jenno's review against another edition
Lyssnade på denna som ljudbok, uppläst av Jason Diakitè. Det var skitbra men tyvärr var min koncentration annanstans under delar av denna korta bok. Men kan trots det säga att det är en bra bok.
potterpav's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
wow .. a short book but so impactful . you aren’t with the characters for very long , but you can still see their motivations and reasonings for their actions (whether good or bad) and it feels like you’re watching an ocean of stories all mingle together , despite the book focusing on 3 main characters . what a way to start the 2023 reading year - thank you david chariandy
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality and Racial slurs
efarmer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
black_girl_reading's review against another edition
4.0
I tore through the admittedly brief novel and I enjoyed it a lot. Based in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, it had the comforting familiarity of place for this Canadian locationally, but also in terms of the decade i grew up in, as a child raised by a single mom, and, most importantly, as a Black woman growing up in this place. The book is a reflection on the life and death of the older brother of the protagonist, as he and his mother reconnect with people who were close to him and them at the time of his death ten years ago. It’s a small book, but it packs a powerful punch, exploring themes of racism, queerness, poverty, immigration, ghettoization, police brutality, grief, the myth of Canadian equality, and so so much more. It was so good, and you’ve gotta read it.
ruthnessly's review against another edition
4.0
This book was wonderful. There's a delicate balance to it, which perfectly captures the delicate balance of Michael and his mother's life after the death of his brother. This isn't a spoiler: it's pretty clear that something tragic happened within the first few pages, although Michael himself skirts around it for a while. It's very reflective of the characters themselves, skirting around what happened to Francis, not able to talk about it or process it.
The weight of the story here is almost belied by the prose and by the length of the book itself. It's a very short novel (I think it's under 200 pages: it's slightly longer than a novella). I actually think the form choice is perfect for the story, which manages to encapsulate so much in so very few pages. It's not a particularly easy read -- Michael and his family have clearly had to struggle and there's a significant amount here about the experience of first and second generation immigrants. One of the most beautiful pieces of prose in the novel undoubtedly comes from the remembered trip of Michael's family back to Trinidad on a trip back to the place his mother deliberately never calls 'home.'
Honestly, I feel like this book is hard to write about because I don't know exactly where to start. There's an immense grief throughout from every corner and every character and a showcase of how what happened to Francis affected his family and how other deaths affect others. I think the central concern is of loss and family, of how difficult family relationships can be, of how difficult navigating poverty and a climate of violence can be. This isn't particularly long, but it tackles each so well, wrapping them all up in boys grappling with issues of masculinity, of identity, and then grief. The sense of inevitability that creeps throughout the book is so wonderfully, precisely evoked. I've thought a lot about that scene with the gunshots, or of Michael stumbling across a boy being brutally beaten who doesn't make a lot of noise. I've already thought a lot about several pivotal scenes with Francis.
Structurally the novel folds in on itself often, compressing timelines, echoing events throughout. It's all very precise and very deliberate. It's an intense novel, but that's not to say that it's without levity because there's some wonderful scenes that made me smile. I think it's a stunning portrait of a family who've suffered through a tragedy and didn't have any choice to live it, even though how far they've coped is debatable.
I'd highly recommend this.
The weight of the story here is almost belied by the prose and by the length of the book itself. It's a very short novel (I think it's under 200 pages: it's slightly longer than a novella). I actually think the form choice is perfect for the story, which manages to encapsulate so much in so very few pages. It's not a particularly easy read -- Michael and his family have clearly had to struggle and there's a significant amount here about the experience of first and second generation immigrants. One of the most beautiful pieces of prose in the novel undoubtedly comes from the remembered trip of Michael's family back to Trinidad on a trip back to the place his mother deliberately never calls 'home.'
Honestly, I feel like this book is hard to write about because I don't know exactly where to start. There's an immense grief throughout from every corner and every character and a showcase of how what happened to Francis affected his family and how other deaths affect others. I think the central concern is of loss and family, of how difficult family relationships can be, of how difficult navigating poverty and a climate of violence can be. This isn't particularly long, but it tackles each so well, wrapping them all up in boys grappling with issues of masculinity, of identity, and then grief. The sense of inevitability that creeps throughout the book is so wonderfully, precisely evoked. I've thought a lot about that scene with the gunshots, or of Michael stumbling across a boy being brutally beaten who doesn't make a lot of noise. I've already thought a lot about several pivotal scenes with Francis.
Structurally the novel folds in on itself often, compressing timelines, echoing events throughout. It's all very precise and very deliberate. It's an intense novel, but that's not to say that it's without levity because there's some wonderful scenes that made me smile. I think it's a stunning portrait of a family who've suffered through a tragedy and didn't have any choice to live it, even though how far they've coped is debatable.
I'd highly recommend this.
vasta's review against another edition
5.0
I have been doing David Chariandy’s Brother an immense disservice when I refer to it as a novel. There is a lyricism, a volume, a pulsating rhythm through every word Chariandy writes: Brother is more song than novel.
(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)
The first time I read Brother, three words jumped out at me: violence, viscerality, and volume.
The violence in the story is both evident—in the beatings, the shootings, the jars of pickles breaking against the wall—and subtle: violence is hidden in the way the Michael and Francis perceive the world, in the way the world sees them. No one is ever calm, or at ease; living on the edge is trauma in itself.
Chariandy’s words, his lyrics of this song, are more than just sonorous; they are palpable. We feel each gaze upon the boys as if someone was gazing upon us, and we feel the knife blade in our own hands as Francis grabs it to protect his brother. Every setting, every circumstance is visceral. From the start, I felt dampness as if I had been sprayed by slush just minutes before.
