Barbados - Laying out your clothes to dry

As part of my research for this blog, I read two novels by Bajan writers. The first, In the Castle of my Skin (1953) by George Lamming is a Bajan classic and is, no doubt, a well-established favourite on post-colonial studies reading lists the world over. The second, Song of Night (1998) by Glenville Lovell is a more modern novel, which is set in an independent Barbados, providing an interesting balance to Lamming's world.

Characters in a changing world

In the Castle of my Skin is a really important book and a record of Barbados during a period of great change for the country.  I'm sure much of the story is autobiographical and reflects Lamming's own experiences, as a young man growing up on 'the Rock'.  It's quite a heavy read, but the language is wonderfully poetic and the 'events' of the book have an almost surreal or magical quality to them.  It deals with a time of great change and political upheaval for Barbados, as the white ruling class struggled to maintain their position in an increasingly politicised society.  The book contains mixed feelings about the demise of the Empire and British control of the island.  One really powerful scene describes how a mob are about to attack and kill the white landowner, but they don't have the support of ordinary people and are held back from violence by their leader, Mr Slime.

In Song of Night, Barbados has already been through the big political changes and is facing a different kind of change, as the island's economy shifts from one based on sugar production to one based on tourism.  The changing world of Lovell's book is every bit as disconcerting as that of Lamming's and the main characters, Cyan (or Night) and Breeze, find themselves corrupted by the easy money that can be earned from (mostly US and Canadian) tourists who come to Barbados looking for exotic and sensual pleasures. 

Sense of displacement

Book covers

In both novels, the main characters also experience change in their personal circumstances and a sense of displacement or removal from the society they were born into.  In Lamming's novel, the narrator is offered an opportunity to move upwards, in terms of social class, by going to Trinidad to become an English teacher.  Even though he tries to maintain his relationship with his childhood friends and life in the village, the villagers reject him, as they recognise that he needs to move out of their world and that this is the best thing for him to do.

In Lovell's novel, it's almost the complete opposite - when Cyan's father is convicted of murder and hanged, she finds herself ostracised by the people around her and excluded from the village society that is around her.  Being as stubborn as she is, she refuses to move from the village and backs into a corner, reacting violently to the slightest provocation.  She also loses her sense of morality and does things she would never have dreamed of when her father was alive. 

The role of women in the novels



Woman in Barbados by Shardalow

Perhaps it's not surprising that the older novel, In the Castle of my Skin has a male narrator, whereas Song of Night is narrated, almost exclusively, from a female perspective.  When I was researching  Invasion of the Body Snatchers for my blog posts about Wisconsin, I noticed a similar pattern in regards to the movies that were based on the book, ie. the narrator changed from the male protagonist of the 1950's (Kevin McCarthy) to the female protagonist (Nicole Kidman) of the 2007 film version.  I wonder if this is a general trend across world literature?

Of course, there are women in Lamming's novel - the narrator's mother is an incredibly powerful character, who scares and confuses him, as she prepares his final Bajan meal before he leaves for Trinidad.  The power of white female sexuality is also felt in the novel, when the young English woman who is staying at the Landlord's house accuses some of the local boys of molesting her, to cover up the fact that she been out after dark meeting a sailor. 

Song of Night explores the world of Bajan women and Cyan (or Night) is one of the strongest female characters I've ever come across.  In Lovell's novel, the women recognise that they are in a man's world and do everything they can to assert their place in it.  Cyan takes control of her own destiny and just as quickly loses control of her life, as she refuses to listen to the advice of the women around her.  She has an incredibly strained relationship with her mother and there is a lot of tension with the other women in her life as well. 

I really loved the way that Lamming summed up the roles of men and women in Bajan society:

'The men at cricket. The children at hide and seek. The women laying out their starched clothes to dry.' 

