Jamaica Kincaid Books

If Jamaica Kincaid's book were a garden, it would be a very weedy one indeed. I've enjoyed her occasional pieces on gardening for The New Yorker, but I quickly guessed (and a check in the front of the book confirmed) that the book is a compilation of pieces that have been published elsewhere. How else to account for the wearying repetition of names, places, incidents, and (worst of all) thoughts? There are some bright spots, particularly Kincaid's meditations on English and Antiguan gardens, and thus on the relationship between colonizer and subjects. However, even this subject becomes, as its themes are repeated, tedious. It's hard to say who this book is intended for. Even non-gardeners may enjoy an occasional piece about gardening, but how does such a reader know what Kincaid is talking about when she describes (more than once, I assure you) what a White Flower Farm catalog looks like or why a Festiva Maxima peony is beautiful? And if you are a gardener, one truly interested in growing flowers (Kincaid says little about growing vegetables), you will find no tips or helpful advice here, just endless rhetorical questions. Finally, Kincaid's meandering style is better for short pieces than for a book. By the time I reached the incredibly self-absorbed account of her trip to China, I began to sympathize with the tour leader she maligns. This book is one for the compost heap, I'm afraid. Too bad---the graphic design of the book is quite lovely.

I felt as if my head was being beaten against a flower pot. I was hoping to read a book about gardening, not about racial situations. Couldn't finish it. Sorry. There are better books out there. I know Miss Kincaid must have an agenda, but why drag in into the garden?

I found this book at a library book sale and bought it because of the subject (I enjoy garden writings immensely) and because of the loveliness of the book itself.
The first story about a wisteria that won't bloom at the proper time is the only story I didn't like. The author repeated the sentece "What to do?" so many times that it got on my last nerve. Her writing in that piece seemed to be the meanderings of her thoughts that she then attempted to give a heavy-handed poetic touch. I enjoyed the rest of the pieces.
This book is not typical of garden books and Jamaica Kincaid puts in bits and pieces of her life, touching on racial issues and gardener snobbery. Some sentences widen the eyes and make you read it again because it is so unexpected, tidbits that most other authors would self-censor. The author can come across as a bit offensive, particularly when branding various people "ugly", and I'm not sure if she would be a difficult person to know or a fun person to know - maybe both, but I definitely enjoyed her writings and am glad I didn't let her wisteria story deter me from reading the rest of the book.

I found this book insufferable, and didn't get to finish it. The contrived title should have tipped me off. Why isn't Amazon listing it correctly? It should be My Garden (Book):

For started, i don't really care for Jamaica Kincaid's writing style. She uses punctuation sparsely, and you go for what it seems like a mile with no period in sight. In the meantime, she has branched in a myriad of extra information, and after a while it gets to be too much to keep track of. This is not stream of consciousness writing, or at least not the good kind anyway.

What really did me in was the beginning of her anecdote titled "Reading":

"It was a day in late October and I had two thousand dollars' worth of heirloom bulbs to place in the ground [...]"

If that wasn't enough, then she continues:

"I do not like winter or anything that represents it ..."

What is she doing then living in Vermont?!

She came across as a malcontent human being who agonizes over insignificant stuff, like the exact month her wisterias bloom. She takes the joy out of gardening, and out of reading.

"Oh, how I like the rush of things, the thickness of things . . ."

Oh, how I like Kincaid's My Garden (Book). I am halfway through it and realize I had better slow down, because I am not going to find another book on the garden I like nearly so much as this one, probably for a very long time. I've got a stack of other books, none so good, and I will use My Garden (Book) like a tiny slice of truffle among the more common and less delicious food on my plate. Rationing is the only option.

What I like about her (among the everything else I like about her) is that she doesn't like Asiatic Lilies because their colors remind her of a hallucinogenic drug she took once ever seven days for a year when she was young. This is the best sort of confession to make in a gardening book.

She also confesses to amassing large debts and threatening letters from creditors about her garden habit. She confesses to being a messy, careless person with a messy house. All these confessions endear her to me. The weaknesses balance the austere authority of her prose, which also endears her to me.

