The Signifyin' Woman (Charmaine Valere)

Time to set some standards

Over at Poefrika, Rethabile posts an Ezra Pound definition of an image, and poses a question for his readers. 

How do I convey this image? is probably a question most writers of every form or genre of writing have considered.  And, what does this image mean? is certainly a good question for the reader to consider as well. I thought about (and puzzled over) the imagery in Wild Maami's opening paragraph as I put together the following letter to Roopnandan Singh (not assuming he'll ever read it, it's really just my explanation why I am not going to read Wild Maami).  And I've concluded that I probably need to set some standards for the books I review here.  So here goes...

Dear Mr. Singh:

While I myself have never written one line of a novel, much less taken on the task of writing and completing an entire one, as an avid reader, and one who spent way too long studying literature and writing (though without the letters to show for it, much of it was independent study), I do have some idea of what comes across well on the page, and what doesn't.  So here's a break-down of what went wrong with your opening paragraph:

A lovely, self conscious, teenaged girl...

Lovely and self-conscious are subjective adjectives.  And unless the reader has established trust or some kind of understanding of the narrator, subjective descriptions can be an early turn-off for the reader who'd rather make a decision about the character on his or her own.

sat in front of her wardrobe mirror, and began to wonder whether she was ready for the challenge of the sensual world, her parents often warned her against.  She looked into the mirror at her hair-do, a beautiful oval forest of face and hair...

Once again, Mr. Singh, beautiful is subjective, and then you go on to say what beautiful consists of (oval forest of face and hair), which may not be considered a beautiful sight to some.  "Oval forest of face and hair" may conjure images of natural abundance, wildness (as one commenter suggested), purity even, but "beautiful" should be left up to the reader to decide, until he or she gets to meet the narrator, and can figure out the tone in which beautiful is being used.  Maybe it's meant to be sarcastic.  Who knows?  At least that would be interesting.

her eyes jumping and springing for sensual adventure, and then she saw the dimples that had often made older men, when she was a child, predict that she would be a beauty that suitors would die for...

Mr. Singh, though I am aware you're speaking figuratively, the image of someone's eyes jumping and springing for sensual adventure is funny.  And I may be wrong, but I don't think your intention is to be funny here, is it?  If that was your intention, bravo, you sure made me laugh out loud.  And then she saw the dimples?  She'd never seen then before, Mr. Singh?  They are on her face, no?

She looked again, whilst moistening her skin with the cream her uncle had sent her, and was so fearful of her sapodilla-brown complexion, which she thought men of Eurocentric taste would reject...

Maybe, Mr. Singh, she should be fearful of her eyes that "jump and spring" and not her sapodilla-brown skin.  Point is, the use of the word fearful here is rather curious.  (Not curious enough to make me want to move on from this first paragraph though).

But she continued to put on her make-up, and said to herself that she didn't care--a five-foot girl in an ocean of human opinion. 

And finally the last image in your opening paragraph, Mr. Singh.  A five-foot girl in an ocean of human opinion may sound good at the family table, or the bar where "ocean" may have a clear frame of reference.  Here it's just strange and rather silly.

So Mr. Singh, I apologize, but I can't read on.  I have to declare your opening no better than an effort from a C student in my class, and as such not quite worthy of my precious reading time.

Sincerely, and without malice,

c.d.valere

It starts pretty early

I have a son who's a ... well ...(he can't read this anyway, so here goes).  He's a cry baby. Brother push he, he cry.  Cyan fine he toy, he cry.  I look at he too cross, he cry.  Well, Mr. Cry baby started school this semester, and you'd think all (or at least some of) the crying would cease.  No way.  He father wake he up in the morning, he cry.  He father tell he brush he teeth, he cry.  I too slow with the juice, he cry.  Some mornings he cries all the way to school, and gets there snot-running, nasty face, and I have to stop and clean him up while I plead with the other space-cadet twin to pleeeeeaaaaasse stop running up and down in the halls, and get yuh behind in yuh classroom.  All this while the big son grumbling at me about dropping he off late to school...again.  Yuh getting a sense of my early morning horrors yet? 

So I sat down with my coffee yesterday and figured some order, some small degree of sanity, would be possible during that 6-8.15am period if I could only get cry baby to stop crying.  I thought hard, and then I remembered how his little face brightened up when he got to his classroom and received a smile and a good morning hug from a certain pinky-cute Angelica.  So this morning I try a thing. 

Sure enough, 6.40am he sees me ironing a long-sleeved shirt for him and can't imagine why I would want to send him to school in anything other than his short-sleeved dragon shirt (which he wore yesterday, mind you).  So he tells me I'm a bad mommy and the wailing goes on and on.  When he realizes his lil narrow behind is going to wear the shirt I'm ironing anyway, he stops and looks around for something else to cry for.  Big brother (as usual) provides the something.  Tells him something or other about being the last one to wake up, and up starts cry baby again.  This time, before he could really get into it I say calmly, " I can't take your brother to school late anymore, so I'm not stopping to clean your face. And I know Angelica is not gonna want to hug any little boy with a nasty, snotty face." 

