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A review by _rusalka
Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul
4.0
I asked Mel for a book set in Trinidad and Tobago, and she mentioned she read this one in school. I was to report back to her if it was any good 20 years later.
This slim, little volume is about a street in Port of Spain (the capital of TTO) and the collection of short stories about the interesting characters and happenings on this street. The stories take place over abut 10 years with people moving in and out of the street, but all of them interacting with our main story teller, a boy growing up from about 6-7 to 16-17 on the street. We see him become a man, viral men become broken old men, and everything in between.
This is one criticism of the book. Women are mentioned and part of stories, sometimes even the supposed protagonist, but all in context of a man though. Which makes sense, if we think in context of WWII Trinidadian society (which still has patriarchal tenancies today), but it did bother me a bit.
There are some hard subjects in this book - domestic violence, poverty, child violence, substance abuse etc. But I felt that these were handled reasonably. Again, the time period explains some of this (although some parts of Trinidad today are extremely poor). The domestic violence by men and women was treated as a normal way of life though. And while that didn't bother me more than usual (what a fucked up sentence to write), it should be noted for others.
I am lucky that we got to spend some time in Trinidad and Port of Spain in 2016 so some of the settings were so incredibly familiar, with people heading down to the Savannah (the large park in Port of Spain) to let off fireworks, or heading to the coastal area of Chaguaramas. I feel like I enjoyed the book more because of that, than I would have if I read it 3 years ago. But there are enough characters and stories in this book that I hope you enjoy it too. So, yup Mel, still good.
This slim, little volume is about a street in Port of Spain (the capital of TTO) and the collection of short stories about the interesting characters and happenings on this street. The stories take place over abut 10 years with people moving in and out of the street, but all of them interacting with our main story teller, a boy growing up from about 6-7 to 16-17 on the street. We see him become a man, viral men become broken old men, and everything in between.
This is one criticism of the book. Women are mentioned and part of stories, sometimes even the supposed protagonist, but all in context of a man though. Which makes sense, if we think in context of WWII Trinidadian society (which still has patriarchal tenancies today), but it did bother me a bit.
There are some hard subjects in this book - domestic violence, poverty, child violence, substance abuse etc. But I felt that these were handled reasonably. Again, the time period explains some of this (although some parts of Trinidad today are extremely poor). The domestic violence by men and women was treated as a normal way of life though. And while that didn't bother me more than usual (what a fucked up sentence to write), it should be noted for others.
I am lucky that we got to spend some time in Trinidad and Port of Spain in 2016 so some of the settings were so incredibly familiar, with people heading down to the Savannah (the large park in Port of Spain) to let off fireworks, or heading to the coastal area of Chaguaramas. I feel like I enjoyed the book more because of that, than I would have if I read it 3 years ago. But there are enough characters and stories in this book that I hope you enjoy it too. So, yup Mel, still good.