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Like the acclaimed film of the same title, this lyrical, lilting, densely textured novel is based on the exploits of the legendary Jamaican folk hero and reggae star Rhygin.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 21, 2016
"The Harder They Come," the record, is one of the best records I own. "The Harder They Come," the song, is probably the best track on that record. "The Harder They Come," the film, is supposed to be great, but I haven't seen it (I have seen the fruits of its influence though... See every white person foray into reggae, from good ("Sandinista!") to bad (fucking Eric Clapton and 90's meathead ska poop). And "The Harder They Come," the novel, released almost two decades after the first depictions of Rhygin, gives us a context in which to appreciate all of that incredible achievement. No longer is the "Harder" soundtrack a merry walk down Jamaica lane... No, that album is about poverty! It's a social justice album, through and through, depicting the various ways Jamaicans overcome their squalor, some "positive" (the dance anthem "Sweet and Dandy") and some, err, less so (the proto-gangsta rap classics "Johnny Too Bad" and "Draw Your Brakes"); some showing the pull of spirituality ("Many Rivers to Cross," and "Rivers of Babylon"), others depicting the allure of the material world (the film references in "Shantytown," and "You Can Get It If You Really Want"). So yeah, a heavy record... But that doesn't mean you can't dance to it!
That's kind of how "The Harder They Come," the book, works, too. Essentially, it's a coming of age story, and a crime story: Ivanhoe Martin's journey from his rural childhood to his urban adulthood, and his gradual descent (ascent?) into criminality and reggae music (the "Rhygin" personality). It's a good damn story, mixing "Clockers" with, like, "Jane Eyre," but it's just the skeleton, really. It's the way Thelwell fleshes out these bones, with legends, myths, musical samples, rich dialogue, and a sense of all the changes working in and on Jamaica, that is truly impressive. Thelwell is a talented writer, but he is a dense writer, so navigating Ivan's tale requires a bit of patience at first. But once you've got a handle on the language of his characters, and once you start to feel the feel of Jamaica in every page, it's hard to stop reading. I did this thing in chunks. The first hundred pages probably took me a week. The next hundred took me half that. And the two hundred after that required just a couple days. The book ROCKETS toward its conclusion-- the speed of the narrative parallels the speed of its locales, from the sleepy idyllic jungle to the chaotic Kingston slums-- and ends on a perfect note.
Why didn't I hear about this one earlier? It is outstanding reading for Black History month, and would make for a ridiculously entertaining entry in a Postcolonial Literature syllabus (Thelwell's perspective on white people in Jamaica is just BRUTAL). It's also a great excuse to pull out your copy of the soundtrack and drop the PRESSHAH on YOUUU. IT IS YOUUUU
OH YEAHHHHH
That's kind of how "The Harder They Come," the book, works, too. Essentially, it's a coming of age story, and a crime story: Ivanhoe Martin's journey from his rural childhood to his urban adulthood, and his gradual descent (ascent?) into criminality and reggae music (the "Rhygin" personality). It's a good damn story, mixing "Clockers" with, like, "Jane Eyre," but it's just the skeleton, really. It's the way Thelwell fleshes out these bones, with legends, myths, musical samples, rich dialogue, and a sense of all the changes working in and on Jamaica, that is truly impressive. Thelwell is a talented writer, but he is a dense writer, so navigating Ivan's tale requires a bit of patience at first. But once you've got a handle on the language of his characters, and once you start to feel the feel of Jamaica in every page, it's hard to stop reading. I did this thing in chunks. The first hundred pages probably took me a week. The next hundred took me half that. And the two hundred after that required just a couple days. The book ROCKETS toward its conclusion-- the speed of the narrative parallels the speed of its locales, from the sleepy idyllic jungle to the chaotic Kingston slums-- and ends on a perfect note.
Why didn't I hear about this one earlier? It is outstanding reading for Black History month, and would make for a ridiculously entertaining entry in a Postcolonial Literature syllabus (Thelwell's perspective on white people in Jamaica is just BRUTAL). It's also a great excuse to pull out your copy of the soundtrack and drop the PRESSHAH on YOUUU. IT IS YOUUUU
OH YEAHHHHH
April 8, 2015
There's something about this book... It's rare that you feel an author's love for a people this much through their writing. I think it's the fact that although the narration is in pretty standard English most of the time, you get these seamless shifts into Patwa that are simply genius. It is perfectly accessible to non-Jamaicans and at the same time the 2 are sewn together so that you don't feel that there is a discrepancy or a distance between the narrator and the characters.
August 11, 2022
"You know he feels like Ivan, born under the Brixton sun,
His game is called surviving at the end of THE HARDER THEY COME
The Clash, "The Guns of Brixton"
Attention, fans! This is not a novelization of the great Jamaican film of the same name but a reimagination of the world of Jamaica's "Rude Boys", or unemployed, outlaw youths. Thelwell erases the lines between crime, rebellion and music to draw a portrait of desperation and backlash. "All the peacemakers have turned war officers, and here's what I say." The color line still looms large in Jamaica while the nation does a make-over for tourists. Slum dwellers take criminals/musicians for heroes, giving new meaning to the phrase "#1 with a bullet". Reggae, rum, rebellion and ganja; who could ask for anything more? Be sure to enjoy the Jamaican patois or "Broken Creole" reproduced in the dialogue.
