The Housing Lark

 Sam Selvon's brief novel The Housing Lark combines his typical comic sensibilities with a serious storyline about the struggle of West Indian migrants to find adequate housing in the racist London of the 1960s. Thematically, the story seems to combine the cynicism and disappointment of the later Moses novels with the humorous and episodic structure of Selvon's Trinidad novels or his famous work, The Lonely Londoners. Written in dialect and comprised of a ballad-like structure which heavily uses Trinidadian vernacular, calypso, and West Indian culture, history, and migrant experience, the novel's happy ending and promise of solidarity among West Indians in London hints at the rise of a "West Indian" identity among Caribbean migrants in the UK. Through their common experience of racialization, discrimination, and cultural differences with the English, one sees a powerful forging of a shared identity through "excursions," rum, Trinidadian and West Indian cuisine, chasing after "birds," and the central role of women in actually seeing to it that the "housing lark" succeeds. 

It's a novel for dreamers and reflects the sexist culture of the West Indian male characters like Battersby and Syl, but it's undeniably entertaining, witty, and hopeful. Who could resist laughing after reading the tale of Nobby and his English landlord giving him puppies he does not want? Or the ambiguous Syl, an Indian Trinidadian, who tries to pass as an East Indian to secure housing from a discriminatory landlord? After all, through the dream of Harry Banjo and the pragmatism of Jean, Matilda and Teena, they will find a house of their own. Thus, they will achieve a degree of security, space, and belonging in the "Mother Country" which rejects them. Sure, one can find elements of the pessimism of Selvon's later sequels to The Lonely Londoners, but there is a lot of optimism in this entertaining and immersive tale of 1960s Caribbean London. One wonders what transpired between the mid-1960s and the 1970s to cause Selvon's shift in tone and eventual relocation to Canada...

Moses Ascending

Sam Selvon's Moses Ascending is not what one expects from a sequel of sorts to Lonely Londoners. Like Pressure, a film Selvon co-wrote, the novel addresses Black Power and race and gender in a 1970s London setting. Unlike the film, however, this novel, save Brenda, a young woman born in London and devoted to the Party, Selvon's novel does not try to understand the appeal of Black Power to Black Britons born in the Mother Country. To his credit, Selvon's carnivalesque commentary on race and gender includes Indian and Pakistani immigrants (including trafficking in illegal immigrants) along with some Selvonian wit for great laughs, but it was much more difficult to relate to the characters here, not to mention Moses's unsuccessful attempts at finding some peace, whether as a writer, friend, or lover, or community. 

Interestingly, the rather temporal nature of the setting (Moses's building is slated to be demolished at some point in the future) may foreshadow Moses's return to Trinidad in the final part of the trilogy. Indeed, at multiple occasions throughout the novel, Moses longs for sweet memories of Trinidad, for the trees of his home, and will have to make some changes at some point once the Shepherd's Bush home is destroyed and he can no longer profit as a landlord (in this world, a black man in London cannot live like a 'lord' for too long). The black nationalism, subverted Caliban-Friday relationship with Bob (also a 'migrant'), and challenging times of white racism, growing xenophobia, as well as some of the rather problematic assumptions and biases of Selvon regarding black nationalism or the role of literature in social struggle provide interesting themes, but not in the engaging or direct sense of Moses's first adventure.

Moses Migrating

Sam Selvon's hilarious Moses Migrating, the last of the trilogy that began with Lonely Londoners, takes us back to Moses's roots in Trinidad. The comparison here is to Naipaul's The Mimic Men, in which a man from an island modeled on Trinidad, is similarly trapped between "homes" and mimicry. Here, however, Selvon playfully uses Carnival and mas as an extension of the critique of mimicry among West Indians. Moses, so obsessed with defending Brit'n, even in the face of racist immigration laws and Enoch Powell, plays Britannia for Carnival. Along the way, we learn more about the origins of Moses and Bob, his former white Friday from Moses Ascending, who may have more in common with Moses than he ever knew. Through the metaphor of playing mas, Lovelace's The Dragon Can't Dance is also an important Trinidadian reference, albeit one in which the Indo-Caribbean population of the island is more than just background to the plot, as we see in Moses Migrating. 

