Eccentric Neighborhoods

Eccentric Neighborhoods is quite similar to The House on the Lagoon,, but even more autobiographical. Elvira, the central character, is like the author in that both are from Ponce and have fathers who became governor of Puerto Rico. Of course, for this novel, Ferre changes the name of Ponce to La Concordia and surely fictionalizes several aspects of her own family's origins for a series of stories within a story about the Vernets and Riva de Santillana families. Since it lacks the narrative conceit of the more illustrious Lagoon, and Elvira is a less compelling character than Isabel, Eccentric Neighborhoods was less magical and a more arduous read. One finds the plethora of characters to be less engaging in Eccentric Neighborhoods, although both novels retain a strong focus on women, inter-generational gender dynamics, and the search for independence and autonomy. Needless to say, these concerns for the strong women in Ferre's novels mirror the condition of Puerto Rico in the 20th century. But perhaps due to the novel's greater autobiographical influences and its greater focus on Ponce and Puerto Rico's transformation from sugar to industrialization and the commonwealth (under a ficitonalized Marín), the novel provides a fascinating literary reconstruction of the lives of the criollo hacendado class and the rise of families like the Vernets, who wisely catch on to the New Deal and the future of industrialization. There is neither praise nor blame attached to the process, although the slums and destruction of the environment continue as Puerto Rico is thrust along into the 20th century (and Americanization). Eccentric Neighborhoods is truly a fascinating novel from a historical perspective, immersing the reader in the various neighborhoods, architectural delights, and transformations of Ponce and the rest of the island. 

Ochikubo Monogatari

The Heian period monogatari Ochikubo Monogatari is fascinating to read when one considers the more famous Tale of Genji was likely composed only a few decades later. While both share some stylistic features, such as the common insertion of poetry into the text, and a setting among Heian-period aristocrats and their retainers, Ochikubo Monogatari is rooted in an archetypal Cinderella story. The Tale of Lady Ochikubo is also far shorter than its more famous successor, and character development is rather weak, making it somewhat more akin to Taketori Monogatari. Indeed, Ochikubo suffers nobly the abuses of her step-mother, her loyal servant intercedes and ensures her relationship with a lord develops, and she becomes a wealthy and important woman through her husband, a favorite of the Emperor. There are no psychologically complex characters, unless one counts Ochikubo's husband or her servant, Akogi. Oddly, the only translation of this tale is the dated Wilfrid Whitehouse one, but it manages to capture the time and feel of a Japan from over 1000 years ago. 

Despite its flaws, Ochikubo Monogatari is an important work in the development of the novel and prose fiction for Japanese literature. In a sense, it prepares one for the more extensive and complex Genji Monogatari with its numerous characters (mostly named based on their title) and its realism, as there is no magic or supernatural phenomena here. Unfortunately, once our Ochikubo marries someone of higher rank in the imperial court, much of the text is spent on her husband's various acts of revenge and humiliation to the step-mother and her children. The noble-hearted Ochikubo rejects this, and eventually her husband makes amends with her family (even helping them rise to higher positions in the court). While some of the anecdotes of vengeance are rather amusing and entertaining (particularly, and disturbingly, the use of a horse-faced man as a substitute husband for the half-sister of Ochikubo), the plot does not really go anywhere until the inevitable peace. 

Like most Cinderella narratives, the inevitable happy ending occurs and the horrid step-mother seems to have learned a valuable lesson. As it is likely rooted oral or folk traditions, the main moral imparted by the conclusion of the novel seems to be a call for step-mothers to cherish their step-daughters. Ochikubo herself, through her devotion to her abusive step-mother and neglectful father, is pure, devoted to filial piety, and will ensure good karma through her actions. Indeed, even before her inevitable escape from the clutches of her parents, she was a stoic and devoted worker, sewing fine robes and dresses for her step-mother. The overall tone of the tale is a conservative one, even if its critiques the treatment of step-daughters. It also seems to favor monogamy over polygamy or the various forms of infidelity practiced by so many Heian males. For these reasons, one wonders if the anonymous author of this monogatari was a woman upset by the various intrigues and affairs of men who cheat on their wives while allowing them to mistreat innocent children. 

Les Thazar

Fernand Hibbert's Les Thazar is an endlessly entertaining social satire of the Port-au-prince upper classes. Written over a century ago, it depicts the long-lost Haiti Thomas of our forebears, focusing on the corrupt and venal upper-classes in the capital. The Thazar family, once rich, have lost their fortune. Madame Thazar pushes for the marriage of her daughter, Cecile, to a wealthy German so the family can maintain their status and rank in Port-au-Prince society. In order to accomplish this, the materialistic wife  is willing to sacrifice anything and everything to keep up appearances and ensure her two children will not descend the social ladder. Needless to say, the Thazar home in Turgeau also attracts a number of suitors for the hand of Cecile (as well as family friends, mostly from the Haitians of their social rank), providing the narrator an excuse to satirize various types of the Haitian bourgeoisie and corrupt politicians. This is very much a dialogue-driven narrative, with a tragic conclusion to its satirical content. One cannot help but wonder if Haitian elites a century ago had such dim hopes for Haiti then, what are they thinking today?

Foreigners, particularly Germans and French, also provide cannon fodder for the satire as their outsider view of Haiti provides great comedic relief. Ravet, for instance, has the most difficult experience trying to get his landlord, Madame Thazar, to fix his leaky roof. During his long discourse with Madame Thazar, we learn about his disobedient domestic, who is also a part-time tailor, and the various ways in which life in Haiti is upside down. Or, for that matter, the constant questions from Cresson, who is following Ravet around Port-au-Prince on the streetcar one day. In the end, Ravet agrees to pay for the repairs to the roof, but it is another instance of Haiti as a an aberrant place to the foreign mind. The question of race is often part of this, with Haitians speaking of news of lynchings in the US, Booker T. Washington (perhaps a message of vocational schools and practicality for the Haitian educational system, instead of effete and useless bourgeois like those in the novel?), the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa and British imperialism's positive impact on the "natives") and a naturalized Haitian who renounces citizenship, Alphonse Laubepin. Alphonse Laubepin, who is presumably of mixed racial origins from the French Antilles, refuses to see himself as one of the black race, and is constantly reminded of his racial origins by Cresson. This amusing episode is likely an allusion to the pattern of some mixed-race immigrants of the French Antilles refusing to take Haitian citizenship and using their status as French subjects for additional privileges in Haiti.  Of course, the iniquitous color question also rears its ugly head among Haitians themselves, a "political" issue which shapes how the bourgeois characters relate to each other and their non-elite compatriots in matters of love, class, language, and culture. 

