I know that this is a complete work of fiction – but it might as well be documentary. Rather than read this deep and engaging work with a sense of nagging guilt, however, one ought to read with a feeling of awe. Oswald does his level best to remind us, far more gently than might be warranted, that it is we who have muddied the waters. “Libète, Egalité, Fraternité” Moreover, it is the phrase, “because we are,” that is at the heart of this novel. That said, we can look to Haiti as a land with a particular ethos, even if that sensibility gets clouded from time to time. And because we live in a first world nation, where we readily ignore the starving and impoverished already living side by side with us, it’s all too easy to forget the woes of third world nations. I’m sure many of us think immediately of dictatorships (Baby Doc Duvalier), unrest, UN interventions, and finally, The Earthquake. We don’t have the “history” with the island nation that France does, for instance. Certainly we all think of Haiti in particular terms, here in the U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |