Book Review: Silence of the Girls

The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker

Another Man Booker prize winner, and another fine read.

I enjoy novels that tell a different side of the story. In this case, Barker tell the story of Achilles and the Trojan Way from the perspective of Briseis, a high-ranking woman from Troy whom the Greeks captured and gave to Achilles as a war prize, as a slave.

It can sometimes be confusing to read such a book, as it gives details and tells anecdotes that are new, and sometimes contradictory to the stories you have heard before. But that's the point.

Barker tells it well, in succinct, well-written prose. Briseis' anger, her regret, and her longing for her past life and her family come through loud and clear. She also tells of the women with her, who are living a life as bad or worse than her own. Briseis is unflinching in her disgust at the men and their killing, at the viciousness and thoughtless hatred that fills the rage of Achilles and the other warriors. 

This is Briseis' story, as she explains near the end of the book.

"What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant times? One thing I do know; they won't want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won't want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won't want to know we are living in a rape camp. No, they'll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were. His story. His, not mine. It ends at his grave."

It's a fascinating read that tells the experiences of the captured women, whom no one listens to and no one hears. Silence becomes a woman, says Ajax, one of the Greek fighters. Barker replies with the  sounds of silence.

Review: Washington Black

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan

If this book has proven one thing, it is to appreciate the Man Booker Prize for selecting some of the finest contemporary fiction available. Whether a novel is on the longlist, shortlist, or is the actual winner -- Washington Black was shortlisted for the 2018 prize -- rest assured it's going to be good.

But Edugyan has shown much more with the powerful and explosive writing in her extraordinary work. Through the title character, Edugyan has shown some of the true horrors of slavery, not just in the routine dehumanization of people of color, but in the lifelong impact it has on its victims. She has shown the depravity of its systemic brutality. She has shown how it allows white people to decry its savagery while simultaneously benefiting from it.

Set in the 19th Century, the book follows George Washington Black, who begins life as a field slave on a plantation in Barbados. It's a cruel, grueling life, and Wash is confused and alarmed when he finds he is assigned to be a manservert to the master's younger brother. He fears he will be assaulted and abused, with no way out, because he is always forced to go along. Even when he finds that Titch -- which his new master insists that Wash call him -- is not the vicious master he feared, he cannot rest easy.

"I thought of my existence ... the brutal hours in the field under the crushing sun, the screams, the casual finality edging every slave's life, as though each day could easily be the last. And that, it seemed to me clearly, was the more obvious anguish -- that life had never belonged to any of us, even when we sought to reclaim it by ending it."

Titch discovers Wash has natural artistic skills, and he encourages his talents. But he does so because he sees a benefit to his own scientific endeavours.

When a tragedy occurs on the plantation, Titch and Wash flee, leading to their adventures through America, Canada, and England. The tale is told in brilliant, colorful, descriptive language.

For instance, later in the book, Wash recalls his experience in the Canadian Arctic.

"I had been warned ... that snow was white, and cold. But it was not white; it held all the colours of the spectrum. It was blue and green and yellow and teal; there were delicate pink tintings in some of the cliffs as we passed. As the light shifted in the sky, so did the snow around us deepen, find new hues, the way an ocean is never blue but some constantly changing colour. Nor was the cold simply cold -- it was the devouring of heat, a complete sucking of warmth from the blood until what remained was the absence of heat." 

It's that writing, showing the melancholy, the bitterness, and the haunted, hunted existence that follows Wash throughout his life, that makes this book worth buying and saving, so one can read it again and again.

Book Review: Skink

Skink: No Surrender, by Carl Hiaasen

Look, it's Carl Hiaasen, writing a Young Adult novel about Skink, a former governor of Florida who has truly gone rogue. What do you expect?

Something short, witty, and easy to read. Something funny, with hi-jinks and bizarre characters. Something in which the good guys prevail, and the bad guys get punished, often in inevitable, outlandish ways.

Check. Check. And check.

Hiaasen is the chronicler of the Florida man. If he didn't create the trope, he certainly spread it into popular culture.

And Skink is the definitive Florida man. A fearless loner, perhaps insane in the popular meaning, and one who doles out his own brand of justice. He's part man, part myth. He's always there, loves children, animals, and nature, and despises those who defile any of them.

In No Surrender, Skink teams with Richard to find the 14-year-old's missing cousin, who has either run away or been kidnapped. Their harrowing but amusing adventures -- well, amusing for us, maybe, if not for them -- get wilder as the story winds its way along the north Florida coast and into the Choctawhatchee River. 

Enjoy it while you can.