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Mr. Potter
Mr. Potter è analfabeta e fa l’autista ad Antigua. È l’ultimo degli undici figli che un pescatore ha avuto da otto donne diverse; sua madre è andata incontro «al mare che l’avrebbe inghiottita» quando lui aveva cinque anni. Mr. Potter è crudele, indifferente, ripiegato su se stesso. Non ha mai amato nessuno, neppure «le molte bambine con il naso uguale» che gli hanno generato troppe donne diverse. È una di quelle figlie ignorate e appena intraviste – ora che Mr. Potter è morto e di lui non resta alcuna traccia, foss’anche una lapide su cui piangere – a dar corpo alla sua immagine, a strapparlo al «grande ed eterno silenzio». La sua storia nasce così da un furente lavoro di scavo, da un’affannosa investigazione – perché la figlia ha incontrato Mr. Potter una sola volta, scambiando con lui poche frasi, ed è necessario sciogliere l’enigma, riscattare l’oltraggio, restituire senso all’assenza, impedire che svanisca «ogni speranza, ogni prova del suo amore». Una storia che la prosa ipnotica e ossessiva di Jamaica Kincaid trasforma in una fosca ode, dove astio immedicabile e imperioso anelito alla tenerezza, lancinante estraneità e intimità biologica (si può amare qualcuno «perché il suo naso ha esattamente la stessa forma del tuo»?) vibrano e si fondono, coinvolgendo il lettore in quella ricerca di sé che ha reso indimenticabili Autobiografia di mia madre e Mio fratello.
152 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 2002
44 people are currently reading
1035 people want to read
About the author
Jamaica Kincaid
81 books1,820 followersJamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in North Bennington, Vermont (in the United States), during the summers, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
November 7, 2017
I thought I had read something by Kincaid, but this may be my first. Extraordinarily interesting author and to this point in her career (2002), her works were mostly biographical in some way. This is the story of her father, and it's a memory piece, with him remembering his parents and events in his life. But the real narrator is one of his many unacknowledged daughter, Kincaid herself. And while she cuts him no slack, she paints a surprisingly compassionate portrait as she makes him into something of a Caribbean Everyman. I can always tell when the book is Literary Fiction, as my notes are full of references to language/style and characterizations, with less about tone, story, frame, pacing. No surprises here: this is stylistically complex as it moves among different time frames, and the language is lush, lyrical, and cadenced. This last may be annoying in print but in audio, in Robin Miles's fabulous reading, the repetitions of phrases, sentences, and stories become a kind of hypnotic mantra, an incantation which is very effective. Characterizations are also detailed, but we're observers, not really invited to become involved. The story line reflects family memories, both his and hers, and these frame the book; leisurely pace matches island life; tone is unsentimental and evocative. Even if you've read it, you might want to revisit through this excellent audio version.
March 20, 2018
The book Mr. Potter, speaks to the life of Mr. Potter, an illiterate chauffeur living on the island of Antigua. We are told of his family history, given insight to his family tree and his overall life.
I have to say, I did enjoy or appreciate this novel. I could not get over the constant repetition. I know it served a purpose but it was lost on me.
I have to say, I did enjoy or appreciate this novel. I could not get over the constant repetition. I know it served a purpose but it was lost on me.
March 8, 2008
At first the method of repetition turned me off, but I soldiered on and halfway through I began to understand what Kincaid was up to and accept some of the repetition in the following ways:
1. A refrain or chorus that is repeated throughout, such as the repeating of Mr. Potter's birth and death dates, who his parents were, who Elaine (the narrator's) parents were, that Potter could not read and could not write but Elaine could, and so forth--all facts that as they repeat and repeat accumulate in meaning until by book's end you realize why the narrator dwells on such facts as she tries to make sense of this father she never knew, this father who never claimed her. If the book were a song or a suite of songs or an opera, they'd be melodies and choruses and refrains that would convey meaning to us whenever they appeared in the structure.
2. Anaphora where the same words or phrases are repeated at the beginning of sections or chapters or even within a paragraph lifting the prose into not quite poetry but quite poetic passages. "There was a line drawn through me" was one of the more successful moments of this.
3. A way of thinking that spins out an idea or fact and repeats the idea or fact in the same words but a different order, almost as if Elaine is stating the facts and then turning them over and over again in her hands, looking at them from different angles, dissembling the parts and rebuilding the shapes to see if the shapes change, to make sense of the shapes.
And I liked this quote:
"...often a thing that is ugly is ugly in itself, and often a thing that is ugly is only a thing that is forgotten, kept from view and kept from memory, and often a thing that is ugly is not only a definition of beauty itself but also renders beauty as something beyond words or beyond any kind of description."
1. A refrain or chorus that is repeated throughout, such as the repeating of Mr. Potter's birth and death dates, who his parents were, who Elaine (the narrator's) parents were, that Potter could not read and could not write but Elaine could, and so forth--all facts that as they repeat and repeat accumulate in meaning until by book's end you realize why the narrator dwells on such facts as she tries to make sense of this father she never knew, this father who never claimed her. If the book were a song or a suite of songs or an opera, they'd be melodies and choruses and refrains that would convey meaning to us whenever they appeared in the structure.
