I have been reading last year’s Man Booker award winner – A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James for the past couple of weeks. Let me tell ya, there is nothing brief about it.
What it is though, is compelling, and in spite of the difficult language, the insane number of characters, and the almost unintelligible lingo I am powering through and am now midway through this book.
Here’s a short description of one of the ghettos in Kingston, Jamaica as seen through the eyes of an American journalist.
There’s a reason why the story of the ghetto should never come with a photo.
The Third World slum is a nightmare that defies beliefs or facts, even the ones staring right at you.
A vision of hell that twists and turns on itself and grooves to its own soundtrack. Normal rules do not apply here.
Imagination then, dream, fantasy. You visit a ghetto, particularly a ghetto in West Kingston, and it immediately leaves the real to become this sort of grotesque, something out of Dante or the infernal painting of Hieronymus Bosch.
A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
