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Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle
Télumée, paysanne de la Guadeloupe née au début du siècle, a été élevée par sa grand-mère, "haute négresse" justement nommée Reine Sans Nom. Télumée a souffert de sa condition de femme, de Noire et d'exploitée. Pourtant, qu'elle soit en compagnie d'Elie ou au côté d'Amboise, le révolté, sa volonté de bonheur, de "récolter par pleins paniers cette douceur qui tombe du ciel", est la plus forte. Voici l'univers des Antilles, avec ses couleurs, ses odeurs, sa vérité secrète, livré par une romancière qui s'approprie la langue française pour la soumettre à la musique noire.
254 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1972
52 people are currently reading
3,577 people want to read
About the author
Simone Schwarz-Bart
17books48followersSimone Schwarz-Bart (née Brumant) is a French novelist and playwright of Gouadeloupean origin.
Simone Brumant was born on January 8, 1938 at Saintes in the Charente-Maritime province of France. Her place of birth is not clear, however, as she has also stated that she was born in Pointe-à-Pitre.
Her parents were originally from Guadeloupe. Her father was a soldier while her mother was a teacher. When the Second World War broke out, her father stayed in France to fight, while she and her mother returned to Guadeloupe.
She studied at Pointe-à-Pitre, followed by Paris and Dakar.
At age 18, while studying in Paris, she met her future husband, André Schwarz-Bart, who encouraged her to take up writing as a career. They married in 1960, and lived at various times in Senegal, Switzerland, Paris, and Guadeloupe.
Schwarz-Bart has at one time run a Creole furniture business as well as a restaurant.
Her husband died in 2006. They have two sons, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, a noted jazz saxophonist, and Bernard Schwarz-Bart.
She currently lives in Goyave, a small village in Guadeloupe.
In 1967, together with her husband, André Schwarz-Bart, she wrote Un plat de porc aux bananas vertes, a historical novel exploring the parallels in the exiles of Caribbeans and Jews. In 1972, they published La Mulâtresse Solitude. In 1989, they wrote a six-volume encyclopaedia Hommage à la femme noire (In Praise of Black Women), to honour the black heroines who were missing in the official historiography.
Despite being mentioned as her husband's collaborator in their works, critics have often attributed full authorship to André Schwarz-Bart, and only his name appears in the French edition of La Mulâtresse Solitude. Her authorship is acknowledged, however, in the English translation of the book.
In 1972, Schwarz-Bart wrote Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, which is considered one of the masterpieces of Caribbean literature. In 1979, she published Ti jean l'horizon.
Schwarz-Bart has also written for the theatre: Ton beau capitaine was a well-received play in one act.
(from Wikipedia)
Simone Brumant was born on January 8, 1938 at Saintes in the Charente-Maritime province of France. Her place of birth is not clear, however, as she has also stated that she was born in Pointe-à-Pitre.
Her parents were originally from Guadeloupe. Her father was a soldier while her mother was a teacher. When the Second World War broke out, her father stayed in France to fight, while she and her mother returned to Guadeloupe.
She studied at Pointe-à-Pitre, followed by Paris and Dakar.
At age 18, while studying in Paris, she met her future husband, André Schwarz-Bart, who encouraged her to take up writing as a career. They married in 1960, and lived at various times in Senegal, Switzerland, Paris, and Guadeloupe.
Schwarz-Bart has at one time run a Creole furniture business as well as a restaurant.
Her husband died in 2006. They have two sons, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, a noted jazz saxophonist, and Bernard Schwarz-Bart.
She currently lives in Goyave, a small village in Guadeloupe.
In 1967, together with her husband, André Schwarz-Bart, she wrote Un plat de porc aux bananas vertes, a historical novel exploring the parallels in the exiles of Caribbeans and Jews. In 1972, they published La Mulâtresse Solitude. In 1989, they wrote a six-volume encyclopaedia Hommage à la femme noire (In Praise of Black Women), to honour the black heroines who were missing in the official historiography.
Despite being mentioned as her husband's collaborator in their works, critics have often attributed full authorship to André Schwarz-Bart, and only his name appears in the French edition of La Mulâtresse Solitude. Her authorship is acknowledged, however, in the English translation of the book.
In 1972, Schwarz-Bart wrote Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, which is considered one of the masterpieces of Caribbean literature. In 1979, she published Ti jean l'horizon.
Schwarz-Bart has also written for the theatre: Ton beau capitaine was a well-received play in one act.
(from Wikipedia)
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August 19, 2013
Simone Schwarz-Bart's classic novel The Bridge of Beyond, which will be released by NYRB on August 20, 2013, is an ode to the spirit of the women of Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles, caught between a colonial past and an uncertain future. In her prose, Schwarz-Bart captures the rhythm of language in Guadeloupe, as well as the longevity of folk traditions, spirits and magic, alongside a Christianity brought to the islands by French colonists. More than anything else, this magical, heart-rending, beautiful book explores the challenges faced by women living on the Caribbean island, and the spirit with which they faced challenges -- finding a way to support themselves and their children; seeking and losing love; fighting to maintain dignity in the face of white privilege and the vestiges of slavery; balancing respect for tradition with the unstoppable onset of modernity.
Sugar cane fields in Guadeloupe
Schwarz-Bart focuses her story on the lives of five generations of women in the Lougandor family, a chain of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters who fall in love, have children, suffer seemingly unbearable losses, and emerge from tragedy. Although Schwarz-Bart's narrative extends far into the Lougandor's past, the novel focuses primarily on the life of Telumee, who is raised by her grandmother Toussine after a series of family tragedies. Toussine herself is no stranger to loss. She lives alone in a hut in Fond-Zombi, in an isolated spot where she hoped her friend Ma Cia, a witch, would help her to make contact with her beloved husband Jeremiah's spirit. When Telumee leaves her family home in L'Abandonée to live with Toussine, she has a sense of excitement about the journey:
"We walked in silence, slowly, my grandmother so as to save her breath and I so as not to break the spell. Toward the middle of the day we left the little white road to its struggle against the sun, and turned off into a beaten track all red and cracked with drought. Then we came to a floating bridge over a strange river where huge locust trees grew along the banks, plunging everything into an eternal blue semidarkness. My grandmother, bending over her small charge, breathed contentment. 'Keep it up, my little poppet, we're at the Bridge of Beyond.' And taking me by one hand and holding on with the other to the rusty cable, she led me slowly across that deathtrap of disintegrating planks with the river boiling below. And suddenly we were on the other bank, Beyond: the landscape of Fond-Zombi unfolded before my eyes, a fantastic plain with bluff after bluff, field after field stretching into the distance, up to the gash in the sky that was the mountain itself, Balata Bel Bois. Little houses could be seen scattered about, either huddled together around a common yard or closed in on their own solitude, given over to themselves, to the mystery of the forest, to spirits, and to the grace of God."
Guadeloupe
The novel continues to trace Telumee's journey from childhood to adulthood. We see her playing with other children, helping Toussine with chores, and learning the rhythms of life in a community where centuries-old beliefs about spirits combined with the celebration of Christian festivals. As Telumee falls in love and moves from childhood to adulthood, her joys and her sorrows grow exponentially. Schwarz-Bart's lyrical prose depicts her passage through life with the cadences of Creole folk tales combines with lyrical, haunting descriptions of rituals, beliefs, and the beauty of the land surrounding her. Telumee doesn't divide landscape from people, the living from the dead -- in her culture, all elements and beings are interwoven, omnipresent.