2. Anaphora where the same words or phrases are repeated at the beginning of sections or chapters or even within a paragraph lifting the prose into not quite poetry but quite poetic passages. "There was a line drawn through me" was one of the more successful moments of this.
3. A way of thinking that spins out an idea or fact and repeats the idea or fact in the same words but a different order, almost as if Elaine is stating the facts and then turning them over and over again in her hands, looking at them from different angles, dissembling the parts and rebuilding the shapes to see if the shapes change, to make sense of the shapes.
And I liked this quote:
"...often a thing that is ugly is ugly in itself, and often a thing that is ugly is only a thing that is forgotten, kept from view and kept from memory, and often a thing that is ugly is not only a definition of beauty itself but also renders beauty as something beyond words or beyond any kind of description."
February 9, 2021
Mr. Potter is an illiterate chauffer. Born near the bottom of a stratified society, fathered by a man who impregnated numerous women and parented none of his offspring, raised by a foster family for whom he was invisible after his mother walked into the ocean, Mr. Potter grows up to repeat the pattern. This short book felt pretentious, Phrases were repeated in consecutive sentences as if the author was employing some poetic device. This is a snapshot of a life, a character sketch with no plot. This might get praise in certain literary circles, but it didn’t work for me.
April 26, 2017
A hard book to review, mainly because it doesn't really have a plot and barely has characters and it isn't even entirely clear as to which genre it belongs – memoir or novel – though the one thing it is closer to than anything else is poetry.
Let me demonstrate with the opening paragraph:
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. Mr. Potter breathed in his normal way, his heart was beating in its normal way, up and down underneath the covering of his black skin, up and down underneath his white knitted cotton vest next to his very black skin, up and down underneath his plainly woven white cotton shirt that was on top of the knitted cotton vest which lay next to his skin; so his heart breathed in its normal way. And he put on his trousers and in the pocket of his trousers he placed a white handkerchief; and all this was as normal as the way his heart beat; all this, his putting on his clothes in just that way, as normal as the way his heart beat, the heart beating normally and the clothes reassuring to Mr. Potter and to things beyond Mr. Potter, things that did not know they needed such reassurance.
The entire book goes on this way, full of repetitions and a focus on oddly specific little details while the larger picture is left vague, only gestured at rather than depicted. Certain phrases occur over and over again throughout the book until they take on the feeling of a chorus or chant: a line drawn through him; Mr. Potter was my father, my father's name was Mr. Potter; Mr. Potter was born in nineteen hundred and twenty-two and he died in nineteen hundred and ninety-two; Mr. Potter could not read and Mr. Potter could not write. The story, such as it is, is about Roderick Potter, a poor chauffeur on Antigua: his parents (his father who never acknowledged him and his mother who committed suicide when he was young), the man who owns the car Mr. Potter drives (from Lebanon, with his own tragic history of exile), one of his customers (Dr. Weizenger, about whose past we never learn more than that he is fleeing Prague in the 1940s, but really, what more is there to say than that? – to say someone is fleeing Prague in the 1940s is to say exactly what they're fleeing from), Mr. Potter's own many illegitimate children, one of whom grows up to be a writer and becomes the narrator of this book. More than a story, it's a lyrical observation of colonialism, racism, poverty, sexism and broken families, tragedies carried down the generations, all the general global and individual ills of every life, and the ability – or the lack of it – to recognize and articulate such problems. And, most of all, whose voice will be heard doing so.
I think I liked it, overall, though it's a weird book to grapple with. It's a very good example of a very particular thing, but if a 150 page prose poem about the narrator's unknown harsh-but-suffering father doesn't sound appealing, I don't think the actual experience of Mr. Potter will change your mind.
Let me demonstrate with the opening paragraph:
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. Mr. Potter breathed in his normal way, his heart was beating in its normal way, up and down underneath the covering of his black skin, up and down underneath his white knitted cotton vest next to his very black skin, up and down underneath his plainly woven white cotton shirt that was on top of the knitted cotton vest which lay next to his skin; so his heart breathed in its normal way. And he put on his trousers and in the pocket of his trousers he placed a white handkerchief; and all this was as normal as the way his heart beat; all this, his putting on his clothes in just that way, as normal as the way his heart beat, the heart beating normally and the clothes reassuring to Mr. Potter and to things beyond Mr. Potter, things that did not know they needed such reassurance.
