Water with berries

by George Lamming

Teeton lives three lives in Englandone with a bohemian group of artist exiles, another is his curiously intimate relationship with his landlady, and finally as a secret revolutionary from the Caribbean island of San Cristobal. Thus far, Teeton has kept each aspect of his life separate from one another, but when he returns home and joins an incipient revolt, his once separate worlds begin to fuse together with disastrous results. This novel is a powerful study of the impossibility of disentangling British and Caribbean lives, the nature of misogyny, and the conflict between the calls of art and revolution."

Genres: English Literature, Fiction

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

George Lamming was born in the Caribbean island of Barbados on June 8, 1927. He attended The Combermere School which has produced other Barbadian literary icons including Frank Collymore and Austin Clarke. He left that island for Trinidad in 1946, teaching school until 1950. He then emigrated to England where, for a short time, he worked in a factory. In 1951 he became a broadcaster for the BBC Colonial Service. He entered academia in 1967 as a writer-in-residence and lecturer in the Creative Arts Centre and Department of Education at the University of the West Indies.

Since then, he has has served as a Visiting Professor and Writer-in-Residence at the City University of New York. He has worked as a faculty member and lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Duke University and a Visiting Professor of Africana Studies and Literary Arts at Brown University. In addition to his American teaching and lecturing experience, Lamming has also taught or lectured at universities in Tanzania, Denmark, and Australia.

Reviews

[sophie esther · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lamming is a magician of words in his own right, but the story itself made me sick with anger. I remain unsure about whether Lamming intended or believed the reader would feel any sort of pity for his protagonists and the so-called fate of their own debauchery based on their race. I understand the thought, that systems speak actions unto certain groups of people -- no doubt about that. I'm just certain that this is not the way to go about communicating this message. I wonder if Lamming understands that society's expectations for racialised men to perform violence unto (white) women, speaks to another group's (women's) fate of having violence done unto them. I cannot feel anything but hatred for Lamming's protagonists, and for the non-fictional men who have made the same willful decisions that Lamming's protagonists had.

[Kamyar Jumabhoy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Atrocious, near incomprehensible garbled mess of uninteresting characters, rape, and violence. Occasionally well written lines that mean nothing, an uninspired reading of The Tempest that doesn't serve any postcolonial agenda beyond furthering negative stereotypes: its purpose is to show how a Caliban is made -- a simple task -- it fails. It fails because it is over ambitious in attempting to understand Caliban through a modern lens; it is too narrow to explore the characters; and too uninspired to portray anything beyond rape. 2/10

[Divia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The references to The Tempest stood out to me. I found the splitting of Miranda into two women with one being black and he other white fascinating. There is the Prospero figure and the the black man takes on the role as Caliban. Apart from this, there is the allegory to British dominance over the Caribbean through the exile and difficulties of the characters from San Cristobal. The allegory stands out most to me through the relationship between Teeton and the Old Dowager. I liked all of these aspects. They were meaningful to me. I also enjoyed the little mysteries and revelations and felt good that I had figured it out prior to the revelations.

However, I did not enjoy the entire experience of reading this novel. There were several moments where it did not hold my attention. This novel just wasn't something I could enjoy a lot and make me want to sit with it for long hours. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

[ran · Rating 2 out of 5]

i liked the mona as a character, and the old dowager's r/s with teeton was interesting, but the pacing was just weird. why did everything happen in the last 120 pages and nothing before that. the first scene with the old dowager and teeton was like 60 pages long of them having tea and was just. not it. there felt like a lot of tedious desc that hindered the plot. also wish there was more immediate focuses on the deaths and rape in the novel. it felt like they just happened and that was it. same with teeton realising he was speaking to the old dowager's daughter - it happened and then that was that. no consequences.

