Blowing through the air
If you listen carefully now you will hear
This could be the first trumpet
Might as well be the last
Many more will have to suffer
Many more will have to die
Don't ask me why
Things are not the way they used to be
I won't tell no lie
One and all got to face reality no"
( Natural Mystic - Bob Marley and the Wailers)
"Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die" - This could be an apt summation of this book, given the innumerable violent deaths, that unfold over its' 680-plus pages. ( The two sentences appear verbatim in four places ).
"Kill for food. Kill for money. sometimes a man get kill because he look at another man in a way that he didn't like. And killing don't need no reason. This is ghetto." This quote which the reader comes across quite early in the book, is a truism throughout the book. Yet, it is the killings carried out for reasons, that make this book, roughly spread across a period of fifteen years ( 1976-1991 ), a page turner, suspense generator, until the last page. There is no main character, yet there are many main characters. The book narrated from the point of views of many of these characters, one at atime, takes the reader through life in the ghetto in Jamaica, with it's gangster violence - the main item in the menu - spiced up by real life detail of the Late Bob Marley, including his cancer related death, the CIA's involvement, inter-party political warfare (literally ), the drug syndicate involving Jamaica and Colombia, explicit sex with Gay being the main flavour, and Posse life in the Bronx (NY) with its own drugs, violence and sex. I do not recall reading such a violence infused novel, outside a conventional war background. At times the narration becomes a little challenging to follow, when patois is combined with the intoxicated mind of the narrator, and calls upon patience and perseverance from the reader -these are but a few pages, and can be overcome by slow reading. Yet, even when some of the narrators are of sound mind, the narration is largely in patois - i.e. "chat bad" - as it were. But these to me comprise the necessary ingredients which build the novel, nurturing it to near perfection.
In order to give an insight of the deep impression that this book leaves on the reader, without introducing any spoilers, I will dwell on few examples of narration:
- Ugly Jamaica: Jamaica is shown in detail, in all its ugliness, with nothing concealed. Take for instance the following quote from the Rolling Stone journalist - "It cannot be photographed because some parts of West Kingston, such as Rema, are in the grip of such bleak and unremitting repulsiveness that the inherent beauty of the photographic process will lie to you about how ugly it really is"
- There is a depressing narration detailing Bob Marley's cancer; of how it first made an appearance, how Marley's then religious belief refrained him from carrying out the doctor's recommendations, his gradual decline of health till death."You collapse in Pittsburgh. It's never a good thing hearing doctors talk using a word that ends with oma. The oma has hopped, skipped and jumped from your foot to your liver, lungs and brain. In Manhattan they blast you with radium and your locks drop and scatter."
- The violence on which the book ride on, are mostly so detailed that it is grotesque. One description should suffice - and mind you, this is not the most gory, by any stretch of imagination "They walk right inside, grab the bus driver, and walk right out. Not a single cop even gets up. The man must have shat himself and bawled like a fucking girl when he saw the policemen looking the other way in their own fucking station. Right outside, with cops and people watching, those with guns shoot the bus driver, those without guns stab him. Was like crows upon fresh carcass"
...and I will leave alone, the multiple narrations of explicit sex, most of them of the queer variety, for the potential readers to discover.
At one level it could be looked upon as a portrayal of how the Dons of the Gangsters grew and matured, how they held the areas under their rule in Jamaica. As an extension it could be seen how these gangs crossed over to the U.S. main land, over a period of fifteen years, becoming the leaders of the drug distribution channels. Across this period, we see how certain gang leaders mature, tire of the unending violence, how others take their place with subtlety , the unimaginable levels that they will go to retain their hold, how gangsters initially acting as supporters of politicians with firearms given them, become leaders of drug syndicate, and how it is an unending vicious cycle, as each succeeding leader becomes more ruthless, but precise in their planning and execution.At an early stage of the book, we are shown how a studious boy is left with no choice but to become a gangster, by the doings of law enforcement authorities. On another stream of reading we could comprehend the feeling of being forced to flee one's country to survive and starting out a fresh as a fugitive in another land. Yet the ghosts of one's old life will never stop haunting, until one accepts them, or more precisely the conditions develop, that such acceptance become an option.
In essence, it is a disturbing read, yet an important one.
There are certain terms, mostly swearing lingo of the Jamaican dialect, which one may have to "google" to glean the most from the book.
Finally
, I couldn't help but compile a listing of what is possibly a "soundtrack" for the book - if such things happen - out of the references to songs that a reader comes across these pages. ( I may have missed a track or two )
The harder they come -Jimmy Cliff
Vietnam- Jimmy Cliff
And I love her - Bob Marley
Natural Mystic - Bob Marley
three little birds - Bob Marley
Buffalo soldier - Bob Marley
Midnight ravers- Bob Marley
Ma baker - Boney M
let's go crazy - Prince
take me with u - Prince
I shot the sheriff - Eric Clapton
Dancing Queen - Abba
ob-la-di, ob-la-da - The Beatles
Black money - Culture Club
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