The entire book goes on this way, full of repetitions and a focus on oddly specific little details while the larger picture is left vague, only gestured at rather than depicted. Certain phrases occur over and over again throughout the book until they take on the feeling of a chorus or chant: a line drawn through him; Mr. Potter was my father, my father's name was Mr. Potter; Mr. Potter was born in nineteen hundred and twenty-two and he died in nineteen hundred and ninety-two; Mr. Potter could not read and Mr. Potter could not write. The story, such as it is, is about Roderick Potter, a poor chauffeur on Antigua: his parents (his father who never acknowledged him and his mother who committed suicide when he was young), the man who owns the car Mr. Potter drives (from Lebanon, with his own tragic history of exile), one of his customers (Dr. Weizenger, about whose past we never learn more than that he is fleeing Prague in the 1940s, but really, what more is there to say than that? – to say someone is fleeing Prague in the 1940s is to say exactly what they're fleeing from), Mr. Potter's own many illegitimate children, one of whom grows up to be a writer and becomes the narrator of this book. More than a story, it's a lyrical observation of colonialism, racism, poverty, sexism and broken families, tragedies carried down the generations, all the general global and individual ills of every life, and the ability – or the lack of it – to recognize and articulate such problems. And, most of all, whose voice will be heard doing so.
I think I liked it, overall, though it's a weird book to grapple with. It's a very good example of a very particular thing, but if a 150 page prose poem about the narrator's unknown harsh-but-suffering father doesn't sound appealing, I don't think the actual experience of Mr. Potter will change your mind.
August 12, 2020
“For I am the one who can write the narrative that is his life, the only one really.”
October 12, 2025
So good. Poetic, hypnotic, concentric, like ripples from a stone dropped in the middle of a pond, waves overlapping, bouncing off the perimeter and returning to the centre point.
From Mr Potter we see the connections outward, the connections returning back, the map of the universe, the map of a one room shack, the glimpse of a moment, the glimpse of eternity.
A wonderful achievement, eminently readable.
From Mr Potter we see the connections outward, the connections returning back, the map of the universe, the map of a one room shack, the glimpse of a moment, the glimpse of eternity.
A wonderful achievement, eminently readable.
March 24, 2013
I don't understand what I did to this book to make it hate me so much but the feeling is now mutual. The repetitions and childish taunts of the narrator would almost be funny but then a final, recycled parenthetical swoops in and shits on the shoulder of my favorite sweater. It's a daring fusion of fiction and memoir but not a successful one.
February 16, 2011
Kincaid, Jamaica. Mr. Potter. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Print.
Jamaica Kincaid has written a beautifully lyrical prose about a father that she never knew personally but knew of. Mr. Potter details not only Kincaid’s family history, but also Antigua. She details in repetition the simplicity of life on her homeland of Antigua and subliminally shows that she has risen up and overcome the simple-ness. Kincaid’s personal history is well-known: born in 1949 into poverty on the Caribbean island of Antigua, at the age of 17 she emigrated to the U.S. to become an au pair in New York. (During interviews she has said that “servant” is the word she prefers versus au pair.)
In Mr. Potter we learn that Mr. Potter is Kincaid’s father. He was a chauffeur that simply rambled through life without regards to emotional responsibility. He was a ladies man that was well known on the island, and he could not read nor write. He was son of Nathaniel Potter, who was also a womanizer and simple man. Mr. Potter was not even acknowledged by his father since Nathaniel had so many children scattered across the island. Mr. Potter’s mother was Elfrida Robinson. She was only 16 when she gave birth to him. She was only in his life for a brief stint before he was left in the care of Mr. and Mistress Shepherd. He was not wanted and was treated in that fashion throughout his life. Kincaid makes it clear that she is not her father and that she has become something better, however, she is not bitter or mean about it.
In Mr. Potter the use of repetition seems daunting at first but then becomes poetic in its use to describe the situations of poverty and life in Antigua, not only for Mr. Potter but also for everyone on the Caribbean island. The way characters seem to come in and out of the story seem to show Mr. Potter’s lack of attachment and care to the world around him. It also seems to enhance his lack of communication skills when he is speaking with Dr. Weizenger.
For someone that is trying to read Mr. Potter as though it is a story with a definite beginning, middle, and end there will be many difficulties. The story starts then flashes back, then it folds upon itself, and then it changes completely. It is more of a thought or an idea that Kincaid has of her father that is being expressed and not a story being told. The use of repetition and long, drawn out sentences may be overwhelming to some. Nevertheless, the imagery will make an impression that will not be soon forgotten.
Jamaica Kincaid’s writing style seems to be very lyrical. Her book Mr. Potter reads more like a prose poem than a typical novel or short story. By reading this book I have seen that the typical novel is not the only way to write a book. Although I do not believe that I am able to write like Kincaid, her book has at least shown me a new possibility to explore with my writing.
Jamaica Kincaid has written a beautifully lyrical prose about a father that she never knew personally but knew of. Mr. Potter details not only Kincaid’s family history, but also Antigua. She details in repetition the simplicity of life on her homeland of Antigua and subliminally shows that she has risen up and overcome the simple-ness. Kincaid’s personal history is well-known: born in 1949 into poverty on the Caribbean island of Antigua, at the age of 17 she emigrated to the U.S. to become an au pair in New York. (During interviews she has said that “servant” is the word she prefers versus au pair.)
