The Housing Lark
by Sam Selvon
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Description
"The humorous yet poignant novel of West Indian migrant life in London that adds an iconic voice to the growing Caribbean canon. A Penguin Classic Set in London in the 1960's, when the UK encouraged its Commonwealth citizens to emigrate as a result of the post-war labor shortage, The Housing Lark explores the Caribbean migrant experience in the "Mother Country" by following a group of friends as they attempt to buy a home together. Despite encountering a racist and predatory rental market, show more the friends scheme, often comically, to find a literal and figurative place of their own. Will these motley folks, male and female, Black and Indian, from Trinidad and Jamaica, dreamers, hustlers, and artists, be able to achieve this milestone of upward mobility? Unique and wonderful, comic and serious, cynical and tenderhearted, The Housing Lark poses the question of whether their "lark," or quixotic idea of finding a home, can ever become a reality. Kittitian-British novelist and playwright Caryl Phillips contributes a foreword, while postcolonial literature scholar Dohra Ahmad provides a contextual introduction"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A short novel about a group of young Caribbean migrants (mostly from Trinidad, like the author) living in London in private rented accommodation in the 1960s, who struggle to find the rent, who dream of getting together the money to pay the deposit and start to buy their own house, with more space for all to live in.
The story is told from several alternating viewpoints, though clearly Battersby and his sister Jean are the central and most memorable characters. The racism and other issues they face is shown, and the characters dream of how they can improve their luck, but the tone is quite witty and entertaining. I particularly liked Selvon's portrayal of the way that the women in the novel realise they have to really take charge of the show more plan, including collecting up the money, if it is not to be squandered on cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, girlfriends and general frivolity. Even in such a short book, characters who might have just been caricatures, female as well as male, felt quite real. show less
The story is told from several alternating viewpoints, though clearly Battersby and his sister Jean are the central and most memorable characters. The racism and other issues they face is shown, and the characters dream of how they can improve their luck, but the tone is quite witty and entertaining. I particularly liked Selvon's portrayal of the way that the women in the novel realise they have to really take charge of the show more plan, including collecting up the money, if it is not to be squandered on cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, girlfriends and general frivolity. Even in such a short book, characters who might have just been caricatures, female as well as male, felt quite real. show less
So good. Wonderful story. Laughing out loud reading it. Written in dialect, so fun to read. Excellent book. “Teena wait until Bat went to the table and stretch out his hand like one of them mechanical shovel you does see on building site. Then she gave him ONE lash. ‘Keep your digits off. ‘“ p117.
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Author Information
17+ Works 1,453 Members
Largely self-educated, Selvon was first a poet, later a journalist, and then a professional writer. In 1946 he became an editor at the Guardian Weekly in Trinidad. He left for England in 1950, where he wrote and published his first novel, A Brighter Sun (1952). This novel depicts the struggle of the protagonist, a newly married Indian peasant, to show more adapt to life in a suburban area. In Turn Again Tiger (1958), a sequel to his highly successful first novel, the protagonist of A Brighter Sun returns to his community with a deeper sense of place. Both novels explore his relations to his origins and the various layers of Trinidadian society. Moses Ascending (1975) is a humorous satire on the situation of the West Indian in London. Although his roots are in the nineteenth-century novel, Selvon has created a personal literary language out of the fusion of standard English with Creole folk language, just as he has joined the techniques of European fiction to the West Indian rhythms. Though he now lives in Calgary, Canada, Selvon continues to write about West Indians with humor and sensitivity and tries to communicate his view that all West Indians---in spite of racial diversity---have a common identity. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Belongs to Publisher Series
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Housing Lark
- Original publication date
- 1965
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 55
- Popularity
- 544,641
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.88)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 1
