Monique Roffey’s The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
(Simon & Schuster, 2009)
I was pleased to see that more than half of the Orange Prize shortlisted titles — including this novel — were still unread in my stacks. Reading the longlist was a crazy undertaking (see more talk of bookish craziness here) and I might just have left more of them unread for longer, if so many of those waiting for me weren’t swept along to the shortlist: now I’m re-inspired.
I started reading The White Woman on the Green Bicycle on the subway in the pre-morning-rush; I was lucky to have a seat because the violence in the novel’s opening scene is palpable, and it took me to that bookish place where my mouth hangs open and I sit stunned, just staring at the page, simultaneously hovering above the words inert and completely absorbed by them. It’s only four pages long but I was completely taken aback (it was also early morning, and a Monday morning at that).
Over the weekend, I’d read the Phyllis Allfrey poem, and it seemed a beautiful homage to an island; after reading the “Hurricane” chapter, I re-read the poem, and it read just as passionately, but more viscerally.
Obviously the words were the same, but that scene changed my approach and I felt a different side to the epigraph. Re-reading that poem yet again, after finishing the novel, it feels even more appropriate and I was overwhelmed by the alignment with the novel’s themes. (I read Alfrey’s The Orchid House a few years ago but now would love to re-read with Roffey’s novel in mind.)
The poem is titled “Love for an Island” and even that phrase alone hints at the novel’s dimensions. Although I think Allfrey was writing about Dominica, the Island in The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is Trinidad. But as much as it is about these Islands, I think the poem could as easily be about many other Islands, so perhaps you will imagine another Island entirely whilst reading these verses.
Then, imagine all the forms and expressions of love, imagine how easily its expression can be mistaken for other emotions, imagine all the cruelty and deceit that is exhibited in the world in love’s name, imagine the intersection between love and protection, how these motivations inspire and conflict. (I can’t help but think of Laila Lalami’s The Secret Son and M.J. Hyland’s This is How, the marriages in Sadie Jones’ Small Wars and Lorrie Moore’s The Gate at the Stairs, the betrayals and the disappointments.) Imagine the conflicts and tensions, the sustenance and the endurance. Imagine it in regard to people, yes, but also to places, to hills and homesteads, to soil and waterways.
At one point, about a third of the way through the novel, a minor character is described as having “managed to look confused and disapproving and amused and happy all in one face” and then he shakes his head. (139) It’s impossible to know if he’s shaking it in confusion, disapproval, satisfaction or pleasure: there are a mass of emotions in this book, sometimes conflicting and sometimes aligning. And he is only a minor character. Imagine the depth of emotions expressed by George and Sabine, who contribute more directly and exhaustively throughout the 400 pages of narrative, over the course of fifty years.
(I say that tongue-in-reader’s-cheek because there’s nothing I love more than the conceit of taking a minor character and rewriting a book to give them centre stage for a time, so I’m assuming that in some other literary space this fellow is narrator and hero, but here the mass of emotions is more often and thoroughly expressed through other characters’ eyes, minds and hearts).
Trinidad comes alive in Roffey’s descriptions, but its animation comes not only from the author’s pen; you know that I’m spoiler-phobic and don’t want to interfere with other readers discovering fiction for themselves, so I don’t want to say too much about this, but Roffey ensures that the Island takes hold in this novel in a particularly wonderful way.
Trinidad also, however, claims prominence in this novel through George and Sabine (and the residents of the island, although readers are not immersed in their perspectives so directly); their relationships to the Island are fascinating and complex. They seemed more straightforward when I started reading, in the section of narrative set in 2006, but one of the things that I most enjoyed about reading this novel was seeing my own reactions deepen and transform, as I followed these characters, Trinidad included, from 1956 and back to present-day.
I’d never heard of Monique Roffey before she hit the Orange Prize longlist (and, now, shortlist), but I am thrilled to have discovered her work: I think this one will be nestling into my list of favourite reads for 2010.
Anyone else reading this one? Anyone have any other favourite Trinidadian reads?
In the months of April and May in 2010, I am Buried in Print on Mondays and Thursdays.
2010 Longlisted books bookchatted 7; Currently reading 2; Still to read 7; Can’t find 4.
What a great review. I enjoyed this story very much just for the history of Trinidad and Tobago and its politics. I’m glad to have a few more suggestions for Trinidadian writers from your commenters too. Thanks for leaving me your link and for visiting Fresh Ink Books. I am now a subscriber.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Simon & Schuster UK, Francesca Main. Francesca Main said: An amazing blogger response to The White Woman on the Green Bicycle — http://www.buriedinprint.com/?p=1174 … […]
My editor just sent me a link to this review. I am sitting here reading it with a tear rolling down my cheek, for it is wonderful to see my novel being so intelligently discussed and appreciated. Thank you.