Schwarz-Bart's descriptions of village life provide complex pictures of the combination of support and conflict in villages like Fond-Zombi:
"Sometimes there would be the sound of singing somewhere; a painful music would invade my breast, and a cloud seemed to come between sky and earth, covering the green of the trees, the yellow of the roads, and the black of human skins with a thin layer of gray dust. It happened mostly by the river on Sunday morning while Queen Without a Name [Toussine] was doing her washing: the women around her would start to laugh, laugh in a particular way, just with their mouths and teeth, as if they were coughing. As the linen flew the women hissed with venomous words, life turned to water and mockery, and all Fond-Zombi seemed to splash and writhe and swirl in the dirty water amid spurts of diaphanous foam."
As we follow Telumee through her life, we see finely drawn character portraits of her friends and enemies. They all bring to life the characters in this beautiful novel -- all the more beautiful because everyone is flawed, no one's life is perfect, but Telumee and her neighbors continue to strive.
Guadeloupe
I am inspired by so many aspects of this novel. Schwarz-Bart's prose captures the rhythms of stories passed from generation to generation. Seeing traditional beliefs side by side Christian ones provided a fascinating look into the complex culture of former slave communities. The visual descriptions of the landscape are striking. And, especially important to me, Telumee and Toussine emerge as three-dimensional characters who are inspirational in their ability to emerge from devastating tragedies. Highly recommended.
Sugar cane fields in Guadeloupe
Schwarz-Bart focuses her story on the lives of five generations of women in the Lougandor family, a chain of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters who fall in love, have children, suffer seemingly unbearable losses, and emerge from tragedy. Although Schwarz-Bart's narrative extends far into the Lougandor's past, the novel focuses primarily on the life of Telumee, who is raised by her grandmother Toussine after a series of family tragedies. Toussine herself is no stranger to loss. She lives alone in a hut in Fond-Zombi, in an isolated spot where she hoped her friend Ma Cia, a witch, would help her to make contact with her beloved husband Jeremiah's spirit. When Telumee leaves her family home in L'Abandonée to live with Toussine, she has a sense of excitement about the journey:
"We walked in silence, slowly, my grandmother so as to save her breath and I so as not to break the spell. Toward the middle of the day we left the little white road to its struggle against the sun, and turned off into a beaten track all red and cracked with drought. Then we came to a floating bridge over a strange river where huge locust trees grew along the banks, plunging everything into an eternal blue semidarkness. My grandmother, bending over her small charge, breathed contentment. 'Keep it up, my little poppet, we're at the Bridge of Beyond.' And taking me by one hand and holding on with the other to the rusty cable, she led me slowly across that deathtrap of disintegrating planks with the river boiling below. And suddenly we were on the other bank, Beyond: the landscape of Fond-Zombi unfolded before my eyes, a fantastic plain with bluff after bluff, field after field stretching into the distance, up to the gash in the sky that was the mountain itself, Balata Bel Bois. Little houses could be seen scattered about, either huddled together around a common yard or closed in on their own solitude, given over to themselves, to the mystery of the forest, to spirits, and to the grace of God."
Guadeloupe
The novel continues to trace Telumee's journey from childhood to adulthood. We see her playing with other children, helping Toussine with chores, and learning the rhythms of life in a community where centuries-old beliefs about spirits combined with the celebration of Christian festivals. As Telumee falls in love and moves from childhood to adulthood, her joys and her sorrows grow exponentially. Schwarz-Bart's lyrical prose depicts her passage through life with the cadences of Creole folk tales combines with lyrical, haunting descriptions of rituals, beliefs, and the beauty of the land surrounding her. Telumee doesn't divide landscape from people, the living from the dead -- in her culture, all elements and beings are interwoven, omnipresent.
Schwarz-Bart's descriptions of village life provide complex pictures of the combination of support and conflict in villages like Fond-Zombi:
"Sometimes there would be the sound of singing somewhere; a painful music would invade my breast, and a cloud seemed to come between sky and earth, covering the green of the trees, the yellow of the roads, and the black of human skins with a thin layer of gray dust. It happened mostly by the river on Sunday morning while Queen Without a Name [Toussine] was doing her washing: the women around her would start to laugh, laugh in a particular way, just with their mouths and teeth, as if they were coughing. As the linen flew the women hissed with venomous words, life turned to water and mockery, and all Fond-Zombi seemed to splash and writhe and swirl in the dirty water amid spurts of diaphanous foam."
As we follow Telumee through her life, we see finely drawn character portraits of her friends and enemies. They all bring to life the characters in this beautiful novel -- all the more beautiful because everyone is flawed, no one's life is perfect, but Telumee and her neighbors continue to strive.
Guadeloupe
I am inspired by so many aspects of this novel. Schwarz-Bart's prose captures the rhythms of stories passed from generation to generation. Seeing traditional beliefs side by side Christian ones provided a fascinating look into the complex culture of former slave communities. The visual descriptions of the landscape are striking. And, especially important to me, Telumee and Toussine emerge as three-dimensional characters who are inspirational in their ability to emerge from devastating tragedies. Highly recommended.
February 28, 2025
معجزه در باد و باران کتابی ایست از سیمون شوارتز بار ، نویسنده فرانسوی. این کتاب داستان زندگی تلومه، زن سیاهپوستی را روایت میکن� که در جزیره� گوادالوپ ، در دریای کارائیب زندگی میکن�. تلومه در طول زندگی خود با مشکلات زیادی روبرو میشود� اما سعی می کند همیشه امیدوار و قوی باقی بماند.
داستان در جزیره گوادلوپ رخ می دهد، جایی که طبیعت بکر و زیبا در تضاد با رنج و دردی است که شخصیته� تجربه میکنن�. باد و باران در این رمان نه تنها عناصر طبیعی هستند، بلکه شاید نمادهایی از تغییر، تحول و پاکسازی به شمار رون�. این عناصر به تلومه کمک میکنن� تا با گذشته خود روبرو شود و به سوی آیندها� روشنت� قدم بردارد.
داستان دردناک تلومه را می توان استحاله او در نقش شمن یا جادوگر محلی و استحاله دیگر او در نقش مادربزرگ خود ، مینروه دانست . در حالی که تلومه نقش مادربزرگ را پذیرفته ، دختر جوانی هم که سرپرستی او را به عهده گرفته ، نقش مشابه کودکی و جوانی تلومه را دارد .
فارغ از راه های مشابهی که تلومه و دختر خوانده او می روند ، معجزه در باد و باران را می توان داستان زندگی تلومه ، از کودکی ، نوجوانی و جوانی تا میانسالی و پیری هم دانست . اما مسیری که تلومه می رود ، با تلاش سیاهان گوادالوپ برای آزادی از استعمار فرانسه هم همراه شده . بنابراین اواخر کتاب که با دوران پیری تلومه هم زمان شده ، کتاب رنگ و بوی سیاسی می گیرد .
