Reviewer Asserts Sweets are Fictional Stand"-ins

Chicago Tribune Lifestyles Review:

'See Now Then': Jamaica Kincaid's new symphony

In 'See Now Then,' a once-lyrical marriage disintegrates, leaving nothing but cacophony

February 01, 2013|By Alan Cheuse

"The Sweets, fictional stand-ins for Kincaid and her former husband, live in the (real-life) village of North Bennington, Vt., in a house formerly owned by (real-life) eccentric novelist Shirley Jackson and her (real-life) husband, the brilliant literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Mr. Sweet is a modernist composer, and Mrs. Sweet, born in the Caribbean, is a housewife, mother and lay philosopher when it comes to the large questions of time and language."

Review Again See Now Then

"Writers make uncomfortable kin." Jamaica Kincaid

 No doubt! Jamaica Kincaid draws attention to that issue in her new novel SEE NOW THEN. Check out the following review where the author's life is directly referred to when reviewing her fictional novel.

JAMAICA KINCAID

Photo by Ann Summa for The New York Times

New York Times Review

February 22, 2013

Home Truths

By FERNANDA EBERSTADT

"Yet Kincaid, it seems, can never breathe easy. “See Now Then,” her first novel in 10 years, examines the hidden fault lines of a happy family that might be seen as an allegorical version of her own. Composed in incantatory prose, a “Mrs. Dalloway”-like loop of multiple viewpoints, including passages quoted or imagined from Kincaid’s other books, the novel examines — in strains hurtling from satire to fairy-tale innocence to raw pain — the faulty nature of perception."

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

Studio 360

Interview

by Kurt Andersen

Jamaica Kincaid on The New Yorker and Lil’ Kim

"Kincaid’s work (Annie John, Lucy, Autobiography of My Mother) has often dealt with her Caribbean upbringing, but her new novel, See Now Then, is set in North Bennington, Vermont, the town where Kincaid has lived for many years. It’s the story of Mrs. Sweet, a mother with two grown children in a marriage that’s gone very sour.
Many particulars of the book — the town, the gardening, the Caribbean upbringing, the unsuccessful composer, the dissolving marriage — resemble Kincaid’s real life, but she insists See Now Then is not autobiographical. “I wasn’t thinking of myself, I was thinking of all sorts of larger things,” she tells Kurt Andersen. Kurt was struck by how the book’s prose is both “poetic, fragrant, and a little other-worldly but also ruthlessly and shockingly unsentimental at times.” Kincaid explains that “it’s possible it’s influenced by where I spent my forming years which is incredibly beautiful, but in which some rather brutal things happened in the world after 1492.”

AUDIO INTERVIEW

SEE NOW THEN More Reviews

More Reviews IN THE

MIX

 

USA TODAY

By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY

Published: February 13, 2013

Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘See Now Then’ is one quirky read

"Like Kincaid's ex-husband, Allen Shawn, Mr. Sweet is a composer. They live in a small New England town, as Shawn and Kincaid did, and have a son and daughter, as the former couple do. But Kincaid's first book in nearly a decade is not a barely fictionalized memoir, or so the author has insisted. As she recently told a reporter, her real children are not, like the Sweet kids, named Heracles and Persephone, and 'my daughter doesn't disappear underground every six months and emerge in the spring.'

Such coyness is pervasive in See Now Then — though so is bawdy humor and unabashed rage and sorrow. There are passages that are almost unbearably self-pitying, with Kincaid — um, that is, Mrs. Sweet — lamenting her husband's disdain for her Caribbean heritage and no-longer-youthful figure. We learn, too, of the 'turbulence and upheaval' she has endured from childhood on: 'I seemed unable to do anything that pleased anyone and that included me,' she writes toward the end."


LOS ANGELES TIMES

By Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

Published: February 1, 2013

Jamaica Kincaid scrolls through time in 'See Now Then'

  

 "As fictional characters, the Sweets live in the protective bubble of art: We are moved by their experiences but don't feel the cringe that comes from seeing real people hurt themselves. But there are enough parallels to the real Kincaid's life — Mrs. Sweet gardens, and Kincaid has written and edited several books on the topic — that reading "See Now Then" can feel uncomfortably voyeuristic."