Impressively, Hibbert transports the reader to the Port-au-Prince of the early 20th century. The German commercial and financial dominance of Haiti was palpable, and foreigners were protected from the excesses and corruption of the Haitian government better than Haitian citizens. Unsurprisingly, Madame Thazar prefers to marry her daughter to the German Schlieden than any Haitian suitor, reasoning that they will be unable to look after her material interests with the utmost security. Lamertume, a darker-hued Haitian "nephew" of Monsieur Thazar, is ambitious but utterly lacking in honor, wealth, and merit, so he is quickly rejected. Lionel Brion, who descends from a great family and was educated in France, also wishes to marry her, but is similarly rejected for not being wealthy. The "bourgeois" of Haiti are, in short, vain, corrupt, materialistic, and concerned only for themselves or their primal instincts. And, while Madame Thazar, Titus Baudouin, Cresson, Madame Apice, and a plethora of the characters in the novel exemplify all the aforementioned flaws, counter-examples such as Lionel Brion and Dr. Remo prove the exception to the rule. Unfortunately, in Haiti mediocrity and corruption reign supreme, so exceptional men of the upper-classes, who would and could transform and place Haiti on the path to progress, are unable to achieve their goals or find happiness. Lionel Brion never recovers from his love and loss of Cecile, Delhi has isolated himself at Mariani with a lower-class woman he abuses as his lover and servant. 

Perhaps like the case of Romulus, another novel by Hibbert but set in Miragoane during the "disturbances" of 1883, Hibbert was driven by exploring the theme of the frustrated bourgeois reformers, whose hopes are dashed by Haitian reality. Trevier or the proponents of Bazelais, in that novel, and Brion, in Les Thazar, are both ruined by their experiences, seemingly common to anyone who endeavors to go against the grain of materialism and mediocrity. Hibbert appears to infuse both novels with a pervasive pessimism as the Haitian bourgeois male has proven himself unable to save Haiti or those who should be theirs (their families, and wives). Another contemporary writer of Hibbert's, Justin Lherisson, also explored this theme even more humorously in La Famille Des Pitite Caille, where the rise and fall of a bourgeois family demonstrates the vacuity, corruption and  avarice of the bourgeois paterfamilias. It would take another generation before Haitian writers would look to the masses, with Jacques Roumain being part of that transition through the peasant novel. Perhaps not coincidentally, Roumain married the daughter of Hibbert, and it took Roumain's generation to begin the shift from the elite-focus of Hibbert. 

Hysmine and Hysminias

A medieval writer hailing from an elite Constantinople family wrote an erotically charged romance directly inspired by ancient Greek romances preceding him by several centuries. Perhaps most closely based on Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and Clitophon, Eumathios Makrembolites manages to write with perhaps even more ekphrasis than his influences and far more sexually-charged prose. For, Hysmine and Hysminias, despite hailing from the pen of a Christian writer of the Eastern Roman Empire, is far more erotic and, in some passages, pornographic, than anything from Achilles Tatius or the other extant romances. Nonetheless, it makes up for this NSFW quality by featuring far less of the action-packed adventures and exotic travails than Leucippe and Clitophon, with the action of the story taking place mostly in Eurykomis, Aulikomis, Artykomis and Daphnepolis, four unspecified cities linked to various gods (Zeus, Artemis, Apollo) and some hazardous journeys at sea (including the appearance of "Ethiopian" pirates who are presumably the Byzantine equivalent to the dark-skinned Egyptian Nile Delta bandits of Achilles Tatius) . 

Indeed, nearly half of the text is occupied by the initial flirtations and devoted love of Hysmine and Hysminias, with the latter a herald to Hysmine's town for a Zeus festival. Initially unaffected by the arrows of Eros, he falls head over heels for Hysmine after a very lengthy time studied a garden wall painting of the god of love. Eros, or Cupid, is depicted as an emperor to whom all beings fall in tribute, and the use of ekphrasis by Makrembolites serves the plot very effectively and visually. The paintings on the garden wall, their symbolism, and the erotic dreams of Hysminias are all visually rich passages showing the powers of dreams. By the time the two lovers finally elope and plan to sail to Syria, one is glad the action of the story has finally progressed. Separated at sea by Poseidon, the two are separated as Hysmine is sacrificed for the god's appeasement. Left on shore due to his lamentations and grief, Hysminias is kidnapped by black pirates (again, likely inspired by the ancient Egyptian bandits or, perhaps, black pirates who had served with Arab armies in attacks on the Byzantine Empire?) who present an example of the dichotomy of barbarians and Greeks. It is not due to their skin color that they are savage, but their brute nature and non-Greek customs. For what it is worth, these black pirates don't rape their virgin captives, but end up becoming slaves themselves in a raid by the army of Daphnepolis.

Meanwhile, Hysmine is miraculously saved by a dolphin and Eros himself, who carries her to shore. Somehow, Hysmine was taken by the same ship of pirates herself but did not see Hyminias on their trireme. Both eventually end up as slaves who use the subterfuge of appearing to be siblings to resume some of their physical affection. Then, miraculously during the sacrifice at the altar of Apollo, the two are reunited with their parents, demand their freedom from slavery, and marry happily. Like the Greek romances, there is a lot of unexplained and random good fortune to match their misery, but not nearly enough exotic adventures. Moreover, Kratisthenes, the loyal cousin who counseled Hysminias and helped prepare for the doomed elopement to Syria, is not reunited with the family. One cannot help but feel the ancient Greek romances would have included loyal relatives in the triumphal marriage and faily reunion. Further, besides Syria and the dark-skinned pirates, there are no series of travails across the Mediterranean world or Middle East (which may reflect the decreased size of the empire by the time of Makrembolites). The black pirates represent the non-Greek world, but none are given a voice in the narrative besides their debauchery and looting. 

