Customer Reviews

The Story of the Cannibal Woman: A Novel

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Cape Town always slept in the same position, curled up in the muzzle of a gun. After hours of grim silence as heavy as a great fur coat of a former Soviet leader, the sound of engines began to sputter and roar throughout the city.

This is how internationally renowned writer Maryse Condé starts her 12th novel The Story of the Cannibal Woman ( Histoire de la femme cannibale, translated from French by Richard Philcox). A beautifully crafted work with a vibrant narrative style. The story starts when a notable English literary critic named Stephen Stewart gets killed in the middle of the night. He leaves behind Rosélie Thibaudin, a 50-year-old painter, originally from Guadeloupe, in a rich white neighborhood in Cape Town in the years following the end of apartheid. The story moves on as Rosélie tries to fathom this violent death, also Stephen's feelings, devotion toward her. With her, the reader gets a glimpse of a complicated, egoistic man Stephen and a somewhat indifferent woman, Rosélie. Eventually Condé solves the murder mystery but that is not the main strength of this novel.

I loved her style. She goes back and forth between narration and inner monologue. At certain times, I felt she could have limit the use of metaphors but she blends it nicely with some powerful supporting characters and nice use of flashbacks while describing event that takes the reader from Cape Town to Kathmandu. She brings nuggets of cultural references and uses it wisely.

Racism and interracial relationship is a theme that permeates the novel. Stephen is white, Rosélie is black, but she is not African black, she is Creole, a different shade. And she got the reputation of being with white men: "Telling him that she hadn't always been the mistress of a white man and that her first partner had been an African would serve no purpose. The stereotypes about Antillean women die hard. They are suppose to hate and despise Black Skins." Or in the case of the school principle Olu Ogundipe who is married to Cheryl, we find another case of stereotypes. Olu says to Rosélie: "I know the Caribbean. I lived there from three years in Kingston and came up against all sorts of humiliations. I've nothing against my in-laws. Admirable people. But Cheryl's family and friends accused of her soiling her sheets with a nigger, black like me, If we ourselves don't like our color, how can we blame the whites for not liking it?"

If you love detailed narrative style, this is a must read. Often times it reminded me of Pamuk's Black Book, as she was describing Cape Town. But she does not get into philosophical diatribe. A nice read, highly recommended.

This book did start well, but eventually was overwhelmed by structural issues and a terrible main character.

The structural issue is an inability to present the narrative in an understandable fashion. There are clauses that are inserted into sentences that change the subject in the middle and then it changes back again at the end of the same sentence. Then there are pages and pages of detailed back story and the very next line is some small comment on the something in the present day. The whole book is like this and it blends past and present, and people so that it is very hard to keep track of what is going on and to whom it applies.

The main character is totally passive. If she could get someone to breathe for her she would. She drifts through life letting everyone else define her, and she takes offense at everything. She is insulted to be considered a maid at a party, but after reading about her for 311 pages, I want to ask why didn't she ever ask if she was acting like a maid ? She doesn't read, she doesn't care about the news or current issues, she doesn't like the general population she sees, or how they live, she doesn't like specific people, and when she perceives a problem or issue she disengages further and leaves.

She calls herself a painter and yet she can't even name her own works, or say what they are about or what motivated her. She is in short, an empty well and she is upset when people discover it. I have no idea why the author thought that condition was a good vehicle to explore some of the themes in this book. There is a lot here, racism (black vs white) (black vs black) (black vs colored), sexism, mixed race marriage, gay vs straight, poor vs well off, dealing with a hateful past, corruption. Yet it all seems to be lost in the face of this passive, negative, listless woman who can't decide who she is, where to live, or what to do.

What she does is allow those closest to her to control her whether it was her husband, or after his murder, her colored (author's word) servant. She doesn't always want to do what they want so her mind fills with poison and she keeps a list of wrongs and petty hates, but never does anything to change it, or deal with the perceived insults.

Just a waste of time, which I want back.