In Mr. Potter we learn that Mr. Potter is Kincaid’s father. He was a chauffeur that simply rambled through life without regards to emotional responsibility. He was a ladies man that was well known on the island, and he could not read nor write. He was son of Nathaniel Potter, who was also a womanizer and simple man. Mr. Potter was not even acknowledged by his father since Nathaniel had so many children scattered across the island. Mr. Potter’s mother was Elfrida Robinson. She was only 16 when she gave birth to him. She was only in his life for a brief stint before he was left in the care of Mr. and Mistress Shepherd. He was not wanted and was treated in that fashion throughout his life. Kincaid makes it clear that she is not her father and that she has become something better, however, she is not bitter or mean about it.
In Mr. Potter the use of repetition seems daunting at first but then becomes poetic in its use to describe the situations of poverty and life in Antigua, not only for Mr. Potter but also for everyone on the Caribbean island. The way characters seem to come in and out of the story seem to show Mr. Potter’s lack of attachment and care to the world around him. It also seems to enhance his lack of communication skills when he is speaking with Dr. Weizenger.
For someone that is trying to read Mr. Potter as though it is a story with a definite beginning, middle, and end there will be many difficulties. The story starts then flashes back, then it folds upon itself, and then it changes completely. It is more of a thought or an idea that Kincaid has of her father that is being expressed and not a story being told. The use of repetition and long, drawn out sentences may be overwhelming to some. Nevertheless, the imagery will make an impression that will not be soon forgotten.
Jamaica Kincaid’s writing style seems to be very lyrical. Her book Mr. Potter reads more like a prose poem than a typical novel or short story. By reading this book I have seen that the typical novel is not the only way to write a book. Although I do not believe that I am able to write like Kincaid, her book has at least shown me a new possibility to explore with my writing.
July 8, 2025
Not my favorite of Kincaid’s, but still interesting to read for her writing style. Lots of great sections and the repetitive nature added to the overall narrative.
You get a lot of the ordinary life and a lot of almost indifference from this book. How of you can’t read/write, your story is in the hands of someone else or completely lost to time. “How sad it is never to hear the sound of your own voice again and sadder still never to have had a voice to begin with.”
“And this moment held in a tight grip was special and ordinary: for all moments are special and all moments are ordinary and who can make them so?”
You get a lot of the ordinary life and a lot of almost indifference from this book. How of you can’t read/write, your story is in the hands of someone else or completely lost to time. “How sad it is never to hear the sound of your own voice again and sadder still never to have had a voice to begin with.”
“And this moment held in a tight grip was special and ordinary: for all moments are special and all moments are ordinary and who can make them so?”
October 4, 2011
Placing a Man Under Investigation
Jamaica Kincaid
Mr. Potter
Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2002
Mr. Potter tells the life story of the eponymous character as narrated by his daughter, Elaine. Set in a quiet community on the island of Antigua, the story delves into Mr. Potter's formative experiences, and later on, his adult life, discussing his relationships, or lack thereof, with other people, and how he became who he is. The use of the prose, the construction of the timeline, and the way that the imagery is laid out gives the entire story a somewhat timeless, ethereal feel—not in the sense that the story could take place at any time, but that there is little in the way of separating the concrete from the abstract.
Kincaid's prose is the cornerstone of the experience. The narrative relies in part on long, descriptive sentences, often creating sentences that span between a quarter and half of a page. Physical character description is somewhat minimal, but when done tends to concentrate on specific attributes of the character being described. Much more detail and imagery is spared for the environment and to the characters' thoughts. There are no formal chapter titles, either; divisions in the narrative are marked by the beginning of a new page, much like a chapter in a regular book without a title.
Oftentimes, repetition is used to emphasize some details of symbolism, such as the “line” that runs through Mr. Potter and through his father (referring to the line on Mr. Potter's birth certificate where his father's name would have been, as well as the fact that same line runs through Elaine's birth certificate in the same spot and the same way). In many ways, these repetitions tend to emphasize the similarities between Mr. Potter and his own father as well as the differences between Mr. Potter and Elaine (namely that while Mr. Potter and his father were both illiterate, Elaine is not).
The timeline is established solely from the content of the chapter and context, beginning with the day that Mr. Potter, who works as a chauffeur, meets Dr. Weizenger and his wife, his boss' latest customers, before moving backward to briefly discuss Mr. Potter's parents, Nathaniel and Elfrida, then returning to Mr. Potter and examining how he grows up as an orphan. The tone throughout the story is slightly melancholic, yet introspective, as Elaine examines her father's life, and in some ways, her own—mostly, how it was shaped through his absence.
One of the story's most memorable traits could also be called its weakest one. As mentioned earlier, the narrative is continuous, and so it tends to discuss the characters' thoughts and motivations with the same long sentences as it mixes in imagery. Accordingly, getting a clear fix on what the characters are thinking, or the reasoning behind their actions, is immensely difficult because something may be directly stated and yet carry the feel or weight of imagery, and not prose.
Because of this, it can take a while to really understand the motivation of Mr. Potter or of Dr. Weizenger, and the purpose of some lines that may seem little more than filler. However, considering the tone of the story and the way that it's told, this may have been Kincaid's point—to tell the story of a man without motivation, that lived a joyless, unfruitful life because that was all he knew. Regardless of whether this was her intent, Mr. Potter remains a unique experience for those that enjoy more cerebral analysis of what makes a person who they are.
