Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking!

Rewatching the The Boondocks while rereading the comic strip has reminded us of this hilarious film trailer. The fictional film, Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking! combines some of the best elements of the comic strip's relentless criticism of black movies and TV of the 1990s and early 2000s with the more extreme and uncensored satire of the TV show. One can see how Aaron McGruder was able to show how completely absurd and over the top UPN, BET, and the infamous black movies of the late 1990s and early 2000s really were. 

Satyricon

Since this blog has developed an interest in covering a variety of early prose fiction and "novels" across time and space, the Satyricon of Petronius was destined to receive a post. Unlike The Golden Ass or The Story of Apollonius King of Tyre, what remains of the Satyricon is incomplete, mutilated, and disjointed. Believed to have been possibly 5 times as long as the remaining fragments, the original text must have been a lengthy and episodic series of adventures for Encolpius, Ascyltus, and Giton across the Italian peninsula and the Mediterranean region. From what remains of the text, and J.P. Sullivan's lively translation of its prose and poems, it is a mostly first-person narrative told from the perspective of Encolpius, a former gladiator. His series of adventures include brothels, orgies, a fantastic dinner at the home of a wealthy freedman (which supposedly satirizes Nero, the nouveau riche, and many other aspects of Roman society), shipwreck, and sexual encounters with men and women. Like the later work of Apuleius, this tale features many outcasts, disreputable characters, amorous escapades, allusions to magic, and stories within a story (including a memorable account of a werewolf encounter). Unfortunately, due to the fragmentary nature of it, one cannot help but feel somewhat disappointed with the Satyricon. But due to its endless humor and satirical elements that bring to life Roman civilization of the early empire, it is an unforgettable romp of a civilization already imperiled. 

Les Simulacres

Fernand Hibbert's final novel, Les Simulacres, is a short text satirizing the author's own social class in the context of the US Occupation (1915-1934). Published in 1923, when the author could not have foreseen exactly how the Occupation would conclude, it is often ambivalent about the American presence. This is not an anti-Occupation work like the novels of the 1930s, but more akin to Hibbert's earlier works satirizing the Haitian bourgeoisie for their vanity, corruption, venality, and mismanagement of Haitian political, social, and economic life. As a far shorter text than, say, Les Thazar, and a smaller cast at that, it does not quite succeed in satirizing every social type among the Haitian upper-class, though it does reintroduce past characters such as Brion and Gérard Delhi. Brion, as one would expect from events in Les Thazar, has not married, is perhaps bitter, and seems to be amused by the various foibles of his social class.

By reviving past characters, Hibbert's former mouthpieces from the ancien regime can return as the this tale mocks the foolish and arrogant Hellénus Caton. Caton, a former politician who became wealthy through graft and corruption before the Occupation, is now ardently opposed to the Americans (but only due to their refusal to consider him for the post of president). Being a Simulacre means one who uses "mensonges derrière lesquels les hommes masquent la vérité, ou leur intérêts et leurs appétits." He falls prey to a Cuban swindler who proceeds to conjure a story of occult knowledge and miracles so that he has an excuse to get close to Cephise, Caton's beautiful wife. Needless to say, Pablo Alcantara makes a fool of Caton, having him wait outside in the middle of the night, nude, looking at the moon, while he proceeds to make love to his wife for seven consecutive nights. In short, this is the basic plot of the text, a Cuban foreigner swindling a Haitian bourgeois male of wealth and women. Brion, as perhaps the only redeeming bourgeois, intervenes to ensure a (somewhat) happy ending in which Cephise stays with her husband, but Caton never recovers.

Like Brion in Les Thazar, Caton cannot compete with the foreign male, although in this case Pablo Alcantara is not a successful German but another faker, from a country also under the tutelage of the US. Since Hibbert was the Haitian consul in Cuba, one can presume his use of a Cuban Simulacre is itself part of the text's anti-imperialist critique, as Pablo Alcantara knows very well how Cuba, like Haiti, is a pawn in the US Empire. Hibbert, stationed in Santiago de Cuba, would have known very well the degree to which US influence was paramount in the neighboring Caribbean nation, and may have possessed solidarity for Cubans based on past alliances against imperialism before Cuban independence. Perhaps Hibbert was trying to suggest, much like Naipaul several decades later, how the people of the Caribbean have become mimic men, lacking in proper comportment as befits independent people of independent nations. Pablo Alcantara, much like Caton, is another such case, exploiting the ignorance and credulity of others in much the same way Caton and his ilk have done similar actions in Haiti before the US Occupation. Thus, Pablo Alcantara is an interesting type of foreigner in the works of Hibbert, possibly a callback to the various Caribbean peoples represented on the ship en route to France in Séna. He likewise represents a change in the Haitian elite perception of Cubans as positive immigrants in Haiti, since he does not produce, teach, apprentice, or employ anyone.

