Pigeon English

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman is the latest book read by my book group. There were about 8 of us present for the meeting and the response was a mixed bag.

When I came to write my review I simply wrote ? as I could not initially put into words just what I wanted to say. Furthermore, the question asked of the group was " What made this a Booker Prize winner"

The book is cleverly written, through the eyes of a young boy aged 11, who has moved to England from Ghana with his mother. He lives on a London housing estate which is about as far removed from his home as it could be.

Sadly, there has been a murder and in a rather naive way the boy seeks to explore how the murder occured and by whom. The narrator is a pigeon who the young boy uses as a mechanism in which to explore his inner throughts and worries.

A series of passages from the book caught my attention and I shall them with you all here
"The best bit is running in the rain. If you point your face up to the sky at the same time as running, it nearly feels like you’re flying. {...} just run as fast as you can. At first you’re scared of crashing into something but don’t let it put you off. Just run. It’s easy. The rain on your face and the wind makes it feel like you’re going superfast. It’s very refreshing. I dedicated my rain run to the dead boy."
"Scars look better on white people" (page 84)
" The dead boy's blood is all gone now, the rain washed it off" (page 35)
The writing was authentic and emotive and I pondered if a 11 year old boy could have written this. I further debated, that children from parts of Africa where such dreadful famine happens and is endured, seem see death and dreadful things on a very different level to children from first world Countries. They almost start with different values. They view these brutal ways and the brutality of death as a simple fact.

I am still not sure if I enjoyed the book or not. I was cleverly written and I think has the wow factor that is required by Booker Prize winners.

The end of the book reveals a clue to the catalyst for writing such a book. A young boy called Damilola Taylor, an immigrant from Nigeria and living in London with his sister and mother whilst his father remained in Nigeria. The family had come to England in order to receive medical care for the sister who had severe epilepsy. In 2000, young Damilola was murdered on the streets of London. The offenders were children themselves and the events shocked the nation.

That was the catalyst for this book being written. Now, I am not sure that I am OK, with a fictional book becoming a success on the back of a pointless tragedy. I think I would have been happier if the work had been non fiction. Irrational perhaps, but that is my preference.

The final pages of the book lists the details for the Damilola Taylor Trust (www.damilolataylortrust.)

The whole book group meeting was especially interesting and informative and I think was one of the best sessions. ( )

First, the good. I enjoyed the overall story of Harrison and Dean's "investigation" into the murder of the dead boy, and I felt that I was able to see Harrison's world through his eyes perfectly. When you're 11 years old, it's impossible not to see the world with fascination and wonder, and this comes through loud and clear from Mr. Kelman's narrator. There were times when I read a passage and immediately was taken back to being a middle school student and knew I felt the exact same way. This is quite a feat, considering my middle school experience can in no way compare to Harrison's, and perhaps speaks to the underlying reality that on some level, children do experience similar revelations when confronted with similar events regardless of the way or place they experience these events. I also felt that underlying themes, such as the randomness of violence and that even in a difficult life certain children will still respond with happiness, were made without hitting you over the head with them. Finally, I appreciated some of the nuances of the character of Harrison. He is a child with a good heart who is nonetheless attracted to the security a gang might provide, but ultimately rejects the gang as he slowly learns how reprehensible its members actually are.

But I only liked this novel because Mr. Kelman allows his narrator too much leeway to drift into meaningless observations and because I found it difficult for the first 100 pages or so to get into the mind of Harrison due to the use of an invented childlike vocabulary (donkey hours, hutious, dope-fine, bo-styles). Too much of what Harrison comments on felt like Mr. Kelman trying to drive the point home that Harrison is 11 and that he's trying to channel that voice in a faithful way. I understand the need to do this, especially for a first time author like Mr. Kelman, but it was done too bluntly and with too much repetition. It is Mr. Kelman's responsibility to corral his fictional charge from time to time to keep the focus on the story and not necessarily on the nonsensical thoughts that will of course pop into the perspective of an 11-year old. I can understand falling in love with a character you've created, but a character should primarily be a way of animating the content of a tale, and not every little idle thought of the character is going to do this.

I am certain others will disagree with me and say that the vocabulary and the seemingly unfocused musings of Harrison are necessary to really understand the story. But for me personally, I found both of these issues to be distracting and that they ultimately detracted from the novel. ( )

This book is about a kid from a Ghanian family living on a rough council estate in London and his experiences after seeing a murdered child. It's told in a very authentic voice, the writing very emotive - the bullies hurt me, the murder worried me, I felt for the family still at home in Africa and I hoped he'd get through, still the same go-for-it, full-off-life kid. There was one irritating note which was that there was a pigeon whose voice could only be 'heard' by the reader. It really spoiled it. The ending was sad and strange and explained the device of the pigeon but, in my opinion anyway, the book would have been improved without it.

To sum up, it's really an interesting book and a tear-jerker strangely, for one so politically relevant. But a warning - it might annoy some American readers with a lot of unfamiliar words and different accents. These words are also unfamiliar to a lot of British people not living in that area but there are so many accents and dialects in the UK - English is a less homogenous language than in the US maybe - that it doesn't really annoy anyone. The book is especially recommended to those who haven't forgotten the way the police and judiciary treated the murder of Damilola Taylor, whom this book is obviously about, may the little boy RIP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Damilola_Taylor (inadequate to say the least, but at least details of the crime, if not the police response). ( )

Man Booker nominee 2011
also from Flavorwire's Buzzworthy debuts at the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival

An amazing work - How Kelman managed to capture this so well - i recommended this to a woman who shopped in Kaneshi Market and she was amazed at the accuract of the dialogue. It's heart-breaking and i'm not usually given to weeping over fictional characters - but this had me laughing and crying - nothing in the least sentimental about any of the story - very raw and extremely powerful. ( )