His game is called surviving at the end of THE HARDER THEY COME
The Clash, "The Guns of Brixton"
Attention, fans! This is not a novelization of the great Jamaican film of the same name but a reimagination of the world of Jamaica's "Rude Boys", or unemployed, outlaw youths. Thelwell erases the lines between crime, rebellion and music to draw a portrait of desperation and backlash. "All the peacemakers have turned war officers, and here's what I say." The color line still looms large in Jamaica while the nation does a make-over for tourists. Slum dwellers take criminals/musicians for heroes, giving new meaning to the phrase "#1 with a bullet". Reggae, rum, rebellion and ganja; who could ask for anything more? Be sure to enjoy the Jamaican patois or "Broken Creole" reproduced in the dialogue.
November 1, 2013
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2021
A movie novelization praised by Chinua Achebe and Harold Bloom! Well, it makes sense. “The Harder They Come” is an awesome movie (watch it with subtitles), a classic tale of overcoming odds and dying to become a legend, and which helped introduce reggae to global audiences. Michael Thelwell is one of the original Black Studies guys, a civil rights movement veteran, and a friend/editor of Achebe. And as Thelwell points out in his introduction, he does not slavishly follow the plot of the film- among other things, the film runs at a brisk 109 minutes so it’d probably make for a short novel.
Thelwell starts us out in rural Jamaica in the mid-twentieth century. Ivanhoe Martin is a young boy who acquires the nickname “Rhygin” for his “raging” lust for life. He’s always willing to go farther than the other kids- work harder, swim further, jump off higher cliffs into deeper water. His grandmother wants him to follow in her footsteps, farming the green hillside land in a community descended from Maroon slave rebels. But you can’t keep them down on the farm once they’ve heard rocksteady, one of reggae’s progenitors. As a teenager, Ivan moved to Kingston, the big city, and encounters many classic “country bumpkin” pitfalls before starting to lead a dual life- good churchgoing boy, helping repair things around a Baptist compound by day, and “rude boy” by night, running the streets with a gang and watching endless westerns in the movie houses.
Ivan is what I’d (modestly) call “Berard-complete” – a fleshed out character (it was a real risk, too, to turn him into a kind of black Horatio Alger character, but Thelwell knew better) who also isn’t tediously psychologized. His knocks don’t all go into making him a better, stronger person. In particular, Thelwell presents the brutalities of all levels of Jamaican poverty — from wandering the streets of the rich neighborhoods begging for work only to be treated like pests, to the numerous ways the poor rip each other off just to survive, to Ivan getting ripped off by record producers after almost reaching his music stardom dreams recording the titular song — utterly unromantically. It doesn’t make you better. It just sucks.
Eventually, Ivan is hit hard enough he snaps. He cuts up a cruel overseer, gets whipped (Jamaica still used caning as a punishment at the time), and becomes a weed dealer. He gets in with some Rastafarians. The Rastas are a sort of otherworldly presence in the book. Ivan and his friends witness an attempt by Rastas to “take over” Kingston (this happened in real life). Rastas show up at odd points to show a way that black men can be true to themselves in the world. Ivan never becomes one — he loves the flash of the world too much — but they’re an important presence in the book. Eventually, the big fish Ivan works for betrays him and tries to have him killed. This allows Ivan to fully become Rhygin, as he goes on a massive crime spree that makes him a folk hero (and launches his record to the top of the charts). In the end, he’s gunned down by the cops on a beach, calling on them to “send out one man who can draw” so he can fight and die like his cowboy heroes.
It’s an interesting book, written partially in Jamaican patois (with helpful glossary). Thelwell makes good use of the contrasts of types of life- the simple rural life in the villages (which Ivan can’t return to, due to devastating changes while he’s away), life among the “sufferers” of Kingston, glimpses at the nice life lived by exploiters, the mystic experience of the Rastas. One thing I found interesting was the way in which Ivan, in the end, overcame by turning away from his humanity, in large part symbolized by women, especially his girlfriend Elsa who escaped the Baptist compound to be with him. It’s ambiguous whether Elsa betrays him to the police or not- it was either her, or the Rasta partner last seen being tortured by the cops. In any event, turning away from womanhood, with its softness and potential treachery, to finally become the “star-bwai” gunslinger… that seems to be a theme in a fair amount of lore, not unique to Jamaica but pretty common, in my experience, in Jamaican narratives, including reggae lyrics. In Rasta myth (and to a degree, practice) you don’t usually become a gunslinger star, but women very much belong in a separate, subordinate place while men take the “chalice” (weed pipe) and “reason” with each other. Remnant of colonialism, maybe, I’m no expert. Either way, an interesting book. ****’
Thelwell starts us out in rural Jamaica in the mid-twentieth century. Ivanhoe Martin is a young boy who acquires the nickname “Rhygin” for his “raging” lust for life. He’s always willing to go farther than the other kids- work harder, swim further, jump off higher cliffs into deeper water. His grandmother wants him to follow in her footsteps, farming the green hillside land in a community descended from Maroon slave rebels. But you can’t keep them down on the farm once they’ve heard rocksteady, one of reggae’s progenitors. As a teenager, Ivan moved to Kingston, the big city, and encounters many classic “country bumpkin” pitfalls before starting to lead a dual life- good churchgoing boy, helping repair things around a Baptist compound by day, and “rude boy” by night, running the streets with a gang and watching endless westerns in the movie houses.