As is the case with Les Thazar, most of the plot advances through the dialogue of these aforementioned characters (plus their domestics and a few additional acquaintances). So it is often through their exchanges that much of the novel's humor derives. These conversations entail Cato the Younger, ancient Rome's rise and fall, Creole and French in Haitian literature, the Cuban passion for love and duels, education and literacy campaigns, the motivations of the Occupation (to build a naval base?), the lack of unity among Haitians, and the lack of rain in Port-au-Prince. The novel's final chapter addresses the reader, specifically the Haitian mother, to raise their children to obey and never lie, to produce a better generation of citizens and ensure the survival of the nation. Using Rome, imperial Germany, tsarist Russia, and the "Orient" as examples of what happens when the lack of liberty takes hold and injustice prevails, leading to social decay or ruin, the novel adopts a direct moralizing tone. While this detracts from the bitterly satirical tone of the rest of the text, it makes it clear how the US Occupation, in the eyes of Hibbert, has not uprooted the Simulacres and fakers, and a return to ancien regime ways will lead down a path toward destruction.

Needless to say, Hibbert's account does not include the caco resistance or nascent unrest from the peasantry or lower classes. The Haitian workers in Cuba, with whom Hibbert was fully aware, do not enter into the picture despite Cuban emigration being a key aspect of the US Occupation's influence. A communist revolution or "Grand Soir" of Delhi are only mentioned humorously, suggestive of the venal and ignorant nature of Caton and the fear of popular revolt. So one presumes that Haiti's salvation will be found among the non-Simulacre of the elite. They alone will be able to direct the nation progressively during and after the occupation and ensure a return to full liberty of the press and other rights. They, and only they, can ensure expanded primary education and adult literacy, with the recent example of Lunarchsky in the Soviet Union cited positively. Unsurprisingly, Hibbert's Simulacres is thus a continuation of the same class and gender politics of his early novels, but accompanied by a heightened sense of alarm at the prospects of national survival if the Simulacres are not held at bay after the Americans leave. Unfortunately, the Simulacres never left after 1934...

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. 

Lucian's A True Story

Lucian's famous work excels as satire but underwhelms for those seeking in it an early science fiction story. Openly telling the reader it is nothing but lies, the fictionalized Lucian/narrator lists the various exploits of his crew as they sail beyond the Pillar of Hercules. They encounter fantastic beings, creatures, and places on Earth, the Moon, and the Sun while openly mocking ancient Greek epics, Herodotus, Socrates, Plato, and various Greek writers. It's a lot of fun and a great work of satire. Its irreverence and fantastic beings and adventures has clearly inspired a large number of writers over the centuries, but it is in its extreme tale of interplanetary war between the Sun and the Moon which caught the attention. 

Anyone hoping for a space opera or inter-imperial solar system conflict will be disappointed by the brevity of this conflict in the overall narrative. It is a shame, however. One could imagine a Greek "romance" like that of Achilles Tatius or Helidorus set on the Sun and the Moon, involving a series of adventures and conflicts in the solar system. Maybe a forbidden romance between a man from the Moon and a woman from the Sun, or a sequel telling the tale of the colony they form at the Morning Star. A true space opera from over 1800 years ago would have been something, although the promise of adventure on earth and the unknown continent to the west of the Atlantic are still satisfying in the rest of Lucian's short text. It is an irreverent journey suggestive of how Greek-educated writers learned to apply satire to the epics and philosophy (especially poking fun at Socrates and Pythagoras).

