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Title: My Brother
ISBN: 0374525625
Author:
Jamaica Kincaid
Publicate Date: 1998-11-09
Publish: 1998-11-09
List Price: $13.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.33
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $5.00
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1: alluring, seductive, and entertaining
I'd only ever read a short short story of Jamaica Kincaid's (that I wasn't too impressed by) before picking up this memoir. I enjoyed her memoir thoroughly. Wonderfully crafted and skillfully written, this rendition of her memories surrounding the life and death of her brother in Antigua, Jamaica, are emotionally moving, to say the least. I'm not giving much away by revealing that her brother dies of AIDS, something that is revealed in the first few pages, so I'm okay to say that this story of a sister and family's grappling with the immiment death manages to handle the AIDS story with beauty, poise, and compelling writing.
She highlights the stigma that surrounded anyone who contracted the disease. Were they a drug user? A philanderer? A homosexual? What kind of lifestyle does that person live that allowed them to contract such a deadly disease? Those are the questions people in Jamaica, and elsewhere, thought and asked themselves at the time, and even today. The sick were labelled, ostricized, deemed outcast, and refused help. A sad plight, indeed.
Simply put, Kincaid has a simple way with language that turns up on the page as alluring, seductive, and entertaining.
-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens
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2: Enlightening
I first read Jamaica Kincaid's work in "Talk Stories", and I loved it.I discovered this book (My Brother) when reading the book "Writing as a Way of Healing" by Louise DeSalvo. I was curious about Jamaica's life and her writing style intrigued me. Through her writing, Jamaica brings beauty to even the most difficult of life's experiences. She writes, "That sun, that sun. On the last day of our visit its rays seemed as pointed and unfriendly as an enemy's well-aimed spear."(p.73) Her writing is honest and balanced between expressing the hard aspects and the kindness within her family life. This book is mostly about her brother dying of AIDS, a very difficult subject matter to read. I also enjoyed reading about how she became a writer, and what it means to her to be a writer. This book also tells about life in Antigua, which I was especially interested in learning about. The next book I will read by Jamaica is "A Small Place", to learn more about life in Antigua.
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3: A Complicated Work
I'm still thinking through the issues raised in "My Brother" -- and I suspect that it will be one of those books which, though it feels a bit hollow as I read it, will turn out to haunt me in the future. Only time will tell. The most remarkable thing about it, I think, is the way that Kincaid refuses to valorize any of the characters she describes. The incredible ire towards her mother is the only emotion that feels puzzling, given the lack of context for it -- I kept waiting for a revelation there that never came. With this exception, however, Kincaid seems committed to presenting a balanced portrayal: she does not heroize the dead, nor does she portray herself as particularly wise or noble in the face of death. It is this commitment to a human, complex portrayal that makes the description unique.I just want to add that I am only posting this to counteract what appears to be a long list of high school book reports that make up most of the "reviewing" on this page. ...
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4: Jamica Kincaid, a story of family and loss
Jamaica Kincaid tells the story of her ill brother and his encounters with the virus HIV. The story has the title of My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid. The story is essentially written to save Jamaica's own life. Whenever there is a tragic happening in her family, she writes about to let her feelings out and she also tries to exclude herself from her family. She moves away from Antigua once she became old enough to do so. Jamaica goes through sever years without connection to her mother and her siblings. Jamaica struggles to find feelings for her sick and dying brother as he spends his last days in an old run down hospital in Antigua. Jamaica is only able to let her own feelings out in a comfortable manner to Dr. Prince Ramsey. Jamaica is unable to communicate with her own mother. This is due to Jamaica's feeling that her mother was only a mother at certain times. Jamaica is driven on the idea that her mother only wants to care for her children if they were sick or in need of caring. Any time other than that, Jamaica thinks she had a poor mother. Jamaica is pleased however with few things her mother did. When Jamaica was only fifteen years old, she was forced to look after her younger brother who was only age two. She decided to read her books all day long and decided that looking after her younger brother was not a number one priority. Jamaica realized at the end of her reading that her mother would be home soon so she tried to clean up the things she thought her mother would realize first. One of these things was her brothers diaper but Jamaica did not have enough time to change so once her mother found this out, she took all of Jamaica's books, took them outside, doused them with kerosene, and burned them all, every last book. Jamaica recalls this event as driving her to become a written to make up for all for all of the books that she had lost at a young age.
