Banana Bottom (Harvest Book, Hb 273)

Rating:
Summary: Brought black West Indian literature to bear on world scale
Review: This book, while not a great work of literature, is notable for its ground breaking role in bringing black West-Indian writing to the attention of literati across the world. The plot is somewhat forced, with deus ex machina resolutions and an often painfully obvious didacticism throughout. McKay does lovingly detail early 1900's Jamaica, where he lived for the bulk of his young life, and the setting is vivid, if a bit heavy-handed. McKay was an adherent of Primitivsm insofar as he believed that black people should work to maintain a grounding in their atavistic roots at the same time that they absorb and learn from Western/Europeanized culture. "Banana Bottom" is his most successful attempt at integrating this ideology into his prose. The story is about a young black Jamaican girl named Bita who, sent to live with white missionaries at an early age, is commissioned to spend seven years at an English boarding school where it is expected that she will learn "proper" comportment and "civilized" modes of thinking. When Bita returns she has trouble integrating herself into the black community of her hometown, Banana Bottom, and ends up rejecting the Europeanization that was forced upon her in favor of asserting her independance with a return to her "roots." The West Indies have since produced better reads, but this book is enjoyable, and should please anyone looking to find out where McKay, commonly (and somewhat fallaciously) considered a progenitor of the Harlem Rennaissance, held his true allegiances. It is a must for anyone interested in anglophone post-colonial literature.