Despite its flaws and shortcomings when compared to the romances which predate it by 800 years, Hysmine and Hysminias remains a fascinating work of a Christian imagination set in the pagan Greek world. It's far more sexual and descriptive of the physical embraces of the hero and heroine, but still puts the ultimate value on virginity before marriage. As a story of the heroine rejecting the approved suitor of her parents for her true love, it stands as a romance urging free love, to a degree. In some respects it also brings to mind Daphnis and Chloe in the initially awkward and clumsy flirtations of the characters learning love for the first time. Yet is in in its dream sequences and examples of ekphrasis where its combination of realistic sexual relationships and pre-Christian gods that show the genius of Makrembolites in building the narrative's world as it is and how it should be. One must read the other contemporary Byzantine romances to further contextualize how Hysmine and Hysminias imagines the pre-Christian past, but one cannot help but feel this is unique in the annals of the genre. 

Callirhoe

Chariton's Callirhoe may be the earliest of the extant Greek romances. It's a work of historical fiction drawing upon fictionalized figures from the history of Sicily, the Persian Empire, and all the conventions and cliches of the romance in the early centuries of the Roman Empire. Like most of the other five romances, Callirhoe and Chaereas are in love but are separated due to intrigue, jealousy, and fate. Eventually, after undergoing a number of ordeals and adventures around the Mediterranean, Ionia, and the Middle East, they return to Syracuse and celebrate their martial reunion. Constant references to Homer, earlier Greek literary precedents, and the intervention of Aphrodite and Eros proliferate throughout the text.

Like Heliodorus's more exciting Aethiopica, the Persian Empire makes an appearance and provides some exotic flavor since part of the narrative takes place in Babylon. Persian and non-Greek "barbarian" customs and autocratic rule are contrasted with Greek nobility and chastity. Invocations of the Peloponnesian War and the Battle of Thermopylae clearly inspired parts of the narrative's war sequences. For example, Chaereas leads 300 Greeks in the army of the Egyptian rebel king to take Tyre from the Persians. Like his father-in-law, Hermocrates of Syracuse, he leads the Egyptian naval forces against the Persian forces just as Hermocrates defeated the Athenians at sea. There's also a fair amount of battles, tomb-robbing, imperial court trials, crucifixions, tortures, and amorous intrigues to entertain and provide a model of sorts for later Greek romances. Nearly every male who sees Callirhoe wants her, including the Great King, an arbiter of justice, lusting for a married woman. 

However, in Callirhoe, it is primarily the woman rather than the male who occupies more of the narrative. For much of tale, Chaereas is bemoaning the loss of Callirhoe and attempting suicide before his friend Polycharmus prevents it. Callirhoe, on the other hand, beseeches Aphrodite and manages to save her child and (most) of her chastity while various men vie for her affection. Callirhoe is, despite her passivity in some cases, is the more active of the pair until the final book, when Chaereas leads the Egyptians to victory in a naval battle against the Persian king. But perhaps the exotic and trying adventures of Callirhoe is better used to provide a backdrop to the barbarian/Greek dichotomy. Barbarians are woman-mad, autocratic, and lacking in the virtues of Greeks. While individual 'barbarians' could be noble or chaste, the experience of Callirhoe with the Persians illustrates otherwise. So, like Heliodorus's tale, the idea of difference animates much of the novel, though Chareas and Callirhoe long to return to their Greek world rather than escape it. 

Leucippe and Clitophon

Leucippe and Clitophon seems to be unique among the extant ancient Greek "novels" for its use of a first-person narrator, who tells his tale to the initial narrator in the beginning of the text. In other respects, it is quite similar to the other Greek romances in that two young people fall in love at first sight but must endure a number of trials before consummating their relationship in proper marriage. The virtue of virginity for maidens and the intervention of the deities (especially Eros, Aphrodite, Artemis and Poseidon) or deus ex machina are, as in Heliodorus's novel, prolific. The author, Achilles Tatius of Alexandria, is believed to have composed the romance in the early 1st century of our era, thus predating Helidorus but drawing on similar precedents from earlier texts and Greek literature and mythology. In addition, Achilles Tatius is a master of vivid prose describing works of art, as well as the wondrous Nile of his Egyptian homeland. 

Though the kissing cousins are of Tyre and Byzantium, it is in Egypt where their most exotic and exciting escapades occur. Menelaus, the Egyptian native and proponent of pederasty (like Clinias, a cousin of Clitophon who loses his lover, Charicles), becomes a guide of sorts, a familiar Other who assists Clitophon, Leucippe, Clinias, and Satyrus for their survival in exotic Egypt. Achilles Tatius has them fend off dark-skinned bandits in the Nile Delta (not as black as Indians, but akin to "half-caste Ethiopians"), witness battles between the Egyptian army and said bandits, experience the lighthouse at Pharos near Alexandria, and hear descriptions of elephants while gazing upon the fauna of the Nile, particularly the crocodile and hippopotamus. In cosmopolitan Alexandria, Clitophon, believing Leucippe dead for the umpteenth time, agrees to marry Melite, a wealthy presumed widow of Ephesus, shifting the story's center away from Egypt for the final denouement and reunion of the the two lovers. 

