The Book of Color

by Julia Blackburn

In the late 19th century, an English missionary arrives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, intent on wiping our fornication among the natives. Instead he incurs a curse that strikes first his dark-skinned wife, then his son and grandson. But is the curse supernatural--or a white man's guilty fascination with an alien new world? "A hypnotic, cryptic, haunting exploration of the power of memory."--Boston Globe.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Adult

175 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Julia Blackburn is the author of several other works of nonfiction, including Charles Waterton and The Emperor’s Last Island, and of two novels, The Book of Color and The Leper’s Companions, both of which were short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her most recent book, Old Man Goya, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Blackburn lives in England and Italy.

Reviews

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

E.M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, doesn't see why the novelist has to wrap up everything at the end. Why can't the novelist just stop, he says, or something to that effect. I have often wondered so myself given the painfully elongated summings-up so many novelists, even present-day novelists, impose upon their readers. Now, however, I think I understand why such advice might not always be applicable. Take Julia Blackburn’s short novel, The Book of Color. This novel is for the most part enjoyable. One gets 165 wonderfully modulated pages, pages in which the novelist’s art is masterfully on display. One glides along them with such ease, such delight. Then—splat!—you’re in a gutter and the cold water is washing over your splayed and alarmed form. I understand that part of the charm of Ms. Blackburn’s book is in what it does not address, its elisions. She’s very good at leaving things out, as good as Ernest Hemingway ever was in that respect. There are wonderful uses of elision here, but with regard to narrator motivation, more, I think, must be provided. In such a case it does not seem right to simply stop, which is what the abrupt ending here feels like. The narrator is obviously compelled to this oneiric study of her family’s past, but why? Some sense of the significance it holds for her must be given. But we get nothing, nothing. The omission of the narrator’s rationale seems to me a terrible mistake. As a reader I was utterly lost without it. Let me take this opportunity then to recommend other works by Ms Blackburn, including The Emperor's Last Island and Old Man Goya. Both are nonfiction works that blend biography and memoir. Quite wonderful, I think.

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Watch my BookTube deep dive on the weirdest Women's Prize nominees . 👀



"Is it possible that I can seem to remember my father's childhood as if it was something I had experienced myself, and could this process be allowed to move back through the generations as far as a person wished to take it?"

The Book of Color is a tale of family curses, madness, and intergenerational trauma. It charts one family's history as they migrate from Praslin Island to Mauritius and finally to England while exploring identity, racism, and the legacy of colonialism (with the help of pigs).

Yep, that's right. Pigs. 🐷🐷🐷

I'm talking about pigs used to ward off the plague. A pig who serves as a little boy's companion. A lover who dons a pig mask. Pigs that charge off cliffs to their demise. And a book bound in pig skin being nibbled on by a pig. 📙🐖

Can I tell you what it all means? Nope. Not at all. 🤣 You'll get no highbrow literary interpretation from me on this subject. All I can tell you is that pig symbolism abounds in this multigenerational story of an interracial family with a troubled past.

What I enjoyed most about The Book of Color were the swift narrative and the glimpses of vivid imagery; however, I struggled to keep track of the characters because of the disjointed timeline. Nonetheless, this proved a strange read studded with beautiful prose, and I can certainly see myself exploring more of Julia Blackburn's work.

