Status
Available
Call number
Call number
B Joh
Genres
Collection
Publication
Plume (1986), Edition: Reissue, 160 pages
Description
An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived a peaceful and content life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful and influential presence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother's shadow. When she turns twelve, however, Annie's life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her.
Media reviews
"Annie John is a narrowly focused and intense portrayal of the inner life of an adolescent girl growing up in Antigua in the 1950s and 1960s. It begins in paradise. Annie is 10 years old. She lives an orderly and affection-filled existence with her mother and father in a small house he has built,
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which her mother keeps perfectly in order. Annie adores her mother and loves being in her presence, helping her with her daily tasks, dressing like her, being made to feel cherished and protected by her mother's knowledge and special rigour. The next nine chapters detail Annie's simultaneous disillusionment and quest for independence as she becomes "a young lady" (a very suspect category), a star student in a rigidly British educational system, and her mother's loved and hated antagonist." Show Less
Subjects
Original publication date
1985
Similar in this library
User reviews
LibraryThing member Othemts
Annie John is a novel about a young girl growing to become a young woman. The story includes the deterioration of her relationship with her mother, her love for another girl named Gwen, and Annie John's depression. Colonization weighs over the story in the conflict between traditional ways and
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English culture. I don't know if this novel is autobiographical, but Kincaid writes with a sense of lived experience while also being timeless. Show Less
LibraryThing member thesmellofbooks
A slender, beautifully written, sense-tingling and heart-tugging portrait of a girl whose idyllic childhood transforms into an adolescence of pain and alienation as her relationship to her mother inexplicably alters. Very readable, very sad.
LibraryThing member Prop2gether
I really wanted to like this book, but found Annie not appealing in the least. Perhaps if another character had narrated the story, it would have worked better, but Annie is bright, inquisitive, and eager to broaden her horizons--no matter what. As a result of her ambitions, Annie is mean, she
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steals, she lies to family and friends, and, as the story ends, she is leaving the one home she's always known for new adventures--but I didn't care by that point. Well written, with a great turn of phrase, but the story just did not connect for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member cataryna
A short novel that kept my interest. However, I found it rather sad, a bit disjointed and I found the ending rather lacking. I kept expecting some big revelation that never really came.
LibraryThing member bookworm12
This coming-of-age story follows a young girl, Annie, as she grows up on the island of Antigua. There are eight episodes, each a picture of Annie's life as she tries to understand the world around her.
Annie wasn't a likeable character, though I suppose few young teenage girls are likeable in real
Annie has a tendency to become obsessed with her friends. She lets one girl become the focus of her world and then, just as quickly, she loses interest in her and moves on. Kincaid has said in interviews that she never meant for Annie's character to be interpreted as gay, but at the same time, the relationships feel more like crushes than friendships.
As a child Annie idolizes her mother, but as she grows older she begins to hate her. She develops a deep resentment of her mother and never overcomes it. The book skirts around many issues and in doing so left me wanting. It touches on depression, giving the reader a glimpse of that condition in Annie, but just as quickly drops it. Overall it was an interesting read, but didn't really work for me.
If the basic story sounds good I'd recommend, The Meaning of Consuelo and The House on Mango Street. I enjoyed both of those books more than Annie John and they have similar premises.
Annie wasn't a likeable character, though I suppose few young teenage girls are likeable in real
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life. So in that way Kincaid's portrayal of the girl felt very real, but at the same time, it's hard to love such a selfish and often cruel character. Annie has a tendency to become obsessed with her friends. She lets one girl become the focus of her world and then, just as quickly, she loses interest in her and moves on. Kincaid has said in interviews that she never meant for Annie's character to be interpreted as gay, but at the same time, the relationships feel more like crushes than friendships.
As a child Annie idolizes her mother, but as she grows older she begins to hate her. She develops a deep resentment of her mother and never overcomes it. The book skirts around many issues and in doing so left me wanting. It touches on depression, giving the reader a glimpse of that condition in Annie, but just as quickly drops it. Overall it was an interesting read, but didn't really work for me.
If the basic story sounds good I'd recommend, The Meaning of Consuelo and The House on Mango Street. I enjoyed both of those books more than Annie John and they have similar premises.
