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Crick Crack, Monkey
A revealing novel of childhood about Tee who is being made socially acceptable by her aunt so that she can cope with the caste system of Trinidad.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
27 people are currently reading
796 people want to read
About the author
Merle Hodge
11Ìýbooks29ÌýfollowersMerle Hodge (born 1944) is a Trinidadian novelist and critic. Her 1970 novel Crick Crack, Monkey is a classic of West Indian literature.
Merle Hodge was born in 1944, in Curepe, Trinidad, the daughter of an immigration officer. She received both her elementary and high-school education in Trinidad, and as a student of Bishop Anstey High School, she won the Trinidad and Tobago Girls' Island Scholarship in 1962. The scholarship allowed her to attend University College, London, where she pursued studies in French. In 1965 she completed her B.A. Hons. and received a Master of Philosophy degree in 1967, the focus of which concerned the poetry of the French Guyanese writer Léon Damas.
Hodge did quite a bit of traveling after obtaining her degree, working as a typist and baby-sitter to make ends meet. She spent much time in France and Denmark but visited many other countries in both Eastern and Western Europe. After returning to Trinidad in the early 1970s, she taught French for a short time at the junior secondary level. She then received a lecturing position in the French Department at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica. At UWI she also began the pursuit of a Ph.D. in French Caribbean Literature. In 1979 Maurice Bishop became prime minister of Grenada, and Hodge went there to work with the Bishop regime. She was appointed director of the development of curriculum, and it was her job to develop and install a socialist education program. Hodge had to leave Grenada in 1983 because of the execution of Bishop and the resulting U.S. invasion. Hodge is currently working in Women and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad.
To date, Merle Hodge has written two novels: Crick Crack, Monkey (1970) and The Life of Laetitia, which was published more than two decades later, in 1993.
(from Wikipedia)
Merle Hodge was born in 1944, in Curepe, Trinidad, the daughter of an immigration officer. She received both her elementary and high-school education in Trinidad, and as a student of Bishop Anstey High School, she won the Trinidad and Tobago Girls' Island Scholarship in 1962. The scholarship allowed her to attend University College, London, where she pursued studies in French. In 1965 she completed her B.A. Hons. and received a Master of Philosophy degree in 1967, the focus of which concerned the poetry of the French Guyanese writer Léon Damas.
Hodge did quite a bit of traveling after obtaining her degree, working as a typist and baby-sitter to make ends meet. She spent much time in France and Denmark but visited many other countries in both Eastern and Western Europe. After returning to Trinidad in the early 1970s, she taught French for a short time at the junior secondary level. She then received a lecturing position in the French Department at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica. At UWI she also began the pursuit of a Ph.D. in French Caribbean Literature. In 1979 Maurice Bishop became prime minister of Grenada, and Hodge went there to work with the Bishop regime. She was appointed director of the development of curriculum, and it was her job to develop and install a socialist education program. Hodge had to leave Grenada in 1983 because of the execution of Bishop and the resulting U.S. invasion. Hodge is currently working in Women and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad.
To date, Merle Hodge has written two novels: Crick Crack, Monkey (1970) and The Life of Laetitia, which was published more than two decades later, in 1993.
(from Wikipedia)
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March 19, 2024
After The passing of both Tee's Mother and baby dies, Tee has to figure out what fits her out of the experience of living in two completely different cultures without the structure of a normal childhood.
Toddan and Tee go to live with Tantie their Aunt (Father) and are exposed to things that are unexceptable but is joyful even though Tantie is loud and a bit over the top.
Aunt Beatrice (Mother) on the other hand is a staunch middle class Creole and is quite the snob and Norman is bored with family and Beatrice. Aunt B tries to change how she dresses and carries herself. Towards the end she treats Tee badly, "little black nincompoop"
Both women just really confuse Tee and who she should be as a person and how she should behave, this is why Helen is imagined, the opposite and proper young lady.
All the Schools staff are extremes. As with Aunt B so does Mrs Wattman and telling Tee she will never go far.
In the end Tee does not like herself.
“Crick, Crack meaning is the oral storytelling tradition in the Caribbean which is between storyteller who states "Crick" and audience who replies "Crack". The exchange between
the audience and the storyteller are aware that the story is fictional and not reality. Monkey is a racist term used in different ways depending on the color or term used with it.
