Book 200: Barbados (English) – In the Castle of My Skin (George LAMMING)

It would have been easier if I had gone to live in a more respectable district, but that was beyond my mother’s resources. She would have done so without hesitation, but she saw it was impossible and consoled herself with the thought that it didn’t matter where you lived. The mind was the man, she said, and if you had a mind you would be what you wanted to be and not what the world would have you. I heard the chorus every day and sometimes I tried repeating it to others. The mind was the man. I remained in the village living, it seemed, on the circumference of two worlds.

Barbados is traditionally the most anglophile of the West Indian countries, so it was a bit of a surprise when the country replaced Queen Elizabeth as its head of state last year, on the road to becoming a republic. Here we are at an earlier stage of its history (the 1930s) as it transitions towards independence (1966) from the UK.

This is an autobiographical novel of Lamming’s young life (as ‘G.’) from 9 to 19. (He was not much older when he wrote this classic).

It was rather slow and not particularly easy to read. The dialogues were sometimes rather impenetrable. But there is a great deal of beauty in the writing. There is a lot of repetition, short sentences and lyrical description (especially of crabs…), which creates tension as you wait for something to happen.

The village and plantation where he grows up is effectively owned by the ‘white’ landlord Mr. Creighton, who later sells it from under the people’s feet (even though they were saving up to buy their houses, they couldn’t own the land). Despite his paternalism he had a strong feeling of noblesse oblige and they were mutually dependent. The villagers end up having to move. There are in fact multiple betrayals in the story, but as a great writer Lamming enables us to see different sides of the issues and to some extent to empathise with everyone. Multiple viewpoints in narrating the story also complicate the reading.

No one is totally bad here – not Creighton, nor the investors who want to build their own houses without necessarily wanting to oust anyone else.

In all, it was not an easy or thrilling read but very worth persevering with for its insights into betrayal, racism, class struggle, colonialism and adapting to changing times.

Lamming, George (1927 – ), In the Castle of My Skin, UK, Penguin Modern Classics, 2016, ISBN 978-0-241-29606-6 (First published 1953)