Throughout the book Jamaica conveys her struggle to find love for her dying brother, Devon Drew. She never was close at all to her younger brother and as her brother became more sick, Jamaica knew she need to do something to redeem her self for all of the years she was absent in the presence of her brother. On page 72, Jamaica and her mother have a conversation about bringing her brother the medicine that prolonged his life several months more. Her mother said to her that god would bless her richly for providing her brother with the medicine, AZT. Jamaica was not sure if what her mother said was true but she was really not concerned with gods or being richly blessed. Jamaica was constantly thinking about how her brother was sick and how much Antiguan society shunned HIV positive people. Even though her brother was feeling better from the AZT, Jamaica knew that eventually her brother would die. On January 19th, 1996, at the age of thirty-three, Devon Drew died.
At certain times throughout the story, Jamaica thinks that it is perhaps better if her brother would just die, but when Devon was no more, Jamaica did not know what to feel. At certain points throughout the story, Jamaica feels that Devon is becoming a burden to her, making fly from her home in Vermont to Antigua, every time her brother needed more AZT. On page 87 she states that it seemed that his dying was a good thing, she was relieved when her brother finally did die. She says " when that moment came, the moment I knew he was no longer alive, I didn't know what to think, I didn't know how to feel" I think that this sentence conveys the struggle Jamaica has internally about her brothers illness and about how she felt about him when he was alive. During the story Jamaica also remembers the death of her father. She got word of his death right around Christmas time and she felt increasingly depressed. On page 119 Jamaica says " In the letter telling me that my father is (that is, the man who was not really my father but whom played I thought of as my father, and the man who had filled that role in my life) had died, my mother said his death left them impoverished, that she had been unable to pay for his burial, and the only charitable of others allowed him to have an ordinary burial, not an extraordinary burial of a pauper, with its anonymous grave and which no proper mourners attend". Throughout the second half of the book, Jamaica demonstrates her increasing anger toward her father and her brother. She becomes very angered at the thought of anyone dying and she keeps feeling that she really did not care about the loss of her father, only how to try and make up for the lost time with her brother, who in retrospect never really seemed to love Jamaica as a sister, just perhaps someone who provided him life with more AZT. Jamaica has difficulty dealing with all of the tragic experiences that has happened to her family, that is why one could feel that Jamaica isolated herself from her family. She feels that at certain times throughout the book she feels that perhaps she is to blame for being in the absence of her ill brother.
One could feel that Jamaica Kincaid does represent a hero but in defined terms. At times the only reason she is able to provide her brother with AZT is because she has had a better life than the rest of her family and she also has more money than the rest of her family. She tries her hardest to find love for her brother, even though she really cannot relate to any of his problems. She buys him temporary relief with the AZT medicine, but she knows that is not enough to make up for all of the lost years she had been without her brother. One might not necessarily think that Jamaica wanted to reconnect with her brother and the rest of her family, one might think that she just wanted to see him again before he died. While visiting her brother the experiences Jamaica had with her mother did make her more stressed out and more prone to mental and physical breakdowns. One could say that Jamaica did triumph all of the death and stress that was associated with her mother and the rest of her family.