Jamaica Kincaid
Mr. Potter
Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2002
Mr. Potter tells the life story of the eponymous character as narrated by his daughter, Elaine. Set in a quiet community on the island of Antigua, the story delves into Mr. Potter's formative experiences, and later on, his adult life, discussing his relationships, or lack thereof, with other people, and how he became who he is. The use of the prose, the construction of the timeline, and the way that the imagery is laid out gives the entire story a somewhat timeless, ethereal feel—not in the sense that the story could take place at any time, but that there is little in the way of separating the concrete from the abstract.
Kincaid's prose is the cornerstone of the experience. The narrative relies in part on long, descriptive sentences, often creating sentences that span between a quarter and half of a page. Physical character description is somewhat minimal, but when done tends to concentrate on specific attributes of the character being described. Much more detail and imagery is spared for the environment and to the characters' thoughts. There are no formal chapter titles, either; divisions in the narrative are marked by the beginning of a new page, much like a chapter in a regular book without a title.
Oftentimes, repetition is used to emphasize some details of symbolism, such as the “line” that runs through Mr. Potter and through his father (referring to the line on Mr. Potter's birth certificate where his father's name would have been, as well as the fact that same line runs through Elaine's birth certificate in the same spot and the same way). In many ways, these repetitions tend to emphasize the similarities between Mr. Potter and his own father as well as the differences between Mr. Potter and Elaine (namely that while Mr. Potter and his father were both illiterate, Elaine is not).
The timeline is established solely from the content of the chapter and context, beginning with the day that Mr. Potter, who works as a chauffeur, meets Dr. Weizenger and his wife, his boss' latest customers, before moving backward to briefly discuss Mr. Potter's parents, Nathaniel and Elfrida, then returning to Mr. Potter and examining how he grows up as an orphan. The tone throughout the story is slightly melancholic, yet introspective, as Elaine examines her father's life, and in some ways, her own—mostly, how it was shaped through his absence.
One of the story's most memorable traits could also be called its weakest one. As mentioned earlier, the narrative is continuous, and so it tends to discuss the characters' thoughts and motivations with the same long sentences as it mixes in imagery. Accordingly, getting a clear fix on what the characters are thinking, or the reasoning behind their actions, is immensely difficult because something may be directly stated and yet carry the feel or weight of imagery, and not prose.
Because of this, it can take a while to really understand the motivation of Mr. Potter or of Dr. Weizenger, and the purpose of some lines that may seem little more than filler. However, considering the tone of the story and the way that it's told, this may have been Kincaid's point—to tell the story of a man without motivation, that lived a joyless, unfruitful life because that was all he knew. Regardless of whether this was her intent, Mr. Potter remains a unique experience for those that enjoy more cerebral analysis of what makes a person who they are.
July 12, 2017
A middle aged woman learns of her father's death and returns to Antigua to tell the story of his life although she never knew him personally.
In this novel, Jamaica Kincaid explores the universal themes of love, hate, man versus his environment, relationships, generational curses and religion. Although Mr. Potter is the story of one man, his story is also the reality of life in the rural Caribbean countries where the natives are still reeling from their history of slavery, colonialism and its resulting poverty, illiteracy and hopelessness.
Kincaid's unique writing style uses repetition to its full advantage. She describes all the things around Mr. Potter as though she is painting a picture of him, filling in the canvas of his life with all the details that will make him who he is, and traces a shadow of him through each scene, each one not fully being him since she never knew him in life.
This is a book that will evoke emotions if you are familiar with the situations Kincaid describes, and create a stunning visual if this is your introduction to this kind of life.
One of Kincaid's best work, I think. There is nothing I would change about this story or her telling of it.
In this novel, Jamaica Kincaid explores the universal themes of love, hate, man versus his environment, relationships, generational curses and religion. Although Mr. Potter is the story of one man, his story is also the reality of life in the rural Caribbean countries where the natives are still reeling from their history of slavery, colonialism and its resulting poverty, illiteracy and hopelessness.
Kincaid's unique writing style uses repetition to its full advantage. She describes all the things around Mr. Potter as though she is painting a picture of him, filling in the canvas of his life with all the details that will make him who he is, and traces a shadow of him through each scene, each one not fully being him since she never knew him in life.
This is a book that will evoke emotions if you are familiar with the situations Kincaid describes, and create a stunning visual if this is your introduction to this kind of life.
One of Kincaid's best work, I think. There is nothing I would change about this story or her telling of it.
April 24, 2020
Jag var tvungen att vänta lite och låta boken sjunka in innan jag lämnade recension. Var det störigt med upprepningarna eller gjorde det något intressant med narrativet. Kincaid har skrivit en väldigt drivande historia som jag tänker mycket på nu efter att ha läst klart. Hon fångar känslan av det oerhört påfrestande och sorgliga i att aldrig få svar, och att låta sig älta och leva med saknad.
