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Summary: This was a hard book tp put down....
Review: "Jamaica" Jamaica"...Fire...Fire...where are you??? This was a hard book to put down..I really enjoy this novel..Fire was romantic, spiritual and very sensual..."Ok" Mr.C what's next?? We can not let you stop with just one maybe a continuation..T.Miller
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Summary: 'waiting in vain' is the book for the new west indian.
Review: From the time we first meet Fire to the moment his dreams, angsts and relationships make him whole, we are drawn in by and excited by this new version of the West Indian protagonist. 'Waiting in Vain' has dared to break out of the traditional topos of the Caribbean novel and forged a vision for a new West Indian man - wordly, world ready and human. That his concerns are romantic make him the more accessible, even for non-caribbean audiences. For the West Indian reader, 'Waiting in Vain' is a must read. For the non-West Indian, it is fiction and psycho drama of the highest order, the twists staying fresh and new all the way to the final punctuation marks.
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Summary: Catch A Fire
Review: Waiting in Vain does two things really well: it presents a complex, layered whopping good story, full of interesting characters whose lives and adventures we care about, and it playfully . . . educates. The poetry, the art, the music, the point of interest locales, man o man even the social commentary--it's all there! I love the Jamaican cops who theorize what would happen if a dozen of them were sent to New York in exchange for a dozen of New York's finest's being sent to Jamaica: {Paraphrased} "We would be arrested for beating their criminals to death, they would be killed down here because our criminals wouldn't respect them--." The poet, the man, the writer, Mr. Channer, he challenges us to think deep as well as sexy. The book arouses the brain and the loins. When I put it down, I felt like traveling to all the places I had read about, but first, of course, I had to find the one I loved, my real-life version of Sylvia and make love to her like only Fire (or Ian) could. The best thing about the book is that Mr. Channer is able to handle several interconnecting plots without relying on stereotyping as a technique to paint his minor characters. Blacks, whites, gays, men, women, Americans, Jamaicans, Hispanics all come across as having real lives. Finally, like every male who read the book, secretly I wish I were Fire--sensitive, strong, and both humble and proud.
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Summary: Gets better everytime I read it, if that's possible.
Review: Captivated and engrossed me from start to finish. Left me wanting more and looking for more of Channer's work. It's one of the most romantic novels that I've read. I could feel the emotions of the characters and visualize thier actions. I read it for the first time in the summer of '98 and again yesterday. Today I am surfing the web to find something to compare. This book is Fire.
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Summary: Colin Channer is a flat-out rhetorical gymnast.
Review: "Waiting in Vain" showcases Colin Channer's remarkable story-telling skills. Mr. Channer, a flat-out rhetorical gymnast, deftly navigates an eclectic series of worlds that span three countries and a generous slice of the life of the protagonist "Fire." Fire is simultaneously a sentimental man, a "cocks" man, a literary man, a thinking man, a "roots" man, a "yard" man, a black man. I like Fire ....... a lot.
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Summary: BEST I'VE READ IN A WHILE...
Review: I picked up this book and got into it immediately. The author captured my attention from the first page. It has been a while since I've enjoyed a book so. As a man I appreciated a well told story from my perspective. Kudo's to Mr. Channer. The book was rich and highly enjoyable.
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Summary: Channer shows that there is more to Jamaicans than weed...
Review: In the novel, Channer was able to accurately represent the identity struggle which many Jamaicans and other Caribbeans often experience when they migrate to another country. When read on a supreficial level, the novel may appear to be another love story, with Fire being the man of every woman's dreams. However, when evaluated on a deeper more meaningful level, it is a story about people who are struggling to identify who they are in a foreign country based on beliefs and values which are also foreign to them. Should Sylvia pursue the "American Dream" defining her self based on status, therefore accepting her boyfriend, or should she pursue what her heart desires, defining her sucess by her own terms, therefore chosing Fire. Fire embodies for most caribbeans the need and the desire to remian connected to "home". To keep alive the traditions and values with which they were raised, while living in a society which often tries to devalue those traditions. Channer did a wonderful job illustrating the struggle and the torn identity often experienced by people Caribbean decent while showing teh benefits of deciding to retain the connection to home. I think that through the story, Channer is suggesting that the identity angst experienced by Caribbeans can be solved by chosing to retain the cultural traditions with which they were raised, Accordingly, since many of these people often do not return home, it appears that the best way to reatain this connection is through another person from that country, as evident in Sylvia's connection to Fire. This idea of culture as being transmitted through the body is consistent in the works of many Caribbean authors. Channer did a wonderful and accurate job portraying the feelings of myself and other Jamaicans who are trying to carve a place in a society which is completly different from the one inwhich were raised. It is one of the most interesting, consistent and well-thought out novels that I have ever read.
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Summary: "Yard" flavored passion
Review: This novel though heavily seasoned with the spicy condiments of Jamaica, is nonetheless a feast for all to enjoy. The central character Fire is painted with a practical brush by Channer. But he is not given one coat. Rather we view a picturesque collage revealing a renaiisance reluctant hero with his fingers on the pulse of the culture that captivates the Jamacan roots man. In his wooing of Sylvia, Fire does not utilize the verbal battering ram a la Henry V and Catherine. Rather he employs a teasing patient style that encourages the reader to stay with the rythm just to see if his tempered entreaties will be succesful. The other characters are not deprived of the creativity of Channer's brush. It is equal opportunity for all . The highlight of this Book is the language utilized by Channer. Possessing much more than a nodding acquaintance with metaphors, they are used effectively laced with apt musical refences and one not only reads this book but taste, watch, sniff and smell the language. Additionally, Channer sexual references takes you from the bedroom bully stage to the slow stroker without offending. "Waiting in Vain" is delicious and it is refeshing literary music to dance to...
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Summary: A universal story disguised as an international tale.
Review: Some fiction writers "...get it right" . "It" being the slippery essence of the perpetually evolving dynamic between men and women we see everyday, but never bother to stop and learn about. Channer lyrically captures the "IT" in his first novelistic venture. This poetic writer instinctively takes care not to impose his will upon the people he has created within his world. A skill some contemporary authors are want to learn. One must understand that Channer, as a novelist, is singularly charged with the preservation of his character's veracity: character's dialect, cultural idiosynchrasies, individual perfidy, fractured psyches, the all-encompassing internal struggles that make us human beings. To alter one word of his text would only guarantee an apocryphal collection of sentences snugly bound together. However, his book achieves what every literary chronicler from Twain to Baldwin has set out to accomplish: the distillation of contemporary and sophisticated person to person relationships. Imagine Twain's Jim character without his broken English idiom or Faulkner's Joe Christmas without his personal demons or Baldwin novels without bold homosexual schemas. Without all of these things none of the aforementioned writers would have captured the "truth" within their fictional world's which warrants expulsion from our literary canons. Simply said, without veracity one is simply an "author". Verisimilitude is the stock and trade of true writers. And as a writer, Colin Channer has arrived. Jamal Bennett
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Summary: Waiting in vain for the book to end.
Review: My book club and I read the book and decided that it was too wordy. You can tell that the book was written by a man, because we don't know any woman that would say some of the things these woman said in this book. Also, we have read other books containing more than one storyline and found these to be too disconnected. Although, they all knew one another (biblically or literally), they did not interconnect with the theme of the story. On a more positive note, we did feel weak when he showed up at her doorstep at just the right moment, when she needed him most.
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