November 15, 2020: Is it wise to hail books with words like "masterpiece"? By what standards can one declare a writer a genius, incomparable, an artisNovember 15, 2020: Is it wise to hail books with words like "masterpiece"? By what standards can one declare a writer a genius, incomparable, an artist whose tools alchemize words into biodomes that exert a pull on perception more powerful than what a reader sees when they take a breath, lift their head, and blink. The Belle Créole is only the third Maryse Condé novel I’ve read, yet from the first one I wanted to climb the world’s peak to let loose the proclamation that if Condé was not ranked among your greatest 20th century writers, you were wrong. (My first was Windward Heights (1998), translated by Richard Philcox. If you love Wuthering Heights, read it. If you hate Wuthering Heights, read it. If you know or care nothing about Wuthering Heights, read it.) With The Belle Créole, first published in French in 2001, she claimed the 21st.
Condé asked a lot of hard questions in this novel, one of her rare ones to use a contemporary Guadelope setting. Can the past outlive its usefulness? Knowing that we need new stories does not guarantee we will know to create new ones. How can we? How do we tackle the big issues without ignoring the small ones that live in those closest to us every day?
Staceyann Chin wrote:
I believe holy is what you do when there is nothing between your actions and a truth
In our little enclaves and fractured visions, are we destined to forever see through a glass darkly.The Belle Creolé will challenge the idea that holiness is possible. The world somehow felt more alive in these pages than in my surroundings. This book made me want to know everything about Guadeloupe right now. Upcoming Review for The Book Slut
Emily Brontë wrote of violent, obsessive passion mired in the classism, sexism, xenophobia, and addiction in an English villaUpdate: January 23, 2019.
Emily Brontë wrote of violent, obsessive passion mired in the classism, sexism, xenophobia, and addiction in an English village backwater, contained in a favoured servant’s tongue. The slip to a tenant’s mean, self-involved mental energy served as no boon, no invigorative jolt to proceedings. If Wuthering Heights is the wind’s dull roar Windward Heights is the source.
In an inversion of this ordered system–the original and the retelling–Condé saw the dark moor and formed a Caribbean cosmos in 19th century Spanish Cuba, British Dominica and primarily in the French Guadeloupe islands: from Papaye nestled in the volcanic hillside to the arid soil and wind beaten razyés at Grand-Fonds-les-Mangles. Amongst this varied terrain Condé voiced a multitude: Nelly, Catherine, Razyé (the Heathcliff), his wife Irmine, her brother Catherine’s husband, their children, several named servants, politicians, and friends.
The basic story remains the same. Hubert Gagneur, “a tallow-coloured mulatto”, one day brought home a “little black boy or Indian half-caste”, and the story continues. What Brontë slyly hinted at Condé states baldly and in the loaded language of the time. Pretty much everything Wuthering Heights hinted at Windward saturates in technicolour: racism, classism, white feminism, misogynoir, sex, toxic masculinity, homosexuality, and even a few glances at genderqueerness.
I don’t know why we don’t hear and read more about this novel. It is glorious, messy, shocking, and explosive, with a narrative that strode beyond its predecessor’s confines into new spheres. If you considered historical fiction to be a soft genre meant to neatly carry you through specific highlights as you cry and tut tut at humanity’s cruelty before it ended with the usual bromides about love, family, and the resilient human spirit, drink the tea before you start this book. I don’t want you to mess up your copy.
You know the drill by now. Need to think about my written response. It basically blew Wuthering Heights out of the water, sky high. Don't even mention them in the same sentence unless it's to genuflect in front of Windward's messy (it is messy, I have questions) greatness....more
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