April 24, 2025
love how idiosyncratic kincaid's prose is, and the story she unravels with each turn. what does it mean to have a line drawn in you? how does one claim belonging to an absent father, or a lineage that is non-verbal, and in what ways are these one and the same? it's a short and really profound and honestly existential read.
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June 6, 2025Love love love this....jamaica kincaid is a marvel
— "'Mr. Shoul,' said Mr. Potter, but Mr. Shoul could not hear him at all for in his mind's eye he could see his mother and she died while going toward Damascus, not on the road to Damascus itself, just going toward Damascus, perhaps for roses, perhaps for something else, and he could almost hear the last words she said to him before she left, he could almost hear them, but then, not really, not really at all, for he was in his mind's eye and the mind's eye is the land of the almost, the geography of the mind's eye is the almost, its atmosphere is made of the elements, the almost, the as it. the like, the in the vicinity of, the almost, its reality: the almost!"
— "'Mr. Shoul,' said Mr. Potter, but Mr. Shoul could not hear him at all for in his mind's eye he could see his mother and she died while going toward Damascus, not on the road to Damascus itself, just going toward Damascus, perhaps for roses, perhaps for something else, and he could almost hear the last words she said to him before she left, he could almost hear them, but then, not really, not really at all, for he was in his mind's eye and the mind's eye is the land of the almost, the geography of the mind's eye is the almost, its atmosphere is made of the elements, the almost, the as it. the like, the in the vicinity of, the almost, its reality: the almost!"
June 13, 2018
3.5 stars
September 10, 2024
200 pages of you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you
July 19, 2023
This is really beautifully written (and narrated). It's poetry really, with facts of Mr. Potter's life repeated throughout the short book.
But I think rather than conveying intimacy, the facts (from a child who didn't know her father) highlight a distance and remove.
At any rate, I appreciated this book even if I wasn't always excited to listen to it or engage with it.
But I think rather than conveying intimacy, the facts (from a child who didn't know her father) highlight a distance and remove.
At any rate, I appreciated this book even if I wasn't always excited to listen to it or engage with it.
September 15, 2024
Slow. Yes it’s poetic and poignant but it’s hard going - fortunately pretty short. I don’t appreciate the repetitious style, it didn’t emphasise anything except how slow and uneventful Potter’s life is - probably the point - but I just found it tiresome. A personal exercise in exorcising daddy issues
March 19, 2023
Den här kom så ut 2002.
April 27, 2014
See Mr. Potter.
See Mr. Potter sit.
See Mr. Potter sit and think.
See Mr. Potter think about sun shining.
And then it was sunny.
And it was sunny all day long.
And oh my how it was sunny again and again.
But then the clouds came.
The clouds were very dark.
They darkened Mr. Potter's soul.
Mr. Potter did not want to sit and think anymore.
Mr. Potter dies because he cannot sit and think anymore.
The dull, nonsensical, repetitive, sing-song quality of the prose is still screaming in my head.
I wanted Mr. Potter to die. The first paragraph was enough for me to wish Mr. Potter dead. I wanted Mr. Potter to die a dull but painful death -- in the very same manner he killed my own will to live after reading this.
Who invented Mr. Potter?
Who invented Jamaica Kincaid?
Mr. Potter did.
Would that it had not been so.
The tragedy of this is that there is a very poignant, moving story behind ridiculously repetitive prose but that it is drowned in the reverberation of the crashing waves that scream over the writer's voice. This is like listening to a wonderful song, where the acoustics are all "off": the music drowns the singer, and instead of a beautiful melody, it is merely a harsh, disappointing cacophony.
I did much skimming, I must admit, because I was afraid if I didn't, they might be carrying me off to Bellevue, singing ring-around-the-rosie at the top of my lungs.
See Mr. Potter sit.
See Mr. Potter sit and think.
See Mr. Potter think about sun shining.
And then it was sunny.
And it was sunny all day long.
And oh my how it was sunny again and again.
But then the clouds came.
The clouds were very dark.
They darkened Mr. Potter's soul.
Mr. Potter did not want to sit and think anymore.
Mr. Potter dies because he cannot sit and think anymore.
The dull, nonsensical, repetitive, sing-song quality of the prose is still screaming in my head.
I wanted Mr. Potter to die. The first paragraph was enough for me to wish Mr. Potter dead. I wanted Mr. Potter to die a dull but painful death -- in the very same manner he killed my own will to live after reading this.
Who invented Mr. Potter?
Who invented Jamaica Kincaid?
Mr. Potter did.
Would that it had not been so.
The tragedy of this is that there is a very poignant, moving story behind ridiculously repetitive prose but that it is drowned in the reverberation of the crashing waves that scream over the writer's voice. This is like listening to a wonderful song, where the acoustics are all "off": the music drowns the singer, and instead of a beautiful melody, it is merely a harsh, disappointing cacophony.
I did much skimming, I must admit, because I was afraid if I didn't, they might be carrying me off to Bellevue, singing ring-around-the-rosie at the top of my lungs.
