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jada's review
4.0
i’m continuing my quest to read kei miller’s bibliography, and this essay collection did not disappoint.
i read the first essay twice (first and last, since i had started this book a few months ago but never continued), and in it i was delighted to finally find an explanation for the women who carry pencils behind their ears. of course the part about taking inspiration from a wide variety of sources was cool too, but that part really stuck with me. i also liked in defence of maas joe, not only for its warning against becoming too foreign/cosmopolitanly minded, but in acknowledging that so much of the caribbean books we read in school are painfully dull (looking at you, green days by the river). these islands of love and hate was quite predictable, nothing really to write home about.
a kind of silence was more of a short story than an essay, but i appreciated it all the same. it was filled with miller’s characteristic way of introducing characters in seemingly unrelated vignettes, then revealing how they all fit together in one dramatic climax. imagining nations was interesting because of its development of the idea of colonisation in reverse, of the colonised imagining their nation onto the coloniser’s land. i enjoyed how that intersected with louise bennett’s poem of the same name, and the spectacle surrounding the olympics. making space for grief fits very well with some thoughts i’ve been rotating in my brain. an eulogy for dub poetry was a good exploration of the rise and fall of dub poetry and how it intersects with the concept of the diaspora. I loved an occasionally dangerous thing called nuance; i’ll definitely reread it 6 months from now. That, and maybe bellywoman was on “di tape” were my two favourite essays because of how they meandered, telling seemingly unrelated stories then neatly tying them up with astute observations about society at large. the transcription of his interview made me laugh, not because it was funny, but because of how thinly veiled the insults were and how absurdly long the questions were.
all in all, this essay collection contained miller’s typical exploration of caribbean society and its intersections with other aspects of life. it put into words some concepts i’d only half-started thinking about, and introduced me to some entirely new ones.
i read the first essay twice (first and last, since i had started this book a few months ago but never continued), and in it i was delighted to finally find an explanation for the women who carry pencils behind their ears. of course the part about taking inspiration from a wide variety of sources was cool too, but that part really stuck with me. i also liked in defence of maas joe, not only for its warning against becoming too foreign/cosmopolitanly minded, but in acknowledging that so much of the caribbean books we read in school are painfully dull (looking at you, green days by the river). these islands of love and hate was quite predictable, nothing really to write home about.
a kind of silence was more of a short story than an essay, but i appreciated it all the same. it was filled with miller’s characteristic way of introducing characters in seemingly unrelated vignettes, then revealing how they all fit together in one dramatic climax. imagining nations was interesting because of its development of the idea of colonisation in reverse, of the colonised imagining their nation onto the coloniser’s land. i enjoyed how that intersected with louise bennett’s poem of the same name, and the spectacle surrounding the olympics. making space for grief fits very well with some thoughts i’ve been rotating in my brain. an eulogy for dub poetry was a good exploration of the rise and fall of dub poetry and how it intersects with the concept of the diaspora. I loved an occasionally dangerous thing called nuance; i’ll definitely reread it 6 months from now. That, and maybe bellywoman was on “di tape” were my two favourite essays because of how they meandered, telling seemingly unrelated stories then neatly tying them up with astute observations about society at large. the transcription of his interview made me laugh, not because it was funny, but because of how thinly veiled the insults were and how absurdly long the questions were.
all in all, this essay collection contained miller’s typical exploration of caribbean society and its intersections with other aspects of life. it put into words some concepts i’d only half-started thinking about, and introduced me to some entirely new ones.
2treads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
If you ask me why I write stories, or novels, or poems, I would tell you it is because things that are real in my country, things that are factual, things that have happened and that continue to happen, have always had for me the quality of the unreal – the texture of fiction. -excerpt from The Texture of Fiction
Miller is brilliant and the way he probes issues and existence, examining what pours forth, presenting his experiences, opinions, and understanding, is smooth and opens a channel of reciprocity with his reader.
He is not afraid to delve into and question the murkier, more violent parts to his country and community, the divides that have some living lives of comfort and others lives of desolation and destitution. Yet everything is related with care and feeling, with connection.
When he writes of the position of Caribbean writers and writers outside of the 'central West', glaring similarities and sameness can be seen to this day; who has gotten a foot in and who still remains on the fringes, how the literature of the Caribbean is viewed and how some authors have fallen into the 'universal' trap.
I also love how he is willing to examine his own position in certain spaces and what he knows now that would have served him well then. There is fire, humour, and vulnerability in all these essays. Miller is not afraid to evaluate self, country, region, and religion; always seeking a path that leads to answers and illumination. There is an interrogation of foresight and hindsight.
-Often times I find there is no need to invent or to create. There is only the need to see, and then to tell-
Miller is brilliant and the way he probes issues and existence, examining what pours forth, presenting his experiences, opinions, and understanding, is smooth and opens a channel of reciprocity with his reader.
He is not afraid to delve into and question the murkier, more violent parts to his country and community, the divides that have some living lives of comfort and others lives of desolation and destitution. Yet everything is related with care and feeling, with connection.
When he writes of the position of Caribbean writers and writers outside of the 'central West', glaring similarities and sameness can be seen to this day; who has gotten a foot in and who still remains on the fringes, how the literature of the Caribbean is viewed and how some authors have fallen into the 'universal' trap.
I also love how he is willing to examine his own position in certain spaces and what he knows now that would have served him well then. There is fire, humour, and vulnerability in all these essays. Miller is not afraid to evaluate self, country, region, and religion; always seeking a path that leads to answers and illumination. There is an interrogation of foresight and hindsight.
-Often times I find there is no need to invent or to create. There is only the need to see, and then to tell-
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Homophobia, Murder, and Police brutality
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