Cambridge

by Caryl Phillips

Book Overview

One of England's most widely acclaimed young novelists adopts two eerily convincing narrative voices and juxtaposes their stories to devastating effect in this mesmerizing portrait of slavery.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679736891
• ISBN13: 9780679736899
• Release Date: February 1993
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A powerful and disturbing book

This is a powerful and disturbing historical novel about the days of slavery in the west indies, not long before slavery was finally abolished. The prose is beautifully crafted and takes you right into the period. The book is easy to read, but for most readers it will not be a particularly satisfying or enjoyable book (as you can see from other reviews) because no main character is particularly sympathetic or easy to identify with. Rather this book gives you a look at a period of history where no one comes out particularly well. However, it evokes the period and attitudes sharply, and is a clear reminder that while we have a ways to go in race relations, we have made some substantial progress.

Well worked, thought provoking and historic

I enjoyed Cambridge. The story is told from multiple perspectives which would explain the open ending. Who's version is the truth? How are their interpretations of events determined by their different cultural backgrounds? How do these multiple versions of a history comment upon the historical representation of actual Caribbean and African colonization? The characters are complex and contradictory - likeable and detestable all at once. One gets a glimpse into colonial life, attitudes and beliefs - not just one sided but as they probably were, complex, multiple, and contradictory. Caryl Phillips has done his research, the prose is authentic for the time, his work is based upon historical evidence (there is a recent dissertation that describes his historical influences). A good and well worth read.

Brilliant. Phillips is a modern master.

Caryl Phillips gives new meaning to the term "literary fiction". His prose rings and resonates, his themes are timeless, and his vision is limitless.