GUEST REVIEWER: Jennifer Reviews The White Woman on the Green Bicycle | Monique Roffey | Simon & Schuster
Title: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
Author: Monique Roffey
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
Released: April 2010
ISBN-13: 9781847395221
Reviewer: Guest Reviewer Jennifer
Sabine
Harwood is caught up in a love triangle. Her husband George has fallen
passionately for another – and Sabine is trying desperately to salvage
the relationship. It is 1956; she and her husband George arrive in
Trinidad on a three-year contract. From the moment they step off the
ship, their relationship is doomed: for George, it is love at first
sight. To see, live and breathe Trinidad is what he will devote the rest
of his life to; for Sabine, the next 50 years will be a constant
struggle: trying to keep her sanity, trying to keep her family together,
trying to find a way back to England.
At the heart of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
is a tragic love story. The love of an unfaithful husband for his wife,
realized much too late in life, and the love of a devoted wife, at
times misguided, for her husband and for her family. And, ultimately, it
is a story about a fervent, at times irrational, love for an island.
But Monique Roffey’s novel is not just a story about the Harwoods. The
couple arrive in Trinidad in the midst of the de-colonization movement.
Eric Williams, soon to be first prime minister, is on the rise. The
working class look to him as their saviour. He will, at last, provide
them with what the white man did not: running water, electricity,
dignity. But just as the Harwood’s life does not turn out as planned,
neither does Williams live up to expectations.
In 1956, Blacks do not speak to whites, the local Creoles, whites and
mixed-race alike, show disdain to the Europeans who’ve come to the
island for the easy money – and because they can only be someone far
away from England. Women, regardless of class, colour or education can’t
find work – after all, it is still a man’s world. In the middle of all
this, Sabine is writing desperate letters to Williams, trying to
understand her husband, trying to understand the country and trying to
understand herself.
Reading
this novel, it is inevitable to fall in love with Trinidad. Its beauty,
conveyed in Roffey’s prose, appeals to every sense, yet its ambiguous
nature, violently beautiful yet peacefully suffocating, creates a sense
of confusion akin to Sabine’s. Ambiguity marks the book. You can’t help
sympathizing with Sabine, feeling with her when she realizes that she is
stuck, that she is entirely dependent on her husband, unable to leave
the island on her own and make a living for herself and her two
children. Yet her inability, or, rather, her unwillingness to sit back,
enjoy and let the sumptuous land take her in, is agonizing and enraging
to follow. You root for Granny Seraphine, an old black lady who is given
hope by Williams and his cohorts, and who deserves her running water
and electricity. Yet you shake your head in wonder when her proselytism
blinds her even against her closest allies because of the colour of
their skin.
This book will leave you confused, angry, impressed, and utterly
enamoured with Trinidad, its people, its tragic history and its
colourful, endearing and unforgettable protagonists.
About our guest today:
Jennifer
is a passionate lover of books in general and Caribbean literature in
particular. After having spent three years researching and writing about
French Caribbean women’s novels for her PhD at Cambridge University,
she moved on to work as an editor for a publishing company. Today, she
gets to read Caribbean lit (and anything else she can get her hands on)
strictly for fun again – although she can now call herself a doctor.
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GUEST REVIEWER: Jennifer Reviews The White Woman on the Green Bicycle | Monique Roffey | Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by Sassy Brit @ Alternative-Read.com
on
12:03 pm
Rating:
Reviewed by Sassy Brit @ Alternative-Read.com
on
12:03 pm
Rating:
Thank you so much, Jen, for your great review. :)
ReplyDeleteConfused and angry, I do not think those are two things I wanna feel after having read a book
ReplyDelete