خانم شوارتز بار کوشیده تا با وجود تلخیها� فراوان، در نهایت، پیامی از امید و رستگاری را به خواننده منتقل کن�. این کتاب، داستانی از مقاومت، امید و عشق را در برابر ناملایمات زندگی روایت میکن�. نقاط ضعف کتاب را می توان تمرکز بیش از حد بر توصیفات و جزئیات و از حرکت باز ماندن داستان ، برخورد سطحی نویسنده با موضوعات مهمی مانند نژاد پرستی و استعمار و فاصله گرفتن نویسنده از زاویه دید تلومه دانست . موارد فوق سبب کند و یکنواخت شدن ریتم داستان و خدشه دار شدن انسجام آن شده است .
داستان در جزیره گوادلوپ رخ می دهد، جایی که طبیعت بکر و زیبا در تضاد با رنج و دردی است که شخصیته� تجربه میکنن�. باد و باران در این رمان نه تنها عناصر طبیعی هستند، بلکه شاید نمادهایی از تغییر، تحول و پاکسازی به شمار رون�. این عناصر به تلومه کمک میکنن� تا با گذشته خود روبرو شود و به سوی آیندها� روشنت� قدم بردارد.
داستان دردناک تلومه را می توان استحاله او در نقش شمن یا جادوگر محلی و استحاله دیگر او در نقش مادربزرگ خود ، مینروه دانست . در حالی که تلومه نقش مادربزرگ را پذیرفته ، دختر جوانی هم که سرپرستی او را به عهده گرفته ، نقش مشابه کودکی و جوانی تلومه را دارد .
فارغ از راه های مشابهی که تلومه و دختر خوانده او می روند ، معجزه در باد و باران را می توان داستان زندگی تلومه ، از کودکی ، نوجوانی و جوانی تا میانسالی و پیری هم دانست . اما مسیری که تلومه می رود ، با تلاش سیاهان گوادالوپ برای آزادی از استعمار فرانسه هم همراه شده . بنابراین اواخر کتاب که با دوران پیری تلومه هم زمان شده ، کتاب رنگ و بوی سیاسی می گیرد .
خانم شوارتز بار کوشیده تا با وجود تلخیها� فراوان، در نهایت، پیامی از امید و رستگاری را به خواننده منتقل کن�. این کتاب، داستانی از مقاومت، امید و عشق را در برابر ناملایمات زندگی روایت میکن�. نقاط ضعف کتاب را می توان تمرکز بیش از حد بر توصیفات و جزئیات و از حرکت باز ماندن داستان ، برخورد سطحی نویسنده با موضوعات مهمی مانند نژاد پرستی و استعمار و فاصله گرفتن نویسنده از زاویه دید تلومه دانست . موارد فوق سبب کند و یکنواخت شدن ریتم داستان و خدشه دار شدن انسجام آن شده است .
November 20, 2023
Her writing is so gorgeous, it just felt too contemplative for my mood. I think most readers of smart, slow, authentic female experiences will really like this. It does fall short of the best of them for me, and although I can’t pinpoint why, this feels more like something about the craft and not my personal aesthetic. 3.5
December 30, 2019
“The fact is that a mere nothing, a thought, a whim, a particle of dust can change the course of a life�
I came to know of Simone Schwarz-Bart through Maryse Condé, like Simone Schwarz-Bart also a Guadeloupean writer, whose work I deeply admire, who praised her work highly. Below is a picture of the writers together that warmed my heart:
(simone is seated on the left and maryse on the right)
The story is narrated by Telumee, an old impoverished and solitary woman who recounts her life and the lives of the women she’s descended from, beginning with her great-grandmother Minerva who was a freed slave. A story centering the Black women of Guadeloupe told with sweeping richness.
With luminous description, Simone Schwarz-Bart creates Fond-Zombie, La Folie and the other towns and places this story is set in. From the trees to the waves to the flowers to the mountains and of course the people themselves as well, in their hardships, conflicts, kindness, endurance, wisdom. Each word an intricate layer that went to build this fantastic story and a world of colour and marvelous. This book is a song of life.
Throughout the whole book the mark of slavery is felt, for instance at some point Telumee remarks:
“For the first time in my life I realized that slavery was not some foreign country, some distant region from which a few very old people came, like the two or three who still survived in Fond-Zombi . It had all happened here, in our hills and valleys, perhaps near this clump of bamboo, perhaps in the air I was breathing. And I thought of the laughter of certain men and women, and their little fits of coughing echoed in me, and a heart-rending music rose in my chest.�
And later on about the incomprehensibility and vestiges of slavery:
“�.and I think of the injustice in the world, and of all of us still suffering and dying silently of slavery after it is finished and forgotten. I try, I try every night, and I never succeed in understanding how it could have all started, how it can have continued, how it can still survive, in our tortured souls, uncertain, torn, which will be our last prison.�
Through Telumee's childhood, her beautiful friendship with her grandmother Queen Without a Name, her first love, her heartbreak, her recovery, and discovery, and healing and loving again, and loss and grief, and finding happiness again and losing it again and a final resting point, it is difficult to express the poignancy and importance of this book.
I stretched the reading period to ensure it would be the crowning for this year’s reading and what an enriching experience it has been, reemerging from this world and the echoes of the words and people and Telumee still lingers, unforgettable, I am so glad that Maryse Condé led me to this incredible writer and thus this great book which is now one of the best books I have ever read.
I came to know of Simone Schwarz-Bart through Maryse Condé, like Simone Schwarz-Bart also a Guadeloupean writer, whose work I deeply admire, who praised her work highly. Below is a picture of the writers together that warmed my heart:
(simone is seated on the left and maryse on the right)
The story is narrated by Telumee, an old impoverished and solitary woman who recounts her life and the lives of the women she’s descended from, beginning with her great-grandmother Minerva who was a freed slave. A story centering the Black women of Guadeloupe told with sweeping richness.
With luminous description, Simone Schwarz-Bart creates Fond-Zombie, La Folie and the other towns and places this story is set in. From the trees to the waves to the flowers to the mountains and of course the people themselves as well, in their hardships, conflicts, kindness, endurance, wisdom. Each word an intricate layer that went to build this fantastic story and a world of colour and marvelous. This book is a song of life.
Throughout the whole book the mark of slavery is felt, for instance at some point Telumee remarks:
“For the first time in my life I realized that slavery was not some foreign country, some distant region from which a few very old people came, like the two or three who still survived in Fond-Zombi . It had all happened here, in our hills and valleys, perhaps near this clump of bamboo, perhaps in the air I was breathing. And I thought of the laughter of certain men and women, and their little fits of coughing echoed in me, and a heart-rending music rose in my chest.�
And later on about the incomprehensibility and vestiges of slavery:
“�.and I think of the injustice in the world, and of all of us still suffering and dying silently of slavery after it is finished and forgotten. I try, I try every night, and I never succeed in understanding how it could have all started, how it can have continued, how it can still survive, in our tortured souls, uncertain, torn, which will be our last prison.�
Through Telumee's childhood, her beautiful friendship with her grandmother Queen Without a Name, her first love, her heartbreak, her recovery, and discovery, and healing and loving again, and loss and grief, and finding happiness again and losing it again and a final resting point, it is difficult to express the poignancy and importance of this book.
