Get It Now The Life And Death Of Sylvia Narrated By Edgar Mittelholzer Available Through Digital Edition

the tragic story of a young Sylvia Ann Russell, this novel focuses on the dilemmas of a young woman of mixed race ins Guyana, After the death of her English father, Sylvia constantly struggles for economic survival and against attempts to exploit her sexually, Impossibly torn between her desire for emotional closeness and the integrity of her independence, Sylvia willfully accepts her dark fate when she falls ill, This brilliant and moving novel explores the plight of a Caribbean woman who demands more meaning from her life than her society will give her, Another amazing book written by Edgar Mittelholzer, This is my third Mittelholzer book and I am still thirsty for more, In fact, I've already ordered a few of his out of print titles, Hopefully, Peepal Tree Press will continue reissuing them,

Sylvia is a character in crisis, Her father is British and her mother is a negress, Thanks to her liberal and free thinking father, Sylvia is a woman ahead of her time, which results in her not fitting among her fellow citizens of Guyana, The novel is set in Georgetown during the conflicts leading to WWII,

Mittelholzer does a thorough analysis of Sylvia's psyche and her inner battles, Sylvia is torn between the meaning the life and death, being a realist or a dreamer, being weak or strong, being politically correct or honest, and the hypocrisies and contradictions of the guyanese society under British rule.
However, I sometimes had a hard time sympathizing with Sylvia, She at times comes off as selfcentered, and seldom displays concern for those around her, Her conflict does not reside in her being of mixed race, but mostly on her outlook on life and the decisions she makes, although, as I said before, the way she thinks comes from her British father.
Besides, Sylvia's attitude towards her mother is far from that of the intellingent girl she is portrayed to be,

"The Life and Death of Sylvia" is a novel filled with many philosophical ideas, Mittelholzer has his characters argue and debate about the flaws and virtues of different points of view concerning life, At times, I wish he had been more subtle about it, because, specially in the last chapter, where Mittelholzer himself appears in the novel under a different name, the debates are so dense that even Sylvia is tired of hearing about it.
I've read that Mittelholzer's heavy preaching was one of his issues in his later novels, "The Weather in Middenshot", published a year before this title, also suffers from that problem to the point that it distracts you and makes you wonder what happened to the original plot of the book.
However, the preaching in "The Life and Death of Sylvia" is not distracting,

To some extent, this novel reminded me of Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", for both Sylvia and Esther are

characters who are going through a profound depression exactly for feeling foreign to the world they live in.
Everybody knows what they want except for Sylvia and Esther, Everybody has a talent except for Sylvia and Esther, When things seem about to materialize for both of them, something happens and frustrates it and this acts as a reminder for both of them to know that life is a circle where they cannot get in because they would be out of place.
I find it a curious coincidence that Plath's name is "Sylvia" and her book is about a woman ahead of her time going through a deep depression, and that the main character in this novel is also called "Sylvia" and going through the same.
However, both books are worth being read for their own merit, and while Sylvia and Esther are in a similar state of mind, both novels have their own personality and their plots take different directions.


Despite its shortcomings, I think this is a fine novel, Sylvia's relationship with her father made me think a lot about mine with my father in a way that I had never had or a book ever had me do.
"The Life and Death of Sylvia" is both interesting, because it offers a look into the Guyanese life of the late's and early's, and thought provoking, since Sylvia's dilemmas are still current in thest century.
One of my fav books, I love books that make you feel a wide a range of emotions and Mittelhozer definitely made me feel so much, I laughed, I felt anxious and I even cried when Sylvia became "profoundly quiet" almost as if she was a dear friend,

One thing I like about his books is the fact that he mirrors the colonial hold that still exists in many Caribbean islands and even though he spoke about British Guiana it was as if he spoke about my sweet TnT.
This novel even pinpoints some of the injustices that women have to endure in the quest for being employed,

Although it would seem I took almost a year to read this book, I actually had to return it to the library, before finishing it since I had already renewed it twice, and the fact that I would soon deliver my second son, but I knew I had to finish it.
I must say I am very glad I did, since I was very much entertained, as well as, reminded that though the world is unkind one can still preserve their goodness, although at times I felt that "dear Sylvia" could have learnt to type and find a satisfactory job to support herself and her mother.


I honestly wanted to love this book and it was one I really anticipated reading, I found it however to be a bit of a drag, I still enjoyed it however I feel like there could have been more to the novel to really intrigue its readers, Edgar Mittelholzer is considered the first West Indian novelist, i, e. even though there were writers who wrote about Caribbean themes before him, he was the first to make a successful professional life out of it, Born in Guyana then British Guiana of Afro European heritage, he began writing inand self published his first book, Creole Chips, in, Mittelholzer left Guyana for Trinidad in, eventually migrating to England in, living the rest of his life there except for three years in Barbados, and a shorter period in Canada.
Betweenand, he published twenty one novels, and two works of non fiction, including his autobiographical, A Swarthy Boy, Mittelholzers novels include characters and situations from a varie Edgar Mittelholzer is considered the first West Indian novelist, i, e. even though there were writers who wrote about Caribbean themes before him, he was the first to make a successful professional life out of it, Born in Guyana then British Guiana of Afro European heritage, he began writing inand self published his first book, Creole Chips, in, Mittelholzer left Guyana for Trinidad in, eventually migrating to England in, living the rest of his life there except for three years in Barbados, and a shorter period in Canada.
Betweenand, he published twenty one novels, and two works of non fiction, including his autobiographical, A Swarthy Boy, "Mittelholzer's novels include characters and situations from a variety of places within the Caribbean, They range in time from the earliest period of European settlement to the present day and deal with a cross section of ethnic groups and social classes, not to mention subjects of historical, political, psychological, and moral interest.
In addition, eight of Mittelholzer's novels are non Caribbean in subject and setting, For all these reasons he deserves the title of "father" of the novel in the English speaking Caribbean" Encyclopedia of World Biography, Among Edgar Mittelholzer's many honours was to have been the first West Indian to be awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing, He died by his own hand in, a suicide by fire predicted in several of his novels, Excerpts from:Peepal Tree Press sitelink Caribbean Writers: A Bio Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook by Daryl Cumber Dance, sitelink.