Pym

Quarantine reading for this week included Mat Johnson's hilarious Pym, a satirical work about an African American literature professor denied tenure. He happens to stumble upon a great discovery that turns Edgar Allen Poe's sole novel into a true story involving Dirk Peters and Arthur Pym's adventures in Antarctica and the South Seas. While a familiarity with the Poe source material certainly helps, there is enough material in here for laughs and social commentary to entertain and provoke all readers. From the absurdity of race relations in American academia to the tortured ways African Americans think of themselves in relation to the larger society, there is much to ruminate on here. 

Undoubtedly, the penchant for conspiracy theory among African Americans, the condescension of the "diversity committee," and metaphorical blackness and whiteness in lost beings make for entertaining reading. Particularly so when embedded in an adventure tale with much humor (Garth, for instance, is Chris Jayne's obese friend, obsessed with the Eurocentric paintings of a white artist. Did we mention his cousin, a black militant who named his dog White Folks?).  Structurally, the novel also borrows from Poe to make for entertaining reading with elements of fantasy to terrify and please. Anyone interested in the works of Poe, Lovecraft, Verne, and others likewise inspired by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket could find something likable in this unlikely tale of African Americans in Antarctica. 

Unfortunately, the black Edenic Tsalalians do not receive as much treatment as the "albino snow monkeys" of Antarctica, so those hoping for a black utopian narrative of sorts may be disappointed by the last section of the tale. While I was hoping for a final section in which Chris finds closure of some sort at Tsalal, where the "Negro island" should offer some succor to the weary travelers, there is no easy "out" through a fictional black utopia. Perhaps, in the end, escape to Wakanda or similarly-inspired places will always be illusory when dealing with the real world. Is hip-hop culture any better than white 'cannibalism'? Can blackness exist without whiteness?

Lucian of Samosata's A True Story

Enjoy a short video on an ancient science fiction story. This story has everything, including space travel, extraterrestrials, and wonder. 

Macho Camacho's Beat

Macho Camacho's Beat is a hilarious satirical look at Puerto Rico through the entwined lives of 4 people in San Juan. Their lives are all shaped by a hit song that is constantly on the air, while confronting the social inequality of the 1970s through race, class, gender, and colonial lines. Rabassa's English translation was riveting, yet, the constant puns and post-modern style could be a little tiring at times. However, Macho Camacho's Beat recreates life in the capital quite vividly, bringing to mind the better satire of one of this blogger's favorite authors, Ishmael Reed. This is undeniably hilarious, with tragic undertones for the conditions of women in this Americanized (i.e. cheap) society.

Conjugating Hindi

Ishmael Reed's Conjugating Hindi is a hilarious work of satire clearly modeled on his past novels, particularly Japanese by Spring. A story inspired by Indian-American right-wingers like Dinesh D'Souza and the current political climate under Trump, it involves hysterical xenophobia and racism directed against India and its Diaspora after a politically assertive prime minister, Si, is blamed for a destroyed plane. The self-hating and racist Indian conservative commentator, Shashi, is forced to depend on Peter Bowman, or Boa, during this time until the situation cools down.

Along the way, Ishmael Reed inserts himself into the novel (unafraid to mock himself or the wounds of aging on his body), consistently criticizes gentrification in Oakland and rails against the Far Reich presidency (clearly an allusion to Trump), intersectionality, white feminism, and the racist practices of non-white immigrants who leap to join America's oldest pastime: putting down blacks. Reading this novel as someone who has never visited Oakland, it is apparent how devoted Reed is to the city and preserving its past and unique culture. 

While a thrilling and very concise work of satirical fiction, I was a little disappointed by this recent Red novel. First of all, it reads too much like Ishmael Reed's articles in Counterpunch or his social media accounts. While I usually enjoy those, I was expecting something more subtle instead of many lines that almost read exactly like his nonfiction. Expecting more distance between the author and the work, one nevertheless cannot help but enjoy the way Reed inserts himself into the story as well as a character from Japanese by Spring. 

However, the constant references or parodies of Hamilton and other lines inspired by Reed's earlier essays took away from developing the Si storyline. It never really goes anywhere, despite Si threatening a no fly zone over London and international tensions between the US and India. Moreover, Boa's mother is introduced into the story, but disappears, although I would like to think she may have played a role in the killing of Si. Instead of an off the rails wackiness, we get a wacky narrative featuring Maman Brigitte, racial stereotypes, and a growing awareness on the part of Shashi and Boa to their understandings of India, the US, and solidarity between oppressed peoples.

