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The Long Song is a deeply moving story, but it’s not what is said that is most effective. Indeed, it’s about what isn’t said that is the most powerful and intensely thought provoking aspect of the book. The Long Song has an unusual format for a historical novel. Part memoir, part oral history, it is led by July, the narrator, who is detailing an account of her life on a Jamaican plantation, which is then filtered through her son, who is writing her account and experiences on her behalf. It is often non-linear and, at points, Levy deviates with interludes and interruptions, where the two discuss the presentation of the story. What did you think of this format - how did it serve your reading experience and your understanding of July’s experience? Why do you think Levy chose to write in this manner? Andrea Levy's Small Island – her fourth novel – has had a glorious career: it not only won the Orange prize, but was voted "Best of the Best" novels ever to win that award. It was an adroit, funny, tender book about a Jamaican immigrant couple, their big-hearted white landlady and her bigoted husband in postwar London and it beautifully described the struggle to survive in a new country. A novel such as Small Island is a hard act to follow, but in her new book Levy has moved into top gear. The white colonialists are, as you might expect, a loathsome lot. I haven’t read enough of the literature of colonial West Indies to know whether they are stereotypical, but they could well be – hypocritical, greedy and with no awareness of the humanity of the people of different race who were their slaves. The Long Song is simultaneously the life-affirming story of one woman’s battle to survive in terrible circumstances, and a tribute to the legions of slaves who did more than suffer and die, but also managed to squeeze all they possibly could out of the bleakest of circumstances.’
Long Song: What to Know Before You Watch - PBS The Long Song: What to Know Before You Watch - PBS
Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as “a triumph” ( San Francisco Chronicle). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. July describes herself as a mulatto; her father was white, an overseer and raped her mother. She was taken from her mother whilst still young to become the pet and then lady’s maid to Caroline Mortimer, the vapid and foolish sister of the plantation owner. A new overseer, Robert Goodwin, arrives with good intentions and a Christian upbringing. He intends to show that following slavery the plantation can be managed on humane lines. The charting of his downfall on several levels is fascinating. He ends up being just as cruel as his predecessors. The story is weaved around actual historical events. The opening episode of last night’s three-part adaptation, to be screened over consecutive nights, manages the same feat, thanks to a finely whetted script from Sarah Williams (who also adapted Levy’s Small Island for television in 2009) and some outstanding work from a first-class cast. Central to this is rising star Tamara Lawrance, who captures all of July’s ebullience and intelligence, fiercely restrained in the capricious, violent mistress’s presence but forever straining at its bounds. Over the years she learns to handle Caroline (a pitch-perfect performance from Hayley Atwell, who takes her right up to the line of real monstrousness without crossing into caricature), make a good life within its awful and motherless constraints – and then, gleefully at first, embraces the upending of that life when the Christmas Rebellion begins. Which brings me to the next concern, frankly, I didn't connect with any of the characters in the story. I truly wanted to do so. Though July tries to make lemonade out her life's worth of lemons. Her spin doesn't feel true. She has suffered greatly, yet, she doesn't seem impacted.
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In her fifth novel, The Long Song (2010), she explores an earlier shared history of slaves (coloured) and slave owners (mostly white) in the sugar plantations of 19th-century Jamaica.
