La Charca

Although the translation of La Charca has its problems, it's a wonderful way to learn about rural Puerto Rico in the 19th century through literature. The peasantry depicted in this highland barrio are depicted as sick beings under colonial society. However, author Manuel Zeno Gandia included the landowner elites as part of the problem of this stunted, ailing society. Blackness is largely omitted here, although the racially mixed campesinos, presented as descendants of the indigenous population and European conquerors, are the racialized others who are compared to black slaves.  In many respects, this novel brings to mind Salvador Brau's writings about the mixed-race peasantry of Puerto Rico and their indolence inherited through indigenous forebears. And though the novel's critical of the Spanish colonial period, it's also critical of greed and unbridled capitalism, represented by Andujar and Galante. 

However, for this blogger, this tragic novel, in which Silvina appears to be an allegory for the island of Puerto Rico, beaten, abused, violated and manipulated by others, brought to mind Zoune in Justin Lhérisson's novel. Like Silvina, her peasant upbringing was one of abuse, illness, and ignorance, but Haitian writers, for the most part, were less likely to invest themselves in racial theories of degeneration to explain the appalling conditions in which post-emancipation Caribbean peasants often faced. But the narrator of Lhérisson's novel, when commenting on the improvements in the physical, mental, and social development of Zoune after living in a proper home, suggests optimism. In the case of La Charca, Juan, Padre Esteban, and the town doctor debate different solutions for the Puerto Rican peasant "problem," never coming to an agreement on if the solution will be found in "public" wealth, religion, or physical health and nourishment. Needless to say, hacendados like Juan are part of the problem, despite their self-proclaimed liberalism. 

Yet, despite the pessimism and theories of racial miscegenation operating in the novel, one cannot help but feel that there is some hope of change for Puerto Rico, even as the rising world of business and profit did proceed to further immiserate the Puerto Rican countryside. Moreover, as part of realist and naturalist literature, the novel is a priceless document of the daily lives, customs, entertainment, and conflicts of the campesinos in Puerto Rico's highlands. This author couldn't help but think of Bonó's El montero, which is set in a rural Dominican peasant setting, although the influence of Romanticism is stronger. The florid prose vividly brings to life Puerto Rico's beauty in the midst of its anemic, diseased coffee world.

Rubén

One of the earliest examples of recorded merengue from the Dominican Republic, "Rubén" does sound like it is influenced by danzón. A chapter in Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean suggests that modern Dominican merengue as we known it was influenced by the danzón-like music of the same name in 19th century Puerto Rico and Cuba but gradually adopted new rhythmic, lyrical, and aesthetic features in the Cibao region. Thus, the merengue as we know it was born in the late 19th century. This recording, which features some merengue-like features, also points do the earlier influence of creolized contradance. In that regard, it almost kinda sounds like Haitian méringue.

Invocation

A beautiful performance of Occide Jeanty's Invocation at the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. The complexity and diversity of compositions by Occide Jeanty is impressive, but I still haven't heard enough of his music to properly now it. Through his tenure at the Musique du Palais, Haitian music owes much to Jeanty. 

Popo and Fifina

Popo and Fifina is an endearing story of a lower-class Haitian family moving from the countryside to the city of Cap-Haitien. The titular characters, Popo and Fifina, are two siblings who experience the move in lyrical prose and unadorned respect for the lifestyle of those Haitians without shoes. Partly inspired by the three month stay of Langston Hughes in Cap-Haitien, this is a very realistic account of a family in the city sometime during the US Occupation (1915-1934). The woodworking, colors and games of the city, the lives of fisherman, and last, but certainly not least, allusions to Haitian popular culture are rooted in reality. There's even a scene featuring music and laughter in the countryside (amba tonnel) where the extended family of Mamma Anna lives.

Since the short novel is directed toward children, there is little overt references to politics or opposition to the US Marines. However, one amusing instance in the tale features a kite symbolizing the USSR defeating a kite with a hawk (presumably representing the US), which clearly reflects the leftist sympathies of Hughes rather than Bontemps. Bontemps, like Hughes, also praised the cultural practices and lives of the black masses, a shared interest that permeates this book. Moreover, the text subtly alludes to Haitian popular culture and religion in a way that validates the lives of these hard-working peasants and urban working-class Haitians.

This no doubt reflects the observations of Hughes during his time in Haiti, one where Hughes saw the racist boot of US Occupation stomping on Haitian sovereignty, but also the classist world wrought by the "mulatto" elite against the interests of the black-skinned majority of Haitians. In my opinion, Hughes exaggerated the importance of color in explaining class difference, yet Popo and Fifina largely ignores class (except for occasional references to the homes of the well-to-do, who can afford lavish designs on furniture, running water, and shoes) or allusions to the US Marines except for the private beach they use. 

Caravan Rara

Jazz standard "Caravan" receives the rara treatment in this delectable number from Mozayik. The use of rara rhythms is seamless and commendable. Unfortunately, the rara section only persists for a little over a minute, it shows the potential for Haitian rara/jazz fusion music, particularly as an uncommon form of "Latin" jazz. Perhaps the two share similar stylistic origins in the street music of New Orleans and Haiti?

La Délaissée et ses soupirs

Haitian students from a Cap-Haitien school of music performing a composition by Occide Jeanty, La Délaissée et ses soupirs. Due to Occide Jeanty's significance in the larger history of Haitian music, it's a shame more of his works are not available online, particularly the méringue.

Justin Elie and Ludovic Lamothe

Thanks to the wonders of archive.org, Justin Elie's Vodoo Scenes (Priestess Dance) (Scenes Vaudouesques) can be heard from a 1928 recording. It is the earliest recorded song I have heard that is, allegedly, based on Vodou music. I am not sure who were the members of this "Haytian Orchestra" which recorded the piece, conducted by Eile, but it is interesting to hear more recordings of Elie's compositions. Like Largey has suggested, Elie's music does seem to invoke the "Amerindian" past of Haiti more so than "Vodou" directly. Other recordings from the 1920s can be found of Elie's Danse Tropicale No. 4 and two compositions by Ludovic Lamothe, Vacances and Valse aux etoiles. Vacances seems to me the most successful, although Valse aux etoiles has an elegant charm. Elie's tropical dance composition also sounds like a meringue, but of course of the salon type.

Jazz

Jazz

Le trombone vient d'Honolulu,

De la Barbade, le saxophone,

Et le grand mulâtre au nez poilu

Qui grimace une chanson bouffonne,

Un soir, s'est enfui de Port-de-Paix.

"Mais avec qui des trois, se demande,

(Tous les trois ont de crépus toupets!)

Se demande la putaine flamande,

Avec qui passerai-je ma nuit,

Pour n'avoir pas une nuit d'ennui"?

Jazz Numero 2

Toque marron, gourmette en or à la cheville,

Tu disculpes l'amour où ton cœur s'ennuyait.

