Customer Reviews

The Book of Jamaica

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I"m a Jamaican-American who recently returned to Jamaica to live. I saw the book on a remainder table. It's amazing. It captures many essential truths about Jamaican culture and class conflicts during a pivotal time in its history (the 70's), plus it's beautifully and lovingly written. Sometimes the "outsider" perspective gives us important truths, and this is a prime example. If you're at all interested in Jamaica, this is a must read.

The plot of this early Bank's novel revolves around a vacation to the seductive island of Jamaica by a college professor and his wife. They rent a home with patio and swimming pool on the outskirts of Port Antonio. Servants come on each day to cook and clean. The couple is protected from the turbulence of the island's cultural and political life by a fence made of both wire and social class (not to mention race). But the professor, the narrator of this tale, soon finds himself enjoying the company of the locals; in particular a young Rastafarian who has plenty of powerful Jamaican ganja he is very willing to share. Sure enough, before too much time has elapsed, the professor is smoking all the day long and providing transportation in his rental car to a small group of Marroons and Rastas that stay locally for short periods of time but live up in the mountains where they have their marijuana fields and live in villages with their families.

There are several trips back to the island after the narrator's life is completely transformed by his experiences during the first. His wife no longer accompanies him however as their marraige was one of the first casualities of his abrupt new fascination with Rastfarianism, Marroon culture, and ganja. You can imagine! But what starts out as an adventure full of promise, unfortunately follows an inevitable course ending in sorrow and not a little horror. Any attempt to blithely transcend differences of race and class are doomed, the author seems to be saying. And ganja will not of its own power make a story turn out all right, regardless of it's enormous capacity to create an internal state that seems to be mystically protected from all outward harm. In fact the opposite may be true. Ganja may release traits and fuel decisions that create a trend which rushes towards confrontation with dis-associated, unwanted self-aspects and a pressing need to re-assess one's relationship with the basics of self-preservation and the will to continue living.

This is a compelling, well-written novel that has the advantage of having marijuana as one of its central characters. The role marijuana plays in the story and in fueling the psychological development of the protaganist is handled skillfully and raises interesting questions about what effect heavy use may have on the trajectory of one's life. As a Jamaican travelogue, the book will spellbind as it is really a tour de force of gritty observational writing. Banks obviously harbours a deep love for Jamaica and a well-earned respect for the raw power of Jah Rastafari as expereinced through the taking of his sacremental offering; the holy herb ganja.

Forget all the Guides to Jamaica. If you really want to know how an American might feel living in my country, where "no problem" is the national password, yet a country full of problems, read this little known--at least in Jamaica--book. It captures the undertow of violence as well as the beauty of the place, giving a most realitic and compelling description, albeit in fictional form. You will want to read this book before taking a short or long visit. Though Russell Bank's experience won't be yours, that is, unless you choose to stay.

An American writer comes to Jamaica with the idea of writing a book. At first he has to know Jamaica better and we accompany him as he discovers this exotic country. He meets many kinds of people from rastafarians to marrons to relatives of Eroll Flynn (The story with Eroll Flynn... incredible!). What a surprising country, unusual people and so an amazing book! A lesson? The writer will tell you it at the end. Hard to be a rich American!

I spent a fair amount of time doing business in Kingston Jamaica in the late 1980s, travelling there about a dozen times in five year period, and my work led me to various places on the island. Even though it was written by an outsider, I have read very few books that really captured the feeling of the place and the people in the way that "The Book of Jamaica" did. I wonder how much of the central character, the American writer, was based on Banks himself?

I loved the atmosphere and plotline of the book, and Banks conveys much of Jamaican culture with great insight and skill. However it was hard for me not to despise the main character, a neurotic American writer who neglects his family to hang out with his fascinating, "exotic" Jamaican friends. An American trying to beat Jamaicans at rum drinking and dominoes is pure foolishness! But it rings true as something a typical American visitor would try to do. Eventually as the central character becomes more involved with the real Jamaica and the lives of his new friends, he gets a lot more than he bargains for. A book well worth reading.

It was interesting to me to read reviews of this book written by Jamaicans or people who have more first-hand knowledge of Jamaica than a beach vacation can provide. This is because, for me, the cultural and political aspects of Jamaican life that were depicted in _The Book of Jamaica_ far outweighed in interest anything about the protagonist/narrator. I found it odd how unable I was to hold the plot involving the expatriot professor in my mind while I was reading. It created an unpleasant effect because his story would occasionally interrupt the story of the Maroon communities and I would remember that there was more than one thing the story was about. The proportions, in this sense, felt wrong to me.

This said, I found the communties and lifestyles described here to be fascinating reading and Banks (at least apparently) wrote with loving respect about the Jamaican culture and people. A nice change from the usual cliche descriptions.

I judged a book by it's cover and bought this book mostly because of the title. I am an American and have always had an unexplainable fascination with Jamaica. I have been to Jamaica twice but don't claim to know much about the history of the culture. When I saw what the story was about and the date on the book I was interested, so I began to read...

The beginning of the book started off extremely slow (for me) with the story of the murder and the many different characters involved became confusing at times. I was surprised during the second part of the book to get sucked in to the story of the narrator, the Maroons and Nyamkopong. The characters were very beleivable to me and I ended up loving the book!

Being that it is not written by a Jamaican from a Jamaican point of view it may not be a "guide to jamaica" but for me it captures the feeling of the culture from an American's point of view.

Long story short- It was not what I expected but I enjoyed it and recommend it.

If you want to really know about Port Antonio, Navy Island and Errol Flynn - there are MUCH better books to read. This book is such a mish-mash of events and, often poorly and inaccurately, disguised personalities that it should not be rated as 'fiction' but rather a poorly written compilation of facts. I personally have known and have counted among my close friends many of the characters in this book. Except for some obvious descriptions and badly disguised names, these people are nothing akin to those in this book. Factual errors abound in names, events, characters and locations - which wouldn't be too bad if the book were truly a work of fiction. However, putting a bunch of misrepresentations based on fact into a book doesn't qualify as either 'fact" or "fiction". And as for learning about the lovely people of Jamaica ... how can anything important be learned from such a hodge podge of informatioN?

Mr. Banks wastes the opportunity of a lifetime by trying to tell a confused, inaccurate, story set in Jamaica. He is not the first, and probably will not be the last American to come to Jamaica looking for simple answers, and finding none goes ahead anyway with results that are laughable in some instances and insulting at others. I am an American, married to a Jamaican who has lived in Kingston and that owns a house in the Port Antonio area and so am very familiar with topics Mr. Banks touches on in his novel. One could get a better insight into Jamaica by reading the original James Bond novels set in Jamaica by Ian Fleming (Dr. No, The Man with the Golden Gun etc.) than to try to get any insight from this regrettable effort.