Bell, Madison Smartt. All Souls’ Rising. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
I’m having a love/hate relationship with this book. Only 110 pages into it I waiver between devouring it and chucking the whole thing across the room. The first chapter opens with a description of a women nailed to a pole. She is being punished for killing her child. She drove a nail through her newborn’s skull. Lemme back up – she’s a slave and she was raped on a ship bound for Haiti. The year is 1757. Need I say more? When the woman finally dies, her feet, hands and head are chopped off and displayed as an example for other slaves. Some example! As a rule, I don’t get “into” historical fiction, especially those with such a political, violent underbelly. However, this is a Booklust book and I’m bound to at least give it a try. When I started this venture I agreed to Pearl’s 50 Page Rule (stop reading if by 50 pages you can’t get into it). In All Souls’ Rising‘s case, when I got to page 50 I was in the love phase and couldn’t put it down. C’est la vie.
Booklust Twist: Pearl labels this, “novelistic history” of Haiti (More Book Lust p55)
12/30/06: Update~ I am admitting defeat with Bell’s book. After the slave uprising it has been nothing but vivid descriptions of violence. I think this book is responsible for my week’s worth of nightmares about war. Here’s an excerpt. I warn you, this is one of the tamest scenes of cruelty!
“He cut a bracelet all around Maltrot’s wrist, just above the thong that bound it to the branch. He made a vertical incision into the palm and turned back the flaps of the skin from the whitish fatty layer underneath and began peeling it back towards the fingertips as if he were slowly taking off a glove…” (are you getting the picture?)…”Maltrot ground his teeth and bit his lips until the blood ran freely, but finally he could not contain the scream and when it came it was large and loud enough to split the sky.” (p235)
I realize flaying, raping, torturing, murdering, baby impaling, etc is common in times of war. It’s happening today. My problem is Bell. He is such the amazing storyteller that not only do I believe every eye gouging, I can almost feel it too!
BookLust Twist: Found in Pearl’s More Book Lust under the chapter, “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” (p.55). She wasn’t kidding.
We never really know what people think of us until there’s a fly on the wall. A coworker of mine was staying in town for the holidays. Super nerved up because his wife’s family had never met his family, he was looking for distractions, “something different”, something to do that would ease the distress. Think Country family meets City family. He was most worried about Urban brother-in-law. I suggested dinner and a show. Then, for the first time in a while, suggested a band. “They are playing right down the street from you guys. I don’t know if you would care for the music, but your wife would…maybe the taste runs in the family,” is what I said.
~*LunaSea*~ 