This book was far more interesting than a lot of the books that we have read in the past and I’m glad I got through it. I think that it was easier to get into because it was a novel (I was super excited when I found out that this reading was going to be a novel rather than …not a novel or play) and although the first couple pages were a little tougher to get through, once I got into it, I really enjoyed it.
I do agree that this book did have more historical episodes than a novel would usually have, but that is what I liked about it. I love learning historic things with a little bit of fiction and magic in it, it makes it interesting and makes me want to research it more at home.
To be honest, before this course, I did not know a thing about the Haitian Revolution and now I am glad to know about it.
I am glad that Carpentier wrote this novel partially indifferent to both sides; making me sympathetic and angry at both sides of the war in different sections. The fact that he did that added realism to the book, but I also agree that is also why this book might have been more of a series of historical episodes rather than a novel.
As weird as this may sound, I really liked Pauline Bonaparte, haha. I don’t know why I just liked her character. Despite all the darkness in this novel, I did enjoy reading it and I can’t wait until next term when we dig into more interesting texts (at least to me)!
Joc
I appreciated your title.
It was great.
I, too, knew pretty much nothing about the Haitian revolution before reading these works (except for the fact that it happened…I knew just the basic outlines of it), and so I’ve also really enjoyed learning much more about something that is clearly important but may be often ignored in our usual history education. I also liked that Ti Noel wasn’t a fully sympathetic character, though when I first started to see him as not sympathetic I was disappointed. But then at the end I started to see him as redeeming himself, even in a small way, and possibly pointing towards a hope for the future, though I’m puzzled by the fact that he seems to disappear entirely. Does he turn into the vulture in the last paragraph? I’m not sure.