Day 81.1: Annie John

[sunshowerdandelion]

I'm taking another detour through Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid's novel about growing up in Antigua. I love the warmth of the writing - this is a different warmth to Carson's, Welty's, or O'Connor's, I think. Carson is that strange, still warmth of a summer afternoon, around 2 PM - 3 PMish, when people aren't around and the world turns glassy, humid and lazy. Welty's is a magisterial morning warmth that I think slots in at 8 AMish, but a warmth with lots of clouds and the prospect of relatives turning up at some point during the day. O'Connor's is blazing, definitely a warmth after the sun's set, when you go around and feel it on the rocks. I think Jamaica Kincaid's warmth is like a sunny body of water's warmth. Not a pool, but maybe something like a stream. She has this incredibly clear, mostly unadorned and very beautiful style, and Annie's childhood really comes alive with the sheer amount of texture it has. I loved especially her talking about getting up during the holidays and listening to her parents putter around the house, and getting excited for her mother to take things out of her trunk, and sidling close to her mother while doing so, and also her first same-sex crush and her friends sitting around on tombstones and trying to get their breasts to grow. This book overflows with love, at least the first bits. I'm told it gets darker later but what light already.