A Small Place

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This is the 3rd Kincaid book I've read and she's always been a favorite. Where do I even begin with this one? ...It's brutal. Its brutal for the reader (especially if you are a reader who is white), for Antiguans, the Antiguan government and the tourism industry. Kincaid's 'A Small Place' is full of vitriol. She spews harsh criticisms on her native island's truly dishonest and disappointing leadership as an extension of colonialism. She also critiques the whole essence of travel, tourism and even tourists - who are mostly white. At some point, I wondered if Kincaid condoned xenophobia, because the way she describes the ways fellow Antiguans and other folks from the Caribbean dislike tourists (to the point where she actually insults white tourists), it could be seen as quite hateful. But then again, I read this book/memoir as a satire, so taking Kincaid's frank critique to heart is missing the point. In the work “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, the author expresses her strong opinions concerning Antigua in a second person narrative. She expresses about how she resents the Antiguans because of their ignorance towards tourism, their corrupted education system, and the colonization in Antigua. She explains how they're unaware that the tourist business could be a form of slavery and tourists exploit the Antiguan citizens that are in poverty for his or her pleasure. Kincaid additionally dislikes how Antiguans are being tutored from the very people that are controlling them and their corrupt education system. additionally, what Kincaid despises most is concerning the cultural subservience to the British, and eventually, the English who enslaved and colonized Antigua. Oblomov: Antigua's independence is still in living memory, most de-colonised places are. It's barely the past. It's not like resenting the French for 1066 or anything stupid like that. And has someone ever actually told you to feel guilty? I know I haven't. Elaine Potter Richardson, who later became the novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid, was born in 1949 in St. John’s, the capital city of the small Caribbean nation of Antigua. By Kincaid’s own account, she was a highly intelligent but often moody child, and she became increasingly distant from her mother as the family grew in number—an estrangement that would later become a central theme in her fiction. As she matured, Kincaid also became estranged from the social and cultural milieu in which she found herself. Too ambitious and intellectually curious to be satisfied with her career prospects in her tiny island home, she was also becoming alienated from the mostly white, European tradition handed down to her through her colonial education. Oblomov: Terry, make that two shots! Jesus, for you always bitching about 'them coming over here', you never think it's rude when we do the same, do you? Like you're a God send for tipping the waiter at the bar pool?

Kev: Well, not a God send, but yeah. It's 2021, I'm not wearing a pith helmet and demanding their grain. I'd be going on holiday to give them my money. Some fella from Nigeria isn't coming over here to buy a Big Ben statue that'll pay my rent for a month, is he? He's here to undercut our lads to build a garage. A Small Place is divided into four loosely structured, untitled sections. The first section begins with Kincaid’s narration of the reader’s experiences and thoughts as a hypothetical tourist in Antigua. The reader, through Kincaid’s description, witnesses the great natural beauty of the island, while being sheltered from the harsher realities of the lives of those who must live there. Kincaid weaves into her narrative the sort of information that only an “insider” would know, such as the reason why the majority of the automobiles on the island are poorly running, expensive Japanese cars. Included in her guided tour are brief views of the mansions on the island, mostly gained through corruption or outright criminality. She also mentions the now-dilapidated library, still awaiting repairs after an earthquake ten years earlier. The tour continues at the hotel, and Kincaid concludes the section with a discussion of her view of the moral ugliness of being a tourist.A Small Place is several small essays written by Kincaid. From the first sentence, Kincaid had my full attention. Her writing style is powerful and angry but also poetic. She has such a literary voice and it's hard not to listen. Džamajka Kinkejd je u jednom intervjuu rekla kako piše tako da svi budu makar malo manje zadovoljni nego što su bili. I u pravu je – izvesno iritirajuće sneveseljavanje je zagarantovano. A malo ko bi to rekao kad se susretne sa kristalno jasnim rečenicama i duhovitim, pa čak i razdraganim pripovednim tonom. Sve deluje savršeno naivno, čak i pojednostavljujuće, ali iza te fasade nema šta nema. Lukavo je to pakovanje, jer nema koga u ovoj knjizi Kinkejd nije, na ovaj ili onaj način, potkačila, ali tako da će se malo ko pronaći čak i u neposrednim optužbama. Doduše, ne treba prenebregnuti da je ona mogla da o svojoj rodnoj Antigvi piše bespoštedno tek van nje, ali sa druge strane, da nije živela u SAD, pitanje je da li bi uopšte njena priča i mogla da dopre to ostatka sveta. Edwards, Justin D. (2007). Understanding Jamaica Kincaid (2007ed.). University of South Carolina Press. p.77. ISBN 9781570036880. Ms. Kincaid writes with passion and conviction . . . [with] a poet's understanding of how politics and history, private and public events, overlap and blur.” — The New York Times I da, neodoljivo me je cela ova knjiga podsetila na igricu Tropico. Ko ne zna, u pitanju je strategija u kojoj je igrač u ulozi apsolutnog vladara jednog ostrva, kojim može da upravlja kako mu se prohte. Postoje različita uređenja i mogućnosti upravljanja ostrvom – od vojne hunte do vlasti ekologa. Moguće je otvaranje arheoloških nalazišta, crkava, nacionalnih parkova, ali i politička ubistva, kupovina glasova i lažiranje izbora. Sve što jedna diktatorska duša ište.)