Et, comme au bout d'un vers trop fait, quelque cheville

Orgueilleuse, un rubis rutile à ton poignet.

Au cendrier, ton Abdulah s'épuise, Hortense,

Bleuissant de parfum ton rêve, ou ton ennui.

Et le nègre du Jazz décuple d'importance

Quand jusqu'à lui, tes yeux élargissent leur nuit.

Son rire alors, bordé de sang, fendu de nacre,

Vous griffe l'air qu'il hurle, en le scandant des reins.

Sanglots gluants du saxophone... Fumée âcre...

Et meurt le blues, parmi des lambeaux de refrains.

The above poems, from Leon Laleau's Musique nègre, published in 1931, provide an interesting example of jazz's influence on Haitian poetry at the time. An English translation of the first poem can be found here.

Ayizan

Ayizan is one of the more interesting Haitian musical groups I never heard of until quite recently. Led by Alix Pascal and other Haitian musicians in New York during the 1980s, Ayizan fused elements of jazz with Haitian rasin elements from rara and folkloric music. Pascal was also one of the forces that pushed for more jazz influences on Ibo Combo, which suggests he was a force for a stronger jazz influence on Haitian music since the 1960s.

St. Louis Blues/El Manisero

The Orquest Hermanos Castro jazz band, which would persist as a group until 1960, also recorded one of the earliest forms of "Latin" jazz. They managed to almost seamlessly fuse "St. Louis Blues" with "El Manisero," although still not quite as successfully as efforts of the 1940s. Nevertheless, this 1931 recording may be a good indication of how early Cuban jazz bands sounded. Leonardo Acosta's history of Cuban jazz indicates that many of the groups formed in the 1920s imitated the "society" music of Paul Whiteman and other white jazz groups. This is definitely true, but the 1930s ushered in some interesting developments in Cuban jazz. 

Josephine Premice

Josephine Premice, whose music was never to my taste, sings "Choucoune" quite uniquely here. I assume the musicians accompanying her were trying to turn it more into a calypso, but it works well. However, what artists like Josephine Premice reveal is the deeper history of Haitians in New York City. Her father, Lucas, must have been part of the small wave of Haitians who came to NYC in the 1920s and 1930s, like Henri Rosemond (or, perhaps, Ray, of Claude McKay's Home to Harlem). Like Rosemond, he was also involved with labor organizers, the Left, and Haitian resistance to the US Occupation (via Union Patriotique). Her father's home in Brooklyn was a center for Haitians in the city, and he even knew Jacques Roumain. Like Premice, Andrew Cyrille was also born in New York to Haitian parents before the vast waves of immigrants from the island came. Putting together the story of the Haitians in NYC before the 1960s would be an interesting project. 

Noche Cubana

Came across this beautiful song through Leonardo Acosta's history of jazz in Cuba. It appears to be one of the standards of the 'feeling' movement in Cuban music. While not strictly jazz, Acosta explains in detail how many proponents of it were influenced by jazz, African-American musicians, etc.

La Patti Negra

Pablo Valenzuela's danzon orchestra quotes part of the theme from "Under the Bamboo Tree," a popular American tune composed by Bob Cole and J. Rosamund Johnson. Some interesting arguments have been made about the relationship between Cuban danzon and early jazz. Because danzon was recorded before jazz, it is interesting to note that Cuban bands were clearly familiar with US music. 

Elvira

Elvira is one of the few songs in Haiti that I can recall using that typical carabine rhythm and melody found in many Dominican songs using the carabine. Supposedly derived from a Haitian form of contredanse from the early 1800s, it returned to Haiti in Etoile du Soir's "Elvira." It also surfaces in Congolese guitar merengue (Dr. Nico). 

Nord Alexis: Political Song

Here is an interesting recording of a political praise song from early 20th century Haiti. In praise of President Nord Alexis, it possesses that unmistakable Haitian rhythm. Although recorded by Harold Courlander several decades after the Alexis presidency, it might be a good indication of how popular music in Haiti at the time sounded. Since this rendition, lacks a band or orchestral accompaniment, it might be useful to imagine this accompanied by a military band. The liner notes certainly indicate that. 

Diane

One of the more interesting and random recordings of Sidney Bechet from the late 1930s, this rendition of a Haitian meringue classic, "Diane." It indicates that Bechet and his fellow African-American musicians (Willie the Lion Smith, etc.) were cognizant of Haitian music and must have either heard performances of Haitian music or perhaps had access to sheet music. "Diane" was composed by a leader of the Musique du Palais, Luc Jean-Baptiste, and this may be the earliest recording of the song. It could very well be the case that Haitian musicians in Europe introduced pieces like "Diane" to African American musicians. For instance, Bertin Salnave did claim to have met Bechet. Unfortunately for jazz lovers, Bechet did not improvise on his Haitian recordings, but they're useful testaments to how Haitian popular music of the 1930s may have sounded. Besides this, there's a few recordings of Francois Alexis Guignard's group and the Lomax recordings of urban bands. Indeed, some of the Haitian songs recorded by Bechet and company sound a bit like Surprise Jazz.

Titoro

Billy Taylor, one of the most important post-swing jazz musicians who shaped the development of Haitian music in the 1950s, wrote "Titoro" for Haitian drummer Ti Roro. The song's melody almost sounds like a certain famous bossa nova tune, but it predates the song by a few years. While not using the tanbou or anything like that, Ed Thigpen manages to make the drumset come alive like Ti Roro. It almost sounds like hand percussion with the shifting tonality of Ti Roro. Clearly, Max Roach was not the only jazz musician who was influenced by the legendary Haitian drummer. Tito Puente also recorded the song, if you want to hear another version. 

Douze-et-Demi

Eructation pénible

du saxophone

qui crache

dans le soir lourd

des notes discordantes.

Dans la salle basse,

où flotte,

dense, 

un parfum de luxure

les couples

se trémoussant

au rhythme de la méringue

exhalent l'âcre odeur

de bêtes en rut. 

Et dans le coin ombreux

qu'illumine

son sourire de noire, 

je tâche d'étouffer

le spleen

que me tue.

The above poem, by Daniel Heurtelou, was published in La Revue Indigène. Unsurprisingly, the indigenist publication welcomed contributions such as the above, which immersed themselves in the folkloric and cultural practices of the masses. It is also a priceless account of the douze et demi balls popular among the working-class quarters of Port-au-Prince since the late 19th century. In J. Michael Dash's Literature and Ideology in Haiti, 1915–1961, he translates a section of the poem and highlights the eroticism and debauchery of it. The nightclub scene, melancholy, and undeniable sexual character of the the scene exemplify this. However, the poem is also a useful description, from a presumably bourgeois poet's perspective, of popular urban music of the 1920s. The use of saxophone, references to the meringue, discordant notes, and heavy odor of the venue are striking visual cues to the douze et demi balls of the era. 

According to Georges Corvington, the douze et demi balls arose in the second half of the 19th century. Because the cost of admission was douze et demi, they received said name. The earliest ones mentioned began with Carnival bandleaders who formed more permanent groups that performed regularly on Saturday evenings in Bel-Air and other neighborhoods. Corvington identified one of these pioneer Carnival bandleaders as Destiné of Bel-Air. In the 19th century, the previous instrumentation of these bands usually contained violin, clarinet, tambourines, and triangle. Presumably, other instruments associated with Carnival bands or parades could also be heard, such as banjo, guitar, mandolin, accordion, or  The favored dance was the "bambocha," noted by Corvington to be a relation to the meringue. However, since Carnival music in Bel-Air and other non-elite areas of the city were more likely to incorporate African traditions and elements of Haitian music, it is probable that these douze et demi orchestras did, at first glance, come across as "rough" or "discordant" compared to the elite balls, salons, and masquerades. 

Daniel Heurtelou

Intriguingly, Heurtelou's poem indicates the use of saxophone in these bands by the 1920s, although they were still performing meringues (perhaps more akin to the koudyay Carnival styles). New instruments that were also used in bands performing Cuban music or American jazz may even indicate the intrusion of said styles in the douze et demi bands. With the growth of Port-au-Prince during this time of US Occupation and further centralization, packed dancehalls providing entertainment for the urban lower classes would have been necessary. Furthermore, Haitian poets making literary use of this development perhaps mirrors that of African American poetic incorporation of blues and jazz elements. This cheap entertainment's appeal to hide or assuage the melancholy of the narrator may speak to his alienation under US Occupation, or, perhaps, the effects of US capitalist penetration into Haitian society. In short, much could be made of the use of free verse, the origins of the narrator's melancholy, and transformations in urban music during this era. 

Bertin Depestre Salnave

Salnave

Bertin Depestre Salnave deserves our attention as one of the Haitians involved with the evolution of jazz music. Unfortunately, finding information about his life and work can be difficult. Most information about his career in Europe refer to an interview published in a 1978 issue of Storyville, a jazz publication. Salnave discusses his musical origins in Haiti through influences from a musician uncle and Occide Jeanty, the illustrious director of the Musique du Palais. Then, in 1913, he went to France, where he studied classical music before joining a variety of bands and orchestras in the 1910s and 1920s. Indeed, the French and European music scene included a plethora of forms of music, so Salnave was exposed to Antillean, tango (he claimed to have performed with Tano Genaro's band), "syncopated" music from the US, and Western classical genres.

Florius Notte and His Creole Band Jazz de la Coupole included at least 2 Haitians in its early formation, Salnave and Emile Chancy. Chancy is presumably the same Chancy who launched his own band in Haiti, Jazz Chancy, one of the groups playing jazz-influenced music near the end of the US Occupation.

Salnave also joined Will Marion Cook's group in England, where he met a number of African American, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean musicians, such as Sidney Bechet. Like Jim Reese Europe, the Southern Syncopated Orchestra was a sort of transitional band that linked early jazz with ragtime and other forms of American popular music of the era. According to the Storyville piece, by the 1920s, Salnave was playing "jazz" proper with American musicians like Crickett Smith, a trumpeter. In addition, Salnave played saxophone in the band of Arthur Briggs, although he may have left the group before they were recorded. Nonetheless, he participated in a number of black American groups in Europe who were pivotal in exporting jazz. This meant Haitian and other Caribbean musicians were able to learn techniques, methods of playing, and stylistic conventions of African American musicians, which they later brought back to the Caribbean. 

Salnave with Arthur Briggs' Savoy's Syncopators Orchesta ca. 1924.

By the time he formed his own group, Emile Chancy, Jeff Sevestre, Firmin, and Florius Notte were members. Jeff Sevestre, possibly Geffrard Cesvet, may have become a bandleader in Haiti after returning from France. Undoubtedly, Salnave's band played a pivotal role in the transmission of jazz music to Haiti through musicians returning from France after performing with European, African American, Latin, and Antillean groups. These musicians, plus the presence of US Marines and their radio station, inundated the country with foxtrots, blues, tango, and Cuban music. According to Averill's study on Haitian popular music, the radio established by the US Marines was not accessible to the majority of Port-au-Prince, but concert programs for broadcasts in Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste indicate many bands that performed a repertoire of Cuban, American, and Haitian meringue tunes. Many of these bands also performed in clubs, bars, and public events, such as the Musique du Palais (directed by Occide Jeanty, then Luc Jean-Baptiste). Thus, the impact of jazz on Haitian dance music was shaped not only by the forces of US Occupation and its cultural impact, but Haitian musicians themselves who incorporated it into their local repertoire. 

1927 recording of "Mean Dog Blues" by the group of Arthur Briggs. Salnave is not featured, but this may be an indication of how the band sounded in 1924, when he was a member.

Lamentably, what became of Salnave after his return to Haiti is difficult to deduce. The Storyville article indicates his career as a jazzman ended when he returned to the island. But, in light of others affiliated with him who appear to have continued their music careers in Haitian dance bands, perhaps Salnave gave lessons or performed with local bands. Perhaps Haitians like himself may have refined some of the jazz influences with local groups who, since the late 1920s, included standards of that era in their performances. Some of the elements of jazz he claimed to have learned in Europe, such as call and response, going without written arrangements and saxophone improvisation may have been in-demand skills for their novelty and authenticity. In terms of recordings, "Brown Love," from 1933, features some of these techniques. Salnave plays in the "hot" style with fellow Haitian, Emile Chancy,, and the record features some intriguing but too brief soloing. The interesting thing to uncover here would be if the local jazz bands that formed by the late 1920s in Port-au-Prince were playing in a similar manner to Salnave's group in France. However, until someone uncovers any possible recordings of Jazz Scott, Jazz Chancy, or Orchestre Pantal Jazz, all we have to go on are 1930s recordings of a few Haitian dance bands from Alan Lomax. 

Tell My Horse

Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse is an interesting anthropological and religious study of Jamaican and Haitian cultures. Traveling in Jamaica and Haiti during the 1930s, Hurston's personal account reads like a travelogue and fascinating portrait of peasant cultures, religious traditions, and political conditions. Interesting sidenote, Alan Lomax was in Haiti making field recordings of Haitian music and actually recorded Zora Neale Hurston singing folk songs. Anywho, most of the book is centered on her descriptions of life, politics and religion in Haiti rather than Jamaica. Her time in Jamaica, however, does provide insight on race relations (black and mulatto divide in Jamaica exists just like in Haiti), belief in duppies in Jamaican culture, and traditions of Maroons in Accompong, including a dangerous hunt of a giant boar and the feasting that ensued. She also describes with numerous examples the color barrier between blacks and mulattoes in Jamaica, who form an elite separate from the black population because of access to knowledge, white contacts, and political power. Jamaica, like Haiti and other Caribbean islands, has a long history of colorism.