Ivan is what I’d (modestly) call “Berard-complete” – a fleshed out character (it was a real risk, too, to turn him into a kind of black Horatio Alger character, but Thelwell knew better) who also isn’t tediously psychologized. His knocks don’t all go into making him a better, stronger person. In particular, Thelwell presents the brutalities of all levels of Jamaican poverty — from wandering the streets of the rich neighborhoods begging for work only to be treated like pests, to the numerous ways the poor rip each other off just to survive, to Ivan getting ripped off by record producers after almost reaching his music stardom dreams recording the titular song — utterly unromantically. It doesn’t make you better. It just sucks.
Eventually, Ivan is hit hard enough he snaps. He cuts up a cruel overseer, gets whipped (Jamaica still used caning as a punishment at the time), and becomes a weed dealer. He gets in with some Rastafarians. The Rastas are a sort of otherworldly presence in the book. Ivan and his friends witness an attempt by Rastas to “take over” Kingston (this happened in real life). Rastas show up at odd points to show a way that black men can be true to themselves in the world. Ivan never becomes one — he loves the flash of the world too much — but they’re an important presence in the book. Eventually, the big fish Ivan works for betrays him and tries to have him killed. This allows Ivan to fully become Rhygin, as he goes on a massive crime spree that makes him a folk hero (and launches his record to the top of the charts). In the end, he’s gunned down by the cops on a beach, calling on them to “send out one man who can draw” so he can fight and die like his cowboy heroes.
It’s an interesting book, written partially in Jamaican patois (with helpful glossary). Thelwell makes good use of the contrasts of types of life- the simple rural life in the villages (which Ivan can’t return to, due to devastating changes while he’s away), life among the “sufferers” of Kingston, glimpses at the nice life lived by exploiters, the mystic experience of the Rastas. One thing I found interesting was the way in which Ivan, in the end, overcame by turning away from his humanity, in large part symbolized by women, especially his girlfriend Elsa who escaped the Baptist compound to be with him. It’s ambiguous whether Elsa betrays him to the police or not- it was either her, or the Rasta partner last seen being tortured by the cops. In any event, turning away from womanhood, with its softness and potential treachery, to finally become the “star-bwai” gunslinger… that seems to be a theme in a fair amount of lore, not unique to Jamaica but pretty common, in my experience, in Jamaican narratives, including reggae lyrics. In Rasta myth (and to a degree, practice) you don’t usually become a gunslinger star, but women very much belong in a separate, subordinate place while men take the “chalice” (weed pipe) and “reason” with each other. Remnant of colonialism, maybe, I’m no expert. Either way, an interesting book. ****’
May 29, 2026
In 1972, the Jamaican produced film The Harder They Come was released in American theaters. Starring reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, it told the story of a country boy who moves to Kingston and makes a hit record. But the grim circumstances of life in Kingston’s Trench Town ghetto hold him back, so he turns to the life of an outlaw in search of freedom. The movie was a hit, drawing attention to the island nation of Jamaica, becoming a popular staple of the midnight movies, and growing to the status of a cult classic as well as a classic of Third World cinema. It also inspired a lesser-known novel of the same name, written by the Jamaican-American author Michael Thelwell. While it’s unusual for a movie to be the basis for a serious work of literature, the novelized version of The Harder They Come proves it can be successfully done.
The protagonist of the story is Ivanhoe Martin, usually called Ivan but also referrred to by his nickname Rygin. If my understanding is correct, “rygin” is the Jamaican pronunciation of “raging” and has a sexual connotation. As a boy, Ivan is given the nickname Rygin by the other kids in his village because he is a bit more reckless than the others. Ivan lives in a hillside shack near the seashore. He lives with his grandmother and helps her run the family farm. They are poor, but live a satisfying life. With just enough food to eat, Ivan spends his youth doing the kinds of things you would expect a kid to do in the jungle and on the beach. It’s a life of playful adventure and discovery, the kind of life you could look back on as an adult with fond memories. That has implications for a passage that comes later in the story.
The other villagers provide a strong sense of community. Both agricultural folk customs and church are a part of this, although the church community does not play a prominent role in the story. Another important part of the community is the village elder, an old man named Nattie who takes a liking to Ivan. Nattie is a proud man who was a member of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA when it existed. While being educated and worldly, he also acts as a link connecting the village to Jamaica’s past.
When Ivan’s grandmother dies, the boy, now a restless teenager, sets off for Kingston where all the action is. Nattie gives Ivan some advice about how to find meaning in life, but the transition is overshadowed by the Pocomania spirit possession ceremony at his grandmother’s funeral. The spirit that possesses its host foreshadows the events of Ivan’s life at the end of the novel.
This opening chapter is fascinating. It paints a vivid picture of life in the Jamaican countryside which the author romanticizes without over-emphasis. The village isn’t portrayed as utopian, but it is celebrated for its unique and satisfying qualities. It also gives the reader a chance to understand who Ivan is and where he is coming from. As his age progresses throughout the novel, his character is built layer by layer and a lot of those layers are rooted in his experiences during childhood. As a literary character, Ivan goes through changes while remaining the same person in his core. Given how his story ends, it is imperative that the reader feels sympathy for him from the start. Both the world-building and character building in this novel are top notch.
The next section finds Ivan riding a bus from his village to Kingston. This seems like a long and unnecessary diversion at first, but looking back, It functions effectively as part of the narrative and Thelwell’s portrayal of Jamaica. What this chapter does is draw attention to the relations between the people in the countryside and the capital city of Kingston. It shows how the bus passengers exist between two worlds, the two different sides of Jamaica, and how intertwined those two worlds actually are. It also builds up to the problems the naive country boy Ivan has when he arrives in Kingston.
