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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting....,
By
This review is from: The Salt Roads (Hardcover)
Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads centers on the spirit, Ezili's (a goddess of love and seduction) emergence in three women throughout time. The reader gets a glimpse of her in Mer, a lesbian slave woman healer, in the early 1800's on the Caribbean island of St. Domingue (Haiti) during a burial of a stillborn child. The second appearance is in the 1880's within Jeanne, a mulatto Parisian dancer and mistress to a white poet whose purse strings are controlled by his domineering mother. The third woman, Meritet, is a prostitute in an ancient (340's A.D.) Egyptian brothel. Although these women exist during different time periods, Ezili seems to emerge, exist, and influence each woman simultaneously. With Jeanne, she appears in dreams, and wants to live, act, and breathe through her until Jeanne is physically scarred and disabled from the ravages of a sexually transmitted disease. Mer receives her awakening during a riverside burial ceremony of a stillborn child and Meritet has an instance of self-awareness that allows her to experience the independence of Ezili. Aside from the Ezili storyline, each main character has her fair share of drama, heartbreak, and intrigue. Each are a victim of circumstance; in worlds that were cruel to the black woman. Mer deals with the harsh reality of plantation life and the impending slave revolt that secured Haiti its freedom from colonial rule. The author expertly embeds regional history and folklore into Mer's story. An aging Jeanne struggles with securing her future as a courtesan in a world in which her skin color places her at a disadvantage and Meritet journeys from whoredom to sainthood. This book is full of symbolism (the incorporation of the value, taste, and healing power of salt, etc. throughout the novel is superb). It also has a mystical and esoteric feel to it; the stories are heart wrenching and the characters are memorable. The author embellished a bit at times with the transcendental themes causing lapses that were very vague and abstract; however for those who enjoy heavy, lyrical prose and surreal themes, it is worth picking up. Overall, it is a wonderfully imagined story that dabbles with the supernatural and issues of self-worth, survival, and redemption. Reviewed by Phyllis
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
both craft and scope,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Salt Roads (Hardcover)
This "Salt Roads" of this historical/magical realist novel are the trails of sweat, tears, and blood that course through women's lives. Separate narratives intertwine here, each wrought with the precision and lyricism of a short story, but together they produce a true novel of compelling scope. The settings range from Baudelaire's Paris to the cane fields of French-ruled Haiti, from early Christian Alexandria to the present day. The threads of slavery, childbirth, love affairs, and accidental sainthood are by turns comic, angry, and earthily sensual. Rich with historical detail and human intimacies, the book sometimes pulls back to a goddess-like view, contemplating the slow changes that have transformed women's lives over the centuries--but never losing its light, witty touch. In short, a very big novel with many finely crafted and exquisite parts.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fabulous look at Afro-Caribbean mythos,
This review is from: The Salt Roads (Hardcover)
Early in the nineteenth century, on the French colonial Caribbean Island of Saint Domingue, three female slave women, led by Doctress Mer, inter a stillborn baby. During the burial ceremony, they pray to Ezili, the Afro-Caribbean Goddess of love and sex, to "use" the infant's "unused vitality". Mer knows first hand how Ezili resides inside them as the goddess lives within her to use her when needed for that is how she has the healing hands.Ezili employs other female African or Afro descendents as her channel. In the nineteenth century in Paris, Ezili lives inside mixed blooded Jeanne Duval, lover of poet Charles Baudelaire. In the fourth-century Nubian Meritet, changes from a prostitute to the founder of a religion when Ezili enters her. However, even Goddess' have fears that they will expire as Ezili worries will happen to her now that Jeanne' is dying from syphilis. Escape may be through Mer's prays, but at a moment when the Saint Domingue slaves seek freedom at any cost could still endanger the Goddess. Extremely complex in terms of the time paradox, Nalo Hopkinson shows why she is the leading fabulist of Afro-Caribbean mythology, religion, and folk tales filled with Mojo today. The plot spans time and place yet seems so right though readers will struggle with non-linear events (string theory anyone) connected via salt and the Goddess. The three women are fully developed, but surprisingly in a mystical sense so is Ezili. Nalo Hopkinson provides another winner with her insightful look at Afro-Caribbean mythos. Harriet Klausner
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