One of the great surprises one encounters reading the book is Hurston's ambivalence on the recently terminated American occupation of Haiti. As an African-American woman associated with the Harlem Renaissance one would expect her, like the NAACP and other black organizations, to unequivocally opposed to US imperialism in Haiti. A close reading of Hurston's text and her analysis of Haitian politics, however, reveals the deep political and economic troubles caused in Haiti by black and mulatto elites that created the conditions where American invasion was seen as preferable to the status quo. As Hurston traces the problems of Haiti back to the colonial period and the century and a half of misrule by black and mulatto elites, one must agree that a fundamental problem of Haitian politics is the use of lies and deception to justify the current status of Haiti. While talking to a Haitian intellectual, one sees it as he lies about Haitian history and overlooks Haiti's enormous structural problems that facilitated the American occupation. To this particular Haitian, lying about the actual events and problems of Haiti becomes truth as he lies to himself and to Zora Neale Hurston. 

Besides her ambivalence on the American occupation, Hurston's account focuses on Voodoo, its rituals, and the overwhelming majority of Haitians who practice the faith. Indeed, even light-skinned elites sometimes practice Voodoo, despite publicly distancing themselves from the "superstitions" of the blacks. Hurston's account of Voodoo actually accepts some of the 'supernatural' or unbelievable things associated with Voodoo, such as zombies. She even took a picture of a Zombie while in Haiti, a woman whose eyes appear dead. Thus, Hurston is not as skeptical of Voodoo and its power, so she succeeds in providing a relatively unbiased account of Voodoo rituals, beliefs, and practices. While discussing the practice of bokors who do specialize in turning victims into zombies with a Haitian doctor, they both concur that its probably caused by some drug crafted by African ancestors. Indeed, these secrets in composing drugs, remedies, and other poisons is part of secret societies, which are not 'real' Voodoo but a small sector of the Haitian populace who practice evil rites to turn their victims into human slaves (zombies), poison them, or even practice cannibalism. Hurston also describes the process of invoking the loas, the dances and music associated with calling the loas, and the 'mounting,' or act of possession by a loa. In addition, Hurston shares short descriptions of the most popular loas of the Petro and Rada rites of Vodou, the former belong to the Kongo tradition (central Africa) and the latter coming from Dahomey (West Africa). 

Overall, Hurston's Tell My Horse is a satisfactory account of Voodoo in Haiti. She dispels racist myths of Haitian voodoo as evil superstition, describing the real practices, origins, and theology of it. For Hurston, it is no better nor worse than any other religion. Her description of some of the flaws of Haiti and Jamaica regarding race and gender are also pertinent for understanding current social conditions of both islands and the Caribbean as a region. She does witness some amazing feats while in Jamaica or Haiti, or hears multiple accounts testifying to their validity, so it's hard to not believe that zombies, possession by loas, and the Ba Mouin rite are not 'real.' This text, loved and praised by Ishmael Reed, does live up to the hype as an important look on Vodou and African-derived religious systems, and highlights the already international black consciousness present in African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. Her experiences with Vodou/Voodoo testify to that fact, and illustrate the importance of Voodoo as a syncretistic way of life with potential healing through medicine and rituals.

Palace of the Peacock

Guyanese author Wilson Harris's Palace of the Peacock is extraordinarily complex, multi-layered, and perfectly responds to Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Instead of the Congo, Harris takes us to the jungles of Guyana where Donne and his mixed-race crew pursue Mariella, his woman who left him to stay at the Mission. I had read elsewhere Harris's Hegelian dualism permeates the novel, but as it appears in Harris's prose, its relevance to the impact of colonialism on Guyana becomes ever clearer. Harris intelligently uses the indigenous population and their worldview with respect, too, forming an excellent rebuttal to Conrad. 

Donne and his crew are already dead, existing between life and death on the river (also identified as a river of life, stream of death), a significant theme for the novel's dualism. Alive and dead, heaven and hell, native and non-native, Harris uses dualism to argue for a synthesis of states of binary oppositions, an apt metaphor for colonial society. The 'palace of the peacock' is an astounding symbol for the novel's powerful conclusion, which ends with a seven day search for the indigenous population of Mariella Mission, the laborers Donne exploits and treats cruelly, in spite of his own dark skin. The novel's somewhat ambiguous ending of revelations for the deceased crew are highly suggestive of the colonial society in which Guyana exists. Will they share the land, for example? The ambiguous fate of the Guyanese society is left open to the reader's interpretation, but an optimistic future seems to be the overall message.  

Along the way the world of polar opposites, life and death, peace and conquest lead to trouble among the crew of the vessel. The unstable narration (the unnamed narrator, the Dreamer) mirrors the liminal space occupied by the characters, already dead, as they endeavor to catch up with the Arawaks who flee while dying again in pursuit (and pursued) of their various dreams. Love, race, incest, the search for fortune are some other themes important to the crew. Despite their mixed racial origins, they too perpetuate discriminatory views of the indigenous population, yet rely on an old Arawak woman as their guide along the river. 

Eschewing conventions of the novel form, Harris's first novel can be quite difficult to follow, but it's beautifully written, possesses all of the complex symbolism of Conrad's novel, and avoids any dehumanizing language. As a Caribbean writer of African descent who foregrounds the indigenous population of the region, Harris's novel is also conspicuous as one of the few from the Anglophone Caribbean for including Arawak characters and mythology, an untapped reservoir for Caribbean literature. 

Sergent Victor

"Sergent Victor" is a composition of Victor Flambert, a musician who played a pivotal role in the development of Haitian music. According to Mats Lundahl and Louis Carl Saint Jean's biography of Issa El Saieh, Flambert shaped the playing of Sicot, Nemours Jean-Baptiste, Charles Dessalines, and Murat Pierre. His nickname, Sergent, led to the song of this name.   

American Civilization

American Civilization is one of those pivotal texts of CLR James often ignored or omitted from discussion. However, upon reading it, one gains new insights with regards to how James conceived the relationship between popular movements and their leaders. It also serves as a testament to the intellectual development of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of ca. 1950. Indeed, inklings of a rejection of vanguardism and the autonomous socialist vision of James manifest in American Civilization, which also triumphs for its forward-looking conception of American popular culture, individualism, and the the threat of totalitarianism. 

Indeed, American Civilization is refreshingly bereft of most of Adorno's disdain for US popular culture, while sharing a similar concern with the danger of alienation and totalitarian Plans. Like his other works of the period, James commits himself to a rejection of Stalinism, overly centralized bureaucracies, Catholic Humanism, and the disconnect between intellectuals and workers. Instead, the separation of labor of the body and mind is increasingly unnecessary as laborers have mastered new technology and benefit from mass produced literature, arts, and production. To paraphrase another line of James, philosophy must be proletarian. 