But let us return to the Egyptian exoticism and African references in the tale. The Nile itself becomes a character, as its waters and the soil of the delta converge and separate, creating the marshes, streams, and lakes of the Delta region. In Tatius's novel, the legendary phoenix, which lives upriver in "Ethiopia," land associated with the Sun, comes to Egypt to die and thus reaffirms the cycle of life from the Nile's origins in the land of the Sun to Egypt. Egypt is a land of wonders (fauna, Alexandria), of horrors (a fake human sacrifice to appease the bandits is organized by Menelaus and Satyrus) and, I would argue, where the debased nature of Thersander of Ephesus is compared to the bestial bandits and conniving characters lusting for Leucippe (Chaereas, Charmides). The Egyptian setting occupies a central middle part of the narrative, after the elopement of Leucippe and Clitophon from Tyre and the subsequent shipwreck, thus, the exotic world(s) of the Nile presents the otherworldly ordeals of the two lovers must persevere against to achieve their union.

The Game-Players of Titan

The Game-Players of Titan is a typical Dickian novel blending suicidal male protagonists with romantic troubles, paranoia, drug-induced hallucinations, unstable realities, psionic powers, alien political factions, and a dystopian, post-apocalyptic (and depopulated) world ruled by players of a board game resembling Monopoly and poker. Needless to say, it is also hilarious because of the petty feuds among the few humans left and their bratty auto-mechanic cars and machines. Despite it's inconclusive ending and rather slow beginning, this novel picks up where amnesia and a few plot twists throw the reader off the edge of their seat. The vug aliens from Titan and the remaining human populations of Terra continue the status quo, although the extremist faction persists, leaving the future of humanity uncertain (despite many expecting birth rates to soar after Peter Garden's team in California defeats the game-players of Titan). Much like his other novels, one may detect here a push for solidarity and cooperative practices for the survival of the species, and it is only after Garden's wife, Carol, becomes pregnant, that he truly pursues a selfless devotion to his group of California Bindmen and the fate of the planet. Thus, far from being one of his better novels, like Galactic Pot-Healer, it's comic nature and consistent ruminations on the meaning of marriage, community, and survival in the worst circumstances provides for interesting reading. 

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

This PKD novel is a tale of Negroes, Jews, Neanderthals, and marital strife in rural Marin County. Like some of Dick's other realist fiction, certain plot points and settings are recycled. Here, for example, the idea of planting a fake artifact over land and community disputes (like in The Penultimate Truth) is used. Furthermore, like The Simulacra, a community of 'chuppers' (or Neanderthal-like people) in Northern California is repeated. However, where this novel gets interesting for fans of PKD are the questions of racism, marriage, and anti-Semitism. Leo Runcible, one of the major characters, and a Jew in a lily-white rural Marin County community, must deal with the anti-Semitic remarks and social discrimination Jews of the time experienced. Moreover, despite serving in World War II, and making a fuss about defending the rights of African-Americans, Runcible begins a conflict with neighbor Walt Dombrosio because the latter invited an African-American mechanic (and friend) into his home when Runcible's friends were visiting (Runcible was hoping to sell a home to his friend and involve him with the future development of Carquinez). Unfortunately, Dick only uses the black mechanic as a prop for understanding the way racial and social prejudices of the time impact the two dysfunctional married couples at the center of the novel. 

Rape, abortion, alcoholism, racism, and the dilemma of loving and understanding another person abound in this novel, particularly with Walt and Sherry Dombrosio. Sherry, the product of an upper-class family, belittles and controls her husband, works outside the home against his permission, and Walt must confront the gender battles of the day, and like everyone else in the community, must confront the larger social totality which defines and limits their actions while trying to find some principles to abide by. Runcible attempts this through the noble effort of purchasing the water company and improving sanitation, and perhaps like the Indian relics they find and the ersatz Neanderthal-like residents of the more recent past, they're trapped with the fundamental uncertainty of the world around them. Will Carquinez experience "development" and invasion of the city? What about the negative impact of capitalist development on the environment, the dying descendants of the oyster farmers? Regardless of how one feels about the battle of capital and labor, simulation and reality, this realist novel is a hilarious account of rural life in Marin County. 

Greene's Orient Express

Although Graham Greene is one of my favorite novelists, Orient Express is so far my least favorite novel of is. As an "entertainment" with a similar title as one of Agatha Christie's classics, I expected something more exciting, granted there are some moments which are written as action film scenes. But I suppose my major problem with the novel is the caricatured main characters and the pervasive anti-Semitism where one is not sure if the author agrees.

The middle-aged lesbian who hates men, the virgin chorus girl, the self-conscious Jew, the thief on the run, and the novelist, Savory, are not as interesting as one would like, in spite of the "exotic" settings on a train bound for Istanbul. However, where the novel does approach the more typical 'Catholic' Greene territory, is in the lapsed Catholic Communist, Dr. Czinner (the name is a clue), who seeks redemption after the failure of an attempted Communist uprising. 

His character and his end, in his search for redemption, bring to mind a point made by a favorite intellectual historian of mine about the similarities between Marxism and Christianity. Furthermore, as Christiopher Hitchens's introduction to the edition I read indicates, Greene was likely drawing on his own sympathies for the Left and Catholicism in the character of Czinner, juxtaposing his fate with the ongoing social inequalities and exploitation of interwar Europe.

In that sense, the train, with its various classed cars and compartments, and the numerous references to the peasants, soldiers, clerks, and porters at the various sites along the way, is a portrait of the world in all its vicious social inequities, the passengers forced to engage with those in a setting in which the class, gender, sexual, and national borders are in flux. As one might expect, it doesn't end well for Czinner, Coral's fate is uncertain, but there are glimpses into which the characters' intersecting lives have unforgettably changed each other.