Of course, Conjugating Hindi is still worth reading. It provides a hilarious satirical perspective on the frightening political climate our of time. Reed's numerous rants, expressed through Boa, deliciously skewer white liberal sensibilities, deconstruct gentrification, critique the out of control costs of living in the Bay Area, and unpack the troubled racial, gender, and cultural dilemmas at play in India, the desi communities of the US and African-Americans. Considering the rise of Trump, resurgent alt-right voices, and the demographic shifts in the US, almost everything in this novel is disturbingly possible and relevant. Plus, it brings a smile to this reader's face to see Reed bring back in a clever yet outrageous manner the neo-Hoodoo/Vodun aesthetic. His illustrations accompanying the novel are also entertaining, provocative, and enhance the trickster aesthetic of the work. 

George Schuyler's Black Empire

George Schuyler's Black Empire, two novels of serial fiction printed together in a single volume, tell the magnificent tale of black unity and genius triumphing against imperialism and white supremacy in the 1930s. Using science fiction elements and the charged context of fascism, communism, and capitalism during that tumultuous decade, Schuyler's fantastic story of Carl Slater's involvement with Dr. Belsidus's Black Internationale is a tour-de-force. Satirizing elements of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, such as Garvey, Schuyler's ruthless Belsidus brings together the best minds of the Negro race to construct new technology, build a Temple of Love religion drawing on Ancient Egypt, conquer Africa, and defeat Europe. Belsidus's 'redemption' of Africa, however, is oppressive as it mercilessly punishes and kills those suspected of betrayal, installs Belsidus as dictator, and even imposes new diets and cultural practices on local African populations. Thus, a form of "authoritarian collectivism," identified by Moses as a pattern in black nationalist politics, appears throughout the text. Surely part of it is justified in this fantastic tale because of the extreme conditions against Belsidus and blacks across the world in the 1930s, but in some sense, Belsidus resembles the Barclay and the Americo-Liberians he overthrows. Viewed in that light, one can see how this novel was clearly influenced by Garvey, as well as possibly influenced Elijah Muhammad and perhaps Sun Ra, not to mention earlier 19th century black nationalists and the redemptionist narrative of Africa within Africana thought. As entertainment, this "hokum" of Schuyler's is irresistibly exciting and one can forgive some of the lapses in chronology or sequence. My only real question is, what was going on in the West Indies? Does the Black Empire of Africa plan on liberating the West Indies and India? Delegates from those parts of the world come to Kakata at the novel's conclusion...

The Free-Lance Pallbearers

Although far from being my favorite of Ishmael Reed's novels, The Free-Lance Pallbearers packs quite a punch. A satirical work on the US and race relations, it's most similar to The Terrible Twos rather than some of his novels that are closer chronologically to this work, though hoodoo's prominence ties it with Reed's neo-Hoodoo aesthetic of his early novels. Considering its publication in the 1960s, the novel is a play on race and the protagonist, Bukka Doopeyduk, transitions from believing in the despotic dictatorship of HARRY Sam to playing a pivotal role in overthrowing it. While reading this, the novel that came to mind was Harry Sonny Ladoo's Yesterdays, which shares an obsession with excrement as symbolic of the society. Anyway, this is not Reed's funniest piece of satire, but important for understanding his development as a novelist willing to take risks. 

Black No More

"Getting the Negro leaders together for any purpose except boasting of each other's accomplishments had previously been impossible."

As a fan of Ishmael Reed's early novels, George Schuyler's Black No More, an excellent piece of satire in a 1930s America where blacks can become white, shows some of the brilliant tradition of satirical fiction by black writers before Reed. Schuyler, who, at the time of Black No More was not a "total" conservative, had spent time with socialists, mainstream black civil rights organizations, and reveals an astute understanding of the racial and class politics of the 1930s. Indeed, much of the novel consists of Schuyler's acerbic one-liners on the ignorance of the white working-class, the vanity of the black misleadership class (including humorous satirical versions of Du Bois, Walter White, and Garvey), the horrid obsession with race and status in a society in which most whites lack the power and privilege of the tiny "pure" Anglo-Saxon elite, and a jolly good science fiction story of how race-obsessed we are. Indeed, the scientist responsible for inventing the process of artificially inducing vitiligo to turn Negroes white, Crookman, is a proud Race Man who believes in the black race's potential, yet has no problem turning the black race white for our benefit...these kinds of contradictions on race, from blacks and whites, are at the heart of this rather hilarious novel, which concludes in a rather intriguing way that reminds one of the "cosmic race" theory of Vasconcelos or Frederick Douglass's belief in amalgamation as the solution to the "Negro problem."