One supposes the remaining question is, what does one make of the actual trajectory of US civilization after 1950? The miners, UAW workers, and others, supposedly responding to a collectivized individual need for control of production, may be found among wildcat strikes today. However, what happened to the new socialism? The New Left and its failure during the resurgence of the Right and neoliberalism? I cannot help but think American Civilization successfully identified the problem of alienation and its impact on US popular culture and responses to it, but perhaps James incorrectly assumed the labor movement would, through spontaneous action and the need to control production, ultimately overthrow the capitalist order. To his credit, James avoids foretelling the future, but the struggle against alienated, mechanized existence seems as pressing as ever.

Home to Harlem

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.

Solibo Magnificent

      Patrick Chamoiseau’s Solibo Magnificent translated from the French and Creole by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov, the same duo that translated Chamoiseau’s Texaco, is a wonderful novel of short length on the battle between French and Creole in Martinican sociolinguistics. A meta-text in the form of a mystery, Chamoiseau inserts himself into his often humorous critique of Martinique turning its back on its Creole oral literature in favor of French. The oral tradition, represented by the titular character, Solibo Magnificent, is killed, “throat snickt by the word” in the middle of a story told to an audience in the evening during Carnival time in Fort-de-France. Solibo’s death becomes a police investigation to determine the cause of his death, or the death of Creole oral tradition as Martinique “modernizes” and adopts more of the French language and written literary tradition. Now, Chamoiseau, a pupil of Edouard Glissant and part of the reolite literary movement, sees Creole as the authentic language for Martinican (and other Caribbean writers of the French Caribbean) as best suited to represent Martinican reality and culture in the written literary forms because the language itself is a reflection of the totality of peoples and experiences of the Caribbean. A response to the weaknesses of the monolithic blackness assumed by the negritude movement, famously espoused by Aime Cesaire, creolite celebrates and embraces European, African, indigenous and Asian peoples and cultures that form the basis of the Caribbean sociolingustic reality. 

Chamoiseau, who inserts himself into the text as the author-narrator endeavoring to capture the oral Creole spoken by Solibo, experiments with fusions of French and Creole, oral and written literary traditions, and the inevitable loss of meaning and distortion that occurs through endeavoring to represent oral traditions in the written form. Thus, Chamoiseau’s character in the novel admits his own failure to fully capture the strength of oral traditions, but endeavors to embrace both the written and spoken word, a synthesis rooted in the creolite movement to embrace all cultures within Martinique. Indeed, that is most likely why the text is not entirely Creole either, since French, though part of the colonial heritage and legacy of racism and slavery, reinforced by the corrupt police department and its repression of lower-class residents of Fort-de-France, remains at the core of Martinique as the island remains an overseas department of France with whites in possession of most economic and political power. Chamoiseau’s character in the novel also represents his experimentation with the traditional novel form as known in the West. Here, the author’s character becomes a participant in the plot, allowing it to be read on many levels and include the reader, who must decipher the clever wordplay and multiple forms used in the text. Chamoiseau also divides the novel into 3 parts: an incident report, as typed by the police in the investigation, the “body” or chapters of the text written by Chamoiseau himself, with frequent changes in narration, the use of footnotes to explain and translate Creole phrases, Martinican cultural references, and lack of traditional grammatical structures, and finally, an “After the Word” that attempts to represent Solibo’s last words before his death. Chamoiseau’s text, a nuanced, multi-layered endeavor to embody Martinique’s contradictory and essentially Creole identity, also shows off the author’s writing ability because few could successfully write about the battle between French and Creole language and identity in a way that successfully fuses both irrevocably, with shortcomings and losses to both. Referring to himself as the “word scratcher,” as he later does in Texaco, Chamoiseau tries to represent the craft of writing as an alternative form of ‘drawing’ the world that must also incorporate Creole, oral, and lived experience in its depiction of the world to describe Caribbean societies, since the “oraliture” of Creole is the key component of Caribbean societies. 

In addition, Solibo Magnificent challenges the hegemony of French rationalism and European perception of the world. Like Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, Chamoiseau criticizes French (European) worship of reason, which leads to overlooking the personal, lived experiences and requires an often unnecessary division or measurement of the world, leading to dehumanization or oppressive unequal conditions through binary oppositional thinking. For Chamoiseau, both the real-life writer and the narrator of the text, embracing both the spoken and written word is a rejection of binary oppositional thinking, which is a perpetual result of western European worship of reason. Inspector Evariste Pilon, a Francophile black Martinican, perpetuates the hegemony of rationalist binary thinking throughout his investigation, which leads to false assumptions on who murdered Solibo because his rationalism (inherited from time spent in the land of Descartes, the French language which is always used by Pilon) cannot accept the fact that Solibo dies because of “internal strangulation” caused when speaking before the witnesses under the tamarind tree in La Savane of Fort-de-France. His investigation, which relies on police brutality and torture of the suspected witnesses, causes the death of two men because he cannot accept the scientifically impossible death, which also demonstrates magic realism, another writing technique Chamoiseau utilizes to illustrate the fantasy of the lived world and oral tradition. Indeed, Solibo’s death is not only impossible from a rational standpoint, but his body miraculously gains weight and becomes as light as a feather when the police remove the corpse, and shows no signs of poison or illness. Pilon’s rational epistemology, ignoring the highly personal and Creole realities of the witnesses, cannot accept what fourteen human beings saw with their own eyes because of his narrowly prescribed perceptions of the world. Moreover, Pilon’s interrogation of the witnesses ignores the multiple layers of meaning attached to time, occupation, age, and other qualifiers of human life that are measured or defined by measurements of time in hours, minutes and seconds. Indeed, when asking the witnesses their age, occupation, and address, the sadistic Chief Sergeant translates the questions into Creole as, “The Inspector asks you what hurricane you were born after, what do you do for the beke, and what side of town do you sleep at night?” Pilon’s French, rationalist outlook does not allow him to accept the nuances of time, occupation, and alternative approaches to understanding one’s life. For the witnesses, speakers of Creole, their lived experience determines the meaning of Pilon’s questions in personal ways based on local culture, geography, and economics, which means natural disasters play a strong role in how one records time, Martinican whites control the distribution of jobs, and transitory lives are common for lower-class Martinicans of the shantytowns of Fort-de-France. French rationalism, an inherent component of French (and European colonialism in general) power in the Caribbean therefore supports the persistence of white rule in Martinique. Due to language’s ties to power, the imposition of French and denigration of Creole by elites maintains the colonial social order in economic, linguistic, political arenas. 