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LibraryThing member Knicke
I liked this book a lot. Sort of Hemingway-esque in the prose style at times, but also burgeoning with sense memories. Lost a star because at times the reading became less pleasurable, but only because the author was so adept at reminding me how much adolescence SUCKS regardless of your
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relationship with your parents.The parts I found most arresting: when the daughter's perception of the mother was still liminal/in flux and kept switching back and forth between lovely and terrible. The need to keep secrets just for the sake of having some separation/privacy. The intensity and instability of adolescent friendships. This would be crazy-good to do as part of a teenage girl bookgroup, or even as a mother-daughter bookgroup - but alas, the bits about exposing one's body (though, I thought, realistic and actually somewhat tame) would likely have most of the suburban moms around here in an uproar. Show Less
LibraryThing member CaseyStepaniuk
Jamacia Kincaid's writing style is deceptively simple; there are few adjectives, for example, in her prose, so that when she does use one, it seems to leap out at and lunge for you from the page. Her words somehow slip under your skin unbeknowst to you and make their way into your guts, heart, or
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head, depending on where she wants them to hit you. This coming of age story doesn't shy away from those dark, scary impulses of the human mind, nor does the novel even try to explain or resolve them. Annie is first fascinated and obsessed with death, stalking strangers' funerals. A once passionate, homoerotic relationship with a schoolmate turns sour and dull. Annie's early adoration for her mother slowly morphs into jealous, visceral hatred. When she eventually leaves Antigua--she says forever, although that's not what her parents think--you're unsure if she really means it, or if things are going to go as she plans. You're not even sure if you want things to go well for her. But I wanted to find out what happened next in Annie's life; I wanted to read more seemingly unrelated meandering chapters detailing her fraught relationships with other girls at her school. This want, I conclude, means that Jamacia Kincaid has done something disarming and powerful here in this short, slim novel simply named after its protagonist. Show Less
LibraryThing member astrologerjenny
This is a beautiful book, this story of a girl growing up in Antigua. I’ve never read a clearer and more sensitive description of adolescence, and of the relationship between mother and daughter. You enter the character of Annie John absolutely, and see everything from her eyes.
LibraryThing member snash
A psychologically true portrait of a girl's aging from baby to about 18 particularly in relation to her mother. I had some difficulty totally immersing myself in Annie's world and therefore the slightly lower rating. Hard to pinpoint why.
LibraryThing member harleth
Jamaica Kinkaid really takes us deep into the psyche of Annie. The book has a haunting lyrical quality that just stays with you.
LibraryThing member wandering_star
This book covers eight episodes in the life of a young woman growing up in Antigua. We see her as a young child, idolising her beautiful mother - then an angry adolescent, who can't quite understand or believe the words that come out of her own mouth when she and that mother clash.
The stories are
However, for me the book added up to less than the sum of its parts - the episodic nature of the stories, and the simple language, combined to leave it feeling a little insubstantial - like the life of a young niece that you meet every few years for a short time. I would have liked to see more of what made Annie tick, and the development of how she grew up.
The stories are
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told with a child's vocabulary, and some of them are very atmospheric - there is an extremely effective description of an illness that Annie suffers (which seems to be a combination of flu and depression).However, for me the book added up to less than the sum of its parts - the episodic nature of the stories, and the simple language, combined to leave it feeling a little insubstantial - like the life of a young niece that you meet every few years for a short time. I would have liked to see more of what made Annie tick, and the development of how she grew up.
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LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
A character study of a young girl growing up on a small island...
Initially she's very close with her mother, but as she matures, she develops an irrational vicious resentment against her. She explores proto-lesbian friendships with other girls, in which she experiences again that cycle of
I was interested in this book for its insight into life on Antigua, as I was visiting the island, and there is some of that here- but the main focus is on the (odd) psychology of Annie's character.
Initially she's very close with her mother, but as she matures, she develops an irrational vicious resentment against her. She explores proto-lesbian friendships with other girls, in which she experiences again that cycle of
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passionate attachment and separation. Eventually, her internal driving force leads her to leave behind her circumscribed life, and her island of Antigua, as she goes to study abroad.I was interested in this book for its insight into life on Antigua, as I was visiting the island, and there is some of that here- but the main focus is on the (odd) psychology of Annie's character.
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LibraryThing member streamsong
“My mother turned to face me. We looked at each other, and I could see the frightening black thing leave her to meet the frightening black thing that had left me. They met in the middle of the room and embraced. What will it be now, I asked myself.” p 101
Set in the Caribbean paradise of the
Unlike the Little House series, as Annie reaches adolescence after a loving childhood, a darkness develops between the main character and her mother. Annie sees her mother as over-critical and unloving. Annie's mother actually loves her deeply but doesn't quite understand her daughter and longs to protect her, trying to cage her free spirit.
I usually don't read the entry in [1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die] before reading the book, since some of the entries contain spoilers. This time, however, it would have been interesting to read at least this part of the entry as the colonialism parallel escaped me. (blush)
... ”the troubled mother-daughter relationship that mirrors the motherland-colony problem, the mental distress of the dominated woman, and the urge to escape from the cage via migration. " p 761.
