Le seul passager noir du Titanic, l'Haïtien Joseph L. Laroche

It has only recently come to my attention that there is a biography of the sole black passenger on the Titanic, Joseph Laroche. According to the author, Serge Bilé, Laroche was from Cap-Haitien and studied engineering in France. News to me, Laroche apparently worked on the Paris metro before deciding that, due to racial discrimination, he should return to Haiti. Perhaps it would be difficult to pitch a movie inspired by Laroche's experience as the only black passenger, but a documentary on Laroche's Haitian background would be interesting. 

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is incredibly messy, but also charming and transports the reader back to LA in the late 1930s. The dialogue is snappy, slang-filled, and sharper than a razor. Everyone seems to remember old LA, before it expanded into a big city. And with urban expansion came racketeering during Prohibition, pornography, Hollywood, and violence. Bored young ladies from the upper-class were ensnared by these big city vices, which ultimately brings our protagonist, Marlowe, into play. The film, unfortunately due to censorship, changes the original story in many ways, but sexual tension remains. Humphrey Bogart seems to have been born to play Marlowe, and in many ways is close to the character in Chandler's novel. But, with less of the ambiguity of Sam Spade, Marlowe is a more sympathetic character struggling to serve his clients while staying out of too much trouble. One cannot help but like Marlowe, who has to play in the dirt.

The Maltese Falcon

San Francisco reeks of moral ambiguity in The Maltese Falcon. Samuel Spade is crooked, harsh with ladies, sleeps with his partner's wife, and has no problem breaking or bending the law when it fits him. In this narrative, everyone is double-crossing everyone else in order to find a priceless Maltese falcon that somehow ended up in San Francisco after a heist in Constantinople. However, as a reader raised by Agatha Christie's Poirot, Mosley's Easy Rawlins and, of course, Sherlock Holmes, adjusting to Sam Spade and the morally corrupted detectives like him takes some adjustment. Hammett's writing style could be a bit awkward, too, although it's perfect how he never explains the interior thoughts of the characters, allowing them to keep their secrets until everything comes to a shattering resolution in the final chapter. This novel has everything: suspense, intrigue, femme fatale, San Francisco at dark, conflicts with law enforcement, murder, and a lost treasure. The novel seems to be a commentary on the thin line between the detective and the social forces he, at best, is supposed to allay. But, is someone like Sam Spade truly any better than Gutman, Cairo, Brigid or Thursby? Perhaps he is a necessary evil, since he is ultimately the one who tracks down the murderer of Miles Archer. 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The final entry in the Millennium trilogy is a hot, convoluted mess that somehow succeeds as a fast-paced thriller, despite being the longest of the books. The story continues exactly where the previous novel ended, yet takes the reader on a wild roller coaster ride into Blomkvist and Salander's battle to unveil the Security Police agency which shielded her father from justice and save Salander. Along the way, the novel meanders and deviates while perhaps revealing too early the intricacies of the organization responsible for endeavoring to thwart all plans of Blomkvist and company. Like the preceding book, this one develops the Cold War context and threat of national security surveillance agencies, with clear references to political scandals and assassinations in Swedish history. The centrality of gender-based violence is also key, as well as the abuses in the guardianship system. However, with Blomkvist's close collaboration with a branch of the Swedish government, this time the major question or ethical dilemma for a functioning, social democratic state is the following: who can protect the interests of democracy and to what extent should be they sanctioned to do so? Clearly, the post-Cold War Swedish government is culpable for the injustice and harm done to Salander. But countless others were caught up in the web, thereby forcing the reader to confront the decay both moral and social of the forces allegedly designed to protect Sweden. 