Another avenue through which Chamoiseau proclaims creolite is the text’s numerous references to Martinican music, Creole, history, politics, the description of the urban shantytowns, and the plethora of footnotes and sectors of the Martinican population represented by the witnesses to Solibo’s death. The witnesses themselves represent light-skinned blacks, shantytown dwellers, street vendors, unemployed musicians, a writer (Chamoiseau himself), a “Syrian” bastard, an ancient former agricultural worker insultingly referred to as Congo for his way of speaking Creole and his very recent black African ancestry, coolies, a drummer who accompanies Solibo’s storytelling, and the radical nationalist desiring independence. This diverse array of the people of Martinique, separated by varying degrees of class, ethnicity, politics, and individual expression, all comprise the already heterogeneous social reality of the island. And these aforementioned individuals all share a Creole identity originating from their shared experiences of slavery, colonialism, economic exploitation, and an appreciation for the oral traditions of Creole, though by the time of Solibo’s death, fewer people were listening to his stories and he fulfilled his griot role less as the younger generation turned its back on its cultural origins. Chamoiseau’s espousal of creolite as the basis of Caribbean identity also manifests in the world he creates in the novel, a world filled with magic realism, musical and cultural practices of the island, the Carnival celebrations that storm through the capital, and the insertion of Creole expressions and using the written form to represent orally in the novel form. The novel’s constant allusions to politics and contemporary issues tearing Martinican society apart, such as the Martinican Progressive Party’s support for autonomy or independence from France, the continued police repression and corruption abusing the poor and black, and the cuisine, zouk and Haitian music (Nemours Jean-Baptiste) constitute a microcosm of the Caribbean, and by extension, the entire world. Martinique’s internal heterogeneity symbolizes the Creole reality of the entire Caribbean, which also marks its essential role in world history as one of the birthplaces of modernity. Creolite is the hallmark of real modern culture, if one defines modernity as something universal or capable of incorporation disparate traditions while embracing the contradictions. As a result, Martinique’s creolite designates the island as an important example of human progress by its capacity to include so many seemingly combative cultural forces, such as the African, indigenous, European and Asian influences developed into the wholly unique island Chamoiseau honors.

Solibo Magnificent unfortunately may not be for all. The novel loses a lot in translation since the reader no longer has the mixed Creole-French language of Chamoiseau-ese. Of course the novel’s focus on language and Martinican culture will be totally alien to most English readers, despite the aid of the translators’ footnotes and glossary of Creole terms that appear in the novel. The plot and the format of the novel that fuses oral and written word may initially confuse others or appear meaningless to those unfamiliar with Chamoiseau’s creolite. For those interested in learning about other cultures and willing to expand their knowledge of an important area in the world should read this novel, which is all about multiculturalism and the necessity to respect all cultural traditions of different races or ethnicities, a value that still remains underutilized by much of the world. In order to support his celebration of human totality and universality, Chamoiseau demonstrates the weaknesses of the fetishization of rationalism that reinforces French colonialism, racism, and the power of the French language over Creole. Chamoiseau also critiques complete rejection of the aforementioned characteristics of the French colonial legacy, since complete denial of reason and French will isolate Martinique from a much larger world and will not change the conditions of illiteracy, poverty, and technological advancements that made some of the novel’s characters, such as Solibo and Congo, almost obsolete in society. Hence, the death of Solibo while speaking to his audience while speaking the word, as a consequence of his rejection of the written word, symbolizes the death of oral tradition that remains opposed to the written tradition. Solibo’s total rejection of French and written traditions repeats French rejection of alternative expressions of language, literature, and philosophy, which contributes to Solibo’s increasingly less relevant words of wisdom to the people of Fort-de-France. Overall, this is a fascinating experimental novel on the power of language and its relation to cultural practices and identity. Lacking the historical depth and detail of Texaco, which explores the history and culture of Martinique through the family of Marie-Sophie Laborieux, Solibo Magnificent is a shorter novel and fast read.  

Strange Words

Patrick Chamoiseau's Strange Words, translated from French by Linda Coverdale, is his reinterpretation of Creole folktales of Martinique he heard as a child. It was also published in English as Creole Folktales. Writing down these orally-transmitted stories inherently changes the fundamental process through which these stories were told in Martinique, usually by a storyteller with an audience. Indeed, the storyteller also inserted him or herself into the tale, which Chamoiseau replicates in the written form, using several humorous self-referential statements regarding the storyteller's relation to characters in the story, for example.

Unfortunately, the tales themselves are quite short, and with only 12, the journey into the nighttime stories of Martinique ends just as its beginning. That said, these tales are often very dark and full of supernatural phenomena and magic, such as witches, zombi, demons, rainmakers, and tricksters. Indeed, this novel serves as a nice complementary reading to Chamoiseau's Solibo Magnifique, a short novel about the death of orality and the battle between the spoken Creole word and the colonial French written word. This collection of Creole folktales illustrates how these different languages and their respective worldviews fused to create them in the first place. Thus, Ti-Jean Horizon, the mulatto son of a slaveholder and a black slave, becomes a hero according to the trickster ideal in African-derived folklore, but uses his guile at the end of the tale to simply takeover the plantation of his beke father. If collective liberation were the ethos of this story, which was told in communal settings of slaves, how come an individual's escape from slavery would become more important than the liberation of all slaves on the plantation? Clearly, the individualism and rationalism of "the land of Descartes" clashes with African communalism and solidarity as well as clashing due to differing stances on supernatural occurrences.

Anyway, one should read this short collection of folktales to better understand the worldview and context of the lives of slaves and ex-slaves throughout Martinican history. The horrors of the slave trade, brutality and dehumanizing practices of white planters, poverty and hunger, and resilience of the people themselves become quite apparent. Moreover, women emerge as significant characters, often as female heads of their households. Now, this is not the place or time to discuss in depth gender dynamics in the colonial French Caribbean, but women in these stories run the gamut from helpless beauties to strong, independent heroines. Indeed, in many stories families are introduced with only a mother as the parent, and no mention of fathers appears, which, historically was related to lack of legitimacy in their unions with black men in the eyes of whites and the slave trade, but also related to rape and other factors. Beyond analyzing the stories for how they reveal the historical and cultural background of Martinique and the French Caribbean, these short stories are often fables with important morals against sins or defects like gluttony, or for simply explaining the origin of certain animals, the vegetation, etc. Overall, this was a fun, fast read that aroused the reader's hunger for more oral and written literature of the French Caribbean.

Texaco

Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco, a French-language novel published in 1992, was brilliantly translated from French and Creole by Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokurov in 1997. The novel, named after a shanty town of Fort-de-France, Martinique, is essentially Chamoiseaus’s assertion of créolité as the core of Caribbean identity and reality. I first heard of the novel from Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Chamoiseau uses language, the countryside/urban divide, history, and the family of Marie-Sophie Laborieux as an allegory for Martinican identity. Créolité, an idea proposed by Edouard Glissant, an ideological successor and Martinican intellectual in the tradition of Aimé Césaire, the proponent of negritude. Negritude was essentially an assertion of black cultural nationalism embracing African-derived traditions, music, poetry, and Marxist political theory to resist colonialism and racism in francophone colonies. Though most developed in Martinique, Senegal, and other francophone nations, negritude developed in contact with the Harlem Renaissance and cultural/political developments in the 20th century. 