As one may expect in a novel based on dislocation and Carnival, up is down, white is black, and a changing Trinidad, appearing different to locals and tourists, reveal the problematic space in which people like Moses can inhabit, trapped as he is between colonial deference to the Mother Country and a world in constant movement, particularly the rise of Black Power, his own aging, and rootlessness. He barely recognizes Trinidad, had rarely left Port of Spain, thinks he is in love with a younger woman living with the same Tanty who raised him, but never finds the room for authenticity or honesty. Even his relationship with Galahad, a friend from the Lonely Londoner days, is not an authentic friendship as each lies or distrusts the other. Yet, with his characteristic wit, Selvon's balanced use of humor and satire allow for entertaining reading, despite the disappointing and pathetic end. In that sense, Moses could perhaps accompany the Indo-Caribbean narrator of The Mimic Men, Ralph Singh, in that London hotel with fellow transients. As Doris reminds him, his entire life is playing mas.

An Island Is A World

“Foster looked about him, a strange emotion in his heart. He was one of them, and yet he couldn’t feel the way they did, nor share in the kinship they knew. They were going back home. They had a home. It was far away, but they hadn’t forgotten. When they had come to Trinidad they kept some of India hidden in their hearts. They had tried to live in Trinidad as they had lived in India, with their own customs and religion, shutting out the influences of the west. They had built their temples and taught their children the language of the motherland. They had something to return to, they had a country.”

Selvon's second novel, An Island is a World, actually helps explain his first and third novels, particularly his time in London as an influence on The Lonely Londoners. Ramchand's excellent introduction to the novel explains how autobiographical this novel is, so Selvon's relationship with his brother, his service in World War II, and experiences with West Indians in the "Mother Country" shed light on Selvon's personal experiences influencing his fiction. Telling the story of Foster and his brother, Rufus, the novel moves back and forth between the connected families and shifts in setting from Trinidad to London and America, while expressing a certain malaise, as Naipaul said, about the state of the West Indies in the 1950s, colonialism, and the Federation. Per usual, one respects and adores the interracial friendships and relationships, and a deep identification with the island of Trinidad in Selvon's work. Much like Selvon, Foster, though descending from indentured Indians, identifies with Trinidad and its Creole multiracial makeup, and along the way this process of Foster (Selvon) to make sense out of life, experiencing racial prejudice in England, and find a way to make it through the monotony or routine of life in London and Trinidad. 

Foster, Rufus, Father and Foster's best friend, Andrews, share similar views on Trinidadian society, the political and social problems, the seemingly inevitable dissolution of Federation, and the rather low status accorded to the West Indies by visiting sailors or seamen from the US and England. Much like Adrian in I Hear Thunder, despite Selvon's undeniable expression of faith in Trinidad as a nation capable of encompassing all of its inhabitants, one can sense the author's lingering fears about the political corruption or lack of meaning in life beyond pleasure, although there is some optimism in this work. In this constant shifting of identity and gradual acceptance of the island as a full world, Selvon also brings to mind fiction by the Naipaul brothers. Indeed, Fireflies came to mind more than once given both novel's tragicomedy aspects, depiction of Trinidad, dysfunctional relationships, and the struggle over its "smallness" or alleged insignificance. Like the Naipaul brothers, Selvon excels writing, with a keen eye for humor, intricate family or personal ties in apparently dysfunctional families, an excellent example from this novel being Johnny's constant state of drunken stupor but finding solace in his grandson, despite attempts to hide his feelings for the child. 

In comparison to other Selvon novels, this one is a little lacking in the level of humor one comes to expect. Moreover, there are clunky sentences or missing pronouns here and there, though the combination of Trinidadian vernacular, occasional moments of comedic relief from rather depressing scenarios in which the characters find themselves, and excessive philosophizing on religion and being prove interesting for those who care to delve deeper into Trinidadian history, politics, or colonialism. Furthermore, as an early Selvon novel and part of the flourishing postwar Anglophone Caribbean literature, the novel was prescient on the failure of Federation and a careful nationalist text with a beaming example of the colonial politician, Andrews. 

Pressure

Worth watching just for its portrait of 1970s Black Britain and the screenplay co-written by Sam Selvon, Pressure sort of a sequel in spirit to The Lonely Londoners. Instead of the immigrant experience of Tony's parents (who would be the equivalent of the characters in Selvon's famous novel), the film tells the story of the generation of West Indians born in Britain, as they struggle with identity, Black Power, racial discrimination in all sectors of life, and the generation struggle and divide between them and their parents. As one would expect with Selvon, there are some humorous moments and allusions to interracial sex between black men and white women, a theme in some of Selvon's novels.