I am not sure how I feel about Tee and the story itself. No real ending as she travels to Motherland. At the time teaching the lighter you are the better your life will be is a theme being taught (race, folk or middle society and identity). The dialect used throughout caused me to stop and look up words and phrases like "dou-dou" to me looks like another word for poo but turns out to be "sweetie" and added confusion, I guess.
Toddan and Tee go to live with Tantie their Aunt (Father) and are exposed to things that are unexceptable but is joyful even though Tantie is loud and a bit over the top.
Aunt Beatrice (Mother) on the other hand is a staunch middle class Creole and is quite the snob and Norman is bored with family and Beatrice. Aunt B tries to change how she dresses and carries herself. Towards the end she treats Tee badly, "little black nincompoop"
Both women just really confuse Tee and who she should be as a person and how she should behave, this is why Helen is imagined, the opposite and proper young lady.
All the Schools staff are extremes. As with Aunt B so does Mrs Wattman and telling Tee she will never go far.
In the end Tee does not like herself.
“Crick, Crack meaning is the oral storytelling tradition in the Caribbean which is between storyteller who states "Crick" and audience who replies "Crack". The exchange between
the audience and the storyteller are aware that the story is fictional and not reality. Monkey is a racist term used in different ways depending on the color or term used with it.
I am not sure how I feel about Tee and the story itself. No real ending as she travels to Motherland. At the time teaching the lighter you are the better your life will be is a theme being taught (race, folk or middle society and identity). The dialect used throughout caused me to stop and look up words and phrases like "dou-dou" to me looks like another word for poo but turns out to be "sweetie" and added confusion, I guess.
February 26, 2018
Published in 1970, this novella from Trinidad is classic postcolonial writing, but also the enjoyable story of the life of a young girl. Cynthia, called Cyntie or Tee, and her younger brother are raised by extended family after their mother dies and their father goes abroad. She has childhood escapades and attends a couple of different schools and it’s all vividly portrayed. But she also has a well-off aunt who prizes whiteness in all its forms � physical and cultural � and who makes Tee her project. And so it turns into a story about what in book-critic speech might be called the colonization of a person’s mind: how Tee turns against her upbringing and the people who really love her, but without gaining anything of value to take their place.
There’s a lot of postcolonial literature out there that follows children as they leave behind their traditional upbringings to attend school and encounter the white world � , and all come to mind � but this one stands out for its exploration of how internalized racism works. It’s also different for being set in Trinidad, where there isn’t quite the “traditional� lifestyle that exists in Africa; the population is mostly descended from African slaves and South Asian indentured servants, a cultural mix that’s clearly present in the book and gives it a unique color.
But this isn’t only a political book, and I was a little surprised by how well the characters came to life, after seeing them discussed mostly for their ideological roles. Tee’s Auntie Beatrice, for instance, the symbol of colonial thought, turned out to be a surprisingly vulnerable and complex character. She lacks power at home, where her daughters flout her authority and her husband refuses to engage with the family, and in trying to change Tee she seems largely motivated by a desire for the ideal family she’s never had. Other characters likewise feel real and nuanced despite the brevity of the story.
Overall, this book was a pleasant surprise and one I would recommend; social justice oriented readers will particularly appreciate it, but in the complex characters, the vivid descriptions of Tee’s childhood, the rhythms of local speech and the colors of island life, it is also simply a good book.
There’s a lot of postcolonial literature out there that follows children as they leave behind their traditional upbringings to attend school and encounter the white world � , and all come to mind � but this one stands out for its exploration of how internalized racism works. It’s also different for being set in Trinidad, where there isn’t quite the “traditional� lifestyle that exists in Africa; the population is mostly descended from African slaves and South Asian indentured servants, a cultural mix that’s clearly present in the book and gives it a unique color.
But this isn’t only a political book, and I was a little surprised by how well the characters came to life, after seeing them discussed mostly for their ideological roles. Tee’s Auntie Beatrice, for instance, the symbol of colonial thought, turned out to be a surprisingly vulnerable and complex character. She lacks power at home, where her daughters flout her authority and her husband refuses to engage with the family, and in trying to change Tee she seems largely motivated by a desire for the ideal family she’s never had. Other characters likewise feel real and nuanced despite the brevity of the story.
