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Title: Master of the Crossroads by Madison Smartt Bell ISBN: 0-14-200003-5 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "Crossroads" of Destiny
Comment: Note: This review was published November 12, 2000, in the Seattle Times ...
The American Revolution helped inspire the French Revolution, which in turn sparked the Haitian Revolution -- an uprising of Africans against the sugar plantation owners who wrung their fabulous wealth from slave labor. Madison Smartt Bell's projected trilogy of historical novels tells the least well known of these momentous late-18th-century stories.
Volume 1, "All Souls Rising," traced the gruesome first stages of the rebellion in the French colony then called Saint Domingue, from 1791 to 1794. One who hasn't read that harrowing masterpiece can still enjoy Volume 2, "Master of the Crossroads," based on events of the next five years. In this novel the revolution is well under way, but the outcome is still uncertain.
It's a tumultuous, confusing time. The Spanish, who own the eastern half of Saint Domingue, and the British, who are at war with France, separately hope to oust the French, subdue the blacks, and possess the island known worldwide as the Jewel of the Antilles. Among the islanders, the French blancs, or white colonials, have split into factions: the royalists who want to enslave the Africans again, and the revolutionaries who believe that liberty is a universal human right. Old disputes flare between native-born Haitians and immigrants, between mulatto plantation owners and poorer mulattos, between rivals among the island's 500,000 rebellious Africans and, more broadly, between members of the resident races - 64 in all, according to France's official classification of blends ranging from Blanc to Négre.
Toussaint Louverture, whose amazing career Jacob Lawrence memorialized in a series of paintings, is at the center of the storm. Small and tough, formerly a slave, he possesses such extraordinary charisma and talent for leadership that he can force, frighten, mystify, or cajole various factions into agreeing to work for peace. Toussaint unites the armed, roving bands of blacks who seized their liberty and transforms them into a well-disciplined army. A brilliant military tactician, he regularly defeats the English and Spanish forces. His political gifts make him a formidable negotiator with the French and a master at switching alliances at strategic moments. He alone seems committed to protecting, regardless of the race or ideology of their owners, the lives and property that survived the time of bloodbath and burning.
Toussaint's motives are endlessly debated in the book. People close to him believe that he is unselfishly devoted to securing liberty and peace for everyone. But rumors that he secretly plans to crown himself King and reinstate slavery multiply. We view him from the perspectives of many different characters, yet he remains a mystery: a presence with a godlike power in crisis, an inscrutable Master of the Crossroads like the voudou deity of crossings and change, Legba.
Readers who can tolerate a little disorientation from chaotic historical events swirling around an enigmatic hero will have a wonderful time with this novel. Many of the episodes are works of literary art, the Haitian landscape is superbly rendered, and the characters are fully realized and memorable. We come to care deeply about them: Doctor Hébert; his beloved mistress Nanon; his sister Elise and her smuggler husband Tocquet; Hébert's friends the French captain Maillart and the African captain Riau; the African soldier Guiaou who is Riau's rival in love; plucky, wanton Isabelle; the dreamy boy-priest Moustique; the elusive, fascinating Toussaint.
Since Bell can't string their stories on a clear historical plot-line (this history is a tangle) he braids the everyday incidents and subtleties of their private lives into a central strand to which scattered public events can be tied. The characters, absorbed in ordinary pursuits, are regularly pulled into battles and intrigues, then released again into personal concerns. The point of view shifts from chapter to chapter, and we open each new one with the pleasure of greeting an old friend.
Nobody achieves an overall view of events -- which is partly the point. Yet even patient readers will wish for an index of characters keyed to page numbers. It's hard to keep people named Dessources, Dessalines, Desrouleaux, and Desfourneaux straight in a complicated narrative (sometimes set in Descahaux) with a cast of hundreds that also includes Delahaye and Dieudonné. The author's memory itself falters - the girl Paulette is called Pauline for a while -- but the Glossary and Chronology help.
Without them "Master of the Crossroads" would still be a stunning achievement: marvelously crafted, meticulous in its historical detail, magnificent in its sweep.
Rating: 2
Summary: Ponderous and sporadically involving
Comment: Madison Smartt Bell's second volume of his projected trilogy about the Haitian uprising of 1793-1804 is alternately gripping and ponderous. After having been enthralled by "All Souls' Rising" I have to say I was disappointed with this follow-up.
The same characters are all there as are Bell's masterful historical descriptions but something was missing. I too often grew bored and had to put the book down. I can't quite put my finger on what it is that dissuades me from giving this book a stellar review. I suppose at the end of the day I didn't feel as though I really learned much about any of these characters, and subsequently, I didn't care about them. Toussaint L'Ouverture remains somewhat of an enigma despite Bell's painstakingly detailed account. Perhaps this is intentional. Perhaps the point here is that Toussaint is - was - unknowable. This may well be true, but it doesn't make for satisfying reading.
Again, there are impressive set pieces galore. Bell's mastery of historical detail is staggering and genuine moments of suspense sporadically leap off the page. But in the end, none of this was enough to keep me compelled.
Rating: 4
Summary: Historical fiction at its finest
Comment: I'd second what the other reviewers noted but would like to add that this is a follow-up to Bell's highly-praised All Souls Rising, also a masterful book about Haiti and one which first introduced many of these characters. The legacy of Toussaint is important for Haiti today, and this book gives valuable insights into today's world. The book can be a tough read--many of the descriptions of the atrocities are brutal--but is well worth the effort. Take time to read the timeline in the appendix and find out what happened after Toussaint's arrest.
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Title: All Souls' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell ISBN: 0140259473 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James ISBN: 0679724672 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier, Harriet De Onis ISBN: 0374521972 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 01 December, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot ISBN: 0807043117 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution by Laurent Dubois ISBN: 0674013042 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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