Swing Time

I thoroughly enjoyed Zadie Smith's Swing Time. It is quite hilarious, bringing to mind White Teeth's multiracial working-class through the unnamed narrator's upbringing, mixed heritage, and close friendship rooted in dance with another brown girl. For the addicting prose, wit, and humor, I struggle to agree with some of the mixed reviews this novel received. However, there was something lacking in the narrative structure, particularly regarding some of the relationships (I'm thinking mainly of the narrator and Fern, the latter's love for the former striking me as unrealistic) and plot arcs that do not pay off or seem plausible. Nonetheless, I love Smith's subtle approach and characteristic wit, which appears to capture brilliantly the paranoid worldview of (some) the working-class, the fundamental dishonesty of the "woke" boyfriend of the narrator in her college years, celebrity culture's pitfalls, and the image of Africa (specifically, Gambia). Smith also playfully confronts the "tragic mulatto" trope, the sordid history of exploitation of black bodies (through dance, music, and other avenues), but never loses sight of the universal and the narrator's struggle to not be alone. Furthermore, this novel fits quite well with Smith's recent essay on appropriation as it deals with dance, race, gender, and famous cases of appropriation in dance history. Overall, a successful and engaging read that is more amusing than NW but less interesting than On Beauty or White Teeth. 

Monkey Hunting

Cristina Garcia's lovely Monkey Hunting tells the story of a Chinese family divided between Cuba and China, the US and Vietnam, in a way no academic text ever could capture. Garcia's fictional account of Chen Pan's family across multiple generations provides a humanising portrait to the rather dry historical accounts of Chinese indentured labor. Intriguingly, Garcia's tale extends this family saga into one of multiple diasporas, connecting Vietnam, rural China, Shanghai, New York, and Havana (as well as Africa, through Chen Pan's Afro-Cuban wife, Lucrecia, and the role of Afro-Cuban spirituality and music). Home and family are, as seen through the contours of this complex family's trials and tribulations, fluid and encompassing in ways that are both illuminating and moving. Chen Pan and his descendants are never free from his shadow, and neither is he ever a distant figure in the lives of his progeny. 

Impressively, Garcia manages to fuse Chinese folklore, literary references, and religion into the Afro-Cuban spiritual worldview quite well, attesting to the importance of Chinese immigrants in Cuban history, culture, and family bloodlines. The political and racial questions are never absent, whether dealing with the 1912 race war in Cuba, discrimination against people of color in New York and troops serving in Vietnam, or the role of the state and politics in sowing division. As one may suspect from Garcia's politics, she is no fan of Castro, and even more critical of Mao and the Cultural Revolution (the life of Cheng Fang, imprisoned for alleged capitalist values), albeit avoiding the capitalism versus communism debates for a more humanistic approach on the ways in which modernity and tradition enclose our worlds.

And Sometimes I Wonder About You

Walter Mosley's Leonid McGill mystery novel is a fast-paced thriller guaranteed to entertain. Action, eros, suspense, and likable usual characters who populate Leonid McGill's adventures pop up here to great effect. There are even references to Black Lives Matter and the killing of Eric Garner. Nonetheless, like the entertaining Rose Gold, I am not sure the plot here was as successful. The recurring theme or organizing structure in this work appears to function in triads along the following lines: generational, romantic, and criminal cases. There are three main criminals, and the most menacing of all is the least convincing and barely a part of the narrative. The three women Leonid involves himself with represent distinct paths: Marella as lust, Aura as love, and Katrina, his wife, as stability. There are three generational dynamics: Leonid's father is trying to become a part of his son's life, Leonid is trying to keep an eye on his favorite son, Twill, and Leonid's father becomes a grandfatherly figure interacting positively with the family. This is fine and dandy, but the plot suffers from not developing what could have potentially become the most interesting villain, Jones. In spite of these quibbles, the novel is a fun read as one comes to expect from Mosley.

Joys of Motherhood

I've been thinking lately about Buchi Emecheta's novel about motherhood, Joys of Motherhood. Though written in the 1970s, it depicts Igbo and Nigerian Lagos society near the end of colonialism, with all the ugliness and beauty of white colonialism, Igbo 'traditional' marriage and gender roles, the relationship of mother and child, and the culmination of a mother's life of living for children and men. At the end of the novel, it is not quite clear if this could be considered "feminist," since Emecheta's narrative voice does not condemn nor romanticize the troubled life of the Igbo mother. Nevertheless, her thoughts on colonialism, racism, and intermarriage between different Nigerian ethnic groups are quite clear, especially when the protagonist's daughter marries a Yoruba or Hausa Muslim. Looking back, it was a interesting look at Igbo society, providing a female-centered perspective one does not see in the work of, say, Chinua Achebe. I cannot help but think of the parallels between Emecheta and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a contemporary Nigerian writer of Igbo descent who also gives the reader a separate view of gender relations among Igbo society and Nigeria overall.

McKay's Home To Harlem and Haiti

Claude McKay c. 1928

I would be lying if I denied that the only reason I read Claude McKay's Home To Harlem is the Haitian character, Raymond. Set in Harlem after WWI, the 1928 novel explores Harlem and black life in the aftermath of the war, focusing on the seedy underworld of urban black life. McKay's short novel includes a Haitian character from an upper-class background as an important foil for the protagonist, Jake, mainly in the second part of the three-part text. Raymond, who has to work on the railroad as a waiter, is only in the US because he was a student at Howard University, but his father was jailed for opposing the US Occupation and his brother was killed for the same reason. Therefore, Ray has to work to save up money for his education as his family lost their income in Haiti. 

When Jake meets Ray, he is exposed to a much larger black world and history, learning for the first time about the Haitian Revolution as a noble event in the course of human history, as well as the importance of sovereign black states, such as Abyssinia and Liberia. This introduction to pan-Africanist discourse via Ray piques Jake's interest, who now wishes he was educated and well-read like his Haitian friend. The reason I see them as counterparts is in how they unite the two strands of black masculinity: refined, educated, and international through Ray and domestic, hardworking, uneducated and 'primitive' Jake. McKay's use of primitivism in this text (which is used most often when describing jazz and blues in the clubs and cabarets of Harlem) should not necessarily be seen in a negative light, for in the text the 'primitive' blues, jazz, dance, drugs, and unmasked passion of black Harlem (and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) is seen as authentic, real, and connecting individuals instead of the cold, distant 'civilization' of whites. Indeed, some of the descriptions used by McKay for the dancing in cabarets and buffet flats sound like Vodou or African ceremonies and rituals, evidence of African retentions and 'spirit' in the African Diaspora.

