ideals espoused by her father instead of Jamaican ones of her mother's heritage, goes through vastly different transformations nevertheless from a brilliant schoolgirl and university intellectual to a terrorist.
The finale might find a hint of explanation from the No Telephone to Heaven's acknowledgments to aNew York Times article by Joseph B, Treaster, "U. S. Film Makers Lured by Jamaican Incentives,"
about the scenic island becoming an economical, varied landscape for foreign filmmakers,
The welleducated Michelle Cliff, who died in June, combines themes of rural West Indian and urban British cultures, representative of Jamaica's heritage of mixture.
In this postcolonial book, the English class system based on shades of color and the homophobia continue long after the country's independence from the mother country and the queen.
There seem no favorable prospects for Jamaica to regain itself, Trampled by tourism, by outsiders' unregulated exploitation of natural resources, and by foreign use of Jamaica's low paid labor for services, and interference into Jamaican government, the country cannot seem to make good.
The second book to Michelle Cliff's sitelinkAbeng, I have to say at the beginning, I was really sucked into the story, A very memorable and tragic opening scene, I believed the book would be more readable than sitelinkAbeng and the ideas were flowing really smoothly, . . Until the second half of the book and especially towards the end, I'm disappointed how vague the ending was, Some parts of the second half were good, but the writing strayed a bit,
We follow the story of Clare Savage, after getting to know her as a child in sitelinkAbeng, We find out how she learns about colonialism, racism and her family's history, Now, Clare and her family moved to the United States right before the violence in Jamaica escalated, Her family breaks apart. Mother and sister move back to Jamaica, After the death of her mother, she becomes estranged from her father, She moves to England to look for the motherland, but finds herself displaced, Her sister becomes a drug addict, Her lover is damaged from the Vietnam War, Her best friend Harry/Harriet helps Clare piece together the different parts of her life,
This novel definitely depicted the rise of violence in Jamaica, but we never meet Clare's sister, Similarly, Jamaica's independence was completely omitted, I'm left feeling confused why the author decided to steer the story that way, I'm afraid I'm not going to remember Clare Savage's story, There are such rich layers in this book in terms of how it discusses race, class, privilege, colonialism, colorism, and familial as well as romantic relationships.
The references to historical events caused me to seek out their referents as always and helped me learn more about Jamaicas recent history.
Since I read this for class over the course of several weeks, I was able to really dive deeply into form as well as content.
The story is told in a very nonlinear fashion, so even had I not read it through class I would probably have taken awhile to read it anyway.
I didnt necessarily expect to get attached to Claire or Kitty or Harriet, but I certainly did,
reading this was like pulling teeth, it took me so long to read evenpages at a time because I would get bored and the writing style was just so hard to get pulled into.
I really only enjoyed the section about Kitty, there were too many time jumps without explanation and the ending was so weird and confusing that I had to read multiple summaries to get the gist of what I had just read.
I only finished this because I had to read it for a class and honestly I think just reading the wikipedia page wouldve been a better option since the gist of the plot is the most important parts of the story but gets muddied by the writing style and structure.
Wow this is the best book Ive ever read, Discussing it with queer people in an academic context made it extra special, Soooo grateful this work of art exists, Every chapter moved me. From my "Commonwealth Literature" class in college, I can't even remember what I was about but I know I liked it, rant incoming!! if you liked this book, don't read my review, i am being forced to read this book for a class and this is the only place i can vent my frustration, i am on pageand i cannot take it any longer, i hate it here,
god i hate this book so fucking much, generally i hate all books that involve killing, SAing, and/or trturing women to be "gritty" or "real" or "literary" or "bleak, " there is just no good reason to write scenes of such depraved and hateful violence towards women, and the specific fervor of hatred against Black women in particular is inexcusable.
for some reason ALL of my literature classes have insisted that we read horrid filthy books like this, WHY you wanna know what, i AM a little wimp when it comes to reading about gore, i don't like violence and bloodshed and rape, because ENOUGH OF IT HAPPENS IN THE REAL WORLD!!! FICTION DOESN'T NEED TO BE A FETISHIZATION OF MURDER, RACISM, MISOGYNY, AND RAPE!!! it is perfectly valid to want to write about realworld issues like colonialism, racism, misogyny, rape, et cetera, but the extent to which it is described is horrific.
this is a disgusting little book, i am a book lover and i believe in free speech, but this book was not worth the paper it was printed on.
i'm so glad i found it for free at the library, i only hate that the stain of it will be attached to my library account forever.
and you want to know what i have to type this out but it's a pretty hot take and y'all aren't ready for it yet so i will come back and edit it in once i think the world is ready to hear it.
i ,. '. . " " like.
okay that made me feel a bit better, i don't want to finish the dumb book, i already looked at all the online summaries i could find so maybe that's enough to bullshit my way through the next class period.
