17412: Corbett: Comments on Jacques Stephen Alexis' novel: GENERAL SUN, MY BROTHER

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bob Corbett

There is a much nicer laid out version of these comments on my web site
at:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/alexis-sun.html

==============================

GENERAL SUN, MY BROTHER
By Jacques Stephen Alexis
(translated from the French: COMPERE GENERAL SOLEIL by Carrol F. Coates)
Introduction and Bibliography also by Carrol Coates
299 pages
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999 (originally published
in 1955).
ISBN # 0-8139-1890-1.


Comments on the novel and further comments on Carrol Coates introduction
and translation
by Bob Corbett
November 2003


Jacques Stephen Alexis writing about Haiti is very beautiful, often quite
moving, ever vivid and accurate of all my own experience. Yet, I have a
bit of a difficulty in describing exactly what this novel is about as
novel.

What appears central to me is the life and changes of life in the central
character, Hilarius Hilarion. We follow him from a very poor young
Haitian, an abused restavek, to a young man who gets some sense of hope
while in prison for an attempted break-in. He meets Pierre Roumel, a
political prisoner and communist. Roumel not only gives Hilarion some sent
of his own value in life, but introduces him to Marxist ideology, and
sends him off with an introduction to his friend, Jean-Michel, medical
student and member of the communist movement.

Hilarion resists becoming a member of the movement, but he is attracted at
a very gut level to the sympathy expressed by these people toward the
working people and underclass, and Hilarion senses they are decent people.

At the same time that Hilarion is undergoing this political and personal
metamorphosis, he also meets and falls in love the gentle and marvelous
woman, Claire-Heureuse. They take of housekeeping and then marry. Hilarion
finds work thanks to Jean-Michel and is even treated by him to overcome
his epilepsy. Claire operates a small shop from home and Hilarion follows
a number of small jobs which keep collapsing.

Eventually in a crack down on the communists and all sympathizers by the
Vincent government and in a period of economic downturn, Hilarion follows
a friend to work in the Dominican Republic in the sugar cane fields.
Claire sets up home there and their first child is born.

The book, on this story-line, ends as a strike in the sugar cane fields
stimulates the infamous historical perejil massacre of thousands of
Haitians who were working and living in the DR, and we follow the escape
perils of Hilarion and his family.

That particular story seems to me to be brilliantly told, quite complete
and coherent. However, one could read the story with at least two other
claims to the primary thrust:

1.  The first would be to claim that I have over-played the role of
Hilarion
and actually this is the story of Claire-Heureuse and Hilarion, much as I
described above, but giving Claire a greater share of the centrality of
the story.

2. A more difficult claim, I think, would be to claim that the novel
focuses
on the development of the communist party in Haiti in the late 1930s, and
its role in the political agitation which eventually led to the Dominican
massacre.

My own view is that such a reading would be quite stretched. While
Hilarion is deeply moved in his own personal life by the theories provided
by Roumel and the model provided by Jean-Michel, and there is significant
space devoted to the doing of the party at this time, it just doesnt seem
to me to hold together as the organizing principle of the novel.
However, one describes the dominant story-line, Alexis tells a powerful
and touching story, and writes about Haiti of the late 1930s, with
historical flashbacks into earlier days of the U.S. occupation. In many
novels about Haiti there are often significant passages which arent
directly connected to the story, but which seem there to describe Haiti
itself, as though the aim is either to bring Haiti to the attention of the
outside world, or just to document the history or current situation of
Haiti for posterity. Such writing can often appear to be more like a
history lesson or sociology journal article than fiction writing.

In Alexis hand such passages, and there are many, flow naturally within
the process of the novel, and though often not strongly connected to the
story line, seem more natural, almost like poetic asides, but snuggled
close to the characters lives and realities.

I was fascinated to think about Alexis writing about Hilarion and
comparing his creation compared to the character Manuel in Jacques
Roumains THE MASTERS OF THE DEW. There are differences for sure. Manuel is
from the countryside and goes to Cuba to work in the cane fields. It is
there (but not part of the novel itself) that Manuel arrives at a state of
raised consciousness. He then comes home to Haiti to attempt to be a
leader in his village to improve the quality of life of his people.