Ultimately, this book of essays is great because it feels like listening. It's a taste of what Antiguans think about the situation in their country. I think this book is applicable for the entire conversation about tourism and traveling, as well as the longtime impacts of colonialism.S tim u vezi, osim političke dimenzije dela, nimalo manja nisu značajna razmatranja vezana za malu sredinu. Šansa da je Kinkejd čula za Radomira Konstantinovića je maltene nepostojeća, ali krajnje je interesantno da su im neka razmišljanja identična. Koga zanima može uporediti šta ovde, a šta u „Filozofiji palanke” piše o tome kako mala sredina doživljava protok vremena. Jamaica Kincaid is an angry woman, with an unchanneled misanthropic perspective. It is astounding that such an unstructured, bombastic piece of ill-thought out, almost drunken, rambling would ever be published. As an adult, the same critical eye with which Kincaid saw through the pomp of the royal visit is turned on the island at large. She speaks bitterly of the corruption of the government and the passivity of the people, but the main force of her anger is directed toward the English who colonized Antigua. Kincaid lays the present predicament of the Antiguans at the feet of the English, for populating the island with their slaves in the first place and for educating descendents of those slaves to admire the country that enslaved them. Kincaid describes herself as so angry about England’s crimes that she cannot bear to hear England praised—she even speaks about her resentment at dinner parties. Her anger toward tourists is slightly less intense and is focused on the willful ignorance required of people to enjoy themselves in a desperately poor place. Unlike the average Antiguans she describes, Kincaid cannot resign herself to the past oppression and present corruption. She is mystified that more Antiguans don’t share her outrage, and is frustrated by their apparent acceptance of their status as bit players in the vacation videos of others. As the anger of the adult Kincaid reveals, she remains deeply attached to her home and to her people. However, Kincaid has no illusions about the future of the island and seems glad to have made her partial escape. Sela, Maya. “An Improbable Story, my Life.” Haaretz. June 16, 2010. Accessed July 31, 2016. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/an-improbable-story-my-life-1….

I enjoy screaming so much since I had a nervous breakdown (PTSD) a few years ago. It is my main reason for attending sports events. My friends think I am excited over a home run or a touchdown, when actually I am really just screaming to vocalize my generalized rage and frustration over how things are with me. It never grows old - for me.* Oblomov: Yeah, honestly. She does, and her ire is very much directed at the English. How we were snooty, rude, condescending, had a superiority complex. How the behaviour was so normalised it was seen as our country's 'bad manners' rather than the actual racism it was. Oblomov: I never said I was. The book told me next to nothing about Barbuda and other islands that are Antigua's dependencies, and the only thing I know about contemporary Antigua now is the name of the PM and that they finally fixed that library. Hell, I couldn't even have pointed to Antigua on a map till a few days ago, and yet everyone in Antigua knows the country I'm from.a b c Gauch, Suzanne. "A Small Place: Some Perspectives on the Ordinary." Callaloo 25.3 (2002): 910–19. JSTOR. Web. 2013-12-02.