I stretched the reading period to ensure it would be the crowning for this year’s reading and what an enriching experience it has been, reemerging from this world and the echoes of the words and people and Telumee still lingers, unforgettable, I am so glad that Maryse Condé led me to this incredible writer and thus this great book which is now one of the best books I have ever read.
April 13, 2023
کتابی زیبا، با توصیفاتی فراوان از دنیای بردگی...
روایت زنی که گرچه برده نیست ولی زندگی امروزش جدا از زندگی و تاثیر دنیای اجدادش نیست.
روایت زنی که گرچه برده نیست ولی زندگی امروزش جدا از زندگی و تاثیر دنیای اجدادش نیست.
January 3, 2019
Absolutely brilliant, astonishing, loved it, it was my Outstanding Read of 2016.
Telumee is the last in a line of proud Lougandor women on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe.
In the first part we learn about her people, her mother Victory,
her father, his life cut short in a fatal stabbing,
the man who pulled her mother out of her grief, and out of her daughter's life
and her grandmother Toussine, 'Queen Without a Name', to whom her mother sent her to live,
Every change of home, village, or great journey takes them across the Bridge of Beyond, a symbol of change and the unknown, the other side.
Telumee narrates the story of her life, in small details, in melodic, incantatory prose that lures the reader in, consuming her story with great pleasure.
As she passes through various stages of life, she is guided but never pressured by her grandmother, remembering her stories, her songs, her advice,
She will fall in love, leave to work in the kitchen of wealthy white family, build her own home, experience both profound happiness and the depths of despair, brush up against madness and find its cure, and always the reassuring presence of her grandmother.
As Jamaica Kincaid articulates well in the introduction, The Bridge of Beyond is not a conventional novel, and it never tries to be. It is a fluid, unveiling of a life, and a way of life, lived somewhere between a past that is not forgotten, that time of slavery lamented in the songs and felt in the bones, and a present that is a struggle and a joy to live, alongside nature, the landscape, the community and their traditions.
It is one of the best books I have read in a long time, coming from a place of love and appreciation that reaches far back, acknowledging the gifts of all, that make up who we are. Outstanding.
Telumee is the last in a line of proud Lougandor women on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe.
In the first part we learn about her people, her mother Victory,
"a laundress, wearing out her wrists on flat stones in the rivers, and her linen emerged like new from under the heavy waxed irons"
her father, his life cut short in a fatal stabbing,
"Angebert, had led a reserved and silent existence, effacing himself so completely
that no one ever knew who it was died that day. Sometimes I wonder about him, ask myself what anyone so kind and gentle was doing in this world at all."
the man who pulled her mother out of her grief, and out of her daughter's life
The fact is that a mere nothing, a thought, a whim, a particle of dust can change the course of a life. If Haut-Colbi had not stopped in the village my little story would have been different."
and her grandmother Toussine, 'Queen Without a Name', to whom her mother sent her to live,
My mother's reverence for Toussine was such I came to regard her as some mythical being not of this world, so that for me she was legendary even while still alive."
Every change of home, village, or great journey takes them across the Bridge of Beyond, a symbol of change and the unknown, the other side.
Telumee narrates the story of her life, in small details, in melodic, incantatory prose that lures the reader in, consuming her story with great pleasure.
As she passes through various stages of life, she is guided but never pressured by her grandmother, remembering her stories, her songs, her advice,
"My little ember", she'd whisper, "if you ever get on a horse, keep good hold of the reins so that its not the horse that rides you." And as I clung to her, breathing in her nutmeg smell, Queen Without a Name would sigh, caress me, and go on, distinctly, as if to engrave the words on my mind: "Behind one pain, there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn't ride you, you must ride it."
She will fall in love, leave to work in the kitchen of wealthy white family, build her own home, experience both profound happiness and the depths of despair, brush up against madness and find its cure, and always the reassuring presence of her grandmother.
Sometimes old thoughts arose in me, shooting up like whirls of dust raised from the road by a herd of wild horses galloping by. The Grandmother to try to whistle up a wind for me, saying we should soon be going away, for the air in Fond-Zombi didn't agree with my lungs now.
As Jamaica Kincaid articulates well in the introduction, The Bridge of Beyond is not a conventional novel, and it never tries to be. It is a fluid, unveiling of a life, and a way of life, lived somewhere between a past that is not forgotten, that time of slavery lamented in the songs and felt in the bones, and a present that is a struggle and a joy to live, alongside nature, the landscape, the community and their traditions.
The cultural traditions and historical events from which this work of art springs cannot be contained in a strict linear narrative. In fact, such a device might even lend a veneer of inevitability to them. For the narrative that began with a search for fresh water on an island one Sunday morning has no end - it circles back on itself, it begins again, it staggers sideways, it never lurches forward to a conclusion in which the world where it began is suddenly transformed into an ideal, new world. Schwarz-Bart's prose awakens the senses and enlarges the imagination; it makes me anxious for my own sanity and yet at the same time certain of it; her sentences, rooted in Creole experience and filled with surprising insights and proverbs, resonate in my head and heart." Jamaica Kincaid
It is one of the best books I have read in a long time, coming from a place of love and appreciation that reaches far back, acknowledging the gifts of all, that make up who we are. Outstanding.
December 17, 2024
The fact is that a mere nothing, a thought, a whim, a particle of dust can change the course of a life.
There are certain books you read and sadly realize you still have too far to go in your reading journey. There are books you come across and soon realize you are reading something that creates its own literary techniques of style and mood. Only a few books have the power to make you read instinctively, so that you reach for beauteous words on the page and beyond; only a few books are both esoteric and universal.
This has now become my favorite read of the year. How could I have waited so long to read it?
This was such a visceral read for me that much of it seems indescribable. That it weaves in proverbs spanning the diaspora is even more appealing: "you have to tear out your entrails and fill your belly with straw if you want to enjoy a little walk in the sun." Some of these proverbs passed down from five generations of Lougandor women, women from families forcibly removed from Africa and deposited into the West Indies, are the same parables I heard passed down from my grandmothers in Africa.
Even when I am dumbfounded by the depth of this novel and unable to adequately describe it, I realize almost immediately what it shares in common with some of the books that have moved me. The symbiotic relationship between Telumee and her grandmother reminds me of a similar relationship in Yvonne Vera's . Telumee is abandoned by her mother and cared for by her grandmother, Queen Without a Name. There is no character who resembles Queen Without a Name, and yet her courage and tenacity (despite the strains of poverty and the burdens left in her neighborhood from the atrocities of slavery), reminds me of Ramatoulaye's in . And Telumee. She beguiles and distresses and inspires a reader. Telumee, "crystal glass," as her grandmother calls her, has the kind of dazzle that reminds me of .
When Telumee's heart is broken, her grandmother picks up the pieces. When she needs her first job, her grandmother calls in favors from the owners of the homes she cleaned when she was younger, and she gives her granddaughter's tips for fleeing the harassment of the husbands and the jealousies of the wives. When she needs advice, her grandmother's wisdom permeates the novel. When she needs help, her grandmother's friend, Ma Cia, is by her side. The women of this commune match sorrow and despair with stoicism and grace as they lean on each other for strength.
