After the Dance by Edwidge Dandicat

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

I actually have had another Dandicat book on my list, but this one came up as available on audiobook when I needed a title. 

 

Edwidge Dandicat is a Haitian-born American author who considers herself both Haitian and American - both places are home. While best known for novels and short stories, this particular book of hers is non-fiction. It is all about Carnival at Jacmel, a world-renowned event that, ironically, the author was not allowed to attend as a child. Her fundamentalist uncle impressed upon her that Carnival gave one demons. Yeah, the whole shebang that I got all too often as a child from my mother, the fear of demons lurking in anything seen as too exuberant, too little straight laced. And, if one is honest, anything rooted in a pagan past involving people with brown skin. (After all, no one ever got demons from a Christmas tree, right?) 

 

The book centers on her return to Jacmel for Carnival as an adult. She talks with the organizers, explores side quests in the area, and discusses literature and history as well as her own experiences. The various masks and character types are analyzed, along with the mythology and roots of the celebration. It’s a pretty fun book. 

 

Dandicat talks about the history of Haiti, from the first successful rebellion of the enslaved, through the various coups and dictatorships. She also mentions authors such as Rene Depestre and his fascinating zombie novel, Hadriana In All My Dreams, which I loved. 

 

Because I listened to it on audiobook over the course of a couple weeks, I don’t have notes. I will say I enjoyed the colorful descriptions of the traditional characters, the history, and the literature. 

 

I wasn’t as thrilled about the audiobook, however. Much of this is due to the fact that the author narrated it. Not all authors should read their books, and I think Dandicat is one of those. 

 

First, her reading was slow and plodding. I almost never increase the speed on audiobooks, but I had to go at +10% just to keep the book from dragging. 

 

Second, I am going to go out on a limb and say that English is not her first spoken language. (French is the official language of Haiti.) It isn’t that Dandicat doesn’t command English well - in print, her writing is fluid and fluent. The problem is that, like homeschoolers like me, she often mispronounces words because she presumably learned them from reading, not speaking. It was enough words to be distracting. 

 

On the plus side, her pronunciation of Haitian names and places is delicious. Her storytelling was good too, but it felt like she was laboring over reading the script at times, which detracted from that feeling of a personal story. Reading aloud isn’t everyone’s strength, and I feel in this case that it would have been better had the author had someone else do the reading. 

 

That said, this is a fascinating book, and definitely worth picking up. World culture is something that all of us, in a globalized world, would do well to learn. Haiti has been all too often denigrated as backwards and dark, and was even blamed (unfairly) for the AIDS epidemic. This glosses over the way the white world punished Haiti for its slave rebellion and self-seized freedom, and the way the United States has propped up brutal dictators in that country while withholding the resources that would have enabled it to become more self-sufficient. It’s a sad story in and of itself - but not really recounted in this book, per se. The book is more about the rich culture and history of a place and people who are underrated.