August 24, 2015
Mr. Potter is the story of an illiterate Antiguan chauffeur whose father was long-gone by the time of his birth, whose mother drowned herself when he was still a young child, whose clients are disdainful of his social status and the color of his skin, and whose illegitimate daughters are strangers to him because he abandoned every one of them, just as his own father abandoned him. One of these daughters narrates this novel from a distance—a distance of time, since her father died years prior (we watch her visit his grave), but also an emotional distance that causes her to treat him with a mixture of pity and contempt and guarded affection. The best one can say about Mr. Potter as a novel is that it’s lyrical; in fact, it takes lyricism and extends to an almost illogical extreme. In the interests of lyricism, then, our narrator repeats the same facts and phrases five or six times in the same sentence. “Mr. Potter was my father, my father’s name was Mr. Potter,” she tells us at least once every chapter. It’s an interesting technique, certainly, and one that lends a certain power to this novel, but more often than not it turns Jamaica Kincaid’s otherwise impressive prose into a sticky morass.
January 14, 2021
Jamaica Kincaid tapped into her religious upbringing to write this book about a Daughter and her Father--and it's exceptional. The language is biblical and has that preacher riddim to it. The sentence structure is unusual and even surreal at times but that's normal cuz it reminds of the flow of how black preachers get down in the pulpit. The novel is really experimental in that sense which is something u dont see enuff of with black writers (i.e, taking chances and going outside the the traditional narrative flow). Miss Kincaid (along with Gayl Jones) is one of those writers who takes chances with her stories and doesn't give-a-damn who doesn't like it. And I appreciate that. So if U want a book that does something different with the dead concept of the normal narrative, then, read this short, experimental drop.
July 18, 2015
I just dig Jamaica Kincaid. Unusual style, but she can say the most profound things in the most surprising ways. Like this: "And he died and his death seemed sudden even though he had been marching toward its inevitability . . . . his death was a surprise just the way each death is, and his death made all who heard of it and all who knew him pause,stop, and wonder if such a thing could happen to them also, for the living always doubt the reality of death and the dead do not know of doubt, the dead do not know of anything."
August 15, 2008
The melodic narrative of this short novel has its pluses and minuses -- through the course of the book, it subtly reflects the complicated relationship between narrator and subject, but also kind of soothes the reader into a dangerously sleepy state that may require the book to be put down and picked up later. Having said that, I really enjoyed this and could imagine learning quite a bit more from it on closer inspection, analysis, or re-read.
March 22, 2012
some deep stuff. poetic repetition. sad sad history. i sense she is doing some very deliberate writing back to colonialism in this and i think i need someone to explain it to me. the stuff about subjectivity was really good and brain warpy.
September 6, 2016
If the unexamined life is not worth living, this book exemplifies exactly why the unexamined life is not worth reading as well. Dull and repetitive. Yawn.
March 5, 2023
The book is about the length of a novel, but isn't in any conventional sense--rather in part a 'fictionalised memoir', and in part a meditation on the circumstances of the author's mother's and father's lives in Antigua. 'Mr Potter', a man whose own father was absent and whose mother absented herself by inexplicably walking into the sea, was brought up by a Mr Shepherd, who did not love him. Shepherd only showed the child one act of kindness, giving him port on Christmas Day--something that led nowhere, inspiring no dreams of emulation and no affection, and imprinting no tastes, in Potter. Potter is a chauffeur. He is a perfect, contained model of self-love, also loving his cars--which first belong to Mr Shoul, an immigrant Lebanese businessman (who has been evicted from his homeland and found Suriname and Trinidad too like it), and then to himself, as he becomes a hire taxi driver. Though self-possessed, Potter lacks the means to make sense of his own life, which is determined by violent events, moved by violent and powerful men, in countries of which he knows nothing. When he is called to pick up an Austrian emigrant. Dr Weizenger, he finds the psychoanalyst stupid, because he has to pull his English (which he nonetheless speaks perfectly) out of the depths of himself; he learnt it as a hobby, but has to use it treating childhood maladies about which he knows next to nothing, having trained in psychiatry. He heals many of his patients, who thrive, and dislikes their persistence; and they in turn dislike him.
We learn at the end of the second section that Potter, with whom the narrator has no contact during childhood and only a passing (and a hallucinated?) encounter with in the 'temperate zone' to which she's moved in early adulthood, is her father. Unlike him, her mother can read and write, but doesn't connect the two things. The narrator's writing grants her a power her parents lack, though ultimately no insight into the mystery of life's connection with death, nor power to avoid death. The writing is saturated with passion in its feeling for impotence, human limitation--its sense of lives lived on a periphery. Potter can love nothing of his own, none of his children by various women, who are all girls. He only loves an illegitimate son, the son of the second biggest undertaker in St. John's (who buries him). The boy is a scholarly and moral mediocrity. The narrator's mother interrupts his progress towards becoming his own boss in leaving their house, seven months pregnant, with Potter's life savings abstracted from a crocus bag. Her stormy self-will brings him nothing but disturbance. This seems minimal payback, though, for a man who is like a knife to the women he embraces, cutting their skin to shreds. The beds in which his children are conceived are more narrow than the back seats of his sedans.