Of course negritude’s focus on African cultural origin and problems of an ideological monolithic Africa made negritude less appealing to future generations of Caribbean intellectuals. Thus, Glissant, or Chamoiseau, for example, celebrate the heterogeneity that makes up West Indian (an in particular, Martinique) identity. Instead of solely focusing on the black Martinicans, Indians (coolies), békés (colonial whites who stayed in Martinique after abolition in 1848), Chinese (also coolies), Caribs, mulattoes, and French identities are each thrown together to weave a complex family history using elements of magic realism to display the Creoleness, or cultural miscegenation that comprises Caribbean peoples. Indeed, Caribbean peoples cannot be reduced to a simply African origin (despite the overwhelming majority of Caribbean peoples being descendants of African slaves), but considered Creole due to the vast numbers of cultures mixed through the colonial process. Thus, negritude’s limitations become more apparent when one considers the long history of the entire West Indies, which has never been a monolithic Africa, but a product of centuries of cultural mixing. Indeed, even in Caribbean societies that are predominantly ‘black’ and do not appear to be Creole, such as Haiti, one finds that cultural heterogeneity predominates through the long history of mulatto, white, and black competitions for political power and social dominance.

Chamoiseau explores créolité especially through the use of language and internal intertextuality and points of view throughout the novel. The novel has four narrators, the author himself (humorously referred to as Oiseau de Cham, or bird of Shem), the urban planner, known as Christ in the shantytown, Marie-Sophie Laborieux, who dictates her story to Oiseau de Cham and the urban planner, and Ti-Cirique, a Haitian intellectual exiled from Haiti after a failed attempt to overthrow Papa Doc’s regime in Haiti. Each of the aforementioned characters influence the novel’s use of language through editing, excerpts and transcripts of their own notes, which are ultimately layered and reorganized into footnotes and sections by Oiseau de Cham, who divides Marie-Sophie Laborieux’s history into 4 sections or eras in Martinican history, beginning with slavery. The irony of Ti-Cirique, the dark-skinned Haitian intellectual and Francophile, who tries to use the mulatto French that is more French than European French, is overwhelming. Despite his noirist, or negritude-influenced ideology, Ti-Cirique embraces France more than the French, and his voice is best represented through attempts to “correct” Marie-Sophie’s narrative into proper French. This is doubly ironic since many proponents of negritude saw Haiti as the birthplace of the movement, due to the successful slave revolt that gave birth to the nation and the ideological ties to 19th century Haitian intellectuals such as Antenor Firmin. The urban planner, on the other hand, embraces both the “mulatto French” and Creole spoken by the majority of Martinicans, which follows créolité ideology since the truest form of Martinican identity requires both Creole (which is a mixture of African languages, French and other tongues) and French, the colonial language that is part of the core of Martinican linguistics and the state. The Urban Planner also believes in the value of the shantytowns, such as Texaco, which represent the Creole majority and are necessary for the history and culture of the island. 

Thus, he becomes one of the main supporters of the slum, despite government pressure to eradicate Texaco and force the population into subsidized housing within the city proper. Indeed, Texaco developed as part of the City (Fort-de-France), but because mulatto and white control effectively limited the possibilities for the ex-slaves and former rural workers (hill folks) to actually attain political power or become a significant economic power in the City, despite being a majority. So the shantytowns develop based on rural culture, which is a remnant of slave culture, but through contact with whites, Asian laborers, Syrian merchants, mulatto politicians and bosses, and white colonial overlords, and employers, the shantytown dwellers are forced to adapt to a multiracial, urban society based on caste. Marie-Sophie and Oiseau de Cham, concur with the Urban Planner on the necessity of ensuring the survival of Texaco, although Marie-Sophie herself wants her narrative to be “proper” French, due to her father Esternome’s preference for French. So the text of the book (in the original French publication and English translation) is a little confusing since Creole expressions and religious and cultural practices are thrown in, alongside proper “mulatto French.” Furthermore, the novel also explores language through the competition of various types of the Word: oral tradition, Marie-Sophie’s edited narrative (Ti-Cirique edits her notebooks, which are used by Oiseau de Cham, and the Urban Planner hears her stories in person, as does Oiseau) and the final version offered by the author. The notebooks and various points of view represented throughout the text reveal the manipulation of language by different parties and the power of each medium of storytelling. Indeed, Oiseau de Cham considered the written word not capable of truly capturing the strength of Marie-Sophie Laborieux’s stories, which exemplifies a preference for Creole, the spoken language of the Martinique.

In addition to the interesting use of language and its historical ties to French colonialism and creole identity, Texaco uses magical realism and the family history of a Marie-Sophie as an allegory for the nation. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende did this more famously for Colombia and Chile, but it’s still a powerful allegory for getting to the root of Latin American and Caribbean identity, since a family is a product of the nation’s society. Like Garcia Marquez and Allende, Chamoiseau is also thorough in his coverage of the nation’s history, and due to the use of magic realism, seemingly impossible events occur without explanation. Beginning with Laborieux’s father’s experiences as a slave and 19th century Martinican life, the world of the plantation and early rural migration to urban centers such as Saint Pierre, which was totatally destroyed in a 1902 volcano eruption that caused the death of Esternome’s first lover, Ninon. Elements of rural Martinican culture survive the progression of time, such as the Mentohs, or spiritual healers and advisors, who save the lives of both Esternome and Marie-Sophie. They’re seemingly eternal beings, and their supernatural powers are never explained, despite Marie-Sophie’s attempts to get answers from Papa Totone, one of the Mentohs. The use of magical realism also suggests that the world of the Caribbean is really “not real,” in that the process through which Caribbean societies developed is unreal due to a lack of historical precedent and the incredible amount of creolization that occurred in the 500 year history, which is more evidence of Creoleness. 

Furthermore, Martinique becomes significantly less “African” over time, with the disappearance of Mentohs and miraculous events in the 20th century. Major events in Martinican history are also part of the story: the abolition of slavery in 1848, the volcanic eruption that destroyed Saint Pierre in 1902, WWI, WWII, the election and rise to prominence of Aime Cesaire, De Gaulle’s visit to Martinique, and the perpetual conflict between the “proper” city of Fort-de-France and the impoverished shantytowns. Marie-Sophie and her family provide a powerfully personal interpretation of Martinican history, and highlight Creolity throughout the piece. Indeed, Marie-Sophie Laborieux herself is multiracial (a capresse, or daughter of a mulatto and black), and her experiences working for mulattoes, upper-class blacks and whites as a domestic provide a window through which one can view the hierarchy of power. As a woman, and not light-skinned enough to pass for mulatto, she also exemplifies feminist thinking through her actions. She rejects child-rearing, subservience to men, and begins the initial hutch that gave rise to Texaco, becoming its leader and main opponent of the white man whose land she builds on. Marie Sophie’s life therefore brings to the fore the importance of woman as agents in history in addition to demonstrating the cultural syncretism that has occurred in Martinique and the rest of the Caribbean.

