Set in Mandeville, Jamaica. Reread on 2019/06: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByxgEpwgnHE/
“Love is leaving you heart in a place. No matter how far you travel, it still there in that place, knocking, beating, waiting. In that place. My father’s child. My father’s son. Can’t bear to become the girl he hate. Hell is this. Hell I’d never letting go. It is leaving you heart in that place, knocking, beating, waiting, waiting. Is never facing that thing about you you father hate. For how could you, when it was you, the core of you, the essence of you?” My second time reading #thepagoda by the goddess #patriciapowell . This time I wanted to feature more her direct words than whatever review I can write. #powellexcels in making us feel how much her characters, especially #lowe and #sylvie transgress their lives and transpose themselves in ambiguous and contradictory realities. Realities to translate, to transport, to transfer. More than fixed definitions or end results, the #pagoda keeps building layer upon layer onto its tower. But are they real layers? Or are they just eaves, edges of the same tower coming from one core? Does it even matter or make any difference? Are our secrets the detonators of a destruction which could lead to a new creation? #highlyrecommended#jamaicanliterature #mandeville#jamaica #genderqueerlit#harcourtbooks #harvestbook#queerjamaica #transjamaica#chinesejamaican #transimmigrants#reread #readcaribbean
Reviewed on 2018/01: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeOzocvHROD/
I think a lot of people come to this book for different reasons:#racerelations and #slavery in #jamaica at the end of the 19th century. #chineseimmigration in the #caribeeanislands. #transgender #sexualexpressionand even #genderissues at that time in the island. And all of these are valid reasons and thoroughly explored in #powell ‘s masterpiece. However I have to say that what impressed the most here is how it all comes together in her excellent and skillful prose. #patriciapowell spends a significant amount of words in describing not only the surroundings but also the inner thoughts of her main character. Her somewhat repetitive sentences give the story a sense of crescendo which resembles #wavesslowly and unrelentingly eroding the coast and in this case someone’s live and his or should I say #her decisions. Simply a #masterpiece of multiple layers of #selfdoscovery and awareness. #highlyrecommended #thepagoda#jamaicanliterature #manchester #rosehall#colonial #westindies #chinesejamaican#caribbean
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