- Hardcover: 464 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate (1 Sep 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007222971
- ISBN-13: 978-0007222971
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 792,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Pynter Bender
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Product Description
Review
`The writing is beautiful. Each sentence carries the weight of prose-poetry, suffused with rich, deep rhythms.' --Metro
Product Description
The first novel from a major new talent set in and around the cane fields of Grenada in the Carribean 'Pynter Bender' is about the conflict between the world of men and women, men who walk away from their families and from the cane fields and their women who forbear. It brilliantly describes the birth of a modern West Indian island and the shaping of its people as they struggle to shuck off the systems that have essentially kept them in slavery for centuries. Pynter Bender is a child of the cane fields of Grenada, the second smallest independent state in the world. This extraordinary novel, Jacob Ross's first, experienced through a boy born blind but whose eyes are healed, charts the painful awakening of a rural population, essentially organised around serfdom, into a raw and uncertain future that can only be achieved through fighting, a civil war that Pynter is drawn in to. Pynter's father leaves him to be brought up by the Bender women, a close-knit group of aunts and cousins, and Pynter's early life is shaped by these women. He begins to understand a world beyond them when his uncle, Birdie the Beloved, the best baker on the island, occasionally returns to the family on his brief periods out of jail. When Pynter comes to love a woman, and later flees his family to hide in the canes from the marauding soldiers, he can no longer ignore the violent world beyond the yard where he lives.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All the Hallmarks of a Great Novel,
By pauline smith (Guilliers, France) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pynter Bender (Hardcover)
Secrets are the worst kind of lies, says Pynter Bender. "Becuz a pusson live with you believing somefing different from what really is the case." And Pynter's words encapsulate the wonderful narrative of Jacob Ross's first novel. Pynter Bender's journey from his birth, blind, two days after that of his twin brother Peter, towards manhood is told with the same colloquial quest for truth that all children ask of their families, whatever their culture. The answers they are given may be truths or interpretations of truth. And, for me, this is what makes Pynter Bender a great novel - it transcends the cultural backdrop to leave a universal message.For `Jumbie Boy' Pynter, the secrets and whispers, the myths and half-truths that surround him bestow special powers. Or do they? His mother, grandmother and the aunts say so, as they raise him on the edge of the Caribbean island community of Old Hope. There's something different about Pynter, that's for sure. His female family and the men who always leave, surround and protect Pynter, weave him into a history that spans the island's evolution. But as Pynter grows, evolution turns to revolution and Pynter is caught up in the inexorable struggle between tradition and progress. Profoundly sensual and heady with detail, the Caribbean comes alive as it always has done in Ross's short stories. Woven so deftly, Jacob Ross's prose is a seamless gumbo of narrative styles. Characters painted by the tiniest action, the smallest affectation, are deeply moving in their fragility or strength. Each plant, leaf, flower and tree leaps out, helps one to fuse into the island environment that Ross makes so tactile. He gives a voice to colours; sounds and smells pervade every page, add a physical dimension through simile and metaphor that creates a haunting and lilting tone few writers manage this well - though if you have read Toni Morrison's Beloved you'll understand. How apt the name of Pynter's community - Old Hope. Thank goodness that in Pynter Bender, Jacob Ross also offers us, in the end, New Hope.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful,
By
This review is from: Pynter Bender (Hardcover)
If one is able to call a book up from his soul, I would say Jacob Ross has done so with this novel. It's river runs deep and the imagery is so vivid Pynter Bender will, for sure, stand the test of time. Beautifully written!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SUCH An AMAZING READ,
By Margaret Alleyne (ENGLAND) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pynter Bender (Hardcover)
I'm a big fan of Jacob Ross' short stories so I was excited to hear he's written a novel. It's so beautifully written, so well-observed, and it is such a profound exploration of who we are and how we behave. Take your time reading this literary treasure, curl up by the fire, and be transported to the world Ross has created among the cane fields of Grenada. Great literature sometimes does our thinking for us. It's the kind of book that leaves you feeling richer, deeper and more alert to the nuances of human psychology and behaviour. It's a wonderful, wonderful novel.
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