Like the rum of the communes, the book is atmospherically somber and sweet. There is song, laughter, joy, heartbreak, grief, poetry, and love. The residents of Fond-Zombi survive and cope in their segregated neighborhood. They try to create the freedoms they never knew because their families never knew it. They recreate their lives, but with no resources available to them, this too is a struggle. They lean on the land and find nourishment in nature. When they cross the ramshackle Bridge of Beyond to sell their wares or work as housekeepers in white neighborhoods, they know that they must be different versions of themselves, different personas, "be like a pebble in a river resting on the bottom." They know that this is survival. They know that this is also strength, "to be a real drum with two sides," one side to be "thumped on" while the other side remains intact.
Thankfully, this pivotal addition to literary arts was included in the New York Review Books Classics and translated from French.
There are certain books you read and sadly realize you still have too far to go in your reading journey. There are books you come across and soon realize you are reading something that creates its own literary techniques of style and mood. Only a few books have the power to make you read instinctively, so that you reach for beauteous words on the page and beyond; only a few books are both esoteric and universal.
All rivers, even the most dazzling, those that catch the sun in their streams, all rivers go down to and are drowned in the sea. And life awaits man as the sea awaits the river. You can make meander after meander, twist, turn, seep into the earth—your meanders are your own affair. But life is there, patient, without beginning or end, waiting for you, like the ocean.
This has now become my favorite read of the year. How could I have waited so long to read it?
This was such a visceral read for me that much of it seems indescribable. That it weaves in proverbs spanning the diaspora is even more appealing: "you have to tear out your entrails and fill your belly with straw if you want to enjoy a little walk in the sun." Some of these proverbs passed down from five generations of Lougandor women, women from families forcibly removed from Africa and deposited into the West Indies, are the same parables I heard passed down from my grandmothers in Africa.
Even when I am dumbfounded by the depth of this novel and unable to adequately describe it, I realize almost immediately what it shares in common with some of the books that have moved me. The symbiotic relationship between Telumee and her grandmother reminds me of a similar relationship in Yvonne Vera's . Telumee is abandoned by her mother and cared for by her grandmother, Queen Without a Name. There is no character who resembles Queen Without a Name, and yet her courage and tenacity (despite the strains of poverty and the burdens left in her neighborhood from the atrocities of slavery), reminds me of Ramatoulaye's in . And Telumee. She beguiles and distresses and inspires a reader. Telumee, "crystal glass," as her grandmother calls her, has the kind of dazzle that reminds me of .
When Telumee's heart is broken, her grandmother picks up the pieces. When she needs her first job, her grandmother calls in favors from the owners of the homes she cleaned when she was younger, and she gives her granddaughter's tips for fleeing the harassment of the husbands and the jealousies of the wives. When she needs advice, her grandmother's wisdom permeates the novel. When she needs help, her grandmother's friend, Ma Cia, is by her side. The women of this commune match sorrow and despair with stoicism and grace as they lean on each other for strength.
Like the rum of the communes, the book is atmospherically somber and sweet. There is song, laughter, joy, heartbreak, grief, poetry, and love. The residents of Fond-Zombi survive and cope in their segregated neighborhood. They try to create the freedoms they never knew because their families never knew it. They recreate their lives, but with no resources available to them, this too is a struggle. They lean on the land and find nourishment in nature. When they cross the ramshackle Bridge of Beyond to sell their wares or work as housekeepers in white neighborhoods, they know that they must be different versions of themselves, different personas, "be like a pebble in a river resting on the bottom." They know that this is survival. They know that this is also strength, "to be a real drum with two sides," one side to be "thumped on" while the other side remains intact.
Thankfully, this pivotal addition to literary arts was included in the New York Review Books Classics and translated from French.
December 17, 2015
'Talk to me about life, Grandmother. Talk to me about that.'At times I feel that these books of mine are being read for nothing more than their location on the map, another pinpoint prick in the wide geographical plane that in this case happened to land on Guadeloupe of all places. Well, what of it? Reading is for the narcissists, writing for the egotistical neurotics, so why shouldn't I funnel these urges down paths whose very nature seeks out the strange and unfamiliar? A recently come across quote tells the tale of two reasons for the picking of a book, that of the good and that of the real, but forbears speaking of the result. My choosing methods may be more methodical than fervent, but when it comes to this book and many others, the ends more than justify the means.
Take the NYRB Classics. I am but one of many who finds joy in this pretty pretty covers and bindings that do a marvelous job of bringing back the undeservedly obscure, a fetish of judging books by their covers and reaping just rewards. Say what I will about my efforts to be "well-read", I am unsure as to how much the gorgeous white sculpture on the NYRB edition influenced me, joining forces with Kris' wonderful review and pushing me to purchase. My own copy may not be NYRB, but what with the informative introduction, biographical notes, and a translation I could find no qualm with, I am well satisfied.
And I'd go running, and plunge into the din, into the sea of voices and shouting and singing that echoed with curious force, submerging everything, catching me up, bewitching me, opening up new and infinite perspectives and ways of looking at things unknown to me a few weeks before, when I hadn't yet discovered my right place in the world, and it was right here in the godforsaken hole of Fond-Zombi.I'm still not talking about the book, am I. To be frank, there's a meaning that goes beyond the simple words of "slavery", "post-colonialism", "Negroes" and "women" and "magical realism" and so many other terms that really couldn't convey the essence of this work no matter the manner of combination or level of expounding. The best I can do is offer the theme of life and living that happens to be in this time period, this place, in a body oppressed by both of the former as well as its inherent gender that for all its woes retains so much of its beauty and thrives in so much of its promise. It is a story of richness and sorrow and a potential that knows from the moment it is birthed that it will live to be wasted, a knowledge that both smooths and sharpens tragedy as much as it raises and tears down joy till finally, there is life. Nothing more, nothing less.
And if we Negroes at the back of beyond honour our dead for nine days, it's so that the soul of the deceased should not be hurried in any way, so that it can detach itself gradually from its piece of earth, its chair, its favourite tree, and the faces of its fiends, before going to contemplate the hidden side of the sun.A common theme, a common story, singularly subsumed in a culture whose unfamiliarity to my own sensibilities only sweetens my recognition of the familiar. As nybooks.com tells, "NYRB Classics are, to a large degree, discoveries, the kind of books that people typically run into outside of the classroom and then remember for life". I say, here, they have well succeeded.
But I shall die here, where I am, standing in my little garden. What happiness!
July 23, 2020
3rd book as part of my Caribbean summer reading: Guadeloupe
I'm glad to have finally read this Caribbean classic from Guadeloupe, my native island!! It is such a mesmerizing book with its floating, mystic atmosphere and lilting proverbs. It reads almost like poetry.
It is a multi-generational novel and the coming-of-age story of Telumée Lougandor, a strong "negress" from the French island of Guadeloupe. The characters are brilliantly developed as the author traces Telumée's lineage. She describes the everlasting sorrows of the negro population after slavery. At some point, Telumée can almost hear the rattling of her ancestors' chains. The locals have to struggle all their lives against this doom; some succumb to alcohol and death, others are still toiling in the cane fields or in factories without the hopes of a better life, merely surviving.