[Fadillah · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Your uncle believes that your future lies in the Church,' says Mr Swann. My job is to get you ready for England so that you can complete your studies there. Your uncle is confident that in England you can pass as a white man with a dark skin, while here you will always be a mulatto, a creole, a child of the island as they sometimes call it. I understand that it was an unfortunate marriage between your poor mother and your father; the two races should never be mixed. You might like to read this little book that your uncle has just given to me. It names all the local families who are black even though they would like to be thought of as white. Your mother's maiden name is there, of course, but your father's family is not included. I'm sure you can understand the problem.' The boy picks up the book that is held out to him. He knows that within this moment his childhood has come to an end and now nothing will ever be the same again because the threads of his first life have been broken. The spider threads that cling to his face and hands, he can wipe them away and rub them between his finger and thumb like fragments of old skin. He can forget everything.
- The book of colour : A family memoir by Julia Blackburn.
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This reads like a fever dream combined with a lucid dream and sprinkled it with a troublesome past of multigenerational family. We followed the journey from Praslin Island, Mauritius and England in the lense of the narrator by seeing his family members particularly his grandfather and father. His great grandmother were part of this story as well just to show that she suffered strange illness because of the curse. In terms of writing, it was beautifully written. Readers were served with vivid descriptions and wild imagery. In term of story, It was confusing right from the beginning as it was disjointed recollection of memories, the narrative is vague and the symbolism weaved in the story is too dominant that you lose track whether this is real or just a dream. The story explores racism, colonisation, misogyny and the sense of identity. The question of “How do the sins of my forefathers affect my life” and “Are we held accountable for the sins of our forefathers?” seems quite obvious in the novel. Overall, a challenging read and i obviously did not enjoy it at all. I have always enjoyed magical realism but this seems like went over my head for some reason.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read, I try to know as little as possible when I start. This is a good example of how that is a good practice to have: the interpretation on the back of the book is so concrete and narrow, that had I read it before beginning, it would have skewed everything so strongly, it'd have been a very different experience. In other words, what was a very atmospheric read--with multiple interpretations all the way til the end--would have been pegged into a very strict post-colonial reading. And in so doing, the Murakami-esque openness of it would have been lost. The glowing vibrancy of the symbolism, where ''each event, character and object shimmers with talismanic power'' (NYTIMES reviewer) would have been reduced to a stilted and pre-charted course had I read the back of the book before beginning. The reason to read the book in the first place would have been lost had I been psychologically primed to see X, when the book is about more than X.

Luckily I didn't/wasn't, and while I was glad to read that well-condensed summary of the themes on the back after getting the experience with fresh eyes by myself, I'm sorry to see when such well-meaning editors ruin the experience for other people. Though sometimes even the blurbs from critics reveal too much as well.

Content-wise...? Coming just a week or two after finishing Infinite Jest for the second time, this was a breath of fresh air. In many ways its the exact opposite of that book, here poetical mood in place of precision and narrative discipline. Not to mention concision and (here) lots of one-time allusions that are not part of some giant code that is heavily thought-out: here, more of a dream-like quality, especially considering that all of the main characters are presented mostly through their eyes as children, or viewed as adults through the eyes of a child. For this reason, a lot of the bigger cultural statements come delayed, as you begin to process them. It's because the children don't have the vocabulary or the observational skills to draw much sense out of what they witness (though we do, supposedly). That the back of the book talks about ''the ensuing destruction'' is not something I felt was present, but maybe because the kids here are not themselves able to discern any kind of decline sustained over a long period of time.

Pretty interesting, this is another -le-mot-juste -type writer that reads more like tone poems than a narrative, especially considering that the chapters are 2 or 3 pages on average, often without a lot of overlap in terms of content (though the second half is able to make good use of repetition built on the motifs in part one, even without any formal sense of closure). Well, another super-short read that I packed for my travels, but one that will continue to resonate with me for some time.

[Ruby Jusoh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my, a disturbingly amazing read! Thin but compact. Surreal. Almost mythical. It tells the tale of the narrator's grandfather, a white man living in Creole land. Very postcolonial. Many aspects of trauma here - forced conversion, shamanism, child abuse and racial oppression. The story, though, flows entirely like a dream.
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The narrator's grandpa grew up haunted. He lived in a country that was not his. He had privileges over the others in his life. Yet his parents were downright neglectful. His father was a missionary, going to the woods to hunt down natives and convert them to Christianity. The father also had the habit of beating the natives who were having sex. For the father, ending copulation was one of his purposes in life (I know. I went 'WTF?' too.) His mother was frail and often sick. She was possessed or went insane before dying. There was also Evalina, his Creole nanny who practised black magic. I think the father and Evalina were lovers. There was also a mulatto cousin who had to be a servant to his white father. There is no big plot. The main idea I think is to get the grandfather to exorcise his past.
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4/5. Ah... Confusing but I loved every minute reading it. The grandfather, despite being super old, never recovered from his childhood. There is also a huge pig symbolism. A pig was roaming around the house - apparently this happens when a household is in conflict. The story will surely make you feel uneasy and shocked.
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By the way, Julia Blackburn is apparently white? I thought she is a woman of colour but I was mistaken. I will definitely get more of her books.

