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asianamlitfans2010-04-04 06:22 pm
pylduck.livejournal.com) wrote in asianamlitfans2010-04-04 06:22 pm
Another review of Staceyann Chin's The Other Side of Paradise
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stephenhongsohn reviewed Staceyann Chin's memoir last year, I put it on my list of "read soon" books since I have an essay-in-progress on her presence and movement as a performance poet. I finally picked it up from a used book store a couple months ago and read it this past week during my spring break now that I am over my knee-jerk aversion to memoirs.
Although Chin's memoir is fairly standard in that it chronicles the early life of the author, told from a first-person perspective and jumping episodically from one significant moment to the next, its exploration of the underclass world of Jamaican towns and cities adds some additional material for consideration. Chin's story really is quite traumatic; her childhood is filled with poverty, abandonment, and abuse (psychological physical, and sexual).
I just have a few random observations:
1) SQUEE! Staceyann and I have the same birthday! Christmas Day! We're birthdate twins!
2) Though I did not have an abusive childhood, I can't help but recognize many of the same defensive psychological responses in Chin's narrative. Somehow, my vision of the world and my neuroses are similar to hers, and that is quite troubling to note.
3) I wish that the memoir had captured Chin's stage presence better in textual form. I know this is difficult, but surely there is a way to think beyond the standard memoir narrative style to incorporate some of the rhythms and emotions that characterize her performances.
4) Yay lesbians!
5) "Am I a feminist or a womanist?"
6) "Paradise of Lies," a NYT essay by Staceyann Chin, is a quick recap of her life in Jamaica.
7) "No One Cared If I Kissed Girls," an earlier NYT essay by Staceyann Chin about her love for New York City and Brooklyn. The memoir pretty much ends when she leaves Jamaica for New York literally days after submitting her thesis for her college degree.
8) There is something so refreshing about her outspokenness, and particularly in the last part of the memoir when she comes out as a lesbian at university and finds herself isolated by the entire community, even those who claim to be supportive of homosexuals.
9) Finally, I think the title of the memoir is quite intriguing. Asstephenhongsohn notes, there is a play on the fact that Chin grew up in the city of Paradise in Jamaica. I also can't help but hear some resonance with F. Scott Fitzgerald debut novel This Side of Paradise, which was about the coming of age of a male protagonist (loosely autobiographical), complete with sexual liaisons, disillusionment, and successes. The phrasing of Chin's title also suggests "the other side of the tracks" as a reference to the poorer/more dangerous part of town on the other side of the train tracks. Of course, that phrase always positions us as being on the "right" side of the tracks, but Chin's narrative suggests that even this author, even this person that the more fortunate of us might recognize as one of our own, actually came from that "other side," and in fact, we should do more to recognize that world within our own.
stephenhongsohn reviewed Staceyann Chin's memoir last year, I put it on my list of "read soon" books since I have an essay-in-progress on her presence and movement as a performance poet. I finally picked it up from a used book store a couple months ago and read it this past week during my spring break now that I am over my knee-jerk aversion to memoirs.Although Chin's memoir is fairly standard in that it chronicles the early life of the author, told from a first-person perspective and jumping episodically from one significant moment to the next, its exploration of the underclass world of Jamaican towns and cities adds some additional material for consideration. Chin's story really is quite traumatic; her childhood is filled with poverty, abandonment, and abuse (psychological physical, and sexual).
I just have a few random observations:
1) SQUEE! Staceyann and I have the same birthday! Christmas Day! We're birthdate twins!
2) Though I did not have an abusive childhood, I can't help but recognize many of the same defensive psychological responses in Chin's narrative. Somehow, my vision of the world and my neuroses are similar to hers, and that is quite troubling to note.
3) I wish that the memoir had captured Chin's stage presence better in textual form. I know this is difficult, but surely there is a way to think beyond the standard memoir narrative style to incorporate some of the rhythms and emotions that characterize her performances.
4) Yay lesbians!
5) "Am I a feminist or a womanist?"
6) "Paradise of Lies," a NYT essay by Staceyann Chin, is a quick recap of her life in Jamaica.
7) "No One Cared If I Kissed Girls," an earlier NYT essay by Staceyann Chin about her love for New York City and Brooklyn. The memoir pretty much ends when she leaves Jamaica for New York literally days after submitting her thesis for her college degree.
8) There is something so refreshing about her outspokenness, and particularly in the last part of the memoir when she comes out as a lesbian at university and finds herself isolated by the entire community, even those who claim to be supportive of homosexuals.
9) Finally, I think the title of the memoir is quite intriguing. As
stephenhongsohn notes, there is a play on the fact that Chin grew up in the city of Paradise in Jamaica. I also can't help but hear some resonance with F. Scott Fitzgerald debut novel This Side of Paradise, which was about the coming of age of a male protagonist (loosely autobiographical), complete with sexual liaisons, disillusionment, and successes. The phrasing of Chin's title also suggests "the other side of the tracks" as a reference to the poorer/more dangerous part of town on the other side of the train tracks. Of course, that phrase always positions us as being on the "right" side of the tracks, but Chin's narrative suggests that even this author, even this person that the more fortunate of us might recognize as one of our own, actually came from that "other side," and in fact, we should do more to recognize that world within our own.
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