However, Télumée is said to have been born under a lucky star and tries to overcome all obstacles, finds solace in love, farming, or medicinal herbs; though bad fortune is never far away. I was vacillating between 4 or 5 stars. It was a tough call. What could have been the novel's weakness--its relative slowness and lack of action--might finally be its greatest strength. It is largely compensated by the exhilarating prose and philosophical musings of .
I'm glad to have finally read this Caribbean classic from Guadeloupe, my native island!! It is such a mesmerizing book with its floating, mystic atmosphere and lilting proverbs. It reads almost like poetry.
It is a multi-generational novel and the coming-of-age story of Telumée Lougandor, a strong "negress" from the French island of Guadeloupe. The characters are brilliantly developed as the author traces Telumée's lineage. She describes the everlasting sorrows of the negro population after slavery. At some point, Telumée can almost hear the rattling of her ancestors' chains. The locals have to struggle all their lives against this doom; some succumb to alcohol and death, others are still toiling in the cane fields or in factories without the hopes of a better life, merely surviving.
However, Télumée is said to have been born under a lucky star and tries to overcome all obstacles, finds solace in love, farming, or medicinal herbs; though bad fortune is never far away. I was vacillating between 4 or 5 stars. It was a tough call. What could have been the novel's weakness--its relative slowness and lack of action--might finally be its greatest strength. It is largely compensated by the exhilarating prose and philosophical musings of .
June 9, 2020
"Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. Bit the horse mustn't ride you, you just ride it."
From THE BRIDGE OF BEYOND by Simone Schwarz-Bart, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray, 1972 (Fr) / 1974 (En), NYRB editions.
#ReadCaribbean
#ReadtheWorld21 📍 Guadeloupe.
Just read some of the most beautiful prose I've ever encountered. A book I already know I'll return to again, and will be a favorite of the year, and years to come.
There's a spiritual quality to this work - proverbs, insights, aphorisms, ways to live, love, and grieve from generations of Black Guadeloupean women: Toussine "Queen Without a Name", Victory, and Telumee.
Jamaica Kincaid, in her introduction to the @nyrbooks edition, mentions the word 'incantory'. It's an apt descriptor - as it does feel like calling up and witnessing something magical, through the thin membrane of life and death, through joy and pain.
"You know how to light up your own soul, and that is why you shine for everyone else.
...
"Your job is to shine now, so shine. And when the day comes that misfortune says to you, Here I am - then at least you'll have shone."
So highly recommended.
From THE BRIDGE OF BEYOND by Simone Schwarz-Bart, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray, 1972 (Fr) / 1974 (En), NYRB editions.
#ReadCaribbean
#ReadtheWorld21 📍 Guadeloupe.
Just read some of the most beautiful prose I've ever encountered. A book I already know I'll return to again, and will be a favorite of the year, and years to come.
There's a spiritual quality to this work - proverbs, insights, aphorisms, ways to live, love, and grieve from generations of Black Guadeloupean women: Toussine "Queen Without a Name", Victory, and Telumee.
Jamaica Kincaid, in her introduction to the @nyrbooks edition, mentions the word 'incantory'. It's an apt descriptor - as it does feel like calling up and witnessing something magical, through the thin membrane of life and death, through joy and pain.
"You know how to light up your own soul, and that is why you shine for everyone else.
...
"Your job is to shine now, so shine. And when the day comes that misfortune says to you, Here I am - then at least you'll have shone."
So highly recommended.
Read
July 26, 2016The characters in this novel of Guadeloupe do not speak in a patois but in aphorisms, in flora and fauna. Like Elie, who will not deserve our sympathy, who says this:
I'm not a gladiolus; I can't promise you whether I'll come out of the earth red or yellow. Tomorrow our water may turn into vinegar or into wine, but if it's vinegar, don't curse me, but let your maledictions sleep in the hollow of the bombax tree.
At the risk of plot-spoiling, Elie is no flower, but yellow enough, and definitely vinegar. Oh, the maledictions.
Telumee, by comparison, is a red canna in the forest; and yes, she is.
This is a story about post-slavery Guadeloupe, and you can certainly read it for that. And it's a three-generational story of women which can, I think, transcend the geographical island barriers. So there's that too.
But I found myself reading it for the language, that manner of speaking. Like:
I'd always heard it said that a virtuous soul never leaves the world without regret; and that was why the dew was falling--dew, not rain; not tears, but only dew.
Sage old women (my favorite literary characters) would hike up their skirts, and expound:
Slavery is finished--love me and you can't buy me, hate me and you can't sell me.
I heard Toni Morrison in passages, in a good way.
I should say more about this book; it deserves more to be said about it. But I have to go. The dew is falling. Only dew.
I'm not a gladiolus; I can't promise you whether I'll come out of the earth red or yellow. Tomorrow our water may turn into vinegar or into wine, but if it's vinegar, don't curse me, but let your maledictions sleep in the hollow of the bombax tree.
At the risk of plot-spoiling, Elie is no flower, but yellow enough, and definitely vinegar. Oh, the maledictions.
Telumee, by comparison, is a red canna in the forest; and yes, she is.
This is a story about post-slavery Guadeloupe, and you can certainly read it for that. And it's a three-generational story of women which can, I think, transcend the geographical island barriers. So there's that too.
But I found myself reading it for the language, that manner of speaking. Like:
I'd always heard it said that a virtuous soul never leaves the world without regret; and that was why the dew was falling--dew, not rain; not tears, but only dew.
Sage old women (my favorite literary characters) would hike up their skirts, and expound:
Slavery is finished--love me and you can't buy me, hate me and you can't sell me.
I heard Toni Morrison in passages, in a good way.
I should say more about this book; it deserves more to be said about it. But I have to go. The dew is falling. Only dew.
January 12, 2023
Gorgeous language and atmosphere but the book just didn't work for me. Never been a fan of violent and abusive relationships being presented as a 'love story'.
2.5* rounded up because of the beautiful writing,
2.5* rounded up because of the beautiful writing,
August 31, 2013
I received a galley of this via in exchange for an honest review. This does not alter my opinions of the work.
This book is a great capture of life on a Caribbean island not too long ago dominated by slavery. Strong female characters, with parts and chapters focusing on different stories from their lives, but very reflective of the hardships in their unique situation. My favorite element was the relationship between Telumee ("Mama Miracle") and her grandmother ("Queen Without a Name.") The writing is such that I wanted to quote almost every page. Memorable and I think my favorite book set in the Caribbean so far! I'm so glad NYRB chose this to republish.
"There are three paths that are bad for a man to take: to see the beauty of the world and call it ugly, to get up early to do what is impossible, and to let oneself get carried away by dreams - for whoever dreams becomes the victim of his own dreams."
"With a word a man can be stopped from destroying himself."
"The way a man's heart is set in his chest is the way he looks at life."
"Have they succeeded in breaking us, crushing us, cutting off our arms and legs forever? We have been goods for auction, and now we are left with fractured hearts."
"I have moved my cabin to the east and to the west; east winds and north winds have buffeted and soaked me; but I am still a woman standing on my own two legs, and I know a Negro is not a statue of salt to be dissolved by the rain."