Set in the Caribbean paradise of the
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author's native Antigua, Annie John is Antigua's answer to Laura in the Little House series of books. Annie is free-spirited, curious and intelligent. Unlike the Little House series, as Annie reaches adolescence after a loving childhood, a darkness develops between the main character and her mother. Annie sees her mother as over-critical and unloving. Annie's mother actually loves her deeply but doesn't quite understand her daughter and longs to protect her, trying to cage her free spirit.
I usually don't read the entry in [1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die] before reading the book, since some of the entries contain spoilers. This time, however, it would have been interesting to read at least this part of the entry as the colonialism parallel escaped me. (blush)
... ”the troubled mother-daughter relationship that mirrors the motherland-colony problem, the mental distress of the dominated woman, and the urge to escape from the cage via migration. " p 761.
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LibraryThing member PaperbackPropensity
I didn't really know what to expect with Annie John. What I got was a genuine and poetic portrait of childhood and adolescence. By the end of it I could see myself as Annie, and all I could do was hug the book to my chest and let out a sigh.
This is a nice quick, lyrical read, something that could
This is a nice quick, lyrical read, something that could
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be enjoyed at the window, or on a porch, even a long train ride to another city. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kristelh
Written in 1985, it tells the story of a coming of age for Annie John, only child of her mother and father. This story captures the closeness of daughter and mother in childhood and the distancing that occurs during adolescence. I never thought of it as a process that parents also go through but in
Some quotes: "My unhappiness was something inside me, and when I closed my eyes I could even see it. It sat somewhere --maybe in my belly, maybe in my heart; I could not exactly tell--and it took the shape of a small black ball, all wrapped up in cobwebs."
and
"For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world. I highlighted this last part because of having just read Between the World and Me.
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this story, the author captures the changes in the mother as her daughter becomes a young lady. It captures the painfulness of that passage for Annie who morns the loss of that earlier relationship which she never quite fines a way to replace. In addition, this book captures in words a bout of depression, especially the color of depression. There is a theme of death in the book but no one dies except childhood and the mother daughter relationship. Some quotes: "My unhappiness was something inside me, and when I closed my eyes I could even see it. It sat somewhere --maybe in my belly, maybe in my heart; I could not exactly tell--and it took the shape of a small black ball, all wrapped up in cobwebs."
and
"For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world. I highlighted this last part because of having just read Between the World and Me.
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LibraryThing member spiralsheep
This is well written and the descriptions are interesting enough to be a 4* read, but unfortunately I didn't find the protagonist personally engaging. I'll let the following quotes speak for the book.
Quotes
Fish, lying: "When I got home, my mother asked me for the fish I was to have picked up from
Swimming, or not: "My mother was a superior swimmer. When she plunged into the seawater, it was as if she had always lived there. She would go far out if it was safe to do so, and she could tell just by looking at the way the waves beat if it was safe to do so. She could tell if a shark was nearby, and she had never been stung by a jellyfish. I, on the other hand, could not swim at all. In fact, if I was in water up to my knees I was sure that I was drowning. My mother had tried everything to get me swimming, from using a coaxing method to just throwing me without a word into the water. Nothing worked. The only way I could go into the water was if I was on my mother’s back, my arms clasped tightly around her neck, and she would then swim around not too far from the shore. It was only then that I could forget how big the sea was, how far down the bottom could be, and how filled up it was with things that couldn’t understand a nice hallo. When we swam around in this way, I would think how much we were like the pictures of sea mammals I had seen, my mother and I, naked in the seawater, my mother sometimes singing to me a song in a French patois I did not yet understand, or sometimes not saying anything at all. I would place my ear against her neck, and it was as if I were listening to a giant shell, for all the sounds around me - the sea, the wind, the birds screeching - would seem as if they came from inside her, the way the sounds of the sea are in a seashell. Afterward, my mother would take me back to the shore, and I would lie there just beyond the farthest reach of a big wave and watch my mother as she swam and dove."
Abandoned lighthouse: "The Red Girl and I walked to the top of the hill behind my house. At the top of the hill was an old lighthouse. It must have been a useful lighthouse at one time, but now it was just there for mothers to say to their children, “Don’t play at the lighthouse,” my own mother leading the chorus, I am sure. Whenever I did go to the lighthouse behind my mother’s back, I would have to gather up all my courage to go to the top, the height made me so dizzy. But now I marched boldly up behind the Red Girl as if at the top were my own room, with all my familiar comforts waiting for me. At the top, we stood on the balcony and looked out toward the sea. We could see some boats coming and going; we could see some children our own age coming home from games; we could see some sheep being driven home from pasture; we could see my father coming home from work."