Overall, this book was a pleasant surprise and one I would recommend; social justice oriented readers will particularly appreciate it, but in the complex characters, the vivid descriptions of Tee’s childhood, the rhythms of local speech and the colors of island life, it is also simply a good book.
April 24, 2022
3.5/5
I went and read this for the purpose of fulfilling this year's challenge category of "children's classic," so perhaps I shouldn't be saying this, but. This is one of those bildungsromans that isn't going to go well at all if slung out in your average US white child's classroom, even if you bump it up to high school in hopes of mitigating some complaints about "vulgarity" and the like. Sure, the location of Trinidad makes for a convenient history lesson if one has conniptions over "CRT" and insists on sticking to the genocidal whitewashing of "Columbus sailed the ocean blue" (he ran into the island on his third voyage), but the glossary is so chockful of stereotype-cracking creolization and Hindi-descended jargon that it'd be easier to traverse a WWI minefield than to explain how a US WWII military base, Calcutta cuisine, and Frenchified West African storytelling all came historically to be in a narrative of less than 150 pages. It's wonderful for types like me who have spent some time taking in the complicated logistics and crave quality representation of the life and the people in fiction, but it's not going to cooperate with anyone whose conception of the topic stops at the freeing of the (US) slaves and whatever confused bits of the "West Indies" and/or "Caribbean" they think they're familiar with (worth noting that the terms aren't completely interchangeable). So, if you're going into this with some weird mix of 'A Little Princess'/'Wide Sargasso Sea' in mind, you may want to back up a bit, else you're going to lose out on a great deal of what makes this work something special.
Something I've noticed in modern media is how much characters across the board suffer from diluted nonproblematic and/or trauma induced personas, such that fans can easily latch onto the latest mass trend and swap out their faves/memes/etc at will due to how similarly bland the personalities and types are. It's an easy way of pushing "diversity!" without committing to the whys and wherefores of how this diversity came to be what it is today, and thus has become the gold standard in children's publications, so eager to impart a moral lesson and so unwilling to acknowledge that not every child lives a G-rated reality. So, give the average adult on this site who publicly professes an enjoyment for children's/YA/whatever it calls itself these days this particular work, and they're probably going to be completely unable to grasp why this narrative is so important for younger readers, infused as it is with rough and ready beginnings, suffocating middles, far from conclusively happy endings, and a cast of characters whose moods and motivations are hardly palatable, impossible to consign forever and anon to "good" and "bad," and generally display a great deal more of their socioculturally informed environment than the average creation of today's media production hegemonies. It makes for good writing, especially for readers like me who will always be voyeurs to the experience of fitting oneself to white supremacy in a clownish spectacle of "meritocracy," but it's the furthest thing from comfortable, and there's no big burst of trauma/brutalization/whatever else white audiences expect from viewing non-white stories in order to receive catharsis at the close and, thus, assume that they've done their "DEI" duty and move on accordingly. The fact that the work avoids that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have minded a sequel with a tad more closure rather than what appears to be a novelistic rewrite of this story that Hodge put out 23 years later, but as is the case with any writing done under capitalism, one sometimes has to be grateful that the person achieved some measure of writerly recognition before they kicked the bucket at all. Add in all the folks who care enough about their reading around the world challenges to read veritable literature instead of resorting to various breeds of white people fanfiction, and you at least have some amount of appreciation, if not at completely satisfying levels.
After reading this, I'm not going to go all out in tracking down some epic multigeneration manifesto that the contemporary publishing market loves to crack out when it comes to certain breeds of "literary representation," although I certainly I wouldn't mind if some heftier bits of Trinidadian writing came my way. It's just rather refreshing to scan back before all the modern day tiptoeing plaguing today's media, especially for pieces aimed at children, and find something that took on subject material in a manner that is engaging, credible, and, if I dare say, age appropriate that doesn't constantly doublethink itself into an inextricable corner. My first, and likely last, stint with V.S. Naipaul means my options for further reading are rather unmarketably open, so my chances may indeed align with my usual choice of seeking out the tell tale Heinemann cover designs at used book markets and glancing over what ends up offering itself. It's not the most fashionable way of doing things, but it's what, in tandem with , brought me to this particular piece, and with an average asking price of fifty cents to dollar, one need not worry too much about such acquisitions being cost effective. All in all, a very slim book that I'm sure is moaned and groaned over plenty, judging by its most popular tags being littered with references to academic assignments, but is far less stodgy than the much more popular representatives of that sort of reading, and thus is more attuned to being read today than one might guess from the average rating.
