Anyone here read this? Is it any good?

Anyone here read this? Is it any good?

Yes.
It's worth a (1) read.

i listened to the part of the audiobook with the white journalist working for rolling stone, that shit was actually fucking great, james did a perfect job of writing a white outsider in jamaica which i didn't expect, i thought it would be all "stupid white boi tryna understand da island culture" shit, but james doesn't spoil his art to take cheap sjw shots at white males, well done i say, i bought a hard copy after that to give it a proper read but still didn't get to it

Thanks user, that was actually my biggest fear so now I'm pretty excited to get to it.

nigger

Wardine be cry mon for most of the book. The white journalist, the CIA guys, a gay white hitman and one middle class Jamaican woman are the only characters who speak the queens english. The rest of the book is rassclot Bomba cloth me scratching me batty

I haven't read it but it's shit

yeah he just does that on twitter

>wardine be cry mon

absolutely perfect.

Yeah read it once.

Do you like people talking in negro speak and chapters consisting of rap songs?

I got about halfway through before I lost interest.

It's well-written and pretty interesting but I think the biggest issue is that it is over-ambitious. Every chapter is a POV of a new character and you know the author is tying them all together but really it just ends up being kind of confusing and you easily identify which characters are interesting so you start resenting the book whenever a boring character has their POV turn.

Not a bad book, it just falls short of its own lofty goals. Would have been amazing if he hadn't tried so hard.

>Every chapter is a POV of a new character and you know the author is tying them all together but really it just ends up being kind of confusing and you easily identify which characters are interesting so you start resenting the book whenever a boring character has their POV turn.


same thing happened to me...but the thing is he said he was basing it on a piece of journalism called "frank sinatra has a cold" which is where some reporter interviews everyone around sinatra but never sinatra during his report on sinatra, its the same thing, its all these ppl tangentially related to "the singer" but never interact with him, it's good idea, but you're right, it's a bit annoying for the reader switching contexts so much

>frank sinatra has a cold

holy shit they reprinted it as a stand alone book? lol must be dank

I think that's the infamous article with Harlan Ellison. Sinatra picks on Ellison for his clothing and Harlan stands up to him.

idk the way james talked about it sounds like the reporter never comes into contact with sinatra just his orbiters

whoa a black lit thread with sensible contributors, and minimal we wuz shitposting.

nice job Veeky Forums you did good.

ta-nehisi coates fucking sucks but all the other black lit canon is p damn dank, ellison is pynchon tier and morrison is hesse tier imo, also i'm not into communism much anymore but it's always fun to read some black panther shit once in a while to dial my love of capitalism down a notch

I enjoyed it but wasnt completely compelled. Though thankfully Ive lived around some Jamaicans so I picked up on the patois easily. Still pretty decent crime/noir bits

i like hurston when she invokes the eerie voodoo asethetic, something i wish she emphasized more. i do agree with bloom that she is probably the most significant of the three commonly cited female black novelists.

i thought ellison was sort of slow going. the middle is a prosaic conspiracy plot, essentially competent, and not as honest as a truly redpilled expose on the theme. but the opening of invisible man is superb existential writing. it's pretty much the peak of what it does.

One of the greatest books in the past ten years, no trolling, OP. Get yourself a copy, lad.

Well it is set in 1970s Jamaica, what do you expect? Jamaican patois has a great sense of rhythm to it and some of the phrasing is memorably offbeat. I kind of wish for more Jamaican books.

There are like 4 levels of patois and Josey Wales speaks nearly perfect english because he thinks he is high class.

And yes you should read it. In retrospect i dont see it as high lit, but it is certainly Godfather/Silence of the Lambs tier

which is the only reason it's still worth reading despite the length
the patois is fun
about 50% of the book is useless filler but that's how the author writes
like Moore's Jerusalem

> tfw co-worker is jamaican
> i can now understand and mimic the patois

my body is ready

>ta-nehisi coates fucking sucks

his mom literally gave him an ancient egyptian name...WE...