Quotes
Fish, lying: "When I got home, my mother asked me for the fish I was to have picked up from
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Mr. Earl, one of our fishermen, on the way home from school. But in my excitement I had completely forgotten. Trying to think quickly, I said that when I got to the market Mr. Earl told me that they hadn’t gone to sea that day because the sea was too rough. “Oh?” said my mother, and uncovered a pan in which were lying, flat on their sides and covered with lemon juice and butter and onions, three fish: an angelfish for my father, a kanya fish for my mother, and a lady doctor fish for me - the special kind of fish each of us liked. While I was at the funeral parlor, Mr. Earl had got tired of waiting for me and had brought the fish to our house himself."Swimming, or not: "My mother was a superior swimmer. When she plunged into the seawater, it was as if she had always lived there. She would go far out if it was safe to do so, and she could tell just by looking at the way the waves beat if it was safe to do so. She could tell if a shark was nearby, and she had never been stung by a jellyfish. I, on the other hand, could not swim at all. In fact, if I was in water up to my knees I was sure that I was drowning. My mother had tried everything to get me swimming, from using a coaxing method to just throwing me without a word into the water. Nothing worked. The only way I could go into the water was if I was on my mother’s back, my arms clasped tightly around her neck, and she would then swim around not too far from the shore. It was only then that I could forget how big the sea was, how far down the bottom could be, and how filled up it was with things that couldn’t understand a nice hallo. When we swam around in this way, I would think how much we were like the pictures of sea mammals I had seen, my mother and I, naked in the seawater, my mother sometimes singing to me a song in a French patois I did not yet understand, or sometimes not saying anything at all. I would place my ear against her neck, and it was as if I were listening to a giant shell, for all the sounds around me - the sea, the wind, the birds screeching - would seem as if they came from inside her, the way the sounds of the sea are in a seashell. Afterward, my mother would take me back to the shore, and I would lie there just beyond the farthest reach of a big wave and watch my mother as she swam and dove."
Abandoned lighthouse: "The Red Girl and I walked to the top of the hill behind my house. At the top of the hill was an old lighthouse. It must have been a useful lighthouse at one time, but now it was just there for mothers to say to their children, “Don’t play at the lighthouse,” my own mother leading the chorus, I am sure. Whenever I did go to the lighthouse behind my mother’s back, I would have to gather up all my courage to go to the top, the height made me so dizzy. But now I marched boldly up behind the Red Girl as if at the top were my own room, with all my familiar comforts waiting for me. At the top, we stood on the balcony and looked out toward the sea. We could see some boats coming and going; we could see some children our own age coming home from games; we could see some sheep being driven home from pasture; we could see my father coming home from work."
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LibraryThing member sparemethecensor
Truly beautiful and so important. While I continue to think that Lucy is Jamaica Kincaid's masterwork, I loved Annie John as well. Annie John is of course her famous contribution to postcolonialism and the project of Caribbean literature. It is a coming of age story for a woman and for a cultural
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identity, buried in the story of a heartwrenching tale of generational shifts between mothers and daughters. Worth reading for everyone. Show Less
LibraryThing member zeborah
The childhood and coming of age of the title character. Poetic, its chronology a little fuzzy at the edges without being more than a little confusing. It begins full of nostalgia for the halcyon days of basking in her mother's love; then with her teenage years (and schoolgirl crushes) the
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relationship chafes them both and turns to constant tension. How much this is simply adolescence, how much a physical or mental or spiritual illness, is left unclear; so also unclear is how much leaving home will really resolve it. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Annie Johns by Jamaica Kincaid effortlessly captures the rhythm and cadence of the Caribbean. As this coming-of-age story unfolds the reader is introduced to a wonderful young character who tells her story with wry humor and innocence. Her world is narrow, encasing her parents, her school chums and
Set on the beautiful island of Antigua, Annie grows up in a close knit community that has many benefits, but to a mischievous child, can also be a little too observant. Annie’s relationship with her mother was particularly compelling as we see her go through the various love-hate feelings that young girls often feel towards their mothers.
I enjoyed this story and feel that I now have a fairly accurate picture of a Caribbean childhood, along with a closer look at the customs, style and food of this unique corner of the world.
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her dreams. This is a short book, but by the end, I felt that I knew this young person and what made her tick.Set on the beautiful island of Antigua, Annie grows up in a close knit community that has many benefits, but to a mischievous child, can also be a little too observant. Annie’s relationship with her mother was particularly compelling as we see her go through the various love-hate feelings that young girls often feel towards their mothers.
I enjoyed this story and feel that I now have a fairly accurate picture of a Caribbean childhood, along with a closer look at the customs, style and food of this unique corner of the world.
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Pages
160