Ivan has a rough time. After having his baggage stolen, he arrives at his mother’s single room apartment, finding her too poor to take him in. He fails to find work and ends up homeless and hungry before a church minister allows him to stay providing he work in the church’s repair shop. The shop is run by an ex-criminal named Longah who has only changed superficially since Preacha rescued him from the streets. Also staying in Preacha’s care is Elsa, a young oprhaned girl on the brink pf coming of age who Ivan falls in love with. This is where the novel really starts to take off.
The further course of Ivan’s life turns on two narrative hinges. One is his relationship with Elsa. The other is a bicycle. While working in the shop, Ivan fixes up and old bicycle frame. After being repaired, polished, and rebuilt, he takes Elsa out for a day of riding around Kingston and visiting the beach. The bicycle acts symbolically as a means of liberation. At least temporarily, Ivan is able to find happiness and relief from his poverty and disappointment. Of as much importance is the sense of achievement he gets from fixing up the bike and befriending Elsa.
But the liberation he finds through the bike is short lived. Preacha doesn’t approve of Ivan and Elsa’s friendship so he spends a whole night verbally abusing her and later kicks Ivan out of his premises. Longah later tells Ivan that Preacha intends to marry her when she gets old enough. But Longah also confesses that he plans to rape her. Later when Ivan returns to retrieve his bicycle, the only thing he has left, Longah refuses to let him take it. The two of them have a fight and Ivan stabs Longah which gets him into trouble with the law. His career as an outlaw has begun.
The narrative is layered so that all these events overlap. All the while, Ivan has been teaching himself to sing. When he gets an opportunity to record a single, he gets ripped off by Hilton, the bigshot businessman who controls the Jamaican music industry. Hilton prevents the record from being distributed to Kingston’s record stores, and forbids radio stations and dance club DJ’s to play the song. All this is simply because Hilton doesn’t like Ivan for being assertive. Hilton, the police, and Preacha are Baylon, the downpressers, as they would say in Jamaican English, the establishment that keeps people from moving up in society. Ivan is being pushed by these downpressers into a confrontation with Babylon.
When Ivan first arrives in Kingston and shacks up with Preacha, he becomes fascinated with the nearby movie theater. He spends his evenings watching American made Westerns, demonstrating how these films influence future generations of Jamaican gangsters. At the movies he makes friends with a gang in Trench Town. The kids in the gang aren’t so bad. Sometimes they get involved in petty crime or occasional street fights, but mostly they just hang out and smoke ganja.
Later, after Ivan gets arrested and sent away from Preacha’s shop, he turns to more serious gangsterism, getting involved in the ganja trade. He meets up with his mentor Jose who puts him to work. What we learn through Jose is that the Trench Town ganja dealers get protection from the police who not only benefit from payoffs of protection money, but also by keeping the illegal drug trade under control. There is a chain of command with the police at the top, Jose and other wholesale dealers in the middle, and street level pushers like Ivan at the bottom. As long as the chain of command is kept intact, nobody has any problems. Ivan, who is tired of being poor and unimportant, is concerned with finding freedom so you can see where this is leading.
Jose connects Ivan to Ras Pedro, sometimes alternatively called Peter, a Rastafarian ganja seller who has a sickly son with a medical condition named Man-I. The illness is treatable, but Ras Pedro often doesn’t make enough money for the food or medicine needed to keep his son healthy. Elsa leaves Preacha’s house and follows Ivan to Trench Town and moves in with Ras Pedro and Ivan. She becomes a mother to the boy and the four of them live communally like a family, surviving on the wages of ganja profits. Ras Pedro also acts as a conscience for Ivan, counseling him to avoid violence and stay out of trouble. When Ivan wants to buy guns, Ras Pedro tries to talk him out of it but leaves the decision to him.
Another big turning point comes when Ivan has become a successful ganja merchant, buys some flashy clothes and motorcycle, and drives back to the village where he grew up. Eager to show off how he has made it in the big city, he is disappointed to find out that almost everyone he knew is gone or dead. Even worse, the village has been turned into a resort town overrun with rich white people who have no interest in the real Jamaica. Therefore, Ivan has lost his roots and the anchor in tradition that has kept him stable through all the difficult times. Sullen, angry, and disappointed, he returns to Kingston ready to explode.
Wishing to rise in the ranks of the drug dealing underworld, Ivan proposes to Ras Pedro that they farm their own ganja crops and expand their trafficking business to America. But the downpresser police and military crush the plans. Everywhere Ivan goes, there are obstacles to his social mobility. He gets into a gunfight resulting in the death of a policeman and then he goes on a rampage. After another shootout, Ivan becomes a local folk hero and Hilton capitalizes on this by releasing his record which is soon heard everywhere. As Ivan becomes more desperate and violent, he becomes more famous.
The police are not happy about Ivan. Not only are they humiliated by his crime spree and escape, but they also fear that he will inspire others to resist the domination of Babylon. Kingston ghettos are a powder kegs of young people who are bored, frustrated, and angry, feeling as if they have no future. The Jamaican police don’t want an uprising or a crime explosion. Ironically that is exactly what happened to Jamaica in the 1970s even though those events are outside the scope of this novel. What the police do is cut off the ganja supply at the wholesale level and redirect it to America. The message gets out that there will be no more ganja in Jamaica until Ivan is brought in dead or alive. This wrecks the microeconomy of Trench Town. The ganja trade is so pivotal in the cash flow of the ghetto that people begin starving. Man-I is in need of medical attention and keeps getting sicker. Elsa and Ras Pedro know that Ivan has a bounty on his head so they do what they have to do with regret. In a way, the killing of Ivan is heroic. He has to die so that Man-I can live. The sun has to set so that it can rise again later.
