At The Bottom Of The River (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
“All manner of feelings are locked up within my human breast and all manner of events summon them out.” (p47) I read about Kincaid in an article on the legacy of Virginia Woolf. When I began reading, however, I felt uncomfortable with the writing style. It feels somehow abstract while being the opposite of abstract at the same time. It does remind one of Woolf’s The Waves, specifically the lyrical portions. She has a peculiar way of combining tribal visuals with English sentiments. Not every story is strong, but they all have a unique level of observation and recollection.“What I Have Been Doing Lately” is a brief but energetic tale that toys with the passage of time and plot. I could describe it crassly as an acid trip, but what I suppose the author conveys is a randomness of imagination. Essentially it’s a fast-forward then rewind of a day’s events.Another good story is “Blackness”, a celebration of emptiness, languor, silence of the senses. I think this feeling has particular appeal to the author, coming from a background and culture of over-worked, crowded households and families. It also shows Kincaid’s theme of the fractured self. “How frightened I became once on looking down to see an oddly shaped, ash-colored object that I did not recognize at once to be a small part of my own foot. And how powerful I then found that moment, so that I was not at one with myself and I found myself separate, like a brittle substance, dashed and shattered….” (p47-48)This theme is continued in the best one of the collection, the title story “At the Bottom of the River”, where Kincaid takes the fracture theme to its conclusion – the dichotomy/paradox of nature. The story moves from the literal world, to male thinking of the world, to female thinking of the world, and back to the literal world – all to illustrate the horror of life and death. It’s thoughtful and existential, and delivered from a naive point of view (the best kind of narration always is).One problem I saw with the book as a whole is the usual problem with prose poetry: it feels unpolished. I understand that some readers enjoy raw grammar, but I feel that a few rewrites should have been done. Since she uses very proper English, at least the verb tenses should be consistent. Another problem is that, in the weaker stories, she dives in and out of different voices in a way that's difficult for the reader to follow.All in all, though, a very unique and beautiful work. Despite her isolation, Kincaid has a strong and lyrical, song-like voice.
Kincaid's At the Bottom of the River reads less like a series of short stories and more as a series of prose poems. None of the stories are self-contained and plot-driven but are interwoven with rich imagery and a liberal usage of metaphor. Several of the stories are concerned with the relationship between mother and daughter and a young woman's coming of age in the Caribbean. The summary on the back cover of the book was rather misleading as Kincaid never addresses life in the Caribbean in a lucid, straightforward fashion but approaches it as a secondary subplot in contrast to the narrator's very immediate and highly sensory-based experience. For me, this was a very sharp departure from A Small Place which very clearly examined Antiguan politics and globalization through the form of a memoir.The execution of her writing was on point throughout most of the book but at times delved into indiscernible vagueness which pulled me out of the stories altogether. This is definitely a read that requires a pen.
What do You think about At The Bottom Of The River (2000)?
This is a tough one, right between four and five stars. I loved the experience of reading the stories but I have a feeling I will have a hard time remembering them and that keeps me from giving the book the full five stars. But I plan to return to it and re-read again a year or two from now and i wouldn't be surprised if I changed my mind. I think this may be a lazy summer afternoon sort of book so I'm not sure the short winter day was the right time to fully appreciate it. I definitely recommend it... but maybe wait for spring.
—Michalle Gould
I'm sure there are some merits of this book, but I'm too busy to search for them, even though this book is 88 pages of triple-spaced prose. This is my fourth Jamaica Kincaid book (her first) and I think I can officially put myself in the "I'm not a fan" category. It's amazing that this book was received as well as it was. This is the type of book that people in the rest of the US think New Yorkers read and write, the type of book people use as an example of why they don't read books, they type of book that is used as a justification for cutting funding to the arts. This is not entirely Kincaid's fault, and at any rate, I think she'd have a hard time publishing this today. I'm just saying that I prefer writers' talents to be used for both beauty and accessibility, producing works of art that can be poured over both literature professors and folks who, in the words of a colleague, need literature to "save their lives."
—Jessica
Something that needs to be read more than once. Something that should be read aloud by someone who can perform.My favorite piece is "The Letter From Home," which is beautiful. She starts with chores and moves on to life, happening. "I shed my skin; lips have trembled, tears have flowed, cheeks have puffed, stomachs have twisted with pain... the hyacinths look as if they will bloom -- I know their fragrance will be overpowering; the earth spins on its axis, the axis is imaginary..."In "Blackness": "My child rushes from death to death, so familiar a state it is to her. Though I have summoned her into a fleeting existence, one that is perilous and subject to the violence of chance, she embraces time as it passes in numbing sameness, bearing in its wake a multitude of great sadnesses."A truly beautiful, soulful, artfully written book.
—Tara