This book is a great capture of life on a Caribbean island not too long ago dominated by slavery. Strong female characters, with parts and chapters focusing on different stories from their lives, but very reflective of the hardships in their unique situation. My favorite element was the relationship between Telumee ("Mama Miracle") and her grandmother ("Queen Without a Name.") The writing is such that I wanted to quote almost every page. Memorable and I think my favorite book set in the Caribbean so far! I'm so glad NYRB chose this to republish.
"There are three paths that are bad for a man to take: to see the beauty of the world and call it ugly, to get up early to do what is impossible, and to let oneself get carried away by dreams - for whoever dreams becomes the victim of his own dreams."
"With a word a man can be stopped from destroying himself."
"The way a man's heart is set in his chest is the way he looks at life."
"Have they succeeded in breaking us, crushing us, cutting off our arms and legs forever? We have been goods for auction, and now we are left with fractured hearts."
"I have moved my cabin to the east and to the west; east winds and north winds have buffeted and soaked me; but I am still a woman standing on my own two legs, and I know a Negro is not a statue of salt to be dissolved by the rain."
June 27, 2024
What a beautiful, haunting book. The plot doesn't matter, one doesn't read this kind of book for the plot.
The prose flows and the voice of Telumee is mesmerizing.
The story she tells matters less than the lesson that life is waves of suffering, but it is also beautiful, so we need to be the rider, not the horse.
Highly, highly recommended.
I reread this beautiful, lyrical, mesmerizing, haunting, heartbreaking, hopeful story in one sitting. I can not recommended this book enough. It deserves the widest audience.
The prose flows and the voice of Telumee is mesmerizing.
The story she tells matters less than the lesson that life is waves of suffering, but it is also beautiful, so we need to be the rider, not the horse.
Highly, highly recommended.
I reread this beautiful, lyrical, mesmerizing, haunting, heartbreaking, hopeful story in one sitting. I can not recommended this book enough. It deserves the widest audience.
March 15, 2010
It isn’t easy to get your hands on a copy of Simone Schwarz-Bart’s The Bridge of Beyond, but it’s definitely worth the trouble. This novel is emotionally poignant, at times bittersweet, but ultimately uplifting. Schwarz-Bart tells the story of Telumee, the great-granddaughter of a freed slave in Guadeloupe, as she works her way through love, poverty, family deaths, and especially the slave legacy of her ancestors. The novel is endearingly local, as it lets the reader in on the secrets of the townspeople of Fond-Zombi, but at the same time is sweepingly universal, touching on major topics in Latin American and Caribbean literature and literature in general such as negritude, magic realism, gender relations, abuse, and survival. Like her ancestors, Telumee struggles through a life full of uncertainties, but she ultimately becomes an encouraging example of a strong woman, African-American, and person in general. The Bridge of Beyond is both complexly educational and simply a pleasure to read if only because of its relatable emotion and lyrical style. Look on Amazon, in used bookstores, wherever. Just find this book. Find it, and read it.
December 19, 2013
A simple story, the life of Telumee in rural Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. The story of a simple life told in plain, unadorned language--originally in French, translated by Barbara Bray--but language whose resonance in describing such a gentle life among the unassuming, happy villagers of Fond-Zombi rings with the universality of peasant lives cultivated in both a closely-knit community and their providential environment. This may be the plain language of a simple people, but it is beautifully-written and the quiet power of Telumee's voice builds into a full-throated song of those people.
August 25, 2019
My heart. Book of the year.
October 13, 2018
Published by New York Review Books most known for offering books which should be paid more attention and are great choices when you want a "smart read", this Caribbean classic is rich in prose, interwoven with Creole proverbs and folklore, and is the imaginative life story of Tellumee who is raised in the "shelter of the wide skirts " provided by the mythical line of strong matrons who lived before her and were influenced by slavery on the French Antillean Island of Guadeloupe.
If you're interested in learning more about little known cultures with an interesting way of passing down the wisdom of the ages or have a "strong women" shelf in your library like me, this might be one you will enjoy.
5 stars
If you're interested in learning more about little known cultures with an interesting way of passing down the wisdom of the ages or have a "strong women" shelf in your library like me, this might be one you will enjoy.
5 stars
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
September 8, 2021The good news is this novel has one of the strongest most inviting opening paragraphs of any book I’ve recently picked up.
The bad news is it was all downhill from there. Bored out of my tree at the halfway mark, I am putting it aside.
I didn’t connect with the writing style—past that opening paragraph—the characters, the plot, nada. I’m glad so many others have loved it.
The bad news is it was all downhill from there. Bored out of my tree at the halfway mark, I am putting it aside.
I didn’t connect with the writing style—past that opening paragraph—the characters, the plot, nada. I’m glad so many others have loved it.
April 24, 2022
4.5 Stars
Schwartz-Bart’s writing creates a runway for imagination to take flight to the lush island of Guadeloupe without noticing the passage of time. Though their lives seem to be a circle of sorrows, Schwartz-Bart shapes a path of resilience through spiritual guidance from ancestors and honoring the land. Fond memories of my grandmother flood-in as Toussine shared a scared bond with her granddaughter, from proverbial advice to even consulting with a ‘healer� to ward off evil spirits.
𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦-𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.
Similar to tradition of oral storytelling, Schwartz-Bart spins autobiographical elements and dreamlike prose to share the story of Telumee, Afro-Caribbean Guadeloupian woman as well as a glimpse into the history and cultural traditions of Caribbean at large. I felt a bit lost a few times in the sequential timeline and plot direction within the book. Perhaps like an oral storyteller, the narrator confuses the present with memory.
With a force like bougainvillea and magic of breadfruit, this much-needed escape connects the island’s landscape to an intimate family portrait of struggle and love.
Schwartz-Bart’s writing creates a runway for imagination to take flight to the lush island of Guadeloupe without noticing the passage of time. Though their lives seem to be a circle of sorrows, Schwartz-Bart shapes a path of resilience through spiritual guidance from ancestors and honoring the land. Fond memories of my grandmother flood-in as Toussine shared a scared bond with her granddaughter, from proverbial advice to even consulting with a ‘healer� to ward off evil spirits.
𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦-𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.
Similar to tradition of oral storytelling, Schwartz-Bart spins autobiographical elements and dreamlike prose to share the story of Telumee, Afro-Caribbean Guadeloupian woman as well as a glimpse into the history and cultural traditions of Caribbean at large. I felt a bit lost a few times in the sequential timeline and plot direction within the book. Perhaps like an oral storyteller, the narrator confuses the present with memory.
With a force like bougainvillea and magic of breadfruit, this much-needed escape connects the island’s landscape to an intimate family portrait of struggle and love.
November 30, 2023
This was my third Caribbean novel this year, the other two were and . All have been terrific reads, and this was the best.
The writing is complex and yet fully engaging, with rich imagery and metaphors that would require more than one reading to unpack fully. The characters were fully human, and more, and the picture of life among the generations succeeding slavery deeply absorbing, tragic in its poverty and precarity and heartbreaking in the mix of love and evil. Where did such intense writing come from?
One of my top books this year.