WE CAN CLEAN YOUR CLOTHES BUT NOT YOUR HEART,
AMERICA IS CRUEL. CONSIDER KINDNESS FOR A CHANGE,
WHITE PEOPLE CAN BE BLACKHEARTED,
p.Magical. Harriet was my favorite character, Really enjoyable plot structure. The last chapter fell flat for me, there was so much building up to this climactic confrontation that culminated too cryptically, Overall a really exciting read, Gut wrenching and guilt inflicting, Truly captures the evil that riddled Jamaica postempire, How following centuries under a rule of corruption and capitalism, the locals knew only of a life of such cruelty expected to rebuild themselves amidst such shambles.
Cliff writes poignantly and paints such a tangible image, Not an easy read, but certainly one that provides great basis for exploration and analysis, I really loved this book, The writing was wonderful and there was a lot of history I didn't know about before reading this, I also thought the character's and their stories were compelling, But I was really troubled/confused by the ending and what it was trying to say, That perhaps if these characters would have had a fully heroic end that their resistance would have been more of a performance for the reader to feel heroic about rather than a realistic, truthful story The book does make a lot of commentary about the ways people have a connection and a desire for a history that is rooted in colonialism and violence so perhaps this is what I am to make of it.
But I'm just not sure,
Another thing I took an issue with, I understand the need for Clare to not live split and the need to be fully committed to resistance, But I wasn't really sure if I was comfortable with the comment this book made about gender and committing to a gender identity in such a binary way.
Perhaps Harriet felt as though she were no longer Harry and wanted to fully embrace her identity as Harriet, Perhaps this also goes along with the books statement about women fighting for and healing their country, and Harriet's feminine identity was more in line with the books politics.
But I'm just not sure if one really has to pick a gender or they are a "split" person, somehow less whole of a person.
I understand this is one characters experience and that maybe this character WANTED to live as one gender, But when picking a gender is brought into the same light as being fully committed to an armed resistance against colonialism, it just feels off.
Not picking a gender is being half committed to what It's not an armed resistance, it's gender, Plenty of people live full, "not split" lives as androgynous or non binary people,
Besides this one bit, I really did love this book and I'm glad I read it, I didn't know anything about the colonialism of Jamaica, or the neocolonialism that still occurs there, and this book was excellent, Cliff's first novel, this is much better than the later prequel, Abeng, which I reviewed last week, It's a much more adult, more sophisticated and better written novel, The main character is again Clare Savage, The book begins and ends with her as part of a small armed group the politics is not particularly good, or even clear, and seems to be mostly a product of despair on the part of people who feel oppressed but have no understanding of political theory or effective action.
I was reminded at the end of Doris Lessing's The Good Terrorist, although Cliff is more sympathetic and the characters are not the spoiled children of that novel.
The majority of the book however, told in flashbacks which are not strictly chronological, is about Clare's psychological development, the experiences she goes through in Jamaica, New York, and London with racism and the guilt she feels as a lighterskinned Black who, while not actually trying to "pass", is generally considered "white", and her ambivalent feelings toward her lighter father and darker mother.
These themes arise much more naturally out of the situations than in the prequel, and have a less artificial feel of illustrating a point.
There are also some feminist themes and a major "trans" character, One episode concerns a disturbed Black Vietnam veteran named Bobby whom she falls in love with and who just disappears one afternoon, Meee and Bobbeee McGeeeeeeeeee sorry, After reading this, I understand the decisions Cliff made in writing the prequel even less the strange ending of that book with Miss Beatrice and her sister is never alluded to, and the childhood friend who plays such a key role in the later book is not mentioned even in the listing of people she remembers from her time at Miss Mattie's.
While Cliff is not my favorite of the Jamaican writers I have been reading for the Goodreads group, the novel is worth reading and does give another perspective on the situation there.
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