Perhaps like other intellectuals, McKay's use of the 'primitive' is part of the general response to the destruction of the First World War, when some thinkers began to question European civilization's level of sophistication and looked to the East or South for alternatives to the West. This, I believe, is where Haiti comes in as a symbol for black liberation and an alternative path, albeit one that is not fully explored in the novel. Ray himself, an educated man, also begins to question his Western education, since it makes him a misfit, as well as question why race is thrust upon him and his own self-distancing from African-Americans, who he admits to looking condescendingly upon for being under the white Anglo-Saxon American's yoke. Yet, Haiti at the same time is under US white rule, and Ray's identity crisis leads to some black solidarity across national or cultural barriers. 

To be honest, I was quite disappointed in McKay's Ray, who, as a complex, nuanced being, captures the multiplicity of forms blackness encompasses, but does not outright or directly work against US Occupation. Furthermore, Jake, who begins to see Ray as his best friend during their time together working on the dining car of the trains, never opposes the US Occupation, so politically speaking, the novel lacks the overt tone of black militancy of McKay's famous poem, which, like this novel does on a subtle level, capture the attitude of the New Negro after World War I, a conflict in which blacks from the US were doubly oppressed. In McKay's defense, the novel is centered on Jake and the Harlem world, so one can understand why Ray's crisis, which is certainly aligned with the themes of the novel, is relegated to the background and ultimately resolved by Ray choosing to work on a freighter, escaping the Harlem, Haiti, and living on the seas in search of freedom while still yearning to write. Ray learns to overcome his classism and moral judgment of others, however, as demonstrated by his admiration for the pimp, Jerco. 

Jake, on the other hand, finds the love of his lie and simple, domestic companionship he desires, and decides to leave 'home' away from Harlem, en route to Chicago. Jake, who experienced the docks of Europe, and the white man's savagery committed against blacks and whites in London's East End bars and brothels, knows fully well that violence transcends racial boundaries, and finds himself still searching for 'home' in Harlem only to realize that his 'home' is elsewhere, somewhere he can find the peace Ray desires in his own way, perhaps the very same alternative to Western civilization. Haiti's role as a symbol and object of pan-Africanist concern is clearly important in this context, and plays an important role in how McKay constructs a plausible black world where color, class, nationality, and gender divide Harlem's Black Belt. Like his other work, the militancy also encompasses labor, hinting at McKay's leftist interests at the time,  as well as black progress.

Favorite Quotes

"He preferred white folks' hatred to their friendly contempt." (141)

"But the Congo remained in spite of formidable opposition and foreign exploitation. The Congo was a real throbbing little Africa in New York." (151)

"Jake felt like one passing through a dream, vivid in rich, varied colors. It was revelation beautiful in his mind. That brief account of an island of savage black people, who fought for collective liberty and were struggling to create a culture of their own. A romance of his race, just down there by Panama. How strange!" (201)

"Ray felt that as he was conscious of being black and impotent, so, correspondingly, each marine down in Hayti must be conscious of being white and powerful." (210)

"He remembered when little Hayti was floundering uncontrolled, how proud he was to be the son of a free nation. He used to feel condescendingly sorry for those poor African natives; superior to ten millions of suppressed Yankee "coons." Now he was just one of them and he hated them for being one of them..." (210)

"African hate is deep down and hard to stir up, but there is no hate more realistic when it is stirred up." (221)

Eroshima

"Incredible! The idea for this book came upon me one day, suddenly. An image. This one: a young couple making love in the city of Hiroshima, the morning of the atomic Bomb, in 1945. The Bomb falls at the very instant they attain orgasm. Eros and Hiroshima. Eroshima. Sex and Death. The world's two oldest myths."

Eroshima is one of Dany Laferrière's weaker novels. While hardly a single narrative (the text shifts to different characters, sometimes famous individuals as well as the autobiographical narrator), the themes of sex and death are explored by the black writer who examines Japan, identity, interracial romance, and the constant threat of destruction wrought by the Bomb. Thus, at the most basic or primordial level, the text is about life and death, creation and destruction. Unfortunately, the novel does not really go anywhere as in other Laferrière novels, but I do love the intertextuality, allusions, and influence this work has one future works, especially Dining With the Dictator and I Am a Japanese Writer, which feature lesbianism, Japanese culture and literature, a group of young women, and even some of the same characters. 

Laferrière's sense of humor is engaging and includes fictionalized versions of famous writers, including V.S. Naipaul, visiting Port-au-Prince with the young women who appear in Dining With the Dictator. Haiku, Japanese tea ceremonies and cuisine, and even Basquiat populate this bizarre and seemingly disjointed novel. As in other tales by the author, the city of Montreal (also, New York City) is the main setting of this story in which the fictionalized version of the author comments on race relations and interracial sex, just as in How To Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired. Laferrière's gift for prose also helps carry this novel. Last, but certainly not least, I am impressed by how many objects or persons symbolize the Bomb in this text. It's rich in detail, description, and humor for such a short read. 

Favorite Quotes

"The battle of Zen and Voodoo."

"The first man on the planet was black. The last will be black, too. A Negro in repose."

"The volcanic sexuality of the jungle versus the careful sensuality of Kyoto, Black versus yellow."

"Lennon died so a Negro could make it with a Japanese girl."

"Lao Tsu says that everything comes to he who knows how to stay in bed."

"The fate of Judeo-Christian civilization hangs in the balance, at this very moment, between a black and a Japanese woman born in Los Angeles."

"One of those sunsets whose beauty burns your eyes. A marvel of copper fusion. A show of incredible delicacy created by pollution. There's nothing like smog to create such magnificent sunsets."

"I am interested only in cliches, and the foremost cliche concerning Japan is eroticism."

"The Apocalypse will come, of that there is no doubt, on a magnificent summer's day. The kind of day when the girls are more splendid than ever. It has been said that no one will be recognizable afterwards."