It works.  He stops.  He looks at me with the horror of that bit of enlightenment gathering over his face, and says, "wwhat?"  I repeat the bit of female truism for my impressionable, fortunate, 3-year-old male pupil, and watch him take it in fully.  I watch with pride as he becomes one of the privileged.  He now knows (way ahead of his other little nasty-faced male friends) why the little girls don't want to hug them sometimes.

But, alas, some habits are too tough to get rid of, even at the bendable age of 3.  As we are heading out the door, big brother (accidentally, he claims) steps on the sensitive toes of the newly enlightened one, and once again reduces him to a cry-baby.

Oh, but wait before you write him off as yet another dumb male in the bud!  

He runs back into the kitchen, rolls off lots of paper towels, and heads back towards the door, into the van, where he continues to lament and berate his clumsy big brother until he sees me turn into the parking lot of his school, when he promptly stops, wipes his face clean and perks up for Angelica's good morning hug. 

[My letter to Roopnandan Singh about the opening paragraph of his Wild Maami is next]

Wild Maami's (ahem) opening

Opening lines (actually the first paragraph) in Roopnandan Singh's Wild Maami: 

A lovely, self conscious, teenaged girl sat in front of her wardrobe mirror, and began to wonder whether she was ready for the challenge of the sensual world, her parents often warned her against.  She looked into the mirror at her hair-do, a beautiful oval forest of face and hair, her eyes jumping and springing for sensual adventure, and then she saw the dimples that had often made older men, when she was a child, predict that she would be a beauty that suitors would die for.  She looked again, whilst moistening her skin with the cream her uncle had sent her, and was so fearful of her sapodilla-brown complexion, which she thought men of Eurocentric taste would reject.  But she continued to put on her make-up, and said to herself that she didn't care--a five-foot girl in an ocean of human opinion. 

Question: Should I read on?  Why?  Why not?

Next up

Roopnandan Singh's Wild Maami.

In honour of the children who died

In honour of the children who died, and those whose remains were treated so terribly, I've posted two of Martin Carter's poems below.  The first is "The child ran into the sea" (1974), and the second is one most of you should know--"You are involved." 

 

 

THE CHILD RAN INTO THE SEA

The child ran into the sea

but ran back from the waves, because

the child did not know the sea

on the horizon, is not the same sea

ravishing the shore

 

What every child wants is always

in the distance; like the sea

on the horizon.  While, on the shore

nearby, at the feet of every child

shallow water, eating the edges

of islands and continents does little more,

little more than foam like spittle

at the corners of the inarticulate mouth

of some other child who wants to run

into the sea, into the horizon.

 

 

YOU ARE INVOLVED

This I have learnt:

today a speck

tomorrow a hero

hero or monster

you are consumed!

 

Like a jig

shakes the loom;

like a web

is spun the pattern

all are involved!

all are consumed!

Problem solved

I have been trying to find a way to incorporate my reviews of other Caribbean writers here on signifyinguyana, but that effort has been less than successful.  So much for Caribbean unity, eh?  My problem of late is that I'm stuck reading Goodison's book, and meanwhile I have so many Guyanese concerns backing up on me.  So I worked out a solution.  I created a new blog for my Caribbean reviews.  It's still in its infancy, but I'l link to it once it's ready for viewing.

And now it's back to the business of signifying Guyana.

A lively debate on Guyana's potential role in global environmental protection

I was just preparing a new post on Lorna Goodison's From Harvey River (a lengthy, slow-moving book I admit I'm finding very difficult to concentrate on these days...plenty on my plate) when I read these TWO_POSTS which present clear thinking about Guyana's potential role in global environmental protection.  So here's what I'm asking you to do for the next evening or so (mek it the next two evenings or so; I need plenty more time with Goodison):  Fix an evening beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and read the TWO_POSTS.  Then feel free to add your voice to the debate over there (not here, they might miss it).  Be warned though that many of the commenters over there aren't usually the brightest or nicest crayons in the pack, so somebody may unreasonably call you a scunt, or a dunce bamsee.  Never mind them.  Just say yuh piece and keep on moving. 

(And be sure to post anonymously or use an alias.)

Some of the good literary news from Carifesta X

Petamber Persaud writes here in the beginning of a series of articles on Guyanese literature:

Over forty books were launched during Carifesta X, Guyana, August 22 – 31, 2008. This propitious event is unprecedented in the annals of the Caribbean Festival of Arts and it augurs well for the literary arts of Guyana and the Caribbean.  Of those forty-odd titles, more than half of the books were written by Guyanese, written about Guyanese and written on Guyana.  In this new series of articles, we take a look at some of those Guyanese titles and their authors. One of the titles launched during Carifesta X was ‘The Hangman’s Game’ by Karen King-Aribisala.