Bajan boys on the beach by Shardalow

Darkness and Rain

Cyan is also known as 'Night' and darkness/the night is an important theme in Lovell's novel.  Cyan feels most comfortable at night and the novel opens with the scene of fireflies descending on her garden and filling her with comfort and joy.  In the Castle of my Skin opens with a rain storm on the narrator's ninth birthday.  Rain and darkness are persistent themes throughout both novels and it's an interesting contrast to the image of Barbados that we might see in tourist brochures, ie. full of light and sunshine.  Like many societies that look relaxed and happy on the surface, I guess Barbados also has a dark side?

A denial of race?

I found a great contrast in the role that race plays in both novels.  Lamming's Barbados is a society that is strictly organised along lines of race.  At the top of the social pile is the White plantation class, next down the growing black middle-class, overseers and administrators - at the bottom is the majority, who Lamming describes as 'my people'; patronised by the white plantation owners, who think that they live in some kind of idyllic native paradise; despised by the growing black middle-class as backward and powerless.  In Lamming's novel, the teachers deny that slavery was ever practised in Barbados, which seems like a terrible denial of the nation's past.

The role of race in Lovell's novel is a lot more complicated.  Cyan becomes friends with a black woman called Koko, who came to live on Barbados from the US and, in her own way, also idealises Barbados as a place where she can be fully respected, despite the colour of her skin.  Koko describes the racism she experienced in the US and tries to inspire Cyan with faith in Barbados as a more egalitarian society.  But Cyan doesn't feel it.  The issue isn't so much about race for her, as the general prejudice the villagers have towards her because of actions of her father.  For Cyan, the colour of her skin is complicated by the fact that, just as it attracts prejudice and snide remarks from the other, lighter-skinned islanders, the darkness of her skin equally attracts the attention of the white touristmen - her skin colour becomes something exotic and worth paying for.  The racial problems of the US are not something she can really relate to.

In Lamming's novel as well, one of the narrators childhood friends, Trumper, goes to work in the US and comes back radicalised and inspired by a sense of Black Pride, that people on the island find hard to understand, as though he'd come back speaking a foreign language. 

Trinidad and St Lucia

It's interesting to note the references to other neighbouring islands in both novels.  When the narrator of In the Castle of my Skin is getting ready to move to Trinidad, he gets lots of advice from neighbours and people who've been there, telling him how terrible life in Trinidad is.  Although they have a similar culture to Barbados, the Bajan characters look down their nose at life in Trinidad and see it as a corrupt version of their own culture.  As the narrator's mother puts it:

Trinidad is a nice place - but fire, fire down there

Bajan Siesta by Shardalow

St Lucia doesn't fare much better, in Song of Night.  Cyan's mother was born in the island and her mother's foreign origin is another reason why Cyan and her sister have little support from their neighbours and society, after her father is hanged.  Cyan takes no interest in her mother's culture and seems to agree with the other Bajan characters that a lot of her mother's faults stem from the fact that she was born elsewhere.  Again, St Lucia is seen as a corrupt version of Barbados.  This reminds me of any number of countries I've lived in, where neighbouring countries are often viewed with distrust and there is a general denial of the cultural commonalities that don't necessarily end at the political border!   

The skill of suspense

I enjoyed reading both novels although, perhaps due to age, In the Castle of my Skin is a much more involved read, suited to academic study.  If you want an easy way into to Bajan literature, I'd highly recommend Lovell's Song of Night - it's a beautiful story, incredibly well-written and Lovell is a master of suspense - we know from the outset that Cyan has done something wrong, but her crime isn't revealed until the very end of the novel.  I don't think the novel is widely available in the UK, but I managed to have a copy shipped over from the US and there are several US sellers on Amazon that have the novel in stock. 
Image credits:

The image of the book covers was taken by me - the cover of Song of Night is from a painting called Paradise of Anubis by Bajan artist David Gall.  David now lectures at the University of North Carolina. 