The Enigma of the Return

"Only a journey without a return ticket can save us from family, blood and small-town thinking."

Laferrière's The Enigma of the Return is a mixture of verse and prose on identity and exile for an autobiographical narrator clearly based on Dany himself. After hearing of his father's death, the narrator, Windsor, returns "home" to Haiti and discovers more about himself, his family, and to which 'homeland' he truly belongs. Central to the narrative is one of Aimé Césaire's most important writings, a poem, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, which greatly enhances this novel if one is familiar with it. Indeed, Laferriere seems to reject the "anger" of Césaire's significant text, and waxes poetic on the meaning of being an exile and the role of memory and childhood. Yet, the text contains some moving satire and critical passages on the state of Haiti, one in which the Haitian elite, the legacy of colonialism, and the Duvalier dictatorship share the blame for the sad state of Port-au-Prince and the countryside. 

In addition, there is more Vodou symbolism and metaphorical allusions to Haitian painting and culture in this text, making it, in my opinion, one of the author's best works since An Aroma of Coffee. Laferrière's ability to capture the beauty of the Haitian countryside, the colors, the dusty streets, and retain his passion for his 'homeland' while also being fully of the icy North is quite impressive (hats off to David Homel's translations). Furthermore, this work provides a sort of response to the Dalembert novel I recently read, coming from the Diaspora instead of focusing on those trapped in the island who have to leave to make a life for themselves. The novel asks some of the same questions about the flight of people to the North, whether or not one can stay and make a life by remaining in Haiti, and what it means to be an immigrant, a traveler, and what does home mean (similar to I Am a Japanese Writer, too). 

Favorite Quotes

"In my dream, Cesaire takes my father's place."

"We're stuck in a bad novel ruled by a tropical dictator who keeps ordering the beheading of his subjects."

"Entire populations travel northward in search of life."

"I miss my childhood more intensely than my country."

"For most people the hereafter is the only country they have any hope of visiting."

"If you're not thin when you're twenty in Haiti, it's because you're on the side of power."

"There are so few tourists in this country we should pay them to stay."

"The Tonton Macoutes of my era had to hide behind dark glasses. Serial killers. Papa Doc was the only star."

"Every family has its absent member in the group portrait. Papa Doc introduced exile to the middle class. Before, such a fate was reserved only for a president who fell victim to a pup or one of those rare intellectuals who could also be a man of action."

"Why stay in this mud hole mixed with shit trampled by crowds hemmed in by malarial anopheles when you could lead a dream life?"

"In the international media, Haiti always appears deforested. Yet I see trees everywhere."

"The owners reside in New York, Berlin, Paris, Milan, or even Tokyo. Like in the days of slavery when the real masters of Hispaniola lived in Bordeaux, Nantes La Rochelle, or Paris."

"Kidnapping has become such a lucrative business that the rich weren't going to miss out on the action for long."

"The night before, I drank some fruit juice from a stall along my way, just to prove that I was still a son of the soil. Nationalism can trick my mind, but not my guts."

"I had forgotten about culture in the provinces, so refined and so musty."

I Am a Japanese Writer

"Born in the Caribbean, I automatically became a Caribbean writer. The bookstore, the library, and the university rushed to pin that title on me. Being a writer and a Caribbean doesn't necessarily make me a Caribbean writer. Why do people always want to mix things up?"

Employing poetic minimalism and his characteristic style, Dany Laferriere has written a meta-textual narrative exploring nationalism and identity. The narrator, a fictionalized version of the author, has thought of a brilliant title, the name of the book the reader holds, and sells the idea to a publisher. The rest of the short text (English translation by David Hormel is only 182 pages) consists of loosely connected reflections, interactions, and seemingly 'random' moments in which the narrator becomes a sensation in Japan and sparks controversy over representation, authenticity, and authorial voice. 

Although he knows little of Japan (or Asia, for that manner) beyond a few writers (the poet, Basho, helps structure the narrative through numerous references and as part of an argument for writing as a universal experience), the narrator meets with a Japanese pop-star, is filmed for a short special by a Japanese crew, meets old friends (who tie him to his past, although its intriguing that the Haitian past is less clear to the narrator), and enjoys reading Basho's poetry while sitting in the tub. 

Although Laferriere occasionally describes Japan (and the stereotypes of authenticity we bear) in less than flattering terms, it is clear that the author is making a larger point about writing and national identity. Instead of defining a writer by their place of birth, race, or even the country they reside in, the readers should "repatriate" them as one of their own, see the connections between literature around the world that transcend language, culture, race, and geography. Interestingly, this is quite meaningful in how we often impose a Haitian label on the works of the author when, in reality, identity is far more complex and Laferriere is more than a "black" or "Haitian" writer. Some of these points made by the author echo earlier sentiments from previous novels by Laferriere regarding identity politics, but seem even more relevant in the 21st century given how transnational and interconnected the world has become. 

While reading this short novel, I could not help but think of Ishmael Reed's brilliant satire, Japanese  By Spring, which is significantly different in style, theme, and subject. Both novels employ Japanese cultural allusions, history, and politics for satire and social commentary. Reed, of course, focuses on academia and the 'culture wars' of yesterday, while Laferriere is more experimental here and pushes against nationalism and singular identities imposed on writers. Nonetheless, both embrace a multicultural future where everyone incorporates something into their culture from other parts of the world and authenticity becomes an illusion. 

As with previous works, Laferriere's novel contains numerous literary allusions, uses the idea of film and photography, retains a sense of humor, and recalls Haiti. Midori and her circle of Japanese girlfriends also bring to mind the young women of Dining With the Dictator, which illustrates continuity and universality. Indeed, one of the more stirring passages in the text, working against claims of Haitian exceptionalism, alludes to Vodou and agricultural work songs of the Haitian peasantry to demonstrate how people of the earth are the same everywhere. Haitian Vodou and painting even show up regarding Bjork and an art museum in Montreal, and more specifically in the nostalgic adolescent memories of the narrator's friend, Francois. In spite of the numerous times the narrator refers to Haiti, it nonetheless buttresses the author's claims on how identity is fluid, transnational, or even multicultural, just as Ishmael Reed's Japanese-influenced novel suggests.

