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crankylibrarian
Nov 01, 2011crankylibrarian rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
War often engineers major societal change: families are uprooted, young people unexpectedly become leaders and are opened to new experiences, social groups mix. It's no coincidence that the U.S. social justice movements experienced renewed energy after World Wars I and II. In Britain, it was the anti-colonial movements which caught fire in the wake of war. The conflict is elegantly articulated by two characters in Andrea Levy's _Small Island_: a Jamaican, bitter that his RAF service earns him no respect or appreciation in post-war England, and a white Englishman who fought "so that each man could live amongst his own kind". Told in the alternating voices of its central characters, Small Island examines the inner lives and struggles of Jamaican immigrants Hortense and Gilbert, both before and after the war. Gifted, well educated, and self-reliant, they are determined to find success in their revered "Mother country", but keenly disappointed by the ignorance and racism they encounter. Their English landlady Queenie has been similarly discouraged by life, particularly in her marriage to stolid, unimaginative Bernard, whose unshakable faith in British superiority and tradition will leave him pitifully unprepared to cope with post-war reality. There are no villains or heroes here, just 4 bewildered, ordinary people doing the best they can.