For this blog post I wanted to highlight images of Barbados that were taken by flickr member Shardalow - you can see more of Shardalow's images on their flickrstream.  Thanks for sharing these with us using the Creative Commons license.

The Netherlands - Spinoza - Deus sive Natura

During my learning journey through the Netherlands and Dutch culture, I stumbled upon the Sephardic Jewish philosopher Baruch de Spinoza.  Never having studied philosophy in school or at university, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to the various different philosophers and, with Spinoza, I feel like I've stumbled on an interesting crossroads in European thinking, a bridge between medieval thinking and the birth of the scientific age.

To make my life easier, I ordered a book called Spinoza: A very short introduction by Roger Scruton - part of a wonderful series of introductions published by Oxford University Press.  I definitely would have found it very painful to read one of Spinoza's great works, the Ethics or the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, so it was useful to get an overview of Spinoza's philosophy and from that very short introduction, I'm going to try to write an even shorter overview in this blog :-)

Not knowing the great philosophers, I was a bit out of my depth and reading about Spinoza, I also touched on the Philosophy of Descartes, Grotius, Hobbes and many others.  A lot is made of Spinoza's Sephardic roots and, for those of you who don't know, the Sephardic Jews originated in Spain and Portugal, fleeing after the Reconquista and the introduction of strict Christian laws in Iberia - many of them moved to the more tolerant society of the 17th century Netherlands, forming their own communities in Amsterdam and Utrecht.  Spinoza was born and raised in the Netherlands, but had a cultural understanding of the ancient Jewish texts and also some of the philosophy of Islam. 

Something that really fascinated me was the fact that ideas like the ones Spinoza postulated, had such a violent impact on the society he lived in.  He was cast out of the Jewish community and ex-communicated.  He was reviled and feared as a supposed atheist, even though his philosophy puts the existence of God beyond all human contemplation or questioning.  It's not hard to imagine how ideas could have been so dangerous in the religious powder-keg of 17th century Europe - however, I can't help feeling they would hardly raise an eyebrow in our society and, what's more, few people would bother to read and understand Spinoza's philosophy, nevermind feel threatened by it.  I think ideas can still be very dangerous in our 21st century world, but somehow I feel the philosophy has been lost and the only voices that get heard in the modern world, are those of the prophets or 'prophetic order' that Spinoza opposed. 

I'm not going to go into great detail regarding the things I have learned from reading about Spinoza, suffice to say I took pages and pages of notes as I was reading and, although I don't really agree with Spinoza's philosophy, his ideas have given me some food for thought and helped me conceptualise some of my own philosophy. 

The book starts with Aristotle's philosophy of 'substance' which is the essence of existence and doesn't ultimately change in its nature, although the attributes or 'modes' of the substance can change form and appearance.  For Spinoza the substance is God and this brings him immediately into conflict with his co-religionists and with Christianity.  Spinoza's God is not some separate entity, sitting on a cloud somewhere, listening to our prayers and making judgements.  For Spinoza, God is removed from the human mind and becomes the essence of everything which exists, man, beast or object - for Spinoza God is existence. 

Spinoza's famous words Deus sive Natura, 'God or Nature' sum up his philosophy quite well - ie. God is nature and the substance is God or nature.  No wonder his philosophy was considered to be a heresy!  This reminded me of a book my parents (rather mysteriously) had at home, called the Bhagavad Gita.  I used to love looking at the pictures in this book when I was a child and Spinoza's idea of God being the essence of everything, reminds me of the illustrations in the Bhagavad Gita of Paramatman with flames of God inside all the people and animals (I don't remember them being inside inanimate objects).

Spinoza was also famous for using an 'axiomatic method' or geometrical analysis of his thought, which he was often later derided, as a proof of the craziness of his theories.  Indeed, Spinoza's summation of human existence and his desire for 'clear thinking' (ie. not tainted by emotion or passion) does seem quite mathematical in a way that you know will never be possible where people are involved.  Although a lot of things can be mathematically explained or analysed, I really believe there are things out there that can't be explained - total superstition, I know, but Spinoza's methodical approach to reason and existence seems more of an ideal than a reality. 