Thelwell’s novel works so well because of its complexity. Ivan is written so well that we can see how the different layers of his persona interact with the different layers of Jamaican society and his situation. The same can be said for other characters in the story. He isn’t a bad person. He may be reckless and mischievous as a boy, but he has a sense of pride and justice. He also has ambition and the curiosity necessary for exploring the world. He doesn’t want to live a dull life like so many millions of other average people. Later in Kingston, he tries to make it as an honest man as can be seen in the story of the bicycle and his attempt at a career as a reggae singer. But everything he works for gets taken away for no good reason. Out of frustration, Ivan turns to crime as a means of liberation when he sees no other paths forward, You don’t have to be Jamaican or a gangster to relate to his feelings of frustration, disappointment, and containment. Through Ivan, Thelwell channels a universal theme of thwarted desires. Finally Ivan becomes a hero because he has the guts to do what others are afraid of. All this results from the society he lives in which is marked by complex layers of corruption and injustice. Those layers affecting him are tied to forces of the disfunctional establishment, international economics, and even colonial history itself.
The language used is also of interest. Thelwell uses Jamaican Patwa liberally throughout the text. This might slow some readers down at first and it is worth looking up some basic information about Jamaican English. It actually isn’t hard to understand once you get a handle on it. The language, in both its third person omniscient narrative and the first person dialogues, weaves in and out of Standard English and Patwa. This makes the reading challenging but not impossible. It does place a lot of demand on the reader to reorient how they apprehend and interpret English. It does affect the cadence and prosody of the language at both a micro and macro level. The descriptive prose is vivid and detailed too. It almost feels Victorian in its attention to detail and setting. The prose does move along at a slow pace, but it is a leisurely and steady pace. It is a lot like being in Jamaica where being in a hurry will get you nothing but stress and you have to adapt to the breezy way of life which is nothing like being in a big American city.
Finally something should be said about Thelwell’s portrayal of religion. The first contact between Ivan, outside the folk practices of Pocomania in the village, is with Preacha’s Pentecostal church. On the surface, Preacha appears to be doing some good by taking in homeless teenagers and rehabilitating Longah. But as we find out, the change in Longah is only superficial. Preacha is a problematic man too. His severe religious discipline doesn’t change Elsa or Ivan on a deep level either. Preacha isn’t necessarily a malevolent man, but his devotion to God and his sexual repression blind him to what is going on in front of his face. His intention of marrying the much younger Elsa when she gets old enough also indicates he is sexually and emotionally immature. This is not a favorable portrayal of the Christian church in Jamaica.
Also of interest is the presence of the Rastafarian counter culture religion that weaves in and out of the story. Ras Pedro is portrayed as a good-hearted man who wants peace and justice, all the while acting as a counselor of wisdom to Ivan in his rowdier days. And then there is the Rastafarian rally that Ivan attends one night on the outskirts of Trench Town. The Rastafarians march on downtown Kingston, using mystical ceremonial chants and prayers to exercise the evil out of Babylon. But instead the police come and beat them up. Thelwell apears to be saying that the Rastafarians are good people and possibly a force for positive change at the cultural level, but their practices are ineffective politically. With both the Rastafarians and the Pentecostals, Thelwell is saying that religion is not a solution to Jamaica’s problems. The sense of hopelessness with the two religious organizations increases the atmosphere of frustrated ambitions that permeate the Kingston ghettos and feed into Ivan’s desire for freedom through violence.
In a way it isn’t fair to compare the movie and book versions of The Harder They Come. The movie uses cinematic language to convey ideas in ways that the written word cannot. The novel also conveys ideas using the written word in ways that a film cannot. Michael Thelwell uses the film as an outline for the novel while filling in the backstories of its characters and presenting a broader view of Jamaican society. Both the film and the book are equally successful in different ways. The best thing to do is to indulge in both and see how they enhance one another. This is one film and book combination that can stay with you long after you finish them.
The protagonist of the story is Ivanhoe Martin, usually called Ivan but also referrred to by his nickname Rygin. If my understanding is correct, “rygin” is the Jamaican pronunciation of “raging” and has a sexual connotation. As a boy, Ivan is given the nickname Rygin by the other kids in his village because he is a bit more reckless than the others. Ivan lives in a hillside shack near the seashore. He lives with his grandmother and helps her run the family farm. They are poor, but live a satisfying life. With just enough food to eat, Ivan spends his youth doing the kinds of things you would expect a kid to do in the jungle and on the beach. It’s a life of playful adventure and discovery, the kind of life you could look back on as an adult with fond memories. That has implications for a passage that comes later in the story.
The other villagers provide a strong sense of community. Both agricultural folk customs and church are a part of this, although the church community does not play a prominent role in the story. Another important part of the community is the village elder, an old man named Nattie who takes a liking to Ivan. Nattie is a proud man who was a member of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA when it existed. While being educated and worldly, he also acts as a link connecting the village to Jamaica’s past.
When Ivan’s grandmother dies, the boy, now a restless teenager, sets off for Kingston where all the action is. Nattie gives Ivan some advice about how to find meaning in life, but the transition is overshadowed by the Pocomania spirit possession ceremony at his grandmother’s funeral. The spirit that possesses its host foreshadows the events of Ivan’s life at the end of the novel.
