Customer Reviews

Mr. Potter: A Novel

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Mr. Potter is written in the same style of language circling as her Autobiography of My Mother. When I had read about 20 pages, I had to start over to determine if I had missed a transition in the storyline or if the author had omitted the transition - the latter being the correct answer. In Mr. Potter the circular language almost demands that you read out loud - or at least form the words in your mind - if you are to follow the story. In that sense, I did not enjoy reading this book as I had her earlier works.

However, by the end of the book I had to be in awe of the author. She succeeded in presenting both the despair and the wisdom of being inconsequential. She accurately presented individuals as being shaped by small details such as a line drawn through the father section of a birth certificate. She presented the similarity in displacement whether a rich Lebanonese businessman, a Vienese doctor, or an African slave. Through that similarity of displacement, she made a strong social statement about the relationship of the "have's" and the "have not's".

The story line is simple - a boy is born without his father claiming him, his mother leaves him as a servant boy while she commits suicide, he learns to drive, he becomes a chauffeur, he has many daughters - one of which is the narrator, he becomes a successful cabbie, he dies. However, through this simple story, through language that is simple and difficult simultaneously, Kincaid crafted a realistic, wise, critical depiction of humanity. I'm impressed.

Kincaid's writing style is entirely unique and distinctive. This book is not just trying to tell a story, it is assigning an identity to people who otherwise would not have one. The point of this book is to explore and interpret the influence that the past has on the present, both globally and individually. Every literary device Kincaid incorporates into this book is used for a reason, from her repetition of certain phrases to her two page long sentences--it all adds and supports the depth and breadth of the subject she is writing about. With this book Kincaid not only challenges the way we view our lives, history and environment, but the way we view the lives,history and environments of people who are wholly unlike us. "Mr. Potter" is a striking piece of literature.

Jamaica Kincaid's most recent novel MR. POTTER (2002) is the author's most recent foray into the complex and challenging terrain of autofiction. The novel is subtle, nuanced, lyrical, passionate, and literary. For those who know Kincaid's work well and are committed to the ardor that reading her texts demands, it is not only an immensely rewarding read, but a new and unexpected episode in a literary drama that continues (thankfully!) to unfold with breathtaking poetry and philosophical brilliance.

The story description on the back cover sounded intriguing (the untold story of a man of no importance in a poor Caribbean country), the book was on sale. I bought it. Then I read half through it, and finally gave up. I found the "creative style" of this short novel way too annoying not to give up after a short while. Everything is repeated once, twice, thrice, and then again after some pages. No one talks, writes or think this way. What do I mean? Here is an example:

"In Mr. Shoul's garage there were three cars and these cars all belonged to Mr. Shoul, but Mr. Shoul himself was not in the garage with his cars. Mr. Shoul was upstairs in his own house above the garage where the three cars were, and Mr. Shoul by then, that is by the time Mr. Potter arrived in the garage where there were the three cars, [...]"

And here is another:

"And that day, the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, and it shone in its usual way so harshly bright, making even the shadows pale, making even the shadows seek shelter; that day the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, but Mr. Potter did not note this, so accustomed was he to this, the sun in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky; if the sun had not been in its usual place, that would have made a great big change in Mr. Potter's day, it would have meant rain, however briefly such a thing, rain, might fall, but it would have changed Mr. Potter's day, so used was he to the sun in its usual place, way up above and in the middle of the sky."

So, if you like this sort of style, by all means do buy this book, but if you find it awkward and uninteresting as I did, be warned because the whole book is consistently written this way.