I went and read this for the purpose of fulfilling this year's challenge category of "children's classic," so perhaps I shouldn't be saying this, but. This is one of those bildungsromans that isn't going to go well at all if slung out in your average US white child's classroom, even if you bump it up to high school in hopes of mitigating some complaints about "vulgarity" and the like. Sure, the location of Trinidad makes for a convenient history lesson if one has conniptions over "CRT" and insists on sticking to the genocidal whitewashing of "Columbus sailed the ocean blue" (he ran into the island on his third voyage), but the glossary is so chockful of stereotype-cracking creolization and Hindi-descended jargon that it'd be easier to traverse a WWI minefield than to explain how a US WWII military base, Calcutta cuisine, and Frenchified West African storytelling all came historically to be in a narrative of less than 150 pages. It's wonderful for types like me who have spent some time taking in the complicated logistics and crave quality representation of the life and the people in fiction, but it's not going to cooperate with anyone whose conception of the topic stops at the freeing of the (US) slaves and whatever confused bits of the "West Indies" and/or "Caribbean" they think they're familiar with (worth noting that the terms aren't completely interchangeable). So, if you're going into this with some weird mix of 'A Little Princess'/'Wide Sargasso Sea' in mind, you may want to back up a bit, else you're going to lose out on a great deal of what makes this work something special.
Something I've noticed in modern media is how much characters across the board suffer from diluted nonproblematic and/or trauma induced personas, such that fans can easily latch onto the latest mass trend and swap out their faves/memes/etc at will due to how similarly bland the personalities and types are. It's an easy way of pushing "diversity!" without committing to the whys and wherefores of how this diversity came to be what it is today, and thus has become the gold standard in children's publications, so eager to impart a moral lesson and so unwilling to acknowledge that not every child lives a G-rated reality. So, give the average adult on this site who publicly professes an enjoyment for children's/YA/whatever it calls itself these days this particular work, and they're probably going to be completely unable to grasp why this narrative is so important for younger readers, infused as it is with rough and ready beginnings, suffocating middles, far from conclusively happy endings, and a cast of characters whose moods and motivations are hardly palatable, impossible to consign forever and anon to "good" and "bad," and generally display a great deal more of their socioculturally informed environment than the average creation of today's media production hegemonies. It makes for good writing, especially for readers like me who will always be voyeurs to the experience of fitting oneself to white supremacy in a clownish spectacle of "meritocracy," but it's the furthest thing from comfortable, and there's no big burst of trauma/brutalization/whatever else white audiences expect from viewing non-white stories in order to receive catharsis at the close and, thus, assume that they've done their "DEI" duty and move on accordingly. The fact that the work avoids that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have minded a sequel with a tad more closure rather than what appears to be a novelistic rewrite of this story that Hodge put out 23 years later, but as is the case with any writing done under capitalism, one sometimes has to be grateful that the person achieved some measure of writerly recognition before they kicked the bucket at all. Add in all the folks who care enough about their reading around the world challenges to read veritable literature instead of resorting to various breeds of white people fanfiction, and you at least have some amount of appreciation, if not at completely satisfying levels.
After reading this, I'm not going to go all out in tracking down some epic multigeneration manifesto that the contemporary publishing market loves to crack out when it comes to certain breeds of "literary representation," although I certainly I wouldn't mind if some heftier bits of Trinidadian writing came my way. It's just rather refreshing to scan back before all the modern day tiptoeing plaguing today's media, especially for pieces aimed at children, and find something that took on subject material in a manner that is engaging, credible, and, if I dare say, age appropriate that doesn't constantly doublethink itself into an inextricable corner. My first, and likely last, stint with V.S. Naipaul means my options for further reading are rather unmarketably open, so my chances may indeed align with my usual choice of seeking out the tell tale Heinemann cover designs at used book markets and glancing over what ends up offering itself. It's not the most fashionable way of doing things, but it's what, in tandem with , brought me to this particular piece, and with an average asking price of fifty cents to dollar, one need not worry too much about such acquisitions being cost effective. All in all, a very slim book that I'm sure is moaned and groaned over plenty, judging by its most popular tags being littered with references to academic assignments, but is far less stodgy than the much more popular representatives of that sort of reading, and thus is more attuned to being read today than one might guess from the average rating.