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Played with Fire is less spectacular than than the previous entry in the trilogy, yet a rewarding and captivating read. This book is a sequel of sorts to the previous book's allusions to sex trafficking victims, while also unveiling the background of Lisbeth Salander. Structurally, perhaps the novel could have cut the adventures of Salander in Grenada, and maybe trimmed some of the characters and sub-plots at later points. Nonetheless, the novel 'works' while criticizing the Scandinavian welfare state through its shortcomings on trafficking. In the interest of brevity, the novel also exposes additional abuses of the welfare state when it comes to minors, gender-based violence, and treating marginalized individuals as people. Naturally, Larsson achieves this without a preachy protest novel, and along the way hints at the various flaws of the post-Cold War integration of Eastern Europe, Reagan's invasion of Grenada and the increase in human misery in the Caribbean, as well as the relationship between independent media and the police/state. For example, the link between the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Russian mob-violence and sex trafficking is directly tied to the nefarious Swedish government's use of Soviet defectors and Cold War geopolitics. The consequences of these actions reverberate into the neoliberal post-Soviet order. As you can probably guess, Blomkvist, per usual, proves to be sharper than police investigators as he solves the case while believing in Lisbeth's innocence throughout. And, as in the previous novel, gender-based violence and sexism in various forms is a common theme.

Pierre Toussaint

An interesting talk with a historian on the life and times of Pierre Toussaint.

Isalina, ou une scène créole

Ignace Nau's Isalina, ou Une scène creole is a frustrating story. Written in the 1830s, it's a literary precursor for Innocent's Mimola or the roman paysan of 20th century Haitian indigénisme. Like his brother, Emile, Nau's Romanticism sought local inspiration and a distinctly Haitian literary expression. Naturally, it is not altogether shocking that Nau incorporated Haitian Creole proverbs and references peasant belief, Vodou, and dance. However, the actual narrative structure of the nouvelle was less convincing. Jean-Julien, the rival of Paul for the affection of Isalina, supposedly used Marie Robin to bewitch Isalina. However, Marie Robin does not appear in the novel and it's not clearly established how the sorcery worked. For instance, we know Isalina suffered hallucinations, and her condition is the gossip of the community around Digneron.  But in the case of Mimola, her malady is described in greater detail by Innocent. Innocent's narrative, perhaps because of its longer length, almost made it more plausible.

Nau makes up for this by highlighting Galba, the caplata or papa-loi who helps Paul restore Isalina. In vivid detail, Galba's consultation is described, as well as the importance of a serpent who is like a guardian angel or deity to him (is this a reference to Damballah?). Later, after Isalina recovers, a dance is held on a Sunday, with clear references to Vodou "sects" (Congo, Poulard, l'Arada) and instruments. The tale ends with Isalina and Paul planning to form a plaçage union, which was common at the time among peasants. Furthermore, Paul plans to have Isalina assist him on his own plot of land, instead of working on the Digneron moulin. As a writer from the Haitian upper class, it is interesting to note the lack of any implied judgment for these customs, although at times the narrator adopts a negative outlook with regard to sorcery and ritual beliefs.

One cannot help but wonder what was the larger ideological motivation for this story. Surely, for a Romantic writer to develop a greater interest in the folkloric and popular beliefs, as well as extolling the beauty of the Cul-de-Sac plain, Isalina's significance in the Haitian and Caribbean literary canon can be understood. However, the Naus were also landowners with extensive interests in the Cul-de-Sac plain, sugar, and, one would think, restoring plantation agriculture. The first section of the story dwells intimately on the functioning of the roulaison, the ateliers of workers, their conductors, and the samba singer. There is, despite the mechanized nature of sugar production and the mills, an almost romanticized communal nature of the labor that perhaps met the interests of Nau and his class rather than the workers and peasants of Digneron. Moreover, despite its extensive use of Vodou and rural beliefs and practice, the narrator also refers to the rural police's attempts to suppress Vodou, since Galba has to avoid their surveillance. Undoubtedly, this is a reference to Boyer's anti-sorcery laws and attempts to criminalize Vodou, yet the author seems to possess a kind of ambivalence. Perhaps his Romanticism sought a middleground between the burgeoning Haitian peasantry and the planter class.