One cold imagine that this story is heartfelt at times and a very good read. Some parts of the story were somewhat confusing when Jamaica puts things like my father (not my father but my brother's father) in parentheses. It seems as though she does want a mother and father but at times is seems as though Jamaica knows that maybe they do not want to be parents to her. This book is touching on several levels and anyone who has family members who are sick can relate to this book. This book was moving and really from the heart (of Jamaica Kincaid). One could feel that this book could be given to almost anyone and that person would be moved emotionally as well as physically. This book tells the story of hardship and death a young girl inspired to write her feelings in order to save her own life. Jamaica was inspired by the acts of her mother burning the few items she truly loved in live. Her books. She is familiar with the act of saving herself, so when she found out her brother was sick and dying. She started to write she knew that was the only was to understand his sickness, and she also began to write so she would not die with him. This book was amazing and is truly one of the best works of all times. It deals with emotion and real life situations. One feels that anyone who wants to learn the story of a girl who overcame the impoverished life of her family and the way Jamaica tried to save her own brother even when she could not relate to him, and she did with grace and inner strength that is unprecedented and amazing. She tried to keep a smile on her face and have a strong heart through it all.
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5: My Brother
"My Brother" by Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. It is moving, inspiring, depressing, emotional yet confusing all at the same time. The book is about a sister's journey as she helps her brother fight against AIDS to stay alive. It gives many explicit details that are disturbing. She paints a picture that can only be told by the one who experienced it first hand. In addition to the morbid mood of the book, the author has too many thoughts that she tries to fit into just one sentence. This form of writing can be hard to follow and actually trying to follow the storyline can be a distraction from the main focus of the book.
Jamaica Kincaid's novel is depressing and morbid in numerous ways. The setting of "My Brother" is mainly taking place in Antigua. There are no hospitals with the proper medications. In addition to the setting, the author's family affairs are an example of depression. Her family was extremely dysfunctional and unsociable. They had conflicts over meaningless situations and never resolved them. This family needed a psychiatrist to assist them with their many conflicts. Another example of depression in "My Brother" is the entire theme of a brother with no loving family and friends who is dying of AIDS, due to his own carelessness. On page 99-100, it shows how Jamaica's family is not affected in the least that Devon has just died. The one last main theme of depression is the relationship between Devon, the man with AIDS, and his mother. They never got along, which was very sad because Devon was dying and his mother didn't seem to care. She didn't do anything to try to help save him. It was Jamaica's help that gave her brother many extra days, perhaps years, of life.
"My Brother" was also a very confusing book. Reading it takes the complete focus of the one who is reading it in order to actually follow the story line. Many of the sentences are three or four thoughts combined into just one sentence. The book has a great number of sentences that are nearly half a page long. For example, on page 101 and 131, one of the sentences is nearly three quarters of the page. There are a great deal of commas, semi colons, and a few parenthesis in these sentences. With all of those elements, reading and actually comprehending the book can be very tough. Also, the author constantly bounces back from the present time to past experiences, which greatly contributes to the confusion.
My final opinion of this book is that it is very inspirational and moving. If one is close to someone with AIDS, they would find this book very enjoyable and interesting. Jamaica mentions many times that she doesn't love, never has loved and never will love her brother, yet she still goes way beyond her duties to care for her brother. After reading "My Brother" there are many instances where Jamaica is much like a true hero. By supporting her brother, Jamaica became a hero to herself and to Devon. The book is inspiring because it encourages anyone who reads the book to love their family and not take them for granted. "My Brother" is a moving book because throughout it, one learns of the struggles the entire family went through. Devon's critical conditions, however, did not bring the family any closer together. An example of a struggle the author told of was a time when her mother disapproved of something one of her other children did, and she began to throw stones at him. Her son then threw his mother to the ground and broke her neck (pg. 189). That experience the author described really stuck out because it sounded so unreasonable.
"My Brother" is a novel that one would not consider to be easy reading, not just because the style of writing was confusing, but because it was not a happy story. After reading this book, one would feel bad for Jamaica's family, yet inspired by her words. The book was hard reading, mainly because it was done in an unusual type of writing. It was also very depressing and had a definite morbid feel to it, yet it was extremely inspirational. It encourages those who read it to love your family while they're still there for you.
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