I was interested by Spinoza's concepts of 'adequate' and 'inadequate' ideas.  Adequate ideas are those which are essentially true - ie. the existence of God, things which don't need to be proven.  Inadequate ideas are things which are invented by the human mind, all imagination and passion is deemed to be inadequate and that's where I have difficulty with Spinoza, as imagination and passion are things that, rightly or wrongly, rule the lives of many 21st century people. 

For Spinoza, using maths and geometry to describe his philosopy was more adequate than using ideas or human language.  Language was, for Spinoza, the most inadequate way of describing God and existence and, I must admit, I agree with him here.  If you think of the Latin mass and Buddhist chants, religion is not really concerned about whether or not people understand the language they are using during ceremonies, language itself is only a series of sounds that don't really mean much, it's the ritual chanting and mindlessly repeating of phrases (or song) that gives the ceremony it's spiritual aspect.  I think part of the problem of modern religions is that people try to make sense of it all, when really rituals are meaningless. 

I'm not religious, but I would consider myself to be spiritual in the sense that I enjoy a beautiful sunset, or an inspiring piece of music - language is beautiful too, but I agree with Spinoza that the meanings we attach to words can be quite arbitrary and, I guess, words will never adequately describe the feelings of a spiritual experience.  Words are part of the science of man and I really wonder whether or not science and religion can ever been reconciled, they seem to be in such polar opposition. 

Another important concept from Spinoza's philosophy is the idea of conatus - roughly translated, I think this means our 'determination to exist/survive'.  Spinoza believed that all human beings desire existence and we will go to great lengths to ensure our self-preservation.  For Spinoza a truly free man is one who has aspired to self-preservation, including the accumulation of power to reach a state of being where he understands the true nature of existence and is no longer enslaved by inadequate ideas.  Essentially his philosophy is about the triumph of reason over passion. 

Although he liked using geometrical equations to explain his ideas, Spinoza denied the ability to express God in terms of number.  I think this also angered his contemporaries, who were very much into the idea of one God, or a trinity within God etc.  This aspect of Spinoza's philosophy reminds me of Islam and how unneccessary it is to express Allah in terms of a number or an image.  For Spinoza, depicting God in an art form was irrelevant superstition, as was the idea of Christ taking God's mortal form on earth and commonly accepted beliefs such as the value of prayer etc.  One thing I really like about Spinoza is that he genuinely believed in a secular society, yet one which was tolerant of other religious beliefs.  This seems to be a very Dutch thing and I think modern Dutch society reflects this Golden Era of Dutch thinking. 

I guess Spinoza was a bit of an optimist - he believed that when enough men (no mention of women) achieved a higher level of understanding and rid themselves of inadequate ideas then they would form a society that was, almost effortlessly, just and without conflict.  Maybe in an ideal world . . . for Spinoza achieving true intellectual freedom from inadequte ideas is the highest ideal, whereas he believed, far too many people welcome intellectual slavery as the end of fear and conflict.  I think Spinoza's ideas could still be dangerous if interpreted by political extremists in a prophetic way.  There is SO much more to Spinoza's philosophy than I can do justice to in this short blog, but I'll leave you with a quote from his Political Treatise

'If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, peace is the greatest misfortune that men can suffer'

Image credits

The Dutch flag and the image of Spinoza are both from Wikimedia Commons and are copyright free.

The image of the sunrise is my own photograph from my walk on the Camino de Santiago, like all the walks I do, a very spiritual experience.  This photo was taken at about 7.30 on a chilly October morning in the Rioja.

The image of Adriaen van Ostade's Peasants in a Tavern is also copyright free and I think it sums up the opposite of Spinoza's philosophy, which is the triumph of passion over reason - I think we can all relate to that after a few too many on a Friday night on the town :-)