This opening chapter is fascinating. It paints a vivid picture of life in the Jamaican countryside which the author romanticizes without over-emphasis. The village isn’t portrayed as utopian, but it is celebrated for its unique and satisfying qualities. It also gives the reader a chance to understand who Ivan is and where he is coming from. As his age progresses throughout the novel, his character is built layer by layer and a lot of those layers are rooted in his experiences during childhood. As a literary character, Ivan goes through changes while remaining the same person in his core. Given how his story ends, it is imperative that the reader feels sympathy for him from the start. Both the world-building and character building in this novel are top notch.
The next section finds Ivan riding a bus from his village to Kingston. This seems like a long and unnecessary diversion at first, but looking back, It functions effectively as part of the narrative and Thelwell’s portrayal of Jamaica. What this chapter does is draw attention to the relations between the people in the countryside and the capital city of Kingston. It shows how the bus passengers exist between two worlds, the two different sides of Jamaica, and how intertwined those two worlds actually are. It also builds up to the problems the naive country boy Ivan has when he arrives in Kingston.
Ivan has a rough time. After having his baggage stolen, he arrives at his mother’s single room apartment, finding her too poor to take him in. He fails to find work and ends up homeless and hungry before a church minister allows him to stay providing he work in the church’s repair shop. The shop is run by an ex-criminal named Longah who has only changed superficially since Preacha rescued him from the streets. Also staying in Preacha’s care is Elsa, a young oprhaned girl on the brink pf coming of age who Ivan falls in love with. This is where the novel really starts to take off.
The further course of Ivan’s life turns on two narrative hinges. One is his relationship with Elsa. The other is a bicycle. While working in the shop, Ivan fixes up and old bicycle frame. After being repaired, polished, and rebuilt, he takes Elsa out for a day of riding around Kingston and visiting the beach. The bicycle acts symbolically as a means of liberation. At least temporarily, Ivan is able to find happiness and relief from his poverty and disappointment. Of as much importance is the sense of achievement he gets from fixing up the bike and befriending Elsa.
But the liberation he finds through the bike is short lived. Preacha doesn’t approve of Ivan and Elsa’s friendship so he spends a whole night verbally abusing her and later kicks Ivan out of his premises. Longah later tells Ivan that Preacha intends to marry her when she gets old enough. But Longah also confesses that he plans to rape her. Later when Ivan returns to retrieve his bicycle, the only thing he has left, Longah refuses to let him take it. The two of them have a fight and Ivan stabs Longah which gets him into trouble with the law. His career as an outlaw has begun.
The narrative is layered so that all these events overlap. All the while, Ivan has been teaching himself to sing. When he gets an opportunity to record a single, he gets ripped off by Hilton, the bigshot businessman who controls the Jamaican music industry. Hilton prevents the record from being distributed to Kingston’s record stores, and forbids radio stations and dance club DJ’s to play the song. All this is simply because Hilton doesn’t like Ivan for being assertive. Hilton, the police, and Preacha are Baylon, the downpressers, as they would say in Jamaican English, the establishment that keeps people from moving up in society. Ivan is being pushed by these downpressers into a confrontation with Babylon.
When Ivan first arrives in Kingston and shacks up with Preacha, he becomes fascinated with the nearby movie theater. He spends his evenings watching American made Westerns, demonstrating how these films influence future generations of Jamaican gangsters. At the movies he makes friends with a gang in Trench Town. The kids in the gang aren’t so bad. Sometimes they get involved in petty crime or occasional street fights, but mostly they just hang out and smoke ganja.
Later, after Ivan gets arrested and sent away from Preacha’s shop, he turns to more serious gangsterism, getting involved in the ganja trade. He meets up with his mentor Jose who puts him to work. What we learn through Jose is that the Trench Town ganja dealers get protection from the police who not only benefit from payoffs of protection money, but also by keeping the illegal drug trade under control. There is a chain of command with the police at the top, Jose and other wholesale dealers in the middle, and street level pushers like Ivan at the bottom. As long as the chain of command is kept intact, nobody has any problems. Ivan, who is tired of being poor and unimportant, is concerned with finding freedom so you can see where this is leading.
Jose connects Ivan to Ras Pedro, sometimes alternatively called Peter, a Rastafarian ganja seller who has a sickly son with a medical condition named Man-I. The illness is treatable, but Ras Pedro often doesn’t make enough money for the food or medicine needed to keep his son healthy. Elsa leaves Preacha’s house and follows Ivan to Trench Town and moves in with Ras Pedro and Ivan. She becomes a mother to the boy and the four of them live communally like a family, surviving on the wages of ganja profits. Ras Pedro also acts as a conscience for Ivan, counseling him to avoid violence and stay out of trouble. When Ivan wants to buy guns, Ras Pedro tries to talk him out of it but leaves the decision to him.
Another big turning point comes when Ivan has become a successful ganja merchant, buys some flashy clothes and motorcycle, and drives back to the village where he grew up. Eager to show off how he has made it in the big city, he is disappointed to find out that almost everyone he knew is gone or dead. Even worse, the village has been turned into a resort town overrun with rich white people who have no interest in the real Jamaica. Therefore, Ivan has lost his roots and the anchor in tradition that has kept him stable through all the difficult times. Sullen, angry, and disappointed, he returns to Kingston ready to explode.
Wishing to rise in the ranks of the drug dealing underworld, Ivan proposes to Ras Pedro that they farm their own ganja crops and expand their trafficking business to America. But the downpresser police and military crush the plans. Everywhere Ivan goes, there are obstacles to his social mobility. He gets into a gunfight resulting in the death of a policeman and then he goes on a rampage. After another shootout, Ivan becomes a local folk hero and Hilton capitalizes on this by releasing his record which is soon heard everywhere. As Ivan becomes more desperate and violent, he becomes more famous.
