Small Island: The Movie

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

Happy Friday.

As you know, I am a devoted Grey's Anatomy fan. Well, Grey's is on hiatus until 2012 so my Thursday nights have felt empty of late. So, I decided to find a movie to watch that would take my mind off the shenanigans of the doctor's at Seattle Grace. Of course, I went to my local library and scoured the DVD shelves for something delicious and I found it. A three-hour long BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, Small Island! I loved that book. As you faithful readers will recall, Levy was the one who started my serious love affair with Jamaican authors.

Small Island is about a lot of things; love, broken dreams, race, war, and the resilience of the human spirit to name a few. But if you want a basic plot description, it's about two couples, one White and one Black, one English and one Jamaican, and how their lives crash, collide and co-mingle during and just after WWII in London. I don't think I've ever said this before, but I loved the film as much as I loved the book. As I think back on it, I can't say the scenery was all that spectacular and they obviously had to cut much of the book out of the film, and yet I still found myself enraptured for the entire three hours because the actors were just that good. Really. They were all quite spellbinding. They truly brought Levy's characters to life. When it was over I cried, because it has kind of a sad ending, but also because I wanted to keep watching. Seriously, I already miss Gilbert, Hortense, Queenie and Bernard.



Lucky for me, the BBC is my kind of network. On the webpage for the film, there are plenty of links to follow for more information about the actors, the characters they play in the film and, best of all, first-person profiles of real Jamaicans who came to England post WWII, like the fictitious Hortense and Gilbert Joseph.

If you can find a copy of this film at your local library or perhaps you can order it online, it's worth it. At the very least, pick up the book if you haven't already.

So, does anyone have any other recommendations for BBC programs I should watch? I'm thinking about trying to find Zadie Smith's White Teeth? What do you think?

I'm listening.

Peace!

Jamaican Authors

Every since I got back from the Calabash Literary Festival, I've been obsessed with Jamaica. I've pledged allegiance to this tiny Jamaican restaurant near my house, chatted up any and every person I meet with a connection to Jamaica and read as many books by Jamaican authors as possible.

I finished She's Gone by Kwame Dawes as soon as I returned from Calabash. As one of the Calabash founders, I felt I owed it to him to read his book first. Next, I devoured Andrea Levy's , Fruit of the Lemon. Levy was born in London to Jamaican parents and writes about the Jamaican experience abroad. I loved this book because the main character, also a Jamaican born in London to Jamaican parents, struggles with an identity crisis, namely, trying to figure out what it means to be Black in a mostly White world.

Currently I am reading The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson. It's a fabulous tale based on a real-life incident that took place in Jamaica in 1946 involving American movie star, Errol Flynn. Loving it.

I think the reason I'm so attracted to Jamaican authors, besides their fantastic storytelling abilities, is that the meltingpot theme is so present in their work, whether the story takes place at home or abroad. So I'm just going to keep on reading my Jamaican authors and if anyone has a suggestion on who I should read next, send me a note.

BTW, Malcolm Gladwell and Zadie Smith. Did you know they were Jamaican?

Peace.