George and Sabine are just people who love and fail like everyone else and I have no judgement for either of them.
Amanda Smyth is another great Trinidadian author of the same generation, and I highly recommend the poetry and experimental prose of Anthony Joseph. Vahni Capildeo is worth mentioning too, a poet and relative of Naipaul; we are part of a new wave of writers currently coming out of Trinidad. Shani Mootoo is a great writer too.
Thank you for your time and interest.
Monique
[…] think this one will be nestling into my list of favourite reads for 2010. Buried in Print var linkwithin_div_class="linkwithin_hook"; var linkwithin_site_id = 79234; Share and […]
I’m in total agreement with you about this one. I thought that Roffey’s book was a tour de force of powerful subtlety and, like you say, perfectly aligned tiers of themes. They nest inside one another, each mirroring the others. There is the island itself – such a hot-house, so vibrant, humming with fecundity – and then the politics, the painful birth of a nation, and then the relationship between George and Sabine, and finally their personal relationships with Trinidad. It is a gorgeously constructed story too, with the 2006 narrative deepening and broadening as a result of Sabine’s first-person back-story. What I admired most though was the ambiguity and the moral uncertainties, particularly with regards to Sabine’s obsession with Eric Williams, a man she loves and hates in equally violent measure. I didn’t think there would be a novel to equal Wolf Hall on the Orange short list, and then I read this and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, both of which are also extraordinary. I wouldn’t like to choose between them if I was a judge. 🙂
I was wondering though (and I hope you don’t think I’m being too spoilery here) when you thought Sabine had written or narrated the historical portions of the novel? After the final event of the 2006 section (which is in the third person)? Or at some earlier time? There was something at the end of the novel, nearly on the last page, that made me think she was writing the whole thing afterwards, as a sort of confession, and with foreknowledge of everything that was to happen in the future. What did you think?
Now that’s an interesting thought, Victoria: how would the way we received the story change if it had been told as it unfolded (rather than as is, having the historical segments follow the contemporary opening). Maybe because the 2006 segment was vivid and longer, I did assume that it was the fresh bit and that the rest of the narrative was offered with the knowledge of what happened therein: if there weren’t still so many Orange Prize books on my list (including the two others you mention here as being so impressive), I’d be tempted to re-read right now to see if something more specific steered me in that direction, and imagine how the story might have been recast.
**SPOILERS**The layering and the intersections between elements of theme and character and setting really cemented my admiration, but I agree that the “ambiguity and moral uncertainties” are fascinating, and that’s where my reader’s heart got involved. In particular, the question of fidelity, not only between people and other people, but also between people and the island: how many times did I re-centre myself on that question, in terms of Sabine’s and George’s marriage (her “relationship” with Eric, George’s countless “indiscretions”, their varied and transformative interactions with Trinidad and secrets they kept from each other in that regard)? Wow. Nothing simple: what better way to bring characters and stories alive, with all their dizzying complexity.
This sounds marvelous, but my library doesn’t have it. Shani Mootoo is my fave Trinidadian author. 🙂
It’s definitely worth an inter-library-loan if you can’t purchase it straight out; it strikes me as one you would really enjoy and it would stand up to re-reading as well.
::nods:: I had a Booker-thing after Possession won, but then was disappointed by some of the long/short-listed books, and have been very pick-and-choosy about it in recent years. (I’ll admit that some of the ones that I found disappointing were obviously well-done but just not what I prefer to read.) So far the Orange Prize has not disappointed, but reading the longlist makes it very hard to fit in other reading!
I came here via The Savvy Reader and the talk of the Orange Prize. I am so looking forward to reading the books on the shortlist. This one sounds particularly good. I didn’t read all of your review as I want to keep the suspense.
Thanks, Heather: I hope you enjoy it. I’ve just picked up two others at the library today (I often borrow first and then, as with the Roffey novel, buy) so my Orange Prize fun continues!
I love the title and hope I can get a copy of it. The Orange Prize list is good, though I no longer read the longlist. My husband and I tried to do that with the Booker last year and it got a bit crazy. (Also, we hated quite a few of the books.)
I haven’t read many book set in Trinidad, but this one sounds like it might have to go on my list. Wonderful review!
Thanks, Zibilee. I’ve been thinking about other novels set in Trinidad: Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night and Dionne Brand’s At the Full and Change of the Moon are favourites of mine as well. Technically I think Mootoo’s wonder+full novel is set on a fictional Island (if I’m remembering correctly), but both of these are also fantastic. Although very different stylistically from Monique Roffey’s novel, they are definitely worth seeking out. And now I want to read them again too!