The police are not happy about Ivan. Not only are they humiliated by his crime spree and escape, but they also fear that he will inspire others to resist the domination of Babylon. Kingston ghettos are a powder kegs of young people who are bored, frustrated, and angry, feeling as if they have no future. The Jamaican police don’t want an uprising or a crime explosion. Ironically that is exactly what happened to Jamaica in the 1970s even though those events are outside the scope of this novel. What the police do is cut off the ganja supply at the wholesale level and redirect it to America. The message gets out that there will be no more ganja in Jamaica until Ivan is brought in dead or alive. This wrecks the microeconomy of Trench Town. The ganja trade is so pivotal in the cash flow of the ghetto that people begin starving. Man-I is in need of medical attention and keeps getting sicker. Elsa and Ras Pedro know that Ivan has a bounty on his head so they do what they have to do with regret. In a way, the killing of Ivan is heroic. He has to die so that Man-I can live. The sun has to set so that it can rise again later.
Thelwell’s novel works so well because of its complexity. Ivan is written so well that we can see how the different layers of his persona interact with the different layers of Jamaican society and his situation. The same can be said for other characters in the story. He isn’t a bad person. He may be reckless and mischievous as a boy, but he has a sense of pride and justice. He also has ambition and the curiosity necessary for exploring the world. He doesn’t want to live a dull life like so many millions of other average people. Later in Kingston, he tries to make it as an honest man as can be seen in the story of the bicycle and his attempt at a career as a reggae singer. But everything he works for gets taken away for no good reason. Out of frustration, Ivan turns to crime as a means of liberation when he sees no other paths forward, You don’t have to be Jamaican or a gangster to relate to his feelings of frustration, disappointment, and containment. Through Ivan, Thelwell channels a universal theme of thwarted desires. Finally Ivan becomes a hero because he has the guts to do what others are afraid of. All this results from the society he lives in which is marked by complex layers of corruption and injustice. Those layers affecting him are tied to forces of the disfunctional establishment, international economics, and even colonial history itself.
The language used is also of interest. Thelwell uses Jamaican Patwa liberally throughout the text. This might slow some readers down at first and it is worth looking up some basic information about Jamaican English. It actually isn’t hard to understand once you get a handle on it. The language, in both its third person omniscient narrative and the first person dialogues, weaves in and out of Standard English and Patwa. This makes the reading challenging but not impossible. It does place a lot of demand on the reader to reorient how they apprehend and interpret English. It does affect the cadence and prosody of the language at both a micro and macro level. The descriptive prose is vivid and detailed too. It almost feels Victorian in its attention to detail and setting. The prose does move along at a slow pace, but it is a leisurely and steady pace. It is a lot like being in Jamaica where being in a hurry will get you nothing but stress and you have to adapt to the breezy way of life which is nothing like being in a big American city.
Finally something should be said about Thelwell’s portrayal of religion. The first contact between Ivan, outside the folk practices of Pocomania in the village, is with Preacha’s Pentecostal church. On the surface, Preacha appears to be doing some good by taking in homeless teenagers and rehabilitating Longah. But as we find out, the change in Longah is only superficial. Preacha is a problematic man too. His severe religious discipline doesn’t change Elsa or Ivan on a deep level either. Preacha isn’t necessarily a malevolent man, but his devotion to God and his sexual repression blind him to what is going on in front of his face. His intention of marrying the much younger Elsa when she gets old enough also indicates he is sexually and emotionally immature. This is not a favorable portrayal of the Christian church in Jamaica.
Also of interest is the presence of the Rastafarian counter culture religion that weaves in and out of the story. Ras Pedro is portrayed as a good-hearted man who wants peace and justice, all the while acting as a counselor of wisdom to Ivan in his rowdier days. And then there is the Rastafarian rally that Ivan attends one night on the outskirts of Trench Town. The Rastafarians march on downtown Kingston, using mystical ceremonial chants and prayers to exercise the evil out of Babylon. But instead the police come and beat them up. Thelwell apears to be saying that the Rastafarians are good people and possibly a force for positive change at the cultural level, but their practices are ineffective politically. With both the Rastafarians and the Pentecostals, Thelwell is saying that religion is not a solution to Jamaica’s problems. The sense of hopelessness with the two religious organizations increases the atmosphere of frustrated ambitions that permeate the Kingston ghettos and feed into Ivan’s desire for freedom through violence.
In a way it isn’t fair to compare the movie and book versions of The Harder They Come. The movie uses cinematic language to convey ideas in ways that the written word cannot. The novel also conveys ideas using the written word in ways that a film cannot. Michael Thelwell uses the film as an outline for the novel while filling in the backstories of its characters and presenting a broader view of Jamaican society. Both the film and the book are equally successful in different ways. The best thing to do is to indulge in both and see how they enhance one another. This is one film and book combination that can stay with you long after you finish them.
June 10, 2008
I began to read this novel because it shed a light on my jamaican heritage. The novel is primarily based on the film "the Harder they come". It is about the legendary Jamaican folk hero and reggae star Rhygin. It shows the corruption with the slums of kingston (which is where my mother is from) and it reveals the poverty and corruption of postcolonial Jamaica.
