René Depestre is one of Haiti’s most celebrated poets and authors. Just a quick scan of his bio reveals the man has lived a life: enduring the reign of at least one dictator, chums with Che, not-so-chummy with Castro, Depestre has heard, as the old phrase goes, the chimes at midnight. This book was written, in French, somewhat late in his career, in 1988, but it has only recently been published in English.
It’s a fragmented, multi-faceted wrestling with an incident in the narrator’s youth, when he was witness to an astounding event in his hometown of Jacmel, in the south of Haiti. It’s the day of the wedding of one Hadriana Siloé, the daughter of white French expats, to a black Haitian businessman. A huge carnival is planned, for Hadriana, kind and intelligent and stunningly beautiful, is one of the most beloved women in town. The narrator, a young man at this time, is secretly in love with her.
Things all go as planned. The ceremony is lovely. The bride-to-be cries “I do!” …and then drops dead at the alter. Astounded, the local population goes ahead with the carnival, now a wake, and as rumors circulate that the murder was committed by a cursed, amorous butterfly, Hadriana is buried amidst masks, orgies, and pagan celebrations.
Ah, but this is Haiti, where the dead don’t always stay underground…
This is a whirling, at times hallucinatory tale and I was fascinated and enthralled by the kaleidoscope of images, Haitian tradtions and folklore I was presented with. There are some fantastic tales contained in this larger novel that paint a picture of a land with one half of a foot in the world of the dead, where black magic and african spirits are somewhat uncomfortable bedfellows with European Christianity. Depestre also leaps the story about in time, and a long section deals with the narrator’s life as an exile from Haiti, where there is much pathos regarding a now middle-aged man thinking on what he gained from leaving his homeland…and what he has lost forever.
The novel is not perfect. The final quarter is given over to an explication of events from one character’s perspective, and comes across as too dry, too mundane for all that has gone before. I also think this is a book that should, if at all possible, be read in its original French, ‘cos oh boy the translator’s notes are hilarious, and suggests this novel is even extra nuts in Depestre’s language. Me like books.
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