Books

[bcholmes]

So I limited myself to bringing only three books to Haiti. They won't last the whole trip, but I was already worried about how much luggage I had, so I didn't want to take too many.

I was reading Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism on the plane, but I haven't finished it. (I just Googled that title, and learned that in the UK it's apparently called Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies and the Threat to the Developing World. Hmm.)

Anyway, I wanted a bit of a change so I put it aside for a while and read The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson (I keep wanting to call this The Salt Flats, which is the name of the movie that starred Valerie in V for Vendetta). It's been sitting on my bookshelf for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it. I finished it this afternoon and, wow. What an amazing piece.

One of the reasons I though it'd be a good choice is that one big part of the story takes place during Makandal's Rebellion. I kept reading the story, wondering if they were going to depict the scene that's part of Haitian lore -- were Makandal broke free of his bindings in the flames, leapt up, and disappeared into air. The magic realism of the story would allow for it. But the way that moment was handled, in the story was even better.

I think I'm different than many of the readers in that I went into the story knowing the history of Makandal's Rebellion, but not knowing about Jeanne Duval or Charles Beaudelaire (two other characters who appear prominantly in the book). I just went to the Wikipedia page for The Salt Roads, and noticed that there were no links to pages about Makandal (I've corrected that), so I'm guessing that a lot of people don't know that history.

Many of the lwa make appearances, but mostly the book is concerned with aspects of Ezili -- Freda, Danto, and Lasiren. There's even a depiction of her tongue being cut out.

But what really makes the book is the rich depictions of the lives of the various women who are the main characters. Images of slavery in Haiti that are powerful and moving. It's just a beautiful story.

I'm sure many of the WisCon folks have already read it; here's a shout-out to the Vodou folks on my friends list.

Comments

[dunhamdancer.livejournal.com]

Adding to my loooong list of "to read" books...near the top of the list. You've peaked my interest!