The Book Group read 'Pigeon English'
On January 26th the Man Booker book group met to discuss Stephen Kelman's novel Pigeon English. Kelman’s debut novel has appeared on best new novel lists from Waterstones to the Guardian, and was short-listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.
Pigeon English tells the story of Harri, an 11 year old Ghanaian boy who has just moved to the Dell Farm estate with his mother and older sister, Lydia. We follow his life as he contends with the difficulties of growing up, emigration and the grittier problems of life on a tough London estate. After the violent stabbing of a local boy outside a fried chicken shop, Harri and his friend Dean turn amateur detectives, and we are drawn into a complex murder-mystery.
So what did we think? For the majority of us this was an entertaining read, and one girl remarked that we were in much more enjoyable territory than with some of our previous Man Booker choices. (I still haven’t been forgiven for choosing Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America…) The novel’s title highlights the importance of language in Harri’s world and we especially liked the mix of Ghanaian dialect such as "Asweh" and "hutious" with London street slang. One of the less convincing elements was the relationship between Harri and a local pigeon that he believes is watching over him, and more than one of us was confused by the pigeon’s role in the story. We also discussed our response to the crime and violence in Harri’s world at great length, and although we felt that his voice did add an important insight into the real ‘victims’ in these frightening worlds – sadly the ending was disappointing and a little bit too predictable to be utterly convincing. Overall though, this was an engaging read which led to a lively and thought-provoking book club meeting – so a great success from my point of view!
If you would like to join our reading journey for the remainder of the Lent term, we are planning to read Christie Watson’s Tiny Sunbird’s Far Away (a recent Costa Coffee winner) followed by The Moonstone to celebrate our Victorian focus for World Book Day.