THE NEW YORK TIMES 

By DWIGHT GARNER,The New York Tmes

Published: February 12, 2013

The Marriage Has Ended; Revenge Begins

 ‘See Now Then,’ Jamaica Kincaid’s New Novel 

"When Dorothy Parker drank too much, Gore Vidal once reported, she sometimes suffered from what she ruefully called “the frankies”: the inclination to tell people, as if for their own good, what she really thought of them.

There’s something about the men of the Shawn family — William, the longtime editor of The New Yorker, who died in 1992, and now his son, Allen, a composer — that seems to give women the frankies while sober. 

In 1998 Lillian Ross published “Here but Not Here,” a memoir of her 40-year affair with the married William Shawn. She outed this famously private man, while his wife was still living, as an enthusiast for pornography who “longed for the earthiest and wildest kinds of sexual adventures,” among many other things."

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Polly Rosenwaike

Friday, February 8, 2013 

'See Now Then,' by Jamaica Kincaid

"If we're tempted to see the tall, Caribbean-born, garden-loving, synagogue-going Mrs. Sweet - scribbling away at her desk in Vermont - as a stand-in (a sugar substitute?) for the author, Kincaid seems to be egging us on.

 

One can't help thinking that Kincaid's easily Googleable ex-husband will not be pleased by the arrival of "See Now Then." How should the rest of us feel? Exhilarated, grateful - and relieved, perhaps, that Kincaid can't see inside our own heads."

See Now Then

Recent Review

 

 

 How does Jamaica Kincaid's veiled self-reference influence the reading of her new book, "See Now Then"?

All of this is relevant because Kincaid, the author of more than a dozen books, is a public literary figure. And seen through the lens of some basic but widely known facts of her life, reading "See Now Then" becomes quite a different experience.        

                                                                                      Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

Even though many of the most recent reviews of Jamaica Kincaid's See Now Then are favorable, readings of her new book are influenced by the autobiographical self-referencing as seen in the above quotation. Hector Tobar describes this reading as disturbing once he realizes the presence of similarity to the author's family,"by the time I reached that last passage, the domestic complications of See Now Then began to lose their entirely magical and allegorical qualities and feel more like the nastiness of a real marriage." His sense of the similarity between the author's life and the artistic work, causes him to conduct some research about her personal life. In his reading, knowing that the family composition and marital disagreement are close or shared with the author interrupts his ability to read the work as art (literary prose) alone. 

In fact he recommends readers who do not know about her life to avoid the details and warns them to stop reading his review because, "you would enjoy it more." The parallels that he points out between the character Mrs. Sweet and the author Kincaid are that she gardens, lives in small town New England, and the family composition are the same, which taken alone are not so significant. For him, the most impacting similarity is that as the husband and wife trade insults, the physical attributes commented upon are similar to those of the author and her ex-husband's physical appearance. He said the resemblances were disconcerting and he began to feel "voyeuristic." Later, the indications about the father's aggressive feelings toward the son and his possessiveness towards the daughter seem to "express a very personal, private hurt." Tobar concludes that the book deserves to be read as fiction, and yet he clearly cannot avoid making connections. He reads it as a veiled  memoir. Certainly, this is a favorable review and yet he concludes:"There are two ways to read Jamaica Kincaid's mesmerizing new novel, See Now Then.The first is the way any work of art should be read: by simply absorbing what's on the page. This is how I read the first two-thirds of See Now Then."

What is important about this review is that even though the reviewer did not know much about Jamaica Kincaid's personal life before reading her novel, he was still influenced by the presence of the autobiographical within her writing.When I heard audio recorded readings of sections of this work, I noted that the audiences laughed at what seemed to be insider jokes; for example, comments that could be about her daughter and son's behavior (but presented in this fiction) has a familiar feeling. For readers who are familiar with the author's previous works, the influence of her autobiography will likely be more forceful.

Jamaica Kincaid's "See Now Then" is Published

Anticipating Reactions to the Autobiographical in Jamaica Kincaid's See Now Then

( Elisabetta A. Villa, Getty Images / February 1, 2013 )

Jamaica Kincaid at Festival Delle Letterature Di Roma 2010

Jamaica Kincaid's new book is soon to arrive at my doorstep in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I've read and heard bits and pieces of it over the last two years. Finally, I can read it to determine how the autobiographical influences the telling of her story. The first review I encounter comments on this very same issue. How do you read this book? Is it possible to read it as fiction or does Kincaid's life come into the story so much that the autobiographical begins to tell its own story?

