Status Updates From The Lonely Londoners

extremely endeared by tanty omg

The part when Galahad was catching pigeons and Cap catching seagulls was quite disturbing (although masked under the lighthearted style seen throughout) and showed how desperate they all were. Overall, it was quite a nice easy, light read but had some darker tones hidden underneath it. I was surprised at how interesting I found learning and reading about the migrants during the 1950s!

It was also interesting how he was the one wanting to go back to Trinidad at the end even though he had been there longer than any of the others. The clear racism that they experienced and also financial struggle for not being able to find any work was particularly sad.

That is probably why I liked Tanty as she was the only main female character and I was nothing like any of the others. The scene when she arrives with the family at the beginning was so funny as Tolroy really didn't expect or want anyone more than his mum to come. I did like Moses though, he was always willing to help others, even though he was fed up of being relied on so much.

This was particularly prevalent in the 9 page stream of consciousness section which starts out being really nice and describing summer and then takes a bit of a darker turn including the men's use of sex workers and how Moses thought one was dying in his bed. I didn't particularly like how they would refer to the women as either 'skin' or 'pussy'.

I read the first half of this in literally a couple of sittings and found it such a quick and easy read. I listened to a mix of jazz and Calypso music while reading which really brought the right vibes. There were a few parts of the second half which brought my estimation of the book down a tiny bit. It was basically all of the female objectification going on.

She was just so funny and tried to enforce her cultural practices on the British in response to them doing the same to her. Oh, I also liked the idea that through Selvon's use of language the reader is placed into a similar position as the characters - being thrown into a culture they are not familiar with but gradually as time goes it becomes more comfortable.

It was interesting how there was not really a set plot or story arc, instead we were just following a group of characters. I really liked how there were lots of them and although all their experiences were similar they all left quite distinct with their funny nicknames - like Cap, Five to twelve etc. My favourite, of course, was Tanty though.

Once again this was a uni read but one I actually enjoyed a lot more than most. It was written in such a different style (the language being a mix of British and Caribbean ways of speaking) which I actually found made it easy to read and follow (strangely more than some of the things I have read entirely in standard English).