Her garden aesthetic - odd, overgrown, intense and personal, wild, even, endears her to me. I remember reading a bit of memoir in the New Yorker that involved her experiments with coffee enemas. This struck me as the strangest thing I had ever read (because perhaps I was still a teenager in Kansas and ready to be struck by things). Enemas? The reason for them escaped me, but with coffee none the less - or espresso? I paid careful attention to the byline of that piece, wanting to find more of this sort of writing.

Later, one of her essays was in a book I used as a graduate teaching assistant. When I saw her name, I took a sip of coffee.

I like Ms. Kincaid because she doesn't love the writing of Vita Sackville-West. She says that the best literary companion to Vita's gardens is the autobiography of Nina Simone. How could this not be love? The best companion to life is Nina Simone and gardening like Vita Sackville-West.

How could I not see bringing Ms. Kincaid a bouquet of flowers in exquisite yellows and sharing a cocktail in some overgrown, wild garden someday? How could I not tell everyone I know who enjoys the garden or good writing to pick up this book immediately and fall in love?

Kincaid's distinctive style feels flat in this book. The repetitions and revisitings are laboured and the feeling lingers that one is reading a submission from a freshman creative writing program, rather than a work from a talented writer (as her excellent essays reveal her to be). Too often the chance of achieving real affect is lost in favour of maintain the forced technicality of the writing. The attempt to capture a character who exists predominantly in absence is certainly interesting, but this is an unsuccessful novel and often painfully badly written.

The story description on the back cover sounded intriguing (the untold story of a man of no importance in a poor Caribbean country), the book was on sale. I bought it. Then I read half through it, and finally gave up. I found the "creative style" of this short novel way too annoying not to give up after a short while. Everything is repeated once, twice, thrice, and then again after some pages. No one talks, writes or think this way. What do I mean? Here is an example:

"In Mr. Shoul's garage there were three cars and these cars all belonged to Mr. Shoul, but Mr. Shoul himself was not in the garage with his cars. Mr. Shoul was upstairs in his own house above the garage where the three cars were, and Mr. Shoul by then, that is by the time Mr. Potter arrived in the garage where there were the three cars, [...]"

And here is another:

"And that day, the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, and it shone in its usual way so harshly bright, making even the shadows pale, making even the shadows seek shelter; that day the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, but Mr. Potter did not note this, so accustomed was he to this, the sun in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky; if the sun had not been in its usual place, that would have made a great big change in Mr. Potter's day, it would have meant rain, however briefly such a thing, rain, might fall, but it would have changed Mr. Potter's day, so used was he to the sun in its usual place, way up above and in the middle of the sky."

So, if you like this sort of style, by all means do buy this book, but if you find it awkward and uninteresting as I did, be warned because the whole book is consistently written this way.

This is a book readers are either going to love or hate. If you've read and enjoyed any of Kincaid's previous quasi-autobiographical fiction, such as "My Brother" or "Autobiography of My Mother", you will probably like this one too. If you like dreamy, hazy, stream-of-conciousness style introspective writing, you may well like this too. I, on the other hand, had never read anything by Kincaid and was simply interested in reading a novel set in Antigua that might provide some kind of window upon the island. Something like Jean Buffong's "Snowflakes in the Sun", which revolves around an elderly couple in Grenada and is chock full of stories and local color. Alas, contrary to the book jacket writer's claims, Antigua most definitely does not come alive under the gaze of Mr. Potter. Indeed, the entire book does not contain Mr. Potter's gaze at all, but rather that of one of his adult daughters, who is writing the "story". The narrator is Kincaid, who has constructed this book based on the few details she knew about her own absent father. These few details and those additional ones she invents total maybe ten pages worth of prose (Mr. Potter's father is a fisherman, mother commits suicide, he is raised in quasi-servitude in a kind of orphanage, he grows up to be an illiterate taxi driver, he fathers many daughters with different women and fails to acknowledge any of them, he eventually has his own car hire business, he dies), however Kincaid spins this out to almost 200 pages.