Long Song: A Novel - Andrea Levy - Google Books The Long Song: A Novel - Andrea Levy - Google Books
The Man Booker prize 2010 shortlist". The Guardian. 7 September 2010. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 7 July 2020. Without wishing to give too much of the story away there is one particular scene which was agonizing. The child July and her mother are walking towards the fields when the plantation owner and his sister, a woman whose giggle worthy silliness becomes something monsterous with absolute power, meet them. The newly widowed sister slowly takes a fancy to the little girl and decides at the end of the meeting to take her as her own. In the hands of Andrea Levy the writing of this seen is matter of fact but builds to an incredible dread as the curiosity of a child, the growing realization of the mother come crashing against a whimsical act of inhumanity by the plantations owners sister who give no more thought to the abduction then someone taking a kitten. The whole thing capped by the plantation owners disppassionate discussion of the work attributes of his slaves. For me that one scene brought to life the history of slavery in a way that makes you wiser in a way a hundred recitation of the facts would be unable to do. In the ability to take history and make it relatable by showing the effects on everyday humans it reminded me of "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry. Levy admits in her own notes on writing the novel to the anticipated difficulty of writing about slavery "without it turning into a harrowing tale of violence and misery". July arose from that anxiety as the answer to it. As a narrator she is unreliable, one-eyed and sometimes mendacious, which is paradoxically why we trust her version of events above the orthodox white historian's view. She is not overly interested in the historical details (though the author has clever devices to give us just as much as we need) preferring to let the story unfold for us through her experiences and her relationships. She is often self-deluded, succeeds in fooling us too at times, and we love her for it. The book you are now holding within your hand was born of a craving. My mama had a story—a story that lay so fat within her breast that she felt impelled, by some force which was mightier than her own will, to relay this tale to me, her son. Her intention was that, once knowing the tale, I would then, at some other date, convey its narrative to my own daughters. And so it would go on. The fable would never be lost and, in its several recitals, might gain a majesty to rival the legends told whilst pointing at the portraits or busts in any fancy great house upon this island of Jamaica. The book covers significant periods in history, including the 1831-1832 Baptist Wars and the 1838 abolition of slavery. Discuss the portrayal of resistance and rebellion in the novel across these periods and the impact on the characters and their quest for freedom.
Caroline is a white mistress at Amity and the plantation owner’s sister. She is responsible for taking July from the cotton fields (‘Look how cute the little one is’, she says before callously removing her from her mother). Caroline teaches July to read and write so she can help her run the business. She is deeply flawed and becomes unknowingly dependent on July.
Long Song review – a sharp, painful look at the last days The Long Song review – a sharp, painful look at the last days
While The Long Song depicts a dark period of history, the author’s use of language and tone is often distinctly humorous, which can, at times, feel disconcerting given the subject matter is so harrowing. How does this use of levity help readers navigate material relating to this period? The story unfolds at the Amity sugar plantation, where the strong-willed July is working as a lady’s maid for Caroline Mortimer. When Robert Goodwin, a new overseer at Amity arrives, both July and Caroline are intrigued by his revolutionary spirit and intent to improve the working conditions on the plantation. But the winds of change across the hot plantation fields end up not being without consequences.I really wanted to like Andrea Levy’s The Long Song. The subject matter is interesting—the last years of slavery in Jamaica in the 1820s-30s—and Levy’s outstanding 2004 novel Small Island was one of my favourite British novels of the 2000s. She thankfully agreed. Then forsook the pleasures of cooking her cornmeal porridge, fish tea, and roasted breadfruit, of repairing and sowing our garments and other tasks which, in truth, were quite useful about our busy household, to put all her effort into this noble venture, this lasting legacy of a printed book. The Long Song was filmed in the Dominican Republic, a setting that offered grueling hot days, but also surprising beauty. “It looked like a film set,” Hayley Atwell said. “When we were at that plantation house and there would be a sunset, there was a moment when we just stopped filming for a second, and everyone went onto the veranda…just look at these purples and oranges. The plantation was on this kind of hilly land and it looked like a carpet of neon green. It didn’t look real at all. It was a very lush place.” a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/clips/the-long-song-official-trailer/">Watch a preview now! Y por fin puedo decir que me he leído uno de mis eternos pendientes de la vida. Conocí este libro al ver en la televisión su versión en miniserie o película larga hará cosa de unos dos o tres años, y si he tardado tanto en leerlo (aunque lo he tenido en la mano muchas veces para comenzarlo) era precisamente porque quería alejarme un poco de la película, esperando que así el libro pudiera sorprenderme más si se me desdibujaba su argumento aunque fuera un poco . Tengo que deciros que la versión cinematográfica es muy fiel al original (De hecho, creo que es la película que he visto nunca que es más fiel al libro del que bebe) y que merece mucho la pena verla.
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