Dionne Brand describes Brother as “timbrous.” Marlon James says it is “pulsing with rhythm, beating with life.” The words are sonorous, but they are also loud. Chariandy infuses the entire story with music, but every word has volume: the sirens of the police cars, the ruffles of pages of books at the public library.
* * *
The second time I read Brother, I felt in it a story of grief. The book is an elegy to a lost brother, but it is about so much more loss. It is about the loss of innocence, about the loss of comfort, about the loss of community. It is a story of grief, of coming to terms that the world does not always cooperate and that we often lose what we had hoped and envisioned and must just take what we are given. We grieve those hopes and visions, we grieve the loss of lives we could have had. It is about complicated grief, but also a traumatic grief: it is not just a grief based on loss that lingers, but a grief that is reinforced every day by the trauma we face because of who we are.
The third time I read Brother, I felt in it a story of manhood. The story is filled with performative masculinity—most poignantly when Anton, after being beaten, turns his crying into laughter—and with the complicated dance of knowing what it is to be a man. Is masculinity performed, or felt? Is it seen, or perceived? What does it mean to be a man when nobody ever taught you how? What does it mean to be a man when you don’t know from whom to learn?
The fourth time I read Brother, I sang each word.
Chariandy’s tale of growing up in Scarborough is song as memory. It is a lyrical, melodious, melancholic reverie passing through time to evoke memory through stories.
Memory is “the muscle sting of now.” Brother is that sonorous hum through those muscles. And so, I sing. Volume!, I say.
* * *
(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)
(I will be hosting a chat with David Chariandy at the Wolf Performance Hall on Monday, April 16, 2018 at 7pm as part of the One Book One London initiative. In our chat, we’ll be discussing some of the things I wrote about above; if you’re in London and have a free evening, please do come out and join us.)
(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)
The first time I read Brother, three words jumped out at me: violence, viscerality, and volume.
The violence in the story is both evident—in the beatings, the shootings, the jars of pickles breaking against the wall—and subtle: violence is hidden in the way the Michael and Francis perceive the world, in the way the world sees them. No one is ever calm, or at ease; living on the edge is trauma in itself.
Chariandy’s words, his lyrics of this song, are more than just sonorous; they are palpable. We feel each gaze upon the boys as if someone was gazing upon us, and we feel the knife blade in our own hands as Francis grabs it to protect his brother. Every setting, every circumstance is visceral. From the start, I felt dampness as if I had been sprayed by slush just minutes before.
Dionne Brand describes Brother as “timbrous.” Marlon James says it is “pulsing with rhythm, beating with life.” The words are sonorous, but they are also loud. Chariandy infuses the entire story with music, but every word has volume: the sirens of the police cars, the ruffles of pages of books at the public library.
* * *
The second time I read Brother, I felt in it a story of grief. The book is an elegy to a lost brother, but it is about so much more loss. It is about the loss of innocence, about the loss of comfort, about the loss of community. It is a story of grief, of coming to terms that the world does not always cooperate and that we often lose what we had hoped and envisioned and must just take what we are given. We grieve those hopes and visions, we grieve the loss of lives we could have had. It is about complicated grief, but also a traumatic grief: it is not just a grief based on loss that lingers, but a grief that is reinforced every day by the trauma we face because of who we are.
The third time I read Brother, I felt in it a story of manhood. The story is filled with performative masculinity—most poignantly when Anton, after being beaten, turns his crying into laughter—and with the complicated dance of knowing what it is to be a man. Is masculinity performed, or felt? Is it seen, or perceived? What does it mean to be a man when nobody ever taught you how? What does it mean to be a man when you don’t know from whom to learn?
The fourth time I read Brother, I sang each word.
Chariandy’s tale of growing up in Scarborough is song as memory. It is a lyrical, melodious, melancholic reverie passing through time to evoke memory through stories.
Memory is “the muscle sting of now.” Brother is that sonorous hum through those muscles. And so, I sing. Volume!, I say.
* * *
(Originally published on inthemargins.ca)
(I will be hosting a chat with David Chariandy at the Wolf Performance Hall on Monday, April 16, 2018 at 7pm as part of the One Book One London initiative. In our chat, we’ll be discussing some of the things I wrote about above; if you’re in London and have a free evening, please do come out and join us.)
milya's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
as a child of immigrants this book resonated a lot with me. many of the behaviors of the mother were so true to life for me that i saw my own mother in those lines the entire time. francis was so much like my own big brother as well.
chariandy writing these characters like he did was so real to me it's crazy. enjoyed this a lot.
only reason why i didn't give it 5 stars is that the "plot" was very predictable, which is not a bad thing in this case because it doesn't really matter here. the story is too powerful in itself for it to be needing a huge "plot twist".
great book. highly recommend.
chariandy writing these characters like he did was so real to me it's crazy. enjoyed this a lot.
only reason why i didn't give it 5 stars is that the "plot" was very predictable, which is not a bad thing in this case because it doesn't really matter here. the story is too powerful in itself for it to be needing a huge "plot twist".
great book. highly recommend.
gerumoon's review
4.0
I hear Nina Simone's voice, "Ne me quitte pas, Il faut oublier. Tout peut s'oublier. Ne me quitte pas ... Ne me quitte pas ..."
Volume!
Then the song comes to an end, and all that's left is the friction of the needle on the record player.
Brother explores masculinity, family, race, and identity with such lyricism, and honesty.
Volume!
Then the song comes to an end, and all that's left is the friction of the needle on the record player.
Brother explores masculinity, family, race, and identity with such lyricism, and honesty.
katoo's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Racism, and Child death
carasara's review against another edition
Maybe 3.5? The language is exceptional and beautiful but I felt that it was so short that the impact of the story did not materialize.