Customer Reviews

The Dragon Can't Dance

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Unlike the two reviewers below, who are from Trinidad, I cannot speak to this novel's authenticity. However, as a middle-aged white American male, I can affirm it's universality and greatness. This unique and beautifully written novel took me into an alien world and made it real and comprehensible. The characters are memorable and specific to their environment, yet universal in their emotions. I identified with so many of these Trinidad slum dwellers. The novel is funny, touching, sad, uplifting. Though very different, it's emotional impact on me was equivalent to "Catcher in the Rye" and "To Kill A Mockingbird." I will never forget the people I met in this extraordinary novel. If you wish to be transported and transformed, be sure to read it. I can't recommend it too highly.

In this lyrically written novel, Earl Lovelace introduces us to the Hill, a poor community just outside Trinidad's capital Port-of-Spain. The people in this community leave behind their daily suffering to celebrate wildly the two-day festival that is Carnival. Through "playing mas," each of the text's central character finds sustenance to endure the rest of the year; the characters they play inform how they see themselves the rest of the year. Fisheye, a badjohn, joins the neighborhood gang violence that characterized early steelpan culture. Miss Cleothilde, a mulatto, plays queen for two days but reigns over the community for the entire year. Aldrick, the text's main protagonist, plays dragon. In doing so, he sees himself as a warrior, carrying on the traditions of manhood established for him by the men before him. However, as the culture changes, Aldrick must re-evaluate what playing the dragon really means.

This is a fabulous novel, written in a style reminiscent of calypso music. Lovelace weaves a tale that explains so much about Caribbean culture and the need for its people to be seen and validated by others. A must read for anyone interested in Caribbean literature and culture.

The Carnival masquerader in Trinidad is a fanatic. I remember as a child a neighbor of mine built a masquerade costume in his home. After completion he found that the front door was too small to permit the costume to go through. What did he do? He broke down the door and said: "Ash Wednesday I will fix it back." That is the character that the protagonist reminded me of. The book brought back memories of my childhood spent in Trinidad around carnival time. Every Trinbagonian should read this book. I enjoyed the interaction between the characters. It was a lovely book.

In Earl Lovelace, without exception, we have the Master Storyteller of the Caribbean. Even years after its publication (1979 and 1998), "Dragon" remains peerless as an authentic, forceful voice of postcolonial Trinidadian society. Nowhere else have the intricacies of carnival been more profoundly explored and dissected than here by the artful mastery of prose in this defining portrait. Lovelace's stinging critique of race and politics is poignant and luminously presented. With heavy symbolism and sensitivity, the story reaches successfully beyond Caribbean life to touch the larger human condition itself. The central figure of Aldrick (whose "mission" is to performa the Dragon dance during carnival) embodies a entire people's frustrations and aspirations. This is an unexaggerated powerful tale by one my absolute favorite Caribbean writers. This story is timeless and one of Lovelace's best creations, far surpassing, in my opinion, his other wonderful novels like "The Wine of Astonishment", "The Schoolmaster", or even "Salt." Anyone sincerely interested in Caribbean culture and literature will find this novel indispensable reading.

Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)

I loved this book so much that I recommended it to all my family and friends. Earl Lovelace captured everything that Carnival means for Trini people. The characters are so real that the faces that I chose to see them as, were faces of people that I actaully knew in my family. LOL. This novel will make all readers want to take a trip to Trinidad and experience life there. This book is just too sweet for words!!!!

The "double vision" of Caribbean life is portrayed in the life of Aldrick who is caught between generational and cultural conflicts. And all of this during Carnival! The Dragon Can't Dance was almost prophetic in the depiction of the commercialization of Mas. Change always brings choice and Lovelace's characters highlight the necessary pain that comes with any decision.

This book rivals my favorite book of all time, Middlemarch, in the author's ability to fully render his characters' interior lives. I was truly moved by the prose and the characters. One of the best novels I've ever read.

If you read only one novel by a Caribbean author this is the one to go for. Raw, vibrant, and moving, this realistic slice of Trinidad yard culture, and the central role of carnival within that culture, is a relatively unknown gem of international literature. Although the speech and some of the narrative are written in local dialect it is by no means impenetrable and gives a real flavour of the rhythm and patterns of shanty life, a world where hope of escape or improvement ranges from slight to zero. Life is unforgiving and constant hardship forces its citizens to seize whatever opportunities arise, and at whatever cost.
The Dragon Can't Dance strays into similar territory to the earlier novels of V S Naipaul about life in the slums of Port of Spain. However, the characters in Lovelace's novel are more rounded than those in the works of the British-Trinidadian author, and there is certainly greater sympathy towards their plight than in the more comical depiction of slum life by the slightly haughty Naipaul. Clothilda, the yard queen, Philo, the successful calypsonian, Sylvia, the young temptress, Fisheye, the angry pugilistic rebel, Paraig and his wife Dolly, the solitary, isolated Indians and Aldrick, reflective and confused about his role in life; all real human beings, believable and sympathetic, people whose behaviour is explainable and understandable in the context of lives blighted by powerlessness and poverty, and it is these intertwined lives around which the story revolves. There is a plot including a staged anti-police riot, but these play a secondary role to the central dilemma of the novel, and that facing slums dwellers throughout the world: whether to fight back or to sell out. In the Dragon Can't Dance we see characters making their personal choice. Sadly, thirty years on from the publication of this novel, the situation in Trinidad's notorious Laventille shanty - where this novel was probably based -has become considerably worse.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this story but in all honesty I thought it was a GOOD but not GREAT story. A little too stiff for me. I did like the characters but at times the reading got a little too much like work just trying to get to another part of the story that was a little more fun and not as much work. [I think I said that right], nothing personal just one reader's opinion.

I picked this book by using the "pick a random book with your eyes closed" method at the library.

For an American this book can be tough to start. The "poor talk" that Lovelace used throughout the book can be a little tough to get through, but don't give up! It is too good of a book to let one minor flaw stop you. (And a little secret: As the book progresses, Lovelace seems to have trouble keeping up the "poor talk" and becomes a lot smoother to read).

Lovelace's use of description is almost without comparison. He has Hugo's gift of description without having to use chapters to describe a building, person, or general area. His one line descriptions hit so dead on that you almost feel as if you are standing in "the Hill".

The story itself is also an amazing read, but most reviewers seemed to have missed the biggest purpose behind this book (whether Lovelace intended it or not, it is the overall theme). The major theme is that we all judge people without knowing them fully. We hold people back because we don't like the partial picture we are presented. We never take the time to learn the whole story. As you read the book, you think to yourself how you want to be better. You don't want to judge. You vow to yourself that you will stop, when suddenly the last paragraph hits and you realize, "Wow, I am STILL judging without the whole story, maybe it's not possible to stop." If the last paragraph did not make you think this, I suggest you reread the book and think about each character and how you feel about them.

Overall, an amazing read. Lovelace writes an amazing book, with the only flaw being that the "poor talk" seems a little forced. As the book progressed, he seemed to get into a more comfortable area.

Definitely Recommended!