A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes

[lookfar]

I searched this book out because I saw, by chance one time when I was a young teen, the movie version on television and remembered it ever after. I wasn't able to find it anywhere again, but I found the book.

A High Wind in Jamaica was published in 1929 but takes place in the late 19th century, after Emancipation, in Jamaica and on the high seas.

Comments

[lawless523]

I read the book for my 10th grade English class. At the time, I assumed the teacher assigned it instead of more frequently assigned (read: more male-oriented) books about the savagery of children, such as The Lord of the Flies or A Separate Peace. I've been thinking about maybe rereading it; it made an impression on me, but I don't remember exactly what happens.

[lookfar]

I would recommend it, if you can get past the racist stereotypes. It's beautifully written, otherwise. Which leads me to this thought: that racism is a kind of blindness that doesn't see itself, for how could Hughes see into the minds of the children so subtly and completely miss the humanity of the black people around them?

[lawless523]

Are the stereotypes the author's or those of the narrator or POV character? I

[lookfar]

Oh, very much those of the omnipotent authorial POV.

[ratphooey]

Oh, I read that many years ago, when I was not much older than Emily. And I was in Jamaica at the time, too. It was wonderful and savage, too.

[lookfar]

I'll let you know how the movie goes, seeing it 40 years later!

[haggispatrol]

It's... it's really quite a monstrous book. The way the children deliberately forget about their brother John after he's killed in that fall from the warehouse, the way that Emily murders the Dutch captain, the sexual abuse of Margaret and the attempted sexual abuse of Emily (which I personally think is why she kills the Dutch captain, I think she's afraid of what he'll do to her if he can get free), and so on, are all truly hideous. I never quite believed in the way that the children were supposedly quite unaffected by everything that happened to them and everything they did. Real children don't just tidily put away things like that, not even children who've been let run free the way these were

[lookfar]

Man, you must remember everything you ever read

[haggispatrol]

I have a good memory, but I also reread things a lot. I last reread A High Wind in Jamaica about a year ago, or maybe a bit less.

My impression of what happened to Margaret is that the pirates were abusing (probably raping) her and that she put herself under Otto's protection because he was kinder to her than the others and he was willing to protect her from the others. I mean, she was stuck in the situation and had to survive somehow, and that means of survival would have made sense given what her options were.

Then my guess is that her later breakdown is probably due to being brought face to face with the fact that in the terms of the era in which the story is set, she's lost her value as a woman. She's not a virgin anymore, and even if one presumes that she was raped, which would be the logical conclusion --- because pirates are rather known for that kind of thing --- that doesn't make up for the fact that she's now "spoiled goods". She knows that her future is pretty much shite by definition, and she has no hope for escape

[lookfar]

I know what you mean about reading between the lines and understanding things. I have sometimes felt that way with Jane Austen; it's clear that something is meant, but I don't know what. Also somewhat with that Georgette Heyer you recced.

In that same vein, Temple Grandin, a famous brilliant autist, stated that she could not read novels at all because she could not understand what was happening. So that's "understanding from social context" at an even more granular level.

But perhaps what has happened to Margaret isn't that she knows her future is shite but that she is protecting her future by forgetting what happened to her, that is, that if she doesn't know she was raped, she never need worry that she is damaged? And in payment, she will just be stupid and dull for the rest of her life.