We learn at the end of the second section that Potter, with whom the narrator has no contact during childhood and only a passing (and a hallucinated?) encounter with in the 'temperate zone' to which she's moved in early adulthood, is her father. Unlike him, her mother can read and write, but doesn't connect the two things. The narrator's writing grants her a power her parents lack, though ultimately no insight into the mystery of life's connection with death, nor power to avoid death. The writing is saturated with passion in its feeling for impotence, human limitation--its sense of lives lived on a periphery. Potter can love nothing of his own, none of his children by various women, who are all girls. He only loves an illegitimate son, the son of the second biggest undertaker in St. John's (who buries him). The boy is a scholarly and moral mediocrity. The narrator's mother interrupts his progress towards becoming his own boss in leaving their house, seven months pregnant, with Potter's life savings abstracted from a crocus bag. Her stormy self-will brings him nothing but disturbance. This seems minimal payback, though, for a man who is like a knife to the women he embraces, cutting their skin to shreds. The beds in which his children are conceived are more narrow than the back seats of his sedans.
June 7, 2022
Jamaica Kincaid has to be one of my favourite writers, writer-philosophers. She writes like a thought, the thoughts are winding, braided into each other, repetitive, meaningless, all-encompassing. One of the reviews I read of the book said "Jamaica Kincaid seems to believe that if something's worth saying, it's worth saying twice." She turns over feelings, thoughts, events over and over again until they mean everything, until they mean nothing. This read took me months, often I felt it was not quick enough. Long passages on how the sun hung high in the sky, again and again. I was on a speed that I wanted my entertainment to match and the book was too slow. But when I allowed myself to get into slowness it became meditation. Words strung out, stretched out until their meaning became doubtful. Jamaica Kincaid has a certain sharpness, a callous Dostoevysky like approach to existence, of suffering, of absurdity. In Mr Potter love is a rarity, something that not many characters know of, yet think or dream of. They only engage with what is in front of them, be it, the ocean, birth, sex, poverty, illiteracy or literacy. In Mr Potter, Jamaica Kincaid is writing herself, her lineage into the archive. It is not a case of erased history or the cruelty of the historical record but the abandonment by her father. Her father does not care for her, her mother carries hate with her and as a result there is only "a line through her". Jamaica writes her father and his father into the archive because as she asserts again and again, neither can read nor write. and she can do both. Jamaica's style is the same, drawn out, commas and commas, long sentences lasting pages. She does not care for plot, nor for structure, maybe a bit of characterisation but everything else is instinct, is thought. It is a difficult book to be entertained by, but she does not offer this. She only offers herself, her abandonment, her history, her disappointment, her disregard for it all, her aloofness, her own hatred, her imagination. In Mr Potter - similar to Lucy - the book feels like life itself, long, meaningless and drawn out until you get to the end and it feels all too short. I will always respect what she does with language, pulls it to work in her favour, and speaks out at its shortcomings. Jamaica Kincaid offers herself only, writes herself into the story, does not shy away from what she feels, what she thinks. Offers her wrists, palm side up and says this is me, this is it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2024
Oh Antigua and Barbuda, I wish this didn’t have to happen, but here it is my first DNF of this challenge.
I genuinely wanted to give this book a chance, and I tried hard to power through, but I just couldn’t.
I talked myself through this:
Is it because of the lyrical prose and that it’s basically a 190+ page poem?
No, I’ve gotten through poetic novels in the past. That’s not it. The synopsis was intriguing and I really would’ve loved to have been able to actually read the story behind the repetition not only found in the paragraphs but how it carried over the 60 or so pages of the book I managed to read through.
To give and example of the writing is to give an example of the writing and this is an example of the writing.
To be fair, this writing style isn’t suited for my brain, and there were several instances where I felt like a broken record; I would fixate on a paragraph not realizing I read it five times because of the repetition. This is ultimately is the reason why I had to DNF it.
Does it have value? Yes.
There is a story underneath it all, and I’m sure there are people out there that find the repetition and the two steps forward one step back waltzing of words soothing. I’m just not one of those people.
2/5
I genuinely wanted to give this book a chance, and I tried hard to power through, but I just couldn’t.
I talked myself through this:
Is it because of the lyrical prose and that it’s basically a 190+ page poem?
No, I’ve gotten through poetic novels in the past. That’s not it. The synopsis was intriguing and I really would’ve loved to have been able to actually read the story behind the repetition not only found in the paragraphs but how it carried over the 60 or so pages of the book I managed to read through.
To give and example of the writing is to give an example of the writing and this is an example of the writing.
To be fair, this writing style isn’t suited for my brain, and there were several instances where I felt like a broken record; I would fixate on a paragraph not realizing I read it five times because of the repetition. This is ultimately is the reason why I had to DNF it.
Does it have value? Yes.
There is a story underneath it all, and I’m sure there are people out there that find the repetition and the two steps forward one step back waltzing of words soothing. I’m just not one of those people.
2/5
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