November 9, 2018
Reminds me of Marlon James' "A brief history of seven killings". Full of rich history, plot and characters from start to finish. I laughed so many ties while reading this book. Jamaicans really do have a way with words!
December 9, 2025
Excellent story, Ivan's relationships with his home and the community events that take place in country are very well fleshed out, the movie doesn't have time to show us these formative experiences. If you love the movie you need to read this.
May 20, 2015
After the "Tortilla Curtain", how could I resist this author on a line from Jimmy Cliff. I watched that movie over and over and loved it. The protagonist comes off as an unlikely hero on a Costa Rica tour gone bad. He is a big guy and kills a would be thug in a jungle setup.
Thelwell's attention to detail and accuracy are evident in the interchange between the "hero" and the local police. An innocent thug goes down for the crime and we are left with spit as the leaf that turns the twig on his unfortunate life. On to the Northwest and this "happy" family who has a sociopath/whatever son who has been on the road to hell since high school.
Add inept police, a wacky girl friend (of the son), and a few people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stage right "the harder they come" in current context.
Sad outcome. Still Thelwell is real the whole time. Not as good as Tortilla Curtain, but still a good read.
Thelwell's attention to detail and accuracy are evident in the interchange between the "hero" and the local police. An innocent thug goes down for the crime and we are left with spit as the leaf that turns the twig on his unfortunate life. On to the Northwest and this "happy" family who has a sociopath/whatever son who has been on the road to hell since high school.
Add inept police, a wacky girl friend (of the son), and a few people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stage right "the harder they come" in current context.
Sad outcome. Still Thelwell is real the whole time. Not as good as Tortilla Curtain, but still a good read.
August 31, 2007
Jamaican music in a book. This is the classic that accompanies Perry Henzel's movie of the same name. Certainly there is no better, truer picture of Jamaica in the rude bwoy era. Like the music of the time, the book follows Ivan from the hills, living with his grandmother, to Kingston and grinding poverty.
With his new name, Rhygin, comes musical success, but no financial reward. And like a western, or the Lee Perry tune it inspired, he ends in a cloud of gunsmoke.
With his new name, Rhygin, comes musical success, but no financial reward. And like a western, or the Lee Perry tune it inspired, he ends in a cloud of gunsmoke.
January 15, 2010
I have read thousands of books and this is still one of my favorites.I have read it a few times.It transends you into life in rural countryside of Jamaica. I love the way it describes the traditions of the elders and the rituals.I fell in love with the characters also.When i am lonsome for Jamaica I read this book and I feel great again!
February 3, 2009
This is a novel written after the motion picture by the same title. Much more than just a noveoizaation of the movie, this work greatly expands the film, creating a chidhood and whole culture for its main character.
September 9, 2008
Read it out loud to Kirsten over many days. Fun to attempt the thick jamacian accent. A true joy of a book.
Read
November 12, 2008ivanhoe is my guy right now.
November 19, 2009
This book may be better than the movie.
May 1, 2010
A very well done novelization of the classic movie
April 11, 2012
First half: YAY!!
Second half: NAY!!
Second half: NAY!!
May 8, 2015
One of my favorite books ever!
May 19, 2015
Boyles usual social situations with no suggestion of solution, this time guns and psychosis
August 3, 2022
deep background…
February 5, 2026
Wel dikke schijven in deed boek
July 20, 2010
I didn't want this book to end....
April 3, 2013
I've read this a few times - absolutely one of the best novels I've ever read
March 29, 2017
Movie was good, book is better in the way a book about a movie should be, provide context and background for all of the interesting and fun things from the movie.
There are hundreds of ways to cut corners or drive the narrative off the rails novelizing an already existing screenplay, but Thelwell does the opposite, he really gets into Ivan/Rhygin's youth years, his upbringing in the country. The net impact of really building out Ivan's origin story, is a much more resonant and engaging 2nd and 3rd act in the Kingston. The author does a wonderful job showcasing personalities and identifying characters personas, and does so without stereotyping or sounding like an outsider playing at patois.
I'd give the book five stars on the linguistic aspect alone, well researched and expertly deployed, the various ways of speaking as dictated by region, class, age and religion, gives the book a clear and authoritative chorus of voices. The only reason it's not all five-star is because the History of Seven Killings still far surpasses this book, and it earned five stars...
Still really enjoyed and savored reading this book.
There are hundreds of ways to cut corners or drive the narrative off the rails novelizing an already existing screenplay, but Thelwell does the opposite, he really gets into Ivan/Rhygin's youth years, his upbringing in the country. The net impact of really building out Ivan's origin story, is a much more resonant and engaging 2nd and 3rd act in the Kingston. The author does a wonderful job showcasing personalities and identifying characters personas, and does so without stereotyping or sounding like an outsider playing at patois.
I'd give the book five stars on the linguistic aspect alone, well researched and expertly deployed, the various ways of speaking as dictated by region, class, age and religion, gives the book a clear and authoritative chorus of voices. The only reason it's not all five-star is because the History of Seven Killings still far surpasses this book, and it earned five stars...
Still really enjoyed and savored reading this book.
April 18, 2017
I usually enjoy TC Boyle, yet although I did not dislike this book, it was not my favourite, either. The same elements are there - poignant and ambiguous situations, colorfully jaunty characters, descriptions, and dialogue, raw humanity laid bare and comically exaggerated for philosophical inspection, and yet... this one did not resonate as.much as others. It may be I am jaded and/or too familiar with TC's style and intent, or that I have read more authors now and have a wider context for comparison, or maybe I am just getting older. Very much a strong like, yet still a like.
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