More effective at setting each
twig aquiver in the passing of waves than a pebble dropped into a pool of
water, Spiralism defines life at the level of relations (colors, odors, sounds,
signs, words) and historical connection (positionings in space and time). Not
in a closed circuit, but tracing the path of the spiral. So rich that each new
curve, wider and higher than the one before, expands the arc of one’s vision.
In perfect harmony with the
whirlwind of the cosmos, the world of speed in which we evolve, from the
greatest of human adventures to struggles for liberation, Spiralism aligns
perfectly – in breadth and depth – with an atmosphere of explosive vertigo; it
follows the movement that is at the very heart of all living things. It is a
shattering of space. An exploding of time.
Re-creating wholes from mere
details and secondary materials, the practice of Spiralism reconciles Art and
Life through literature, and necessarily breaks with the hypocrisy of the Word.
Re-cognition. Totality.
In this sense, as a means of
expression – efficient, par excellence – Spiralism uses the Complete Genre, in
which novelistic description, poetic breath, theatrical effect, narratives,
stories, autobiographical sketches, and fiction all coexist harmoniously…
As you can see I was in for an amazing journey of
literature, where the lines are blurred, where narrative structure we are used
to is not the norm, where page upon page is used to describe the weather, where
words are investigated in various contexts to increase their impact, and of
course where character development is foggy and uncertainty is always to the
fore.
This is a novel which switches between the first person and
the third person, where sections are written in italics, where different fonts
are used to explain various situations and even different shades of ink for
dramatic effect.
And of course this is all set in Haiti during troubled
times.
Lazy philosophers! Rid yourselves
of the bacilli of pure intellect. Explain to me how it is that people all over
the world go thirsty. That malnourished peasants feed themselves rock porridge.
That children die from fever. That my friend is gone, lost in the American army’s
invasion of Vietnam. Explain to me that woman who left and never came back. The
Third World bullied, ridiculed, despised. The threat of Imperial Powers. The
blindness of people who don’t know how to decipher the graffiti of time’s
passing. The illiterate pride of dictators who stomp on the dreams of their
people. The shuddering of death. The tremors of life. The sadness of some. The
joy of others. The enigma of love. My beating heart. Explain all that to me. I’ll
always have the patience to listen and hear – as long as, at the end of it all,
there is action.
Yes, talk about Spiralism out of control, I’d gone from
Haitian turmoil (via Yanick Lahens’ “The Colour of Dawn), to Japanese
Spiralism, to Haitian Spiralism….
According to the publishers, Archipelago Books, Franketienne
is considered by many to be the father of Haitian letters. He is a prolific
poet, novelist, visual artist, playwright, and musician (the cover artwork is
one of his works). He has devoted much of his life to fighting political
oppression and, in 2009, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In
2010, the French Government named him a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres. “I am not afraid of chaos,” Franketienne explains, “because chaos is
the womb of light and life”.
Our novel follows Raynard who is seeking a better life away
from Port-Au-Prince and manages to find a placement on a ship to another
island. Of course he is caught and extradited back to Haiti, and whilst on the
boat returning “home” a number of other refuges throw themselves overboard to
be eaten by the sharks, a more palatable idea than back to Haiti. We also
follow Paulin who is writing a Spiralist novel, struggling with words and most definitely
a title for his master work.
The novel is a vision of life.
And as far as I know, life isn’t a segment. It isn’t a vector. Nor is it a
simple curve. It’s a spiral in motion. It opens and closes in irregular
helices. It becomes a question of surprising at the right moment a few rings of
the spiral. So I’m constructing my novel in a spiral, with diverse situations
traversed by the problematic of the human, and held in awkward positions. And
the elastic turns of the spiral, embracing beings and things in its elliptical
and circular fragments, defining the movements of life. This is what I’m using
the neologism Spiralism to describe.
We have Raynard explaining his switch from religion to
science based evidence of existence, after he was hit in the eye by a wayward
stone. At eight years of age whilst at a funeral he understands his grandmother’s
pain as he’s the “only one in the family to keep an inheritance of torments and
worries buried deep inside”. Yes a child already with torments and worries
buried deep inside.
We have Paulin pitching an income producing scheme to
Reynard, to scratch and pick pistachios and sell them to a rich industrialist American
for use in soap and oil, an allegory for the might of the USA in Haiti a “mountainous
island with its marrow sucked dry by foreign lions.
We also have a theatrical piece where a conversation between
Death and a Dying Man takes place:
Death: What have you done with
your life, from your birth to this day…pitiful mortal?
Dying Man: I’ve been looking for
myself.
I’ve been describing this work in a linear narrative format,
which of course doesn’t sit well with the format of the work. This is an
amazing revelation, a deep and meaningful read, lyrical, possessed, frightening,
honest, shocking and gripping. A celebration of the written word, even a
celebration of single words, yes experimental in form but enlightening in
structure and style. Although there are sections which describe the imminent
death of the novel, it is works like this which make it a joy to discover new
translated fiction. A work that surely is one to make the 2015 Best Translated Book
Award Longlist, if not take the whole award out. One of my favourites of the
year, and I will be hunting down more works by not only Franketienne but also the
other Haitian Spiralists. Hats off to Archipelago Books for translating and
publishing this work, I must say I am yet to come across a work from their
collection that I have not thoroughly enjoyed, unlike a few other independent
publishers where the quality can be questionable their books always bring a
smile to my face when they arrive in the post.
I’m not going to give away the ending of this wonderful
work, but I can reveal that a spiralling denouncement of Haitian history could
well be a fitting finale.
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