Notice Hector Tobar's ,( Los Angeles Times) comments:

(February 1, 2013, 4:00 a.m.)

"There are two ways to read Jamaica Kincaid's mesmerizing new novel, See Now Then. The first is the way any work of art should be read: by simply absorbing what's on the page. This is how I read the first two-thirds of See Now Then."

See Now Then
A Novel
Jamaica Kincaid
Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 192 pp., $24

It becomes impossible to avoid the personal life story of Kincaid during his well-intended reading: READ AS ART. 

Tobar who has little knowledge about Kincaid's personal life but he becomes too tempted to verify details and consequently, does some research and reports on the findings. His research changes the reading from simply ART to Art -Influenced-Autobiography and it completely changes the meaning of her work. He writes that "All of this is relevant because Kincaid, the author of more than a dozen books, is a public literary figure. And seen through the lens of some basic but widely known facts of her life, reading "See Now Then" becomes quite a different experience." Similarities about the physical appearance of Mrs. Sweet to Kincaid and Mr. Sweet to her former husband, Allen Shawn begin to create another layer of meaning in the work- it begins to feel "uncomfortably voyeuristic"  as he reads.  I await the arrival of my copy and my own sneak peek  into Jamaica Kincaid's life.

Jamaica Kincaid Girl Audio Recording

I imagine that Jamaica Kincaid lived in a house such as the above when she was a child.

Jamaica Kincaid takes her children to the school bus in Vermont.

Jamaica Kincaid reading (photo credit and link to Girl text)

 Listen...to Jamaica Kincaid's voice...

Kincaid reads her short story "Girl"

Memoir

"If you were to write an autobiography, you would have to spend a lot of time at the courthouse, looking up the date your great-grandfather was born, what year your father bought the house on Elm Street. The research for a memoir can be done in an easy chair. Close your eyes and try to recapture the moment you bought your first car, learned you were pregnant, met the President or wobble down the street on a two-wheeler."http://www.squidoo.com/memoir-examples

Memory: Gertrude Stein -there is no there there...

There statue at the Oakland/Berkeley border. Photo by Joe Sciarrillo.

"...what was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or any- thing if I like but not there, there is no there there." Gertrude Stein

When she published Everybody's Autobiography two years later [1937], saying there was "no there there," it was written to reflect painful nostalgia about her home being gone and the land around it being completely changed. The house where she grew up was on a sprawling 10-acre plot surrounded by orchards and farms. By 1935, it had been replaced by dozens of houses. Oakland held a special significance to her, and on her return, she found that Oakland had urbanized and changed from the pastoral place she remembered.
Matt Werner, Huffington Post

Gertrude Stein-Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein 
(link to complete text)

What is the grammatical significance of "there"?

Part of Speech:  The word 'there' can either be a pronoun or adverb depending on how it is used in a sentence. If you use it to describe a location (it is there), it would be a pronoun. If you put the word before a verb (there is), then it would be an adverb.

In Stein's quotation:
...there [adverb before verb] is no there [pronoun-absence of location] there (pronoun-location)

Royce Carlton Caribbean novelist Jamaica Kincaid will address the Grinnell College class of 2012 at the College’s 166th Exercises of Commencement, on at 10 a.m. Monday, May 21, on Central Campus. (See previous post for YouTube/Recording)
Kincaid, known as a “significant voice in contemporary literature,” is the author of  At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, A Small Place, Lucy, Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, and other works.   Her “highly personal, stylistic, and honest writings” are considered loosely autobiographical from her upbringing in Antigua, with strong images of “tenuous mother-daughter relationships amid themes of anticolonialism.”  Kincaid was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 for her 

Jamaica Kincaid's agent for speaking engagements is Royce Carlton. This photograph is part of the publicity package. 

Jamaica Kincaid at Grinnell College

Jamaica Kincaid's Grinnell College commencement speech addresses the liberal college's mission statement:

The College aims to graduate women and men who can think clearly, who can speak and write persuasively and even eloquently, who can evaluate critically both their own and others' ideas, who can acquire new knowledge, and who are prepared in life and work to use their knowledge and their abilities to serve the common good.

Caribbean novelist Jamaica Kincaid will address the Grinnell College class of 2012 at the College’s 166th Exercises of Commencement, on at 10 a.m. Monday, May 21, on Central Campus.