Despite its science fiction premise, as Dr. Buggerie makes clear, quite a few white Americans are tarnished by the taint of Ham and "passing" has been ongoing since 17th century Virginia, but to posit a world in which the vast majority of African-Americans can "pass" into whiteness while tying it together with the general farce of American politics, intellectuals, white supremacist lynch mobs and Knights of Nordica, co-founded by an ex-colored man, labor, and religion was too much. One cannot read this novel without rolling over in laughter. Even if one finds the critique of the NAACP and Garvey too harsh, I suspect black leftists of today will find it resonates with the persistence of race relations administration or management class of African-Americans, and white America's obsession with its darker-hued neighbors. Any fans of Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, Japanese by Spring or Reckless Eyeballing will appreciate this, although Reed, from my memory, is not so scathing on the race men and civil rights leadership class for their arrogance, colorism, and corruption as Schuyler. 

Ishmael Reed Times 3

I have been reading and listening to talks given by Ishmael Reed in the last few days. His radio interviews, readings, essays, fiction, and, now, his poetry, are always worthwhile for critical insight on US politics, race, literature, or history. Here are some of my favorite Reed "reads" and things I enjoyed in the last week or so.

1. I just finished Reed's satirical novel, The Terrible Twos. A masterful (and humorous) take on the 1980s, the rise of evangelicals in political power, Christmas, and Saint Nicholas, few aspects of mass consumerism and greed escape unscathed in Reed's book. Although one finds it challenging the first time around to keep track of the numerous characters who populate the book, there are conspiracies, excellent one-liners, and excessive wackiness to keep the reader entertained and laughing. While not as engaging as Mumbo Jumbo in its conspiracies, allusions, or historical references, The Terrible Twos does foresee some of the huge problems of the Reagan era. A friend of mine recently wrote an excellent short story rich in satire and stylistically reminiscent of Reed, so if they are reading this, I hope they keep working on mastering satire.

2. My second favorite Reed find was an engaging 1976 radio interview with Charles Ruas on Flight to Canada. What ensued was a conversation on Flight to Canada, Lincoln, slavery, Haiti, and Reed's interest in Vodun. Reed mentions traveling to Haiti and visiting the lovely Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince and its exquisite murals in the so-called naive style of Haitian painting. My question: why did Reed shift away from his Vodun interests and symbolism in subsequent fiction? The Hoodoo or neo-Hoodoo aesthetics and influences seem to disappear from Reed's subsequent fiction, but perhaps that's just a sign I need to read his recent novels.

3. The third and most intriguing Reed find was last night, listening to a 2006 reading of his poetry. As someone who usually sticks to novels and short stories, I am unfamiliar with most of Reed's poetry. Clearly, that was a mistake to avoid his poetry because they're actually very informative, entertaining and witty. How could anyone dislike "When I Die I Will Go to Jazz" if you are a jazz fan?

All Men Are Mad

All Men Are Mad, the final of the four novels written by the Marcelin brothers is perhaps the most intriguing. Published in 1970 (and translated by Eva Thoby-Marcelin), the novel explores the effects of the anti-superstition campaign of 1942 on Boischandelle, a small town in the hills of Haiti's West. Highly critical of President Lescot and drawing on historical events, the novel is a searing indictment of religious oppression, as well as the role of the state (and clergy) in abusing religion for political and economic ambitions. With a great sense of humor, the narrator in this novel satirizes every aspect of Haitian society, too, so as to not solely ridicule the Haitian government, the Catholic Church, and the Protestants.