And, here's a re-post of my review of Karen King-Aribisala's The Hangman's Game.

The novel is an interweaving of two tales of events leading up to, and shortly after societal upheavals in two countries.  One is a tale of a slave revolt in Guyana (1823); the other is a tale of a coup in contemporary Nigeria.  The narrator (a writer) is a Guyanese immigrant in Nigeria who is married to a Nigerian, and is pregnant with her second child.

The interweaving of the two tales succeeds as an artistic way of making a political statement about unjust societies.  The narrator/writer at first appears to struggle to hold the two tales apart as they unfold, and then gives in to the similarities, and allows them to meld.   

The novel makes startling and not-so-startling comparisons between a slave society, and contemporary Nigeria.  But what makes it a compelling read is the narrator/writer whose anxieties over the novel she is writing, the child she is carrying, her questions about religion, her role as a wife, and her upper-class life in a sharply stratified society keep you wondering page after page if she would eventually lose it. 

At one point she says, "maybe my pregnancy hormones are skidaddling all over the place.  Yes, that must be the reason why I'm eye-focused conscious and eye-blind unconscious, out of control and in control all at the same time" (Hangman's Game, p.69).  If you've ever been pregnant (or lived with a pregnant woman) you'd completely understand where she's coming from. 

The novel illustrates the frighteningly escalating and deflating parallel states of pregnancy, and societal change.  The narrator's pregnant state (in that sense) can be recognized as analogous to the expectations, uncertainties, and the precarious mix of life and death that exist in the two largely unjust societies she writes about.   

The Hangman's Game is a fascinating read.  It is finely-paced, well-dramatized, and politically assertive.

[Note: The Hangman's Game is available for purchase through Amazon Prime. Click here for pricing information.]

The novel is an interweaving of two tales of events leading up to, and shortly after societal upheavals in two countries.  One is a tale of a slave revolt in Guyana (1823); the other is a tale of a coup in contemporary Nigeria.  The narrator (a writer) is a Guyanese immigrant in Nigeria who is married to a Nigerian, and is pregnant with her second child.

The interweaving of the two tales succeeds as an artistic way of making a political statement about unjust societies.  The narrator/writer at first appears to struggle to hold the two tales apart as they unfold, and then gives in to the similarities, and allows them to meld.   

The novel makes startling and not-so-startling comparisons between a slave society, and contemporary Nigeria.  But what makes it a compelling read is the narrator/writer whose anxieties over the novel she is writing, the child she is carrying, her questions about religion, her role as a wife, and her upper-class life in a sharply stratified society keep you wondering page after page if she would eventually lose it. 

At one point she says, "maybe my pregnancy hormones are skidaddling all over the place.  Yes, that must be the reason why I'm eye-focused conscious and eye-blind unconscious, out of control and in control all at the same time" (Hangman's Game, p.69).  If you've ever been pregnant (or lived with a pregnant woman) you'd completely understand where she's coming from. 

The novel illustrates the frighteningly escalating and deflating parallel states of pregnancy, and societal change.  The narrator's pregnant state (in that sense) can be recognized as analogous to the expectations, uncertainties, and the precarious mix of life and death that exist in the two largely unjust societies she writes about.   

The Hangman's Game is a fascinating read.  It is finely-paced, well-dramatized, and politically assertive.

[Note: The Hangman's Game is available for purchase through Amazon Prime. Click here for pricing information.]

Good blog reads is back with a bang...controversy, humor, politics, good writing...wha mo yuh want?

Is a good thing I didn't click me camera in he face when I met him.  And, David Dabydeen may be a brilliant writer, but he's a lousy politician.  I agree with much of Romulus's commentary on his letter here in the Stabroek News.

Yes, I had a good time at Carifesta, but I'm still a bit rankled about something

One of the really bothersome negatives I encountered during Carifesta was something bigger than its lack of focus (I'm still scratching my head about the relevance of some of the events, for instance), so Akon presence aside, my biggest problem with it all was the lack of inclusion of younger voices on discussions about the condition of the Caribbean region.

I mentioned in this post how dismissive one older panel member was when a younger person from the region asked about the absence of younger writers on the panel that evening to discuss the topic "Caribbean Culture at the Crossroads."  The fact that the older panel member's dismissive attitude appeared to be sanctioned by the other older panel members, and the chair (Al Creighton)--who all remained silent after the rebuke--still rankles. 

But of course (try as they might) they can't quite keep the younger generations silent. 

In the post-Carifesta talk, Nicholas Laughlin, editor of The Caribbean Review of Books, and Alissa Trotz, (both under the age of 45) reflect on the current (and past) relevance of Carifesta.