She does so in the service of attempting to show the course of an unexamined life. The idea that Mr. Potter is unwittingly trapped in his limited existence by the circumstance of his own upbringing and illiteracy ("And because Mr. Potter could neither read nor write, he could not understand himself"). However, again, this could have been accomplished in a few pages, and one gets the feeling that the book is more a personal therapeutic project (the narrator hovers between anger at abandonment and understanding) than anything else. Some will find her hyper-stylized prose, which employs heavy doses of repetition, doubling back and forth, restatements, paraphrases, and so on, highly lyrical, poetic, and in the words of one reviewer "spellbinding". I, on the other hand, found it to be insufferably calculated, mannered, and ultimately, soporific. Of course, this boils down to a matter of personal preference, but I would highly recommend that one reads an extract before purchasing the book -- had I done that, I certainly would not have gotten it. On the other hand, if you like sentences that run on for an entire page, this is the book for you! A complete disappointment, the most unengaging book I've read this year.

I am an admirer of Kincaid's work, especially "The Autobiography of My Mother" and "My Brother." However, my high hopes for this book were dashed as I turned page after page. In "Mr. Potter," Kincaid unintentionally parodies the very prose style that made the above works so powerful.

In close to 200 pages, what is incantatory in her earlier work is tediously and self-importantly repetitous in this one. The details of her father's life -- his ancestry, his abandonment of mother and daughters, his later livelihood -- are several dozen pages worth of narrative that is ridiculously stretched out in endlessly repeated phrases; and when those phrases are exhausted, we get paraphrases of those phrases.

Instead of creating a solid portrait of her father the way she did with her mother and brother, we get a novel in which parodic repetition is the main character, in which the author's voice defeats forward-moving narrative. One gets the feeling that the style has become just filler, that Kincaid knew few enough facts of her father's life in order to fill entire book.

Kincaid's writing style is entirely unique and distinctive. This book is not just trying to tell a story, it is assigning an identity to people who otherwise would not have one. The point of this book is to explore and interpret the influence that the past has on the present, both globally and individually. Every literary device Kincaid incorporates into this book is used for a reason, from her repetition of certain phrases to her two page long sentences--it all adds and supports the depth and breadth of the subject she is writing about. With this book Kincaid not only challenges the way we view our lives, history and environment, but the way we view the lives,history and environments of people who are wholly unlike us. "Mr. Potter" is a striking piece of literature.

It seems apparent that some of the reviewers picked up this book with the misguided notion that they were going to read some wonderful account of their beloved Himalayas. Apparently you have no idea who Jamaica Kincaid is or what her writings are about, so if are upset because you have "been to the Himalayas and there are much better writings," it's because you've never read (or probably even heard about) "My Brother," "Lucy," or any other of her profound literary works. She is not a travel author, and although this work is set during her physical journey, it, like every other work of hers, is about the psychological, emotional, and social journeys we all make.

Anyone has the right to write a review, but please make sure you have some idea of the genre of the book before you start casting dispersions. Personally, I give this book a 4 only because I consider this work to be less introspective than her others. It's still more profound than 90% of the other writings out there, just not as emotionally revealing as, say, "Autobiography of My Mother." Her writing is, as always, lyrical, with the unique ability to paint an extraordinarily vivid picture of even the most banal scenes. I highly recommend it, but only if you are well aware that this is not a "travelogue."

This is a lovely book which beautifully describes an extensive trek in a remote area of the Himalayas. Ms. Kincaid and her close friend, Dan Hinckley, a distinguised botanist, make the trip together. Dan Hinckley has traveled in the region extensively. It is the author's first Himalayan trek and she trains diligently to be prepared for its rigors. The author is a gifted writer who describes the feelings and emotions triggered by the beauty of the region and its warm and hospitable people. Ms. Kincaid's style is most engaging and includes wonderful description, humor, and great senstivity. The focus of the trek is the collection of seeds for propagating Himalayan plantlife in North America. The passion of the participants for gathering the seeds of rare species is engaging to gardeners and non-gardeners alike. All who have journeyed to this special part of the world, or intend to, will enjoy this charming book.