In numerous ways, the three faiths (Protestantism, Vodou, and Catholicism) are demonstrated to have much in common, despite the beliefs of Father Le Bellec and Bienaime, the pastor of the Pentecostalist church, which is one of the ways in which the 'madness' of the anti-superstition campaign is displayed. Turning families against one another, dividing, the community, and receiving government support for violence against Protestants as well as Vodou believers, the anti-superstition campaign is clearly about power and influence, not faith, in this novel. Indeed, several characters suspect the Church pushes for the campaign for subversive goals, and to strengthen their hold of 'Black Brittany' (many of the priests are from Brittany, in France) under the threat of Lescot bringing in Canadian priests. The government of Lescot is suspected of organizing gunfire and attacks in Catholic churches (three in Port-au-Prince, one in Boischandelle) and for orchestrating the "anti-superstition' campaign to further the state's own interest, of weakening the Church and getting the Archbishop to consecrate the National Cathedral and declare Haiti's patron saint Our Lady of Perpetual Help (which, like much of the novel, is historical fact). 

On the local level, different actors, religious leaders, and followers of the lwa have their own various reasons for supporting or resisting the violent campaign, led by the French priest, Father Le Bellec, whose Soldiers of Saint Michael commit numerous acts of violence and destruction against Protestants and Vodouisants. Wrapped up in this larger story arc, numerous jealousies, political power grabs, avarice, and follies of the sexual, linguistic, and religious kinds lead to catastrophic crises in the community. Like the previous novels of the Marcelin brothers, change emanating from Port-au-Prince or outsiders brings about significant change at the provincial level with several problems for the residents.

In addition, a Dominican prostitute, the US Ambassador, allusions to the US Marines from the Occupation, satirical portraits of government officials obsessed with Latin and pretentious dialogue, and last but certainly not least, the intervention of the loas themselves add layers of complexity and context to this relatively short novel. Clearly, the Marcelin brothers, when satirizing the 'madness' or folly of Haiti, are tying this to other parts of the world in equal measure or blame, such as the "superstitious" beliefs of the Catholic priest, Le Bellec, or the convulsions and possessions of the Pentecostalist church, both of which reveal the commonalities both faiths share with each other and Vodou. Instead of finding unity or peaceful coexistence, as the Vodouisant do in finding no problem with serving the loas and God, because the loa are servants of God, 'madness' drives the religious communities apart and into conflict over power, influence, and control, much like the heads of nation-states. The appearance of the loas themselves, most significantly Ogou Ferraille, while possessing the son of the hougan of Bassin-Bleu, challenges this folly most directly, by symbolizing the fluidity of religious identity.

In summation, I recommend this as one of the strongest novels by Pierre Marcelin and Philippe Thoby-Marcelin. The translation retains Creole songs, rich proverbs, and satirizes the numerous cases of madness that drive the community apart. Obsession with status, power, rank, and national image turn Haitians against each other in the most folly of follies, the anti-superstition campaign. The novel's conclusion reveals the ultimate bitter truth, previously explained by Estinval, a houngan who renounces and supports the campaign, who explains the conflict as a battle of father and mother, which will end soon in a reconciliation of sorts. This is exactly how the novel concludes, with the intrigue over and the President coming out of the situation more pompous and proud of himself than ever, having won for Haiti a patron saint to improve the nation's image and that of his own regime. The multiple levels of 'madness' at the local and national level, from the Justice of the Peace's incomprehensible use of Latin (which inhibits communication) to the misguided and immoral camapgisn against Vodou, exemplify the dichotomies of Haitian society, which, as Marlene Daut and Karen Richman argue, are universal problems beyond the Caribbean.

Favorite Quotes

"Macdonald Origene could boast all he wanted that he was a Cartesian, he kept on being impressed by the surprising cures the houngan effected" (28).

"Still, he meant no harm, and the fact is that color prejudice has so permeated the language of white people, bringing into it over the centuries, together with the confused notions of race, civilization, "primitiveness," a whole system of cliches and expressions unfavorable to the black man, that it would not be fair to accuse Father Le Bellec of racism" (96).

"Haiti is a land fertile in myths; it produces new ones every blessed day. And the credulity of the peasants, like that of the Breton priests, is infinite" (168).

The Sirens of Titan

"If the questions don't make sense, neither will the answers."

