A tedious read as suggested by a new member of the Bookclub, who found the rendition of the inter-racial relationships interesting.
Like Fred D'Aguiar, I suppose the political events of the 60's and 70's must have etched themselves in the minds of Guyanese 'writers' of a certain age as being the biggest thing in their reality to write about. He did record the 'we dey pon top' attitude of the 'supporters' of the winning party. Mr Doobay gives an embittered view of events and a wholly unbelievable - to me- version of two women living next door to each other sharing their husbands knowingly. I can never imagine why men choose to write about sex, and badly, from a woman's perspective - must be some arrogance on their part and it seems to be fairly common among mediocre Guyanese writers like Mr Doobay, Dabydeen and Roopnandan Singh to name a few that I have tortured myself to wade through. The title refers to what a virtuous wife is entitled to in heaven - a little hut, not grand palace or anything- in keeping with the misogynistic view of a dated and backward sort of man from some past era.
The Libel Laws state 'that if even without stating the person's name, it can be surmised from the description as to who it is by a reasonable person' and in spite of the disclaimer in the front of the book, Chapter 6 is nauseating in the attempt to put words and meanings to the imagined actions of characters in real life known to me; that foolish people would actually think happened and not just from the imagination and the limited 'small-mindedness' of the writer.
I stopped reading at that point, much as I want Guyanese literature to have a foothold and start reflecting local reality - if this is the sort of crap that we churn out then I'll be sticking to Old,Dead,White Men.
Like Fred D'Aguiar, I suppose the political events of the 60's and 70's must have etched themselves in the minds of Guyanese 'writers' of a certain age as being the biggest thing in their reality to write about. He did record the 'we dey pon top' attitude of the 'supporters' of the winning party. Mr Doobay gives an embittered view of events and a wholly unbelievable - to me- version of two women living next door to each other sharing their husbands knowingly. I can never imagine why men choose to write about sex, and badly, from a woman's perspective - must be some arrogance on their part and it seems to be fairly common among mediocre Guyanese writers like Mr Doobay, Dabydeen and Roopnandan Singh to name a few that I have tortured myself to wade through. The title refers to what a virtuous wife is entitled to in heaven - a little hut, not grand palace or anything- in keeping with the misogynistic view of a dated and backward sort of man from some past era.
The Libel Laws state 'that if even without stating the person's name, it can be surmised from the description as to who it is by a reasonable person' and in spite of the disclaimer in the front of the book, Chapter 6 is nauseating in the attempt to put words and meanings to the imagined actions of characters in real life known to me; that foolish people would actually think happened and not just from the imagination and the limited 'small-mindedness' of the writer.
I stopped reading at that point, much as I want Guyanese literature to have a foothold and start reflecting local reality - if this is the sort of crap that we churn out then I'll be sticking to Old,Dead,White Men.
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