Corentyne Thunder (Caribbean Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Edgar Mittelholzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009 | Series: Caribbean Modern Classics

First published in 1941, this vivid and poetic family saga was the first modern novel to focus on the lives of immigrants from India in the British Caribbean colonies. Set on the coast of British Guiana, the story spans three generations and revolves around Ramgollal, an old Indian cow-minder on the Corentyne coast who has worked hard for many years to save money and build his herd of cows. He is proud of his children from two marriages, particularly the daughter of his first marriage, who is married to a well-to-do white planter. Their son Geoffry is light-skinned, ambitious, and poised to make a success of his life, and Ramgollal takes much satisfaction in his grandson’s accomplishments. When Geoffry seduces and impregnates Kattree, his mother’s half sister, however, Ramgollal’s world begins to fall apart. Soon thereafter, Kattree’s sister Beena gets involved with a married man who is subsequently arrested on a murder charge, and Ramgollal despairs over his losses. Despite his struggles to respect tradition and provide for the future, these sordid scandals threaten both Ramgollal’s savings and his family’s good name.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edgar Mittelholzer is the author of numerous novels, including My Bones and My Flute, and of his autobiography, A Swarthy Boy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd. (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845231112
• ISBN-13: 978-1845231118
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thunder on the Corentyne, August 8, 2009

By 

Rudolph Ten-pow (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Corentyne Thunder (Caribbean Modern Classics) (Paperback)

I have just finished reading Corentyne Thunder by the British Guianese writer, Edgar Mittelholzer. Long out of print, it has just been republished by Peepal Tree Press, with an enlightening introduction by Juanita Cox, as part of its Caribbean Modern Classics series. Deservedly so, as this early novel foreshadows the monumental talent that was to emerge from New Amsterdam, the sleepy capital of the "Ancient County" of Berbice, Guyana. Mittelholzer paints with an observant eye and attention to detail the rural world of Indo-Guianese on the Corentyne coast in the 1930s. The human drama of Ramgolall and his daughters is played out against a backdrop of race and class in the then British colony. It is a simple story told about simple people, so it is also a testament to the author's developing skills that the reader is fully invested and his attention held until the tragic but not wholly unexpected denouement.

But while the narrative is well constructed and is brought to a satisfactory conclusion, Corentyne Thunder is nevertheless the work of a writer in the making. His creolese dialogue does not always ring true as that of his more illustrious successor, the Trinidadian V. S. Naipaul, unfailingly does. The narrative is suffused with descriptions of the elements - tropical rain, darkening skies, thunder, lightening - which, in my opinion, he overplays. And I would have liked to see a clearer depiction of the broader social and historical context in which the drama unfolds.

But to anyone who has followed more recent developments in that world on the Corentyne coast that Mittelholzer so trenchantly depicts - the main protagonist's teenage daughters taking their daily baths in a nearby irrigation canal, Ramgolall himself hoarding his life savings in a canister in a doorless hut secure in the belief that "tief na deh hey", the protagonist's son by his first marriage moving seamlessly without any evident preparation from his father's world of rural destitution to success as a businessman and entry through marriage into the colony's moneyed social class - that world now appears quaint and unbelievable, but well worth returning to in the pages of a master storyteller.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amazing first novel resurected, January 4, 2010

By 

CTA (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Corentyne Thunder (Caribbean Modern Classics) (Paperback)

With the exception of "My Bones and My Flute" republished by Longman's in 1986 and reprinted several times since then (evidently for use as a high school textbook), Edgar Mittelholzer's work has been out of print for so long as to have become unknown to generations of Caribbean readers. Hence, Peepal Tree Press must be commended for its decision to republish several of his books (and several other Caribbean classics) in 2009-2010. When one considers that, when this novel was written in 1938, there was virtually no precedent for it because a West Indian literature as such did not yet exist, it's an amazing accomplishment. I read somewhere that Mittelholzer once worked in a meterological office. This may explain his sentivity to weather conditions (the colours of the sky, sunlight, cloud formations, wind conditions, thunder, lightning, rain, etc) which permeates the text and in the context of which the title is well chosen. One could wish that he had devoted a comparable effort to describing the landscape, since the references in the book to canals, trenches, dams, parapets, kokers (sluicegates) and the coastal corida (mangrove) vegetation, may not conjure up an equally true picture of the Corentyne coastlands to anyone who is unfamiliar with the hydraulically engineered character of the Guyanese coast. Nevertheless, one of the most striking things about this book is (with the exception of references to the railway) how accurate the author's depiction of the area still is today, over 70 years later. Moreover (with the exception of the allusions to security of persons and property) the human story at the core of the book is not totally anachronistic. With the exception of the absence today of the white and near-white plantocracy, Mittelholzer's descriptions of the society and personalities in Berbice is evocative of the present situation. In my opinion, the main flaw in the book is the stlited dialogue between members of the elite, the landowner and his Queen's College educated son and his school friend, who are all made to speak like Victorian Englishmen. Evidently, growing up in New Amsterdam, the young Mittelholzer did not mix in such circles. Nevertheless, this book is a good and gripping read.