February 18, 2022
this book made me very SAD just a very intense heartbreaking feeling
March 17, 2013
This book is by far one of the best books I have read. I feel a back story conning on but I will spare you from it. I first read this book in my second year of high school at Edward p Yorke.
May 27, 2014
Tee is a child trapped between two worlds, the haves and the have nots. Her father emigrated to England and his sister Tantie remained behind to help raise Tee. Tee’s mother is deceased and her sister, Aunt Beatrice, is left behind to aid in Tee’s upbringing as well. Tantie cares for Tee when she is young and then Aunt Beatrice gains custody of Tee during her formative years. Tantie fills Tee’s childhood with joy and simplicity. Tee is able to enjoy the world and the people around her without bias or judgment. She is able to live the life of an innocent child, free of prejudice and yearning for education. When guardianship changes from one aunt to the other Tee’s worldview takes a big hit. Aunt Beatrice dedicates her time to polishing Tee; refining her appearance, behavior and outlook. Tee transitions from being a young free-spirited child into a judgmental, uppity young woman.
Crick Crack, Monkey explains the potential price of upward mobility not only in the Caribbean but in all societies around the world. There is always a price to be paid when someone either decides or is led into a different social class. In this case, Tee is fully aware of the explicit bias her Aunt Beatrice exhibits because it contradicts everything Tantie taught her. However, over time, Tee is indoctrinated into this new way of thinking and her transition and thus transformation is complete.
- Originally posted on my blog, The Educator's Expedition June 25, 2013
Crick Crack, Monkey explains the potential price of upward mobility not only in the Caribbean but in all societies around the world. There is always a price to be paid when someone either decides or is led into a different social class. In this case, Tee is fully aware of the explicit bias her Aunt Beatrice exhibits because it contradicts everything Tantie taught her. However, over time, Tee is indoctrinated into this new way of thinking and her transition and thus transformation is complete.
- Originally posted on my blog, The Educator's Expedition June 25, 2013
August 19, 2017
honestly I liked this book a lot, I felt like I could relate to tee and her struggle of being caught between western and nonwestern cultures. idk. this is a pretty easy book to read in terms of the text but the issues it confronts are a lot more difficult imo - like I finished it and I just felt sad for her and for tantie and in general the whole system, the idea of never belonging to either culture and wanting to escape but we as readers know she really can't
also this book did a really good job of showing how colorism/shadeism played out w aunt Beatrice, carol, Jessica, and tee, I really liked all the scenes when this was brought up idk
also this book did a really good job of showing how colorism/shadeism played out w aunt Beatrice, carol, Jessica, and tee, I really liked all the scenes when this was brought up idk
September 3, 2015
Crick Crack, Monkey follows a little girl in her struggle between the two matriarchs in her life. It revolves around the lives of post-colonial Trinidadian children, in this case a girl named Tee. Its a harsh but authentic critique of post-colonial education and a damning example of institutional racism and classism, pitting the identity of this little girl between indigenous culture and colonial culture. Hodge develops a narrative that is both accessible and sometimes difficult to read. A must read for anyone interested in understanding Caribbean culture.
June 1, 2017
I loved this book so much.
November 20, 2024
“Ma’s land was to us an enchanted country, dipping into valley after valley, hills thickly covered with every conceivable kind of foliage, cool green darknesses, sudden little streams…and every now and then we would lose sight of the sea and then it would come into sight again down between trees when you least expected to see it, and always, it seemed, in a different direction�
January 26, 2023
This was a taste of home and beautifully captured the tension between country and town, and the aspect of assimilation but foreigness.