The writing is complex and yet fully engaging, with rich imagery and metaphors that would require more than one reading to unpack fully. The characters were fully human, and more, and the picture of life among the generations succeeding slavery deeply absorbing, tragic in its poverty and precarity and heartbreaking in the mix of love and evil. Where did such intense writing come from?
One of my top books this year.
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June 4, 2023Fabulous, just fabulous. Several generations of woman growing up in Guadeloupe, this is magical realism (I know, I know, sorry, sorry) at it's very best, that is to say an ecstatic (though not at all improbable) hyper-vivid storyline, filled with various folk beliefs and hints of fantastical activities, the purpose of which being to intensify the readers own reactions to the essentially very reasonable, human emotions of the cast. An enormously life-affirming novel, exceptional in its empathy. Oh, lovely, lovely! A very, very rare find. I have read a lot of fabulous books lately and gun to my head (please don't put a gun to my heard) this was the best. Absolutely beautiful. Obviously, keep.
Update: 'However tall trouble is, man must make himself taller still, even if it means making stilts.' The story of three generations of woman growing up in Guadalupe remains one of my favorite works of literature, a haunting, tragic, inspiring paean to the necessity of hope.
Update: 'However tall trouble is, man must make himself taller still, even if it means making stilts.' The story of three generations of woman growing up in Guadalupe remains one of my favorite works of literature, a haunting, tragic, inspiring paean to the necessity of hope.
December 8, 2023
This is a 1972 novel about the four generations of Lougandor women living on the French Caribbean island group known as Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe is known for its sugar cane, beaches and hilly countryside. The story takes in the villages and open areas on Bassa-Terra the western one of the bow-tied shaped adjoining two main islands of Guadeloupe.
The Lougandor women, like most island residents, descend from slaves brought to Guadeloupe to harvest the sugar cane. In generational order, the four Lougandor women are Minerva, Toussine, Victory, and Telumee. The story is narrated by the youngest of them, Telumee, who spends the first sixth of the book on her ancestors� stories before turning the focus to her own story. Playing a larger role in her life than her mother Victory is Telumee’s grandmother Toussine, known throughout the island as “Queen Without a Name.�
The writing is wonderfully flowing and descriptive yet focused enough to never cast my mind adrift. The story accompanying the writing captured my interest during the beginning background stories of Minerva, Toussine and Victory. When the focus turned to Telumee describing her own life, the story continued to attract me for a while but at about the half-way point, my interest started to wane, probably due to a certain level of dissatisfaction with both the local society and Telumee’s responses to her life events.
I did end up enjoying the book just not as much as I anticipated after the first third of the book. Still, it is very well-written and does paint an interesting portrait of a Caribbean community previously unknown to me. Due to these two factors, I feel it was a very worthwhile read. I rate the book as 3.4 stars rounded down to 3 stars.
The Lougandor women, like most island residents, descend from slaves brought to Guadeloupe to harvest the sugar cane. In generational order, the four Lougandor women are Minerva, Toussine, Victory, and Telumee. The story is narrated by the youngest of them, Telumee, who spends the first sixth of the book on her ancestors� stories before turning the focus to her own story. Playing a larger role in her life than her mother Victory is Telumee’s grandmother Toussine, known throughout the island as “Queen Without a Name.�
The writing is wonderfully flowing and descriptive yet focused enough to never cast my mind adrift. The story accompanying the writing captured my interest during the beginning background stories of Minerva, Toussine and Victory. When the focus turned to Telumee describing her own life, the story continued to attract me for a while but at about the half-way point, my interest started to wane, probably due to a certain level of dissatisfaction with both the local society and Telumee’s responses to her life events.
I did end up enjoying the book just not as much as I anticipated after the first third of the book. Still, it is very well-written and does paint an interesting portrait of a Caribbean community previously unknown to me. Due to these two factors, I feel it was a very worthwhile read. I rate the book as 3.4 stars rounded down to 3 stars.
August 18, 2021
A multigenerational story of mothers and daughters, beauty and perseverance, this is a novel that's immersive, sensual, and almost otherworldly thanks to its lush descriptions of the Caribbean island of Guadalupe. Simone Schwarz-Bart uses a unique and non-traditional narrative structure to examine the lives and loves of these women and the long lasting effects of slavery and colonialism, but counterbalances all the pain and suffering with a true hopefulness and happiness found through endurance, love, and adversity. It's a book that will surely stay with me for a long time to come and yet another gem of world lit from NYRB Classics.
July 21, 2020
Then we came to a floating bridge over a strange river where huge locust trees grew along the banks, plunging everything into an eternal blue semidarkness. My grandmother, bending over her small charge, breathed contentment: 'Keep it up, my little poppet, we're at the Bridge of Beyond.' And taking me by one hand and holding on with the other to the rusty cable, she led me slowly across that deathtrap of disintegrating planks with the river boiling below. And suddenly we were on the other bank, Beyond.
April 19, 2020
4.5 stars rounded up. Very highly recommended.
December 14, 2021
This is the story of 4 generations of women living in a community which has inherited the scars of slavery. This is a story of poverty, domestic violence, sexual assault, the struggle to know one’s worth. And this is a story of the strength of love, of wisdom passed through the generations, of simple yet profound dignity, of beauty at the deepest level. The language was rich and lyrical, the characters well rendered, the imagery creatively conveyed.
April 26, 2018
A matrilineal family history set on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Telumee narrates vignettes from the lives of her great-grandmother down the generations to her own. The women are haunted by betrayals, ancestral ghosts, and the memory of slavery, but this is also a novel of perseverance and nature’s beauty. When reviews praise a book as lyrical, this is usually a warning that I’ll find the prose twee and overwrought, usually with indiscriminate use of adjectives, but Schwarz-Bart has a truly beautiful style while maintaining perfect control and lucidity. This is exactly the kind of book I hope to find when taking a chance on NYRB.
July 4, 2016
Strong! Female! Characters!
I haven't had a ton of luck with Caribbean literature in the past but I feel like this was a novel I've been waiting for ALL YEAR. This book is about the women-the men come and go around them, but it's really about the development of these characters as black women in the historical context of Guadeloupe and it's just SO GOOD, such an antidote to the awful male protagonists I've been reading about lately. Beautifully written, too. One of my favorites so far this year.
I haven't had a ton of luck with Caribbean literature in the past but I feel like this was a novel I've been waiting for ALL YEAR. This book is about the women-the men come and go around them, but it's really about the development of these characters as black women in the historical context of Guadeloupe and it's just SO GOOD, such an antidote to the awful male protagonists I've been reading about lately. Beautifully written, too. One of my favorites so far this year.
February 7, 2023
"Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn't ride you, you must ride it."
Some books are hard to review. Where do I even begin? How can a story capture the intimate details of suffering so beautifully? How can a book be both tragic and hopeful? How can simple words fall together to sound like heavenly music? I don’t know.
What I do know is you need to read this book. Read it slowly.
Read it with intent.
Read it with passion.
Read it and never forget.
Some books are hard to review. Where do I even begin? How can a story capture the intimate details of suffering so beautifully? How can a book be both tragic and hopeful? How can simple words fall together to sound like heavenly music? I don’t know.
What I do know is you need to read this book. Read it slowly.
Read it with intent.
Read it with passion.
Read it and never forget.
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