Jamaica Kincaid's New Novel Resease

Article from Fall Fiction:

It has been 10 years since Jamaica Kincaid’s last novel, but on September 4, 2012, she’ll be back with a slender book about a family in crisis, See Now Then (FSG).

Kincaid, who was born in Antigua, makes several nods to literary history in this family drama: The Sweets live in the Shirley Jackson house in Vermont, for one. This mismatched couple has two children, Heracles and Persephone, who are the main observers of their parents’ crumbling marriage.

Known for her penetrating portrayals of the human mind and heart, here the former New Yorker writer “evokes the bitterness of love gone sour and turned to contempt, the intensity of the bonds between parents and children, and the profound unknowability of all individuals,” says the publisher. We’re eager to get a peek at this one come September.

Autobiography of a Yogi

March 7, 2012 marks the 60th anniversary of the mahasamadhi (a God-realized yogi's final conscious exit from the body) of Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) and widely regarded as the father of Yoga in the West. His best-selling life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, has been hailed as one of the 100 most influential spiritual books of the 20th century and has introduced millions of Westerners to India's ancient philosophy and science of Yoga. (click here for link to article)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/03/07/prweb9257896.DTL#ixzz1oXylsMZh

Unauthorized Autobiography

But what if God wrote his autobiography? It would be a long book with no beginning and no end! Yet he has written a book about himself. Its purpose is to reveal himself to you so that you might have a relationship with him.
Philip Schroeder, a pastor at First Baptist Church Bulverde, San Antonio,
thinks of the Bible as an
autobiography.

I think Schroeder should compare the chapters to a collection of memoirs because each writer's voice has a unique style and presentation however, this is what he writes:

"Your maker designed you to know him. How do you get to know this God? By reading his word, not just to get to know a book better, but to get to know the author.
If you believe that God really did make you, then what could be more valuable than his words about himself and who you are in relationship to him?
'For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.' (Hebrews 4:12)
How can a mere book do all that? The Bible can do that because it is breathed by God. It is alive because the words are his."



Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/community/bulverde/article/Why-reading-the-Bible-can-help-you-3389241.php#ixzz1oXt55nVa

Aloud Program Podcast features Jamaica Kincaid

Aloud
presented by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Title: Jamaica Kincaid, "See, Now, Then"
Participants: Jamaica Kincaid
In conversation with Brighde Mullins
Program Date: 4/26/2011
Program length: 01:18:03
Media Type: MP3

Jamaica Kincaid and Lyrics

Monday, October 10, 2011
Performance by composer Su Lian Tan based Jamaica Kincaid's text: "a rare and wonderful opportunity to hear a recent work by composer Su Lian Tan, based on a text by Jamaica Kincaid."



"Jamaica’s Songs, commissioned by Middlebury College, was premiered in 2000 as part of the College’s bicentennial celebrations. Many musicians who have performed this cycle, as well as audience members, find a great solace in its expression. They have remarked, and often, that they find in these songs a channel for mixed emotions regarding their mothers, almost a way out of them. Strong negative feelings as well as longing and pure childlike love emanate from the text by Jamaica Kincaid. She wrote these songs for me the year her mother died and I felt it very necessary to help in her process of healing. My heart went out to her, as heard sometimes in the instrumental writing, this most gifted and powerful of writers. I have meandered in Jamaica’s garden in Vermont with pleasure, as I have found the courage to grow in her company."
-Su Lian Tan (The Fortnightly newsletter.)

Jamaica Kincaid and visual image

Jamaica Kincaid shares that her autobiographically based novel, Annie John was inspired by seeing a postcard painting "Kept In" by Edward Lamson Henry's (1889),which recalled strong memories of her childhood in Antigua.

Washington College/April 11, 2009

Roger Ebert's Review of The Last Station

If Joyce was a drunk and a roisterer, how different was the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who was a vegetarian and pacifist, and recommended (although did not practice) celibacy? "The Last Station" focuses also on his wife, Sofya, who after bearing his 13 children thought him a late arrival to celibacy and accused him of confusing himself with Christ. Yet it's because of the writing of Joyce and Tolstoy that we know about their wives at all. Well, the same is true of George Eliot's husband...
Roger Ebert's complete review is here.

Jamaica Kincaid Talk

Jamaica Kincaid reading:

A reading by Jamaica Kincaid from Heyman Center for the Humanities on Vimeo.