[Mirrani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love when a book is beautiful and poetic, I love when it tells a good story, and I love when an author finds a creative way to put everything together. This book blended all of those things into one experience that was somewhat over the top on all, but is also very hard to explain. This is a story about a family history, but it is not told in the typical way, but through memories of a life lived between grandfather, son, and child. There were moments when I found myself completely wrapped up in the story, however they were contrasted with times when I felt I wasn't really certain where things were going. It was worth sticking through the short chapters, because in the end I was touched by something powerful, even if I wasn't quite sure what it was.

[Hunter Holt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fever dream written at a breakneck pace. Three generations, each represented by a single man: grandson, father, then grandfather. History of a sort, in that each's experiences appear interchangeable. But on a very small island off Mauritius, that the limited lives of these three are repeated on--into that of the next--should come as no surprise. No, the surprises are the people with whom each interacts, in ways strange, exotic, and magically real. A very quick, challenging, and uncanny read.

[Aiza Idris (biblio_mom)]

Shortlisted for the orange prize and I cannot seem to find the reason to that.

I yawned many times. It bored me out so much. The writing style is there, but the story is just peculiar. Maybe this particular story full of symbolism, dreams, mental illness and family history is just not for me.

[Sue Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The curse of colonialism. The book cover says "lyrical" but more than that it is dreamlike and only a little interesting.

[Sharie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting and challenging reading.

[Benjamin Nielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kedelig, opfindsomt med grisen, men den er bare ikke særlig spændende at læse. Bedstefarens liv er ikke så spændende at følge, måske for forfatteren. Point for at den er kort og det flotte sprog.

[Alicia Croft · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disjointed creepy bad dream

[Readelf · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am sure this is a very good and very clever book, but I just found it confusing and disjointed

[Jean Dorrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was required reading for a writing course. I’m not sure what it was about!!! Maybe just not my thing.

[Giovanni Loui · Rating 1 out of 5]

WEIRD is how I would describe this book. If there is any book that you might come across and you find it hard to understand the purpose of the writer then this is one of them. I remember that I tried reading this book some years back but all I could do was to simply read 2 or 3 pages because I just could not understand and imagine the plot and visual aspects of the story. I also couldn't figure out what the author was trying to convey.

I thought that this book would serve as a good horror/suspense film adaptation. The twist and turn of events were so confusing that it needed to be visualized and put into film by some very good film makers. The book was, in a way, hard to put down since I wanted to know what would happen next. However, I always got disappointed in the end since the climax was not there.

Still this book is W-E-I-R-D!

[Rena Searles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written as a series of memories/dreams, this dark little book was disturbing. Almost like poetry, Blackburn captures startling images from the narrator's family history and unlocks a legacy of racism and abuse. Hard to put this one into any sort of box - just an unusual read, but worthwhile for the craftsmanship.....

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just can't come up with much to say about this short book. It was well-written: vivid images, lightly lyrical, a dream-like quality. But it just didn't do much for me; it didn't leave much of an impression.

[Alicia Farmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it me? I think it's me. I think I'm too shallow to understand what's happening in this book. Or possibly too in vacation mode to care. I think I know the arc of the story, but could not tell which parts were "real" and which were mystical-dream-state-insanity-recollections. Meh.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent exploration of family lineage/memory/history through vivid descriptions and wild hallucinations.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something of a magical mystery tour through another world though with some haunting moments.

[Baljit · Rating 1 out of 5]

The narrative is rather vague, crossing beetween different characters n different time frames.

[Jayme · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was very lyrical and descriptive regarding the setting, but I have no idea what i just read.

[Elcin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written beautifully but I didn't enjoy it