November 13, 2015
I found this book to be surprisingly repeatable. Especially at the end. Many of the things Tee comes to realize and the decisions she makes about the two worlds she is part of are very similar to what I experienced when I moved to the US.
Crick Crack Monkey follows the story of young Cynthia or Tee during the years she spends without her parents. tuck living with extended family, Tee finds herself struggling to fit into Tantie's rural,carefree world and Aunt Beatrice's educated but still Caribbean world.
Crick Crack Monkey follows the story of young Cynthia or Tee during the years she spends without her parents. tuck living with extended family, Tee finds herself struggling to fit into Tantie's rural,carefree world and Aunt Beatrice's educated but still Caribbean world.
February 9, 2025
We follow the slow growing of Tee as she finds herself caught between two worlds, that of her hybrid creolized Aunt Tantie, and that of the predominantly English Aunt Beatrice. Torn between the claims of two cultures in postcolonial mid-twentieth-century Trinidad and Tobago, Tee oscillates between the warmth that her Aunt Tantie malleable creolization exudes, and the coldness of Aunt Beatrice who insists on complete adherence to English ways. The narrative is humorous and poetic, which makes this novel all the better.
May 7, 2020
Something odd happens when I read some of these books. By these books, I mean books about black culture form the islands, or immigrant stories, or from the side of women. Who are reading these stories and why?
Do some folks feel superior when reading how bad black folks can be towards each other or how someone internalizes the disappointment from outside? Is there some weird joy that comes from 'these people' rising up that might prove that things aren't so bad?
Listen, I am a white guy that came from a lower class and there is weird doubling effect. I acknowledge my privilege but also realize that there will the idea of the educated folk reading this are largely never part of the milieu that is being read about.
That is really fucked up to me. I can't even.
Now, this story is adequately written. That isn't a knock. It serves its purpose. It is easy to read and leaves me with the question of how did she ever find her way back to writing about these folks. There is a real sense that her Tantie would be the one she would come back to. The ending doesn't feel ambivalent but the fact of the novel suggests that the story doesn't end there.
Do some folks feel superior when reading how bad black folks can be towards each other or how someone internalizes the disappointment from outside? Is there some weird joy that comes from 'these people' rising up that might prove that things aren't so bad?
Listen, I am a white guy that came from a lower class and there is weird doubling effect. I acknowledge my privilege but also realize that there will the idea of the educated folk reading this are largely never part of the milieu that is being read about.
That is really fucked up to me. I can't even.
Now, this story is adequately written. That isn't a knock. It serves its purpose. It is easy to read and leaves me with the question of how did she ever find her way back to writing about these folks. There is a real sense that her Tantie would be the one she would come back to. The ending doesn't feel ambivalent but the fact of the novel suggests that the story doesn't end there.
August 24, 2024
This books focuses on the binary opposition of the two matriarchs in Tee's life where acceptance of one's values leads to the ultimate rejection of the other. Tee grows up with Tantie and Aunt Beatrice's lifestyle is frowned upon as she is viewed as pretentious and when Tee moves in with Aunt Beatrice, Tantie's lifestyle and the Pointe d'Espoire culture that Tee was immersed in was looked down upon. Tee seems to be in the middle of the struggle between these two contradicting lifestyles and she is not yet at a point where she can pick and choose which aspects of each lifestyle she wants to embrace. She ultimately chooses Aunt Beatrice's lifestyle but feels guilty with the choice she makes and she feels like she has betrayed Tantie. I really like how Merle Hodge was able to capture the ongoing conflict in Tee's mind that encompasses her struggle of Tantie versus Aunt Beatrice. It does seem like Tee quickly rejects the customs of life with Tantie but her inner monologue shows that some part of her disagrees with rejecting her upbringing. Overall the novel has both delightful and disturbing impact. A definite read for those looking to understand some Caribbean culture.
February 15, 2020
Initially on finishing this book, it felt meh. But on thinking over the events highlighted and the title I appreciate this story more.
In Trinidad, we follow Cynthia, Tee who has an idyllic childhood with her bombastic aunt Tantie, cousin Mikey, her brother Toddan. The author is able to create an authentic childlike view on life. The adult is able to weave in the missing elements. But as Tee grows older, life changes as she moves into the middle class environment with another aunt, Beatrice and her family. As Tee grows she inevitably loses her childhood innocence and struggles to navigate the change in circumstances. Whilst there is no clear cut resolution at the end, most Caribbean readers can easily imagine the further struggles Cynthia will face.