This is a book readers are either going to love or hate. If you've read and enjoyed any of Kincaid's previous quasi-autobiographical fiction, such as "My Brother" or "Autobiography of My Mother", you will probably like this one too. If you like dreamy, hazy, stream-of-conciousness style introspective writing, you may well like this too. I, on the other hand, had never read anything by Kincaid and was simply interested in reading a novel set in Antigua that might provide some kind of window upon the island. Something like Jean Buffong's "Snowflakes in the Sun", which revolves around an elderly couple in Grenada and is chock full of stories and local color. Alas, contrary to the book jacket writer's claims, Antigua most definitely does not come alive under the gaze of Mr. Potter. Indeed, the entire book does not contain Mr. Potter's gaze at all, but rather that of one of his adult daughters, who is writing the "story". The narrator is Kincaid, who has constructed this book based on the few details she knew about her own absent father. These few details and those additional ones she invents total maybe ten pages worth of prose (Mr. Potter's father is a fisherman, mother commits suicide, he is raised in quasi-servitude in a kind of orphanage, he grows up to be an illiterate taxi driver, he fathers many daughters with different women and fails to acknowledge any of them, he eventually has his own car hire business, he dies), however Kincaid spins this out to almost 200 pages.

She does so in the service of attempting to show the course of an unexamined life. The idea that Mr. Potter is unwittingly trapped in his limited existence by the circumstance of his own upbringing and illiteracy ("And because Mr. Potter could neither read nor write, he could not understand himself"). However, again, this could have been accomplished in a few pages, and one gets the feeling that the book is more a personal therapeutic project (the narrator hovers between anger at abandonment and understanding) than anything else. Some will find her hyper-stylized prose, which employs heavy doses of repetition, doubling back and forth, restatements, paraphrases, and so on, highly lyrical, poetic, and in the words of one reviewer "spellbinding". I, on the other hand, found it to be insufferably calculated, mannered, and ultimately, soporific. Of course, this boils down to a matter of personal preference, but I would highly recommend that one reads an extract before purchasing the book -- had I done that, I certainly would not have gotten it. On the other hand, if you like sentences that run on for an entire page, this is the book for you! A complete disappointment, the most unengaging book I've read this year.

This is the most difficult, most pleasurable books I've read. From the first sentence, the first very, very, long sentence, Kincaid holds you in her arms and rocks you, forcing you to listen to the words and rhythms of Antigua.

More than prose, this is poetry. You must pay attention to every sentence, every word you will find yourself leafing back to that point where you can hear the echo and the words and feel the meaning--then you begin again.

If there is anything disappointing about the book it is the ending. All through the book I felt the power of the writer. Kincaid controls you, the reader, and controls the story with precise words, choice of scene and underwritten reactions. But, in the last few pages, I feel she could have "gone in for the kill" and kept that intimacy and vulnerability.

The story line can be read in other reviews, and if you haven't yet read Mr. Potter, I don't want to share the ending here. But, I will say that the innocent, vulnerable and intimate connection with "Mr. Potter" that the author has throughout the book is grayed in the last chapter.

I remember reading a one sentence short story by Kincaid---oh, I wish I could remember the title. It was a series of caveats and instructions from her mother of what a good girl would do. In it, she's sassy, young, and her voice wags. (I've got to find that short story and re-read it.)

To me, Jamaica Kincaid is a genius. She forces me to feel, smell, and taste Antigua. She rocks me in the lilt of the island. She forces me to read every word. It truly was the most pleasurable, difficult book I've read.

Jamaica Kincaid's writing talents had propelled her to staff writer at "The New Yorker" for years and then to teaching creative writing at Harvard. I have loved all of her books that I've read. "Mr. Potter" seems like a departure from her usual style with its mosaic of words, stream-of-consciousness, repetitiveness. Normally, I don't appreciate that type of writing but this I found to be mesmerizing. Not always entertaining but poetic and brilliant. I loved it. I have so much respect for this woman as a writer.

Kincaid's distinctive style feels flat in this book. The repetitions and revisitings are laboured and the feeling lingers that one is reading a submission from a freshman creative writing program, rather than a work from a talented writer (as her excellent essays reveal her to be). Too often the chance of achieving real affect is lost in favour of maintain the forced technicality of the writing. The attempt to capture a character who exists predominantly in absence is certainly interesting, but this is an unsuccessful novel and often painfully badly written.

I ordered this book over a month ago and I need it for class. I cannot even give an accurate rating of it because I have not received it. I am thinking to ask for my money back.

I enjoyed this novel. It's very realistic, and flows smoothly. Great summer read. Other summer reads recommended are: In-Law Drama and Sunset in St. Tropez. Happy reading!