Vonneget's The Sirens of Titan is the first Vonnegut novel I ever read. I read it for a high school science fiction course several years ago and, at the time, did not care for Vonnegut. I was perhaps too young and put off by the dense, philosophical debates contained in the novel. All I recall from the high school period was the plot and how confused this novel left me. It was also my first and only Vonnegut novel until last month, so I was unaccustomed and unfamiliar with Vonnegut's style, humor, and themes.

Now, after returning to The Sirens of Titan multiple years later, I have a greater appreciation for this novel, which is far more entrenched in the genre of science fiction than other works of Vonnegut. Vonnegut manages to comment on human existence, the purpose of said existence, religion, science, free will, family, and war. These aforementioned themes appear in several of Vonnegut's works. War, for example, in the inevitably doomed Martian invasion plotted by Rumfoord, was ultimately planned at great profits and sacrifice to bring about a "Brotherhood of Man." Organized religion, military conflict, exploitation of others, our favorite aliens (Tralfamadorians, machines from another galaxy), and just about anything you might expect Vonnegut to satirize humorously happens here.

Ultimately, my take on the novel is one of a compatibilist understanding of human existence and the purpose of life. There is more than one purpose of life hinted at by the text, and even when one accepts the proposition that all of human history on Earth has been orchestrated by Tralfamadorians and, more recently, Winston Niles Rumfoord (himself also a 'tool' being used by somebody), there is still highly personalized ways in which humans carry out their 'fate.' There seems to be a willingness on the part of Vonnegut to allow for more than one meaning of life, and even the Tralfamadorian machines were created by someone else, and, in the case of Salo, achieve human-like qualities of a highly personalized way of completing their destiny. Perhaps that is the arguably the main thrust of the work, that there may be some sort of God or Creator, someone who likes us above, but we still have agency in this world, regardless of the various religions we create to explain the why of our existence.

Below are some of my favorite quotations from the text, particularly those pertaining to the purpose of life.

"The moral: Money, position, health, handsomeness, and talent aren't everything."

"All persons, places, and events in this book are real. Certain speeches and thoughts are necessarily constructions by the author. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, since God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine."

"These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth--a nightmare of meaningless without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death."

"If Rumfoord accused the Martians of breeding people as though people were no better than farm animals, he was accusing the Martians of doing no more than his own class had done. The strength of his class depended to some extent on sound money management--but depended to a much larger extent on marriages based cynically on the sorts of children likely to be produced."

"At the hospital they had said the most important rule of all was this one: Always obey a direct order without a moment's hesitation."

"When I ran my space ship into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, it came to me in a flash that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been."

"It was literature in its finest sense, since it made Unk courageous, watchful, and secretly free. It had made him his own hero in very trying times."

"His ship was powered, and the Martian war effort was powered, by a phenomenon known as UWTB, or the Universal Will to Become. UWTB is what makes universes out of nothingness,--that makes nothingness insist on becoming somethingness."

"But Boaz had decided that he needed a buddy far more than he needed a means of making people do exactly what he wanted them to do. During the night, he had become very unsure of what he wanted people to do, anyway."

"I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all."

"The concessionaires knew all to well about Rumfoord's penchant for realism. When Rumfoord staged a passion play,  he used nothing but real people in real hells.

"As a machine, he had to do what he was supposed to do."

"The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody," she said, "would be to not be used for anything by anybody."

 "It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

Haiti in Cat's Cradle

"Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea of what's really going on."

Kurt Vonnegut's Cat Cradle is one of his satirical novels partly influenced by Haiti. Set in the fictional Caribbean republic of San Lorenzo, the island's dictator is "Papa" Monzano (named after Papa Doc Duvalier). "Papa" Monzano lives in castle built by an ex-slave emperor, Tum-bumwa, and the castle has never been attacked, much like Haiti's illustrious Citadel. In addition, the impoverished island where natives speak an English dialect has been the target of various Western powers. Vonnegut even satirizes the US businessmen Crosby whose reason for visiting San Lorenzo is to start a bike manufacturing factory, similar to foreign corporations who go to Haiti as a source of cheap labor. "Papa" Monzano is staunchly anti-Communist, and San Lorenzo even declared war against the Axis powers during WWII, again, like Haiti. Of course, San Lorenzo is perhaps better understood as a conglomeration of the entire Caribbean, but the Haitian influence is perhaps strongest.

