The Long Song seemed to be occupying the front shelf of every bookstore, that I nearly grabbed the book off the bestseller shelf in the library, when I saw it lying in innocent wait for a reader. I had no clue what the book was about, except that the cover and the name seemed reason enough to want to read it. Little was I to know that I would be transported nearly two centuries back in time to the island of Jamaica. What a journey, it indeed was!
Set in the mid nineteenth century, The Long Song chronicles the life and times of a house slave called July who lives in Jamaica at the height of the slave trade. This revolutionary tale spoken through the voice of July, whose extraordinary journey began soon as she was sold to Caroline Mortimer, the sister of John, who owns the plantation of Amity, where July’s mother, Kitty is a slave worker. Caroline, who even after ten years, laments the comforts of the lifestyle that she left behind on the shores of England, tries to recreate those settings in the hot island with the aid of her house-maid July. All their lives are soon thrown into a state of turmoil as the slaves march forward in their struggle for freedom from the shackles binding them to the plantation and their owners.
There is a certain levity and mischievousness about Andrea’s character, July which makes the book so enjoyable. Narrated in any other tone and it would have depressed the reader so thoroughly that it would have taken not one but several Wodehouses to restore his/her equanimity. Despite the heavy air surrounding the unjustness of the events unfolding in the book, there is a very positive feel to it highlighting the strength of the human character in their fight against injustice and their extreme endurance. The character of Caroline has been so aptly depicted as one who turns a blind eye to everything around her and in doing so believes that ‘What you cannot see, surely must not have happened’. Andrea has recreated the settings of Jamaica so well that they seem to come alive before the reader’s eye.
The only thing that the reader may find hard to grapple initially is the language of the natives but drink in a few pages and you soon get used to it. The Long Song is indeed a very powerful book about different (difficult) times to be ignored.
Book Rating – 4/5
Book Stats:-
No. of Pages:- 308;
Year Published:- 2010;
Publisher:- Headline Publishing Group;
Book Setting:- Jamaica;
Reading dates:- 07/Apr/2010 - 10/Apr/2010
Other books by the Andrea Levy:-
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Join me along with Jeff Atman in his wanderings around the arty water city of Venice and the spiritual rehab of Varanasi in my upcoming review of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer.
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