This is a sad tale pre-Independence story of life in Trinidad where social upward mobility was/is the dream. And its cost.
In Trinidad, we follow Cynthia, Tee who has an idyllic childhood with her bombastic aunt Tantie, cousin Mikey, her brother Toddan. The author is able to create an authentic childlike view on life. The adult is able to weave in the missing elements. But as Tee grows older, life changes as she moves into the middle class environment with another aunt, Beatrice and her family. As Tee grows she inevitably loses her childhood innocence and struggles to navigate the change in circumstances. Whilst there is no clear cut resolution at the end, most Caribbean readers can easily imagine the further struggles Cynthia will face.
This is a sad tale pre-Independence story of life in Trinidad where social upward mobility was/is the dream. And its cost.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2021
Though it took me a second to really get into the novel and be invested, I really enjoyed the last 30 pages of Crick Crack, Monkey.
Merle Hodge illustrates the colonization of a person. How white supremacy acts as a poison, tarnishing everything it reaches. Tee's transition to Cynthia was full of the idiosyncrasies that exist in former colonies. There is no way to properly be postcolonial, as the ideology of superiority remains.
Though I did have difficulty reading the novel at first, I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyway interested in the colonization of Black identity.
Merle Hodge illustrates the colonization of a person. How white supremacy acts as a poison, tarnishing everything it reaches. Tee's transition to Cynthia was full of the idiosyncrasies that exist in former colonies. There is no way to properly be postcolonial, as the ideology of superiority remains.
Though I did have difficulty reading the novel at first, I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyway interested in the colonization of Black identity.
January 19, 2017
Crick Crack Monkey is a really great book because uses words that appeal to your visual sense. It creates imagery flashing back to our childhood. I like the use of dialect and the words that I have never seen before. Not having the power to make a decision leads Tee accepts to live with her Aunt Beatrice when she wins a scholarship to keep studying. Tee's life is a tremendous change.
October 5, 2017
Really poignant at many points. Hodge really does an excellent job at revealing how class and culture divides in the Anglophone Caribbean can make "code Switching" almost impossible.
How in the Anglo-Caribbean a little girl's sense of self and community can be torn apart by cultural forces which should make those who live in the Anglophone Caribbean rethink their cultural norms.
How in the Anglo-Caribbean a little girl's sense of self and community can be torn apart by cultural forces which should make those who live in the Anglophone Caribbean rethink their cultural norms.
December 25, 2022
Crick Crack Monkey by Merle Hodge is gut-wrenching. It ends abruptly in the middle of Tee's confusion and deep dissonance, like an odd sad song that falls off mid-stanza.
All the types of tragic figures are skillfully developed, and as they unravel to you, one-by-one, you feel all the rage and pain all over again.
All the types of tragic figures are skillfully developed, and as they unravel to you, one-by-one, you feel all the rage and pain all over again.
June 15, 2019
Overall, it was interesting to hear about a young girl's experiences from a different culture than my own. The last third of the book is what I enjoyed most,where the main character is feeling the inner conflict between who she is between both worlds of Tantie and Aunt Beatrice.
October 13, 2024
The imagery and use of language in this book is really vivid and artful. The storyline made for a slow read but the Merle Hodge paint a very clear image of life in the Caribbean at that time, and the division amongst class and skin tone.
February 17, 2025
I had to read this for my reading without borders class but I actually really enjoyed it! It was so devastating in a way that you really have to think about. This book really hits on how colonialism affects children through society and schooling.
June 23, 2018
3.5 stars
September 22, 2018
It was really interesting and though provoking. I've never read from this perspective before and thought it was quite unique.
February 26, 2019
It was a very interesting look into how the two separate societies of Trinidad & Tobago work.
June 13, 2019
A devastating little story.
4/5 stars
4/5 stars
Want to read
December 29, 2020hi
October 10, 2023
(4.5 stars) This book had a very strong narrative voice, and there were so many subtle things that made the book so good.
February 26, 2024
read for non-european lit
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
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