"Papa" Monzano, the sickly dictator who, despite publicly criminalizing Bokononism, practices it, has adopted the daughter of a Finnish architect, Mona, the beautiful mulatto. Mona, revered by the people of the island and renowned for her alluring looks, can be seen as an Erzulie symbol of feminine spirituality's highest form who, as she tells the narrator, John, loves everyone in the Bokononist sense of boka-maru. Though Bokonon's religion is, according to himself, lies, one sees in how Mona relates to nearly everyone a genuine sense of love, perhaps inculcated during her youth when Bokonon tutored her and Castle's son.

This Caribbean island's propagator of myth, Bokonon, an old Negro from Tobago, who lives in the jungle, gave meaning to the people of San Lorenzo through religious lies while his friend, McCabe, ruled as a despot organizing the people against Bokonon. Oddly, everyone in the island is a Bokononist, driving the conflict in the novel and the absurdity of religion and science. Instead of finding a way to preach the 'truth' and uplift the impoverished people of San Lorenzo, preaching lies (fomas) through Bokononism has given an epic meaning to the lives of the people. Similarly, science also plays a similar role as "magic" that can also mislead and destroy, as one can see in Felix Hoenikker and his children's use of ice-nine (or the atomic bomb, which Felix helped develop). Human nature, faith, and science are all at fault here in this apolcalyptic world created during the height of the Cold War.

To a certain extent, the religion founded by Bokonon is loosely based on Vodou in Haiti (a stigmatized religion that, at times, was illegal). Of course, Haiti under Duvalier did not penalize practicing Vodou nor did it adopt the anti-Vodou rhetoric employed by "Papa" Monzano. This is about where comparisons between Vodou and Bokononism should end, unless one wishes to comment on religion generally. The Christian priest, Humana, also offers an interesting creolized take on Christianity that is reminiscent of Haitian Vodou, but rejected during the death rites of "Papa" Monzano.

Besides appearing as an important influence in Vonnegut's idea of the apocalypse and end of humanity (which makes sense, for what other region of the world has witnessed so much tragedy and terror as the Caribbean, the first site of genocide in the Americas?), Haiti and the Caribbean as a whole are forerunners in the creation of modernity, where the excesses of capitalism, religion, and science have fueled human suffering on a grand scale.

Deadeye Dick

"Bernard Ketchum, our resident shyster here at the Grand Hotel Oloffson, says that Haitian refugees should follow the precedent set by white people, and simply discover Florida or Virginia or Massachusetts or whatever. They could come ashore, and start converting people to voodooism."

Kurt Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick is an enjoyable satire in which Rudy Waltz and his world in Midland City, Ohio  also includes numerous references to the Cold War, social norms, gender, family, art, and Haiti. In fact, there is a great book review by a Haitianist here. Haitian Vodou, the Hotel Oloffson, and the use of Haiti as a symbol for New York but also as an alternative to Europe and the US figures prominently here. Similarly, the influence of African-Americans is omnipresent in this small Ohio city (segregated, racist, and all the Waltz family servants are black), as well as the source of the 'peephole' analogy for existence Rudy picks up from an African-American woman incarcerated for attacking a racist white man. 

I think Haiti's significance and deeper symbolic meaning beyond standing for New York City is also present in what, at times, read as a critique against American civilization. So, although the novel certainly takes up the notion that life is meaningless, the novel's use of Haiti and the present tense in the Creole (Vonnegut bends truth and fiction in various ways for this novel, and one case involved a claim that Haitian Creole only uses the present tense) suggests that very point, that past and future are tied to the present in the sense of a meaningless existence, but also critical of US hegemony and the violence of whites. Thus, on the issue of race, Vonnegut's progressive views satirize Nazi racial theories, white supremacy, and even play on the farmers's conspiracy theory regarding the neutron bomb as being a plot by the Ku Klux Klan to restore slavery!

All in all, a very interesting and engaging read. Haitian 'voodooism,' conjuring up the ghost of Fairchild, wealthy heiresses, the death of small towns in America, etc. are all part of this exceedingly strange novel that, though haunting at times, is humorous. I intend to read Cat's Cradle tomorrow, which also contains clear evidence of Haitian influences in the Caribbean San Lorenzo headed by a President named "Papa" and the Bokonism which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Haitian boko.