CHAPTER 6
Grieving aunt and niece are having a conversation, and at some point in the conversation the aunt realizes she is not only talking to her niece, but to her niece who is the renowned writer Edwidge Danticat, and she says, "People talk. They say that everything they say to you ends up written down somewhere." Her niece writes, "Because she was my elder, my beloved aunt, I bowed my head in shame, wishing I could apologize for that . . . I wanted to ask her forgiveness for the essay that in my mind I was already writing. The most I could do, however, was to promise her not to use her real name..."
It's a funny moment between writer and somewhat unwilling close family subject, and it reminded me of Art Spiegelman's somewhat rancorous experiences with his close subject--his father--for his work Maus. I remember being caught between understanding the writer's desire to tell an important story, and his father's (rightful) insistence on privacy, which Spiegelman disobeys, of course. Ultimately, the avid reader in me sided (rather sheepishly) with Spiegelman, and I felt the same way about Danticat in this case. But, like Spiegelman's work, and the work of any writer which is based on the lives of his or her family members or friends, the essay could raise questions about representation (fair or foul) and about writers who write about others without their consent--questions that may or may not be easily resolvable by law.
CHAPTER 7
In this essay she retraces the relationship between the United States and Haiti as she explores what-ifs about Haiti's past and present. She starts by revisiting Haiti's glorious claim of being the Western Hemisphere's second republic, second only to the United States, and the bloody twelve-year slave uprising, which led to Haiti's independence, the only time in the history of the world that bond servants successfully overthrew their masters and formed their own state. And of the major what-ifs she considers are What if the United States hadn't waited so long (six decades) to acknowledge Haiti's independence? Would Haiti have prospered and flourished had it been given a fair chance at its beginning?
In the essay, she gathers myths, historical facts, and speculation as she repeats one of the book's running themes about the problems concerning cultural / national / representation and the complex incongruities in the view of Haiti by Haitians, and the view of Haiti by the rest of the world.
CHAPTER 8
The eighth essay in the book continues (from the seventh one) to focus on the troubling view of Haiti by the rest of the world. She points out how natural disaster has a way of unifying people's experiences and of unifying countries (large, small, rich, poor, and in-between) in ways that may be very unpredictable. But while the voice in the previous essay where she begins to focus on the view of Haiti by outsiders is speculative and questioning, the voice in this eighth essay is full of irritation and accusation. There is considerable irritation at those who continue to be blind to the things that unify us, and / or continue to stress on our differences.
Singled out for mention is the following comment by Soledad O'Brien, a week after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans: "You know, to some degree, when you are watching the original pictures . . . if you turned the sound down on your television, if you didn't know where you were, you might think it was Haiti or maybe one of those African countries..."
(Don't you just marvel when they use the "foreign phrase" to describe what would make much more sense in the native language?)
In the essay, Danticat, in plain American English, speaks to those of us whose first instinct is to reach beyond borders to give meaning to the local natural disaster. She tells us this too is America--"The America of the needy and never-have-enoughs, the America of the undocumented, the unemployed, and the underemployed . . . An America that remains invisible until a rebellion breaks out, gunshots ring out, or a flood rages through."
CHAPTER 9
This ninth essay connects literary, non-literary, literal, and figurative notions of "flying" and is one of my favorites. She takes us on a circuitous route from her fear of flying, to the 911 images of sabotage and death, to the Insurance salesman's suicide note in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, and through it all flight is seen as terrifying, final, matter-of-fact, and eloquent!--eloquent as the salesman's suicide note (she says), which she quotes in part: "On Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me."
For the salesman, flying was literal. He actually made wings, strapped them on his arms, and flew off the top of the building to his death. His note, arguably, only becomes eloquent when elevated to a higher level of meaning within the context of the narrative. But Danticat's flying motif works well even if one quibbles with that particular leap.
The essay lands softly, poignantly in memoriam. She pays tribute to Michael Richards, a New York sculptor, who had lived in Jamaica, and who had a special fascination with airplanes and flight. Richards was one of the victims of the 911 attack.
[Coming Thursday: More chapter highlights and my conclusion]