plot summary bc i'm going to forget: follows teeton, roger, derek. o'donnelly is trying to get them to go back to san cristobal. teeton squants/lives with the old dowager, they two of them have a weird semi negotiated r/s. they have tea. vulcan the dog. the gathering meets, responding to names of their old towns. teeton will go home in two weeks. roger is trying to get money for cigs and drink, asks derek, they talk about nicole, roger's white wife, and how teeton sold his paintings off. the book narrates about nicole's privledge and nicole and roger's rough r/s. derek is an actor and is playing a corpse. nicole has left roger and roger thinks about her absence, she's slept with another and is carrying another's child. teeton meets jeremy at the mona, a bureaucrat tasked with getting the three mcs back to san cristobal, and they have a tentative conversation. teeton's wife slept with politicians to get teeton out of prison, some of the other inmates knew and knew that the american embassy authorised his release, randa died that morning by suicide. teeton goes and sits by a tree outside and talks to a girl in the dark. they have an introspective convo and say they will meet tomorrow. chapter 5: nicole comes crying out the church. she had already had a previous abortion of his kid and was pregnant again. derek and jeremy talk about how teeton is missing and derek thinks about roger and nicole. derek and roger fight about nicole. they pull a knife. chp 6: teeton and the nameless girl meet again. the nameless girl talks about how her father taught her everything, but he died. her father's servant and friends and hounds raped her. she narratives and thinks about letting teeton touch her but he doesn't want to disturb the silence. they depart. old dowager wards off a photographer and interviewer from teeton and her house, she thinks abt her dead husband, she finds nicole's corpse and watches over it. teeton shows up, sees the corpse, she takes charge and they bury it under a tree together. they don't really talk abt it. part 2: chapter 8: old dowager and teeton are on a boat going north, arrive at her cottage (?) with an elusive man. teeton keeps asking for the day, since he has to leave but hasn't told her, they talk abt old dowager's deceased husband who left her. they fight about knowing the date. he tells her he is leaving. chp 9: nicole has "disappeared", o'donnell's house has been burned down. derek has been looking after roger because he's been going through it. derek talks about how he's done chasing her acting dreams. roger says he's going to burn down the old dowager's house tomorrow. chp 10: the man of the cottage talks to teeton abt the old dowager's past: the man is the old dowager's husband's brother. the pilot was in love with the old dowager and the old dowager's kid was his. the husband knew and took the kid, and raised her and let hounds get to her. the man goes to kill teeton, worried for the old dowager's safety now, and the old dowager shoots him. they bury him. teeton says they could find the old dowager's daughter, she says no. he knows he needs to get away. derek is getting ready for his role as a corpse, goes into a weird state and rapes his fellow actress. the gathering meets. teeton kills old dowager and burns her. publican of the mona found the body. derek escaped the charge of murder. they are at trial.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

As part of the long habit of stomping on murky puddles.

[Sorokind Banana · Rating 1 out of 5]

A tedious read.

[Maysa · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s not a good book. This is not just because it is an extremely challenging and tedious read, has an experimental narrative(that doesn’t work), but also because a lot of the symbolism is forced. Putting aside the fact that it is a postcolonial rewriting of The Tempest for a second, it’s not a book that is natural to read. A lot of the eloquence and imagery feels forced and unnecessary, as if the author is trying to imitate the brilliance of Shakespeare without having the substance to back it. And then, as a postcolonial piece, it fails to bring anything productive to the table. George Lamming is not an underground, indie author. While I have not read any of his other books, ai have heard good things about him. This book did not meet my expectations and was so hard to read that I needed a physical copy and an audiobook to just get through it. I did have to read it for a course and while the course was amazing, the book was terrible. Do not recommend.

[Steven Hendrix · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first Lamming book I didn't care for. In the Castle of My Skin is a classic, Natives of My Person was very good, and Pleasures of Exile is an incredible collection of essays. Lamming is an excellent writer, but Water With Berries lacked deep, sustained commentary on Caribbean life in exile or the effects of colonialism present in the other books and the characters were largely uninteresting except for a few passages of brilliant writing.

[Rachel]

literally so horrific. i never want to think about this book again.

[Reeve · Rating 2 out of 5]

wlt 100 cannibals, witches, virgins (the tempest)