Such As I Have is the story of the relationship between Headly, the champion batsman of Slygoville, and Pam, the daughter of the village's warner woman. Despite their initial antagonism and mutual dislike, this relationship eventually blossoms into a powerful and overwhelming love that transforms Headly from a narcissistic sporting hero, with an oversized ego and a rather macho view of women, into an emotionally mature young man who learns the meaning of love, empathy and sacrifice. Pam's fatal illness forces Headly to come to terms with loss and to gain a greater appreciation of life. Such As I Have thus blends elements of the love story, the quest ordeal, and the narrative of spiritual and psychological transformation, into a crisply narrated and compelling tale that is as delightful as it is instructive.
Posted by The Jamaica Journal on 27th Feb 2012
Garfield Ellis is a prize-winning writer of fiction who has steadily carved out a reputation as one of Jamaica's most promising young authors. His Novel, Such As I Have, published in the Macmillan Caribbean Writers Series, certainly lives up to this reputation, and it is an exemplary illustration of Ellis's assured handling of the craft of fiction. From beginning to end, Ellis hardly strikes a false or flawed note, and the novella is an exercise in sustained excellence, both in the surefooted telling of the story and the moral significance of its themes. In Such As I Have Ellis draws on certain timeless principles of storytelling to elaborate seemingly timeless themes, but narration and theme are thoroughly infused with Jamaican geographical, cultural, social and linguistic specifics to produce a story that radiates an assured sense of place.
Such As I Have is the story of the relationship between Headly, the champion batsman of Slygoville, and Pam, the daughter of the village's warner woman. Despite their initial antagonism and mutual dislike, this relationship eventually blossoms into a powerful and overwhelming love that transforms Headly from a narcissistic sporting hero, with an oversized ego and a rather macho view of women, into an emotionally mature young man who learns the meaning of love, empathy and sacrifice. Pam's fatal illness forces Headly to come to terms with loss and to gain a greater appreciation of life. Such As I Have thus blends elements of the love story, the quest ordeal, and the narrative of spiritual and psychological transformation, into a crisply narrated and compelling tale that is as delightful as it is instructive.
The novella is artfully structured around the sustained metaphor of the game of cricket, which is quite apt since cricket is the basis of Headly's reputation and his own sense of identity.
Ellis is alert to the nuances of social mores, the subtle distinctions of class and color (even
in a rural community), and the effect of place on the sensibility of individuals. In his poignant description of Pam's simple delight in watching the stadium lights come on at night, we grasp her wistful yearning to escape the limitations of her rural mountain community, her ambition to be more than what the social and economic cards have dealt her. In (...) Such As I Have, Ellis deploys a richly textured narrative, meticulously detailed realism and imaginative profundity that augur well for his future as a talented novelist.
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