Some Favorite Quotations 

"When someone doesn't go back home for so long, origins lose their relevance. What good is coming from a place if you don't even speak the language?"

"When people start conjuring up their origins, I literally find it hard to breathe. We're born in one spot, and afterwards we choose our place of origin."

"That's another thing I detest: authenticity. A real restaurant. Real people. Real things. Real life. Nothing more fake than that. Life itself is a construct."

"It wasn't news to me that literature doesn't count for much in the new world order. Third-world dictators are the only ones who take writers seriously enough to imprison them on a regular basis, or even shoot them."

"I'm almost proud of knowing a Greek who doesn't know who Plato is. Besides, I can't stand all that propaganda about Greek philosophers--give me an enigmatic Japanese poet any time."

"That's what makes people suspicious of interracial romances: they wonder if it's really them or their culture that interests their partner."

Like Water For Chocolate

Although I have owned a physical copy of Esquivel's popular novel for several years, I only recently finished reading the short book. A tale of forbidden love during the Mexican Revolution, the novel abounds in culinary delights that will make the reader hungry for more. Esquivel employs magical realism to enhance the story, but the simplicity of the narrative and the lack of more political commentary makes for an endearing read but lacking in the epic story arc characterizing the families in One Hundred Years of Solitude or House of the Spirits, two stellar novels that also use magical realism. Another weak aspect of the novel is the author's use of racial stereotypes of blacks as having natural rhythm, although the novel subtly criticizes racial and gender injustice.

Heading South

"People are rich because their parents are rich, it's as simple as that. And their parents are rich because their grandparents were rich. And so on. And when you get down to the source of all that richness, you'll always find someone who made their fortune by robbing from the public purse. That's Haiti for you, and its not my job to change the way this country is run."

Heading South resembles Dining With the Dictator in so far that both novels are full of sensual detail, compas bands, and the shadow of Duvalier. What distinguishes Heading South, however, is its exploration of sex tourism in Haiti, focusing on northern women coming to Haiti for sex with younger men (although there is one case of an American male who comes to Haiti for women). Dany Laferrière's novel uses Haitian art, the notion of the romanticized primitive, Vodou, Haitian pride, racial stereotypes, gender dynamics, and the harsh realities of Haitian social structure for satirical humor. Instead of solely condemning sexual tourism, the nuances of the novel illustrate cases of agency in the case of some young men and women, such as Tanya, Fanfan, Charlie and Legba. 

While sex tourism is juxtaposed with foreign penetration and exploitation of Haiti, clearly there are cases of collaboration and examples of social climbing or weakening of the social pyramid as some take advantage of European or North American women for money and access to privilege. The novel's structure better illustrates the varying reasons for why people engage in sex tourism by moving freely between several characters whose lives intersect in Haiti, as well as criticizing the exclusive Bellevue Circle and the local elite who mix with foreigners within it. Overall, a humorous and intriguing novel from an established writer whose novel will make you laugh and cry.

Dining with the Dictator

"Once she said that in this God-forsaken country, there are only zombies and sharks. All the real men are in the cemetery. Her lips draw back in disdain, and she spits on the ground, in the direction of the National Palace."

Dining with the Dictator, the sequel to the excellent An Aroma of Coffee, explores the life of the little boy from Petit-Goave who is now a teenager in Port-au-Prince. Living with his mother and numerous aunts, our narrator is no longer the sickly, innocent boy living with his grandmother. This novel begins within a sort of meta-narrative structure where the author is living in Miami, and while taking a bath, recounts a formative experience from April 1971, when Duvalier died. 

Those searching for more continuity between this novel, translated by David Hormel, and An Aroma of Coffee, will find this tale has numerous literary allusions and quotations of the poetry of Magloire Saint-Aude, which thematically matches plot development over this weekend (structured like scenes in a film). Laferrière's novel also uses the streets, people, smells, rains, bars, and atmosphere of Port-au-Prince to create an additional character. So, those interested in Port-au-Prince in the literary imagination will be pleasantly surprised here, given how well fleshed out Port-au-Prince and its landmarks are in this short novel of an important date in Haitian history.

In addition to the narrator (a fictionalized version of the author himself), we have two "families" that are emblematic of Haiti under Papa Doc. For instance, the narrator's mother and aunt, keep secrets from each other, treat the teenage narrator like a little boy, worship his father (currently in exile), but they display a type of solidarity that Laferrière admires in the women who raised him. In contrast, the teen prostitutes living in the home of Miki across the street call themselves friends, but are constantly fighting, plundering men, as Choupette proudly proclaims. These young women protect the narrator, helping him on his sexual discovery and revealing another aspect of Duvalierist Haiti as the 1960s finally hit the island, to paraphrase Laferrière. 

Given the text's praise for the surrealist nothing is quite as it seems, the lives of these young prostitutes are linked to the explosion of popular music, flashy sharks (the Tonton Macoutes), compas bands, nightlife, and a culture of fear and exploitation that cuts across both ways. The effects of Duvalier and the sharks pulling each other down collectively drags down upon Haitian society in this novel, yet the prostitutes are far from powerless. Indeed, gender relations are more complex than they seem, although violence against women is embedded in this world of sharks and zombies.

Though some may criticize the novel for not dealing enough with the state, or Duvalier himself, it's quite clear through the narrator's nightmarish dream of being tortured in Fort Dimanche, as well as the level of fear and spying going on among the people of Port-au-Prince, that the dictator has an all-seeing eye over the population. Furthermore, the relationship between Magloire Saint-Aude and Duvalier is another dimension of the text, demonstrating how things are never quite what they appear to be, whether that is a troubled, homeless youth leading a sheltered teen into trouble, the erotic escapades of young women searching for a flashy existence, or the absence of politics in the music of leading compas bands, such as Skah Shah.