"Chamoiseau is a writer who has the sophistication of the modern novelist, and it is from that position (as an heir of Joyce and Kafka) that he holds out his hand to the oral prehistory of literature."
--Milan Kundera
Of black Martinican provenance, Patrick Chamoiseau gives us Texaco (winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize), an international literary achievement, tracing one hundred and fifty years of post-slavery Caribbean history: a novel that is as much about self-affirmation engendered by memory as it is about a quest for the adequacy of its own form.
In a narrative composed of short sequences, each recounting episodes or developments of moment, and interspersed with extracts from fictive notebooks and from statements by an urban planner, Marie-Sophie Laborieux, the saucy, aging daughter of a slave affranchised by his master, tells the story of the tormented foundation of her people's identity. The shantytown established by Marie-Sophie is menaced from without by hostile landowners and from within by the volatility of its own provisional state. Hers is a brilliant polyphonic rendering of individual stories informed by rhythmic orality and subversive humor that shape a collective experience.
A joyous affirmation of literature that brings to mind Boccaccio, La Fontaine, Lewis Carroll, Montaigne, Rabelais, and Joyce, Texaco is a work of rare power and ambition, a masterpiece.
0 有用 费德里科维奇 2018-03-28 04:52:18
Masterpiece. Fully in tears.
1 有用 世相 2019-09-20 22:21:25
史诗。至今在谷歌引擎上搜索,除这本小说外还是只有那个石油公司的名字;却偏看它以一己之力扭转乾坤。Marie-Sophie锋利又柔软,呼吸都和“城市”的脉搏连成一线,又一个我在文学世界里喜欢起来的老太太。
2 有用 Ling 2015-06-01 07:09:40
豆瓣牛掰!这书都有、
1 有用 世相 2019-09-20 22:21:25
史诗。至今在谷歌引擎上搜索,除这本小说外还是只有那个石油公司的名字;却偏看它以一己之力扭转乾坤。Marie-Sophie锋利又柔软,呼吸都和“城市”的脉搏连成一线,又一个我在文学世界里喜欢起来的老太太。
0 有用 费德里科维奇 2018-03-28 04:52:18
Masterpiece. Fully in tears.
2 有用 Ling 2015-06-01 07:09:40
豆瓣牛掰!这书都有、