Customer Reviews

Crick Crack, Monkey (Caribbean Writers Series)

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This is one of the rolicking, humorous West Indian novels in the vein of V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street, Alvin Bennet's God, the Stonebreaker, Austin Clarke's Amongst the Thistles and Torns, and A House for Mr. Bishwas. It captures the bitter-sweet experiences of a little girl growing up in Trnidad and Tobago. An excellent Caribbean novel.

More than humor, I remember this book for its poignancy, the effects on a young girl of her own culture (black, Caribbean) being denigrated and other cultures and anything associated with whiteness and England being praised. So touching was the scene where Tee is playing with dolls; so telling is her idealization of the dolls' world and the juxtaposition with her own.

Everyone wants the best for their children; this book examines how people decide what is best and how these preconceptions affect the very children they love and want to protect.

This beautifully written West Indian coming of age piece tells the story of Tee and her brother, Toddan who are forced to reside between two worlds as their aunts battle over guardianship of them.

After their mother dies and their father moves to London, Tee and Toddan live with Tantie (their father's sister) and Aunt Beatrice (their mother's sister) during their childhood and adolescent years. As the story centers around Tee's adult and childhood self recalling these experiences, the reader gets a glimpse of the down-to-earth but somewhat loose influences from Tantie and the snobbish but cultured influences from Aunt Beatrice. From one aunt she learns expletives and from the other etiquette.

Hodge cleverly displays Tee/Cynthia's duality and the impact that it has on her child and adult self. Both struggle with trying to exist and coexist in two worlds, fit in with relatives and classmates, learn from the differing cultures that surround them, and find themselves in the process.

One explanation of the term, "crick crack," is that in the francophone islands, when a storyteller wants to tell a story, he or she will shout "Crick!" And those eager to hear the story will shout "Crack." Another explanation suggests that the term is rendered when a storyteller is inquiring of his or her audience whether or not the story told is factual or fictional. Similarly, Tee poses such a question to herself to determine which world to abide in. With an inquiring mind and a "shrieking crescendo," I'll utter, "Monkey break `e back on a rotten pommerac!" You'll have to read the book to get that one.

This short but intense novel lends itself to a fruitful discussion of postcolonial issues such as appropriation and abrogation, assimilation and acculturation, hybridity, mimicry, and Eurocentrism. I taught it with considerable success in an upper-division class. The students found the ending disappointing, though.

The cultural and linguistic complexity of Trinidadian society and the country's struggle to carve out an identity for itself are effectively captured in the confusion of the orphaned protagonist, Tee, who is torn between the warm but no-nonsense environment at her Tantie's and the 'properness' of life with Beatrice, her aunt who lives in the city.