Jamaica Kincaid writes this memoir of her travels in Hong Kong, Nepal, and the Himalayan Mountains in October 2002. Her fellow hikers were Dan Hinkley of European descent, living now in Seattle and Bleddyn & Sue Wynn-Jones from Wales. They belong to a group of botanists who go on trips to gather seeds from plants to transplant after they return to their separate homes. In 1998 she had been on a similar trek across southwestern China with Dan.

On this trip she was exhilerated by the lushness of the foliage, so like a paradise garden, but could not get used to the deceptive nearness of their destinations (so near and yet so far). She was not accustomed to the vast difference between her expectation, perception, and reality -- the way things really are.

They faced some dangers along the way and some hardships, but the trip was long and winding up and down hills and they were exhausted by nightfall. A tall waterfall was so ferocious it sounded like jet engines on an airplane.

It took a while to absorb all that she'd seen to put it into book form for the National Geographic. They felt lucky to get back to civilization after the three-week long walk. She took notes along the way and had her digitial camera with her to take relevant photos. She grew up on an island in the Carribbean but now lives in Vermont where she has a continuing garden.

Stay away from this book! Jamaica Kincaid's book is filled with pseudo-philosophy and hollow observations towards life which reads artificial. As someone who has trekked the Himalaya, I can only surmise that Kincaid was on some shallow, self-absorbed trip of her own. Don't just take my word for it, read just one of her own passages (pages 27-28): "One group was from Austria but we decided to call them the Germans, because we didn't like them from the look of them, they were so professional-looking with all kinds of hiking gear, all meant to make the act of hiking easier, I think. But we didn't like them, and Germans seem to be the one group of people left that can not be liked just because you feel like it." She can't even be bothered to learn the name of one of the Sherpas who helped carry her provisions, and instead refers to him as "Table" since he was also responsible for setting up the table where her and the other hikers ate. Giving him this demeaning nickname as you would a dog gives you some idea as to the type of person Kincaid is. Save yourself a few bucks, there are far, far better books to read about the Himalayas.

As an avid reader, enthusiastic traveler, lover of Nepal, and a wannabe gardener, I eagerly picked up "Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya". Jamaica Kincaid has written of her trek through the mountains of Nepal gathering seeds to plant in her Vermont garden. What promises to be a literary trek through some of the world's highest peaks ends up feeling more like a slow walk down an endless sidewalk. While there are a few remarkable descriptions of the mountains and rivers she crossed, most of the book is filled with the author's introspective whining. The pages of a travel memoir should transport the reader into another land and introduce us to it's places, people and unique culture. Unfortunately, "Among Flowers" fails to do any of those things.
The main thing that struck me about this book is how self-absorbed the author seems to be. By her own admission, she took almost no interest in what was around her unless it was of some use to her, for example, if some particular seeds would grow in her region. While she seems to have a good grasp of Latin plant names, she couldn't learn the actual names of her Nepali porters. Instead she refers to them merely by what role they played in relation to her- the man who prepared her meals was "Cook" and the one who carried her table was "Table". She admits that she didn't bother noting the characteristics of the Nepali people since they couldn't do the same for her. She makes a gross generalization of the people as either looking like they were from the South (India) or the North (Tibet), apparently not having taken the time to learn about the many indigenous Nepalese tribes. As a black woman who was raised in Antigua and now resides in America, I was very surprised at Kincaid's lack of cultural sensitivity toward others and apparent disinterest in the people of Nepal. In addition, in two different places she mentions having a hatred for the Germans and even says "Germans seem to be the one group of people left that can not be liked just because you feel like it".
As a piece of literature, the text is rambling and incohesive. Some sentences seem like they will never end; others left me wondering what she was talking about. She ping-pongs between what she sees and what she feels and then attempts to draw us into her distant memories. Far too much of the book is spent describing what she was thinking and complaining about things. I'm afraid the result is that she seems to be far more engrosed with herself than interested in the amazing places and people she is walking among. This book may better have been described as a personal journal than a travel memoir.
If you are interested in trekking in the Himalaya, read a different book. If gardening and seed-collecting are what you fancy, look somewhere else. However, if you want to get to know Jamaica Kincaid, this just may be the book for you.