Moreover, Chamoiseau directly critiques negritude and its impact French Caribbean identity through Aime Cesaire’s character and Ti-Cirique, the Haitian bibliophile and Francophile. Indeed, when Aime Cesaire first speaks to the masses of blacks as their first black mayor and Marxist, Esternome tells his daughter that Cesaire is a mulatto. One of the protagonist’s employers, a middle-class mulatto, also attacks Cesaire for critiquing France and colonialism, yet all of his education came from France. These internal contradictions of Cesaire completely severing Martinican ties to France ideologically and his inability to connect to rural, lower-class blacks show negritude’s shortcomings because France is irrevocably part of Martinique, and Cesaire’s education and speaking illustrate that. Thus, Cesaire endeavors to represent Fort-de-France’s urban poor and shantytown folks, but his refusal to recognize the mixed heritage of Martinique because of presumptions of “African” cultural predominance excludes a large proportion of the population, including those more closely tied to Africa, such as ex-slaves like Esternome. However, Cesaire was able to reconnect to Marie-Sophie Laborieux and the people of Texaco in future decades, ensuring that the city council brings electricity and modern amenities to the poor of the region. Cesaire also remained very popular among blacks in the city, despite the flaws of negritude, which actually bought into a lot of European assumptions about Africa. Regardless, Marie-Sophie Laborieux reads and quotes a line from his Notebook of a Return to My Native Land to finally convince him to help Texaco when she and a group of other residents invite themselves into his home. Ti-Cirique, the Haitian exile living in Texaco also highlights the problems of negritude. Like Cesaire, the negritude literary figures never create a truly unique form of expression that is independent of European or French because they do not write in Creole, the language of the people. Negritude-influenced authors reject European standards, yet continue to write in the language and styles of the colonizers, and Ti-Cirique, despite being part of a group of Haitian literary figures opposed to Duvalier, cannot find value in literature unless it is written in the languages of Europe.

Overall, Texaco does live up to the hype Junot Diaz gave it. Only about 400 hundred pages long, it’s actually quite readable for the most part. The first half, the story of Esternome and his generation is actually more compelling than most of Marie-Sophie’s personal life, but the novel’s use of magical realism in a Caribbean context and approach to Creole identity is fascinating. Moreover, the use of multiple languages and its multiple points of views illustrate the complex nature of Martinican identity, which is essentially a struggle between French and Creole. Like Junot Diaz’s masterpiece, Texaco uses a single family to tell the history of a Caribbean nation, and by doing so personalizes history, mixing the oral and written word to display the undoubtedly Creole identity of Martinique. And despite what some may suspect, my sympathy for negritude is not as great as one would think. It was an important part of black transnationalism and cultural movements throughout the francophone African diaspora, but like any ideology that embraces a single identity or “race,” could never encapsulate the Caribbean world. 

The Black Count

Tom Reiss's The Black Count is a fascinating read on the life of Alex Dumas, the mulatto father of famous French novelist, Alexandre Dumas. Dumas's father significantly shaped his son's literature, and therefore influenced French national identity (as well as reaching great prestige and power in France's military during the Revolutionary period, a testament to the vast array of African experiences in European history), so the story of Dumas's general father, son of a Saint-Dominguan slave woman and a less than noble aristocrat in Jeremie (modern Haiti) is one deserving more attention. Of course, one could critique Reiss's book for some anachronistic views on race, mainly referring to Dumas as a 'black' at various times, despite the experience of people of color and mixed origins being quite different (varying with class, of course). I suspect using the American 'one drop rule' view of blackness made more sense to the author, as well as for marketing purposes. It sounds better and is easier to refer to Dumas as the 'Black Count' rather than the 'Mulatto Count.'

Anyway, another problem I had with the book was how little of Dumas's life in Saint Domingue was revealed. His mother's personal life or history is essentially non-existent, and though Dumas lived in Saint Domingue until thirteen (he received a 'proper' and aristocratic education in France when his father sent for him after abandoning his son in the colony to return to France and take on his title and whatever remained from his family's wealth), so much of Dumas's early life remains lost (although finding sources on that period would be excessively difficult, compared to the amount of documentation one could find in France or in personal letters from Dumas, his loved ones, etc.). In addition, Reiss does not do enough to connect the dots between the Haitian and French Revolutions (and when he does, he overlooks or reveals his ignorance of Afro-Europe), espeically in how he seems to sincerely believe that Dumas's rise to fame in the French revolutionary military had no precedent. People of African descent could rise to all kinds of positions of authority in the last 500 years of European history, including scholars, professors, writers, aristocrats, artists, skilled laborers, musicians, composers, etc.). Indeed, Reiss has quite a bit to say about the Chevalier de Saint George, another man of color with roots in the French Antilles, who was Marie-Antoinette's favored violinist and a prominent man on the Parisian social scene (and involved in the military).

If one looks at Revolutionary-era France in the context of the the degree to which 'liberal' bourgeois revolutions were 'inclusive' or anti-racist, I suppose it was ahead of the rest of Europe, but given the long history of African-European relations, one could not help but feel that Reiss was too positive in his portrait of the Revolution (though appropriately critical of many courses it would take, such as the rise of Napoleon, or the restoration of racial discrimination and slavery in legislation, not to mention the brutal French suppression and re-enslavement of the people of Guadeloupe or Leclerc's attempt to conquer Saint-Domingue and the savage violence with which white Europeans attacked, killed, sold into slavery, and tortured black and mixed-race Saint-Dominguans). I suppose what I am mostly getting at his how mainstream audiences still need an accessible history (much like The Black Count) that goes into great depth to reveal how influential people of African descent were in Europe, from Rome to the present.

At the end of the day, Reiss's text is successful as a biography of a man whose treatment by the racist Napoleon and French state revealed how elusive racial equality remained/s in France. The 'Black Devil" (as he was called by Austrians) would lead numerous campaigns in Europe and even Napoleon's foolish Egyptian campaign, only to be imprisoned in Italy (one aspect of his life that would influence The Count of Monte Cristo, as well as his military experiences shaping The Three Musketeers, and his mixed-race experience as a slave/free person of color, Dumas's lesser known novel, Georges). After reading this book and how much Napoleon hated Dumas (some of it due to Dumas's towering stature and being perceived by the Egyptians as the leader of the French army), one cannot help but feel that the fate of the slaves/ex-slaves in the colonies and the French republic would have been better served with a true believer in republicanism, like Dumas. Despite all the 'good' reforms and liberal policies promoted by Napoleon (such as protections of Jewish communities in Europe in areas conquered by Napoleon) and the supposedly 'good' spread of the Napoleonic legal code, the man's real legacy can be seen in dismantling radical abolitionism, warmongering, and imperialism. There are quite a few Europeanists and French historians I could and should recommend this book to to correct some of their ignorance or undue praise and obsession with Napoleon.