Hilarion does not aim to be a leader, and even holds back quite
consciously from even declaring himself part of the struggle. Hes sort of
willing to be a participant by-stander, but not a leader. Also, most of
Hilarions life is lived in the city, and we are witness to all of the
inner struggles that go on within him in arriving at a place of engagement
or at least significantly raised consciousness.

But both are men who come out of the underclass; men who are uneducated
and are deeply impacted by communist ideology and go through a period of
consciousness raising.

I do find Hilarion to be much more convincing as a living breathing human,
and to my reading, Manuel seems more a tool of Roumain to preach his views
to us. Hilarion simply lives for us, and is who he is. His transition, his
struggle appears so genuine and vibrant. I forgot that he was a character
of Alexis and that Alexis had his own agenda. Hilarion just seemed to have
an existence of his own, as for that matter, so does Claire and the very
likeable Jean-Michel. Only the absent Roumel was more like an authors
mouthpiece than a living breathing person.

Carrol Coates provides both the translation and a quite extensive
introduction.

The introduction is just excellent, and Carrol will provide a rather
different take on the novel than what my comments above suggest. There is
nothing in Carrols introduction that I would disagree with, and his
commentary comes from a detailed study of the text itself and other
sources. My comments come strictly from my one (careful) reading of the
story and how it moved me. However, I do think Carrols introduction is a
wonderful read in itself and would enrich anyones understanding the text.
He also provides an extensive bibliography of Alexis work.

I have some mixed feelings about some decisions in Coates translation.
First the strong positives for me:

Coates makes a fascinating and compelling case there he is really faced
with the task of translating THREE languages:

1.  French itself, the dominant language of the novel.
2. What Coates calls Haitian, which he describes as a sort of mix of
French
and bits and pieces of a rawer form of Creole. Coates argues that often
those who speak French also use this intermediate language which is
neither pure French or pure Creole. In the novel the politically engaged
communists of the story tend to speak in this Haitian.
3. Then there is the Creole of Hilarion, Clair-Heureuse and their friends.

I trust that Coates is correct about these three languages, and thus his
job as translator is even more difficult that just making French
intelligible to readers of English. He wants to keep the literary purity
of the three languages which Alexis himself is carefully crafting.

I believe he did that very well for me. However, I did read the
introduction before I read the novel and his section on the translation in
that introduction makes this distinction I mention above. Given his
description I was sort of watching for the differences in language and
believed I could recognize them, thus making me believe Coates
successfully translated Alexis intentions. However, I have no idea if I
would have noticed this had I not read the introduction.

Since the novel reads so beautifully, had there been no other issues in
the translation I would have nothing but highest praise for the work of
Carrol Coates. However, there are three other categories of language to
consider, and the issue here is not Coates TRANSLATION, but his
NON-TRANSLATION.

Two of the three are in no way problematic for me:

1. There are many Haitian proverbs in the novel and Coates chooses not to
translate them, but to have an asterisk by them and provide the English at
the bottom of the page.

This seems like a wonderful tactic. Haitian proverbs are very specialized
language, and it is useful to see them in the Creole, then have them there
on the same page.

2. There are a small number of Spanish terms, mainly interjections, names
and
such which Coates leaves in the Spanish for flavor, as, I would imagine,
Alexis himself must have in the original text. Again, since no confusions
were created for me, and the flavor of the Spanish was there, I found this
to be a delightful way to treat those occurrences of Spanish.

My problems came with a significantly large number of Creole words left
untranslated. Very often these were not common Creole words or terms, and
thus completely baffled me, frequently obscuring what in the world was
going on. It was on about the third use of one term that context allowed
me to figure out that the job Hilarion had, which was being referred to
only by the Creole name, was a baggage packer/handler on the top of a tap
tap. In the earlier usages I hadnt a clue as to what job he had.

I can see the argument translator Coates may well make: Perhaps Alexis
even writes these words in Creole himself. I dont know. And if he does,
then one could argue that the flavor of the literary style will demand
strong measures to honor the authors desires. I believe there is a
glossary in the back of the book with some such words, but I doubt there
are many causal readers who are going to want to run back and forth to the
back of the book for a term that could so easily be rendered into English.

Its not a great issue, and I certainly respect Carrol Coates work as
translator and the gift of bringing this work to us in English. But, for
this reader, that one aspect of the translation was a source of
aggravation, confusion and hindered the delight of my own read.