Texaco: A Novel (Vintage International): Amazon.de: Patrick Chamoiseau: Englische Bücher

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Produktinformation

Taschenbuch: 416 Seiten
Verlag: Vintage; Auflage: Vintage Intl. (24. Februar 1998)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 0679751750
ISBN-13: 978-0679751755
Gr��e und/oder Gewicht: 12,8 x 2,2 x 20,2 cm

Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 5.0 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (3 Kundenrezensionen)

Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 573.171 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)

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Produktbeschreibungen

Amazon.com

In Texaco, Patrick Chamoiseau is not scared of reimagining history in order to illuminate an essential truth about his homeland, Martinique. Through his narrator, Marie-Sophie Laborieux, a daughter of slaves, he chronicles 150 years in the history of Martinique, starting with the birth of Marie-Sophie's beloved father, Esternome, on a sugar plantation sometime in the early 19th century. It ends with her founding Texaco, a shanty town built on the grounds of an old oil refinery on the outskirts of Fort-de-France. What happens in-between is an astounding flight of imagination and language that rivals the works of Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Chamoiseau begins in the present with the arrival of an urban planner, whom the residents of Texaco mistake for Christ. It then spins back in time to the birth of Esternome and the death of his father, who was suspected of witchcraft by a white plantation owner. In myriad short sequences, the novel follows Esternome's progress as he is first freed by his master, then drawn away from the plantation by the lure of St. Pierre--"City" in the minds of the disenfranchised black population of Martinique. He is eventually washed up on the outskirts of Fort-de-France, which becomes "City" after St. Pierre is destroyed by a volcanic eruption. With the birth of Marie-Sophie, Chamoiseau takes the reader into the present century--through two world wars, riots, famine, political turmoil. The tension always simmers between "City," a metaphor for France, and the countryside where black Martinique's collective consciousness resides. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

From Booklist

Winner of the Prix Goncourt (France's highest literary prize), Chamoiseau's third novel is a tour de force set on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Marie-Sophie narrates the story of her slave ancestors and her life leading up to the founding of "Texaco," a city of hutches on the grounds of the Texaco tanks along the island's coast. She tells her story of struggle and love to an urban planner, convincing him to let the city stand and, he confesses, "awakening the poet in him." Marie-Sophie's story conveys the power of women, story, and place. It champions multiculturalism, storytelling, and reversing the ills of modern cities. Retelling her story and excerpting from notebooks by her and the urban planner is Chamoiseau's stand-in, "the Word Scratcher." Like a Caribbean island, the language is lush and colorful, the metaphors and plots thick and tangled, and the pace leisurely even while exciting. The book commands a reader's full attention. Kevin Grandfield -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

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An Historical Masterpiece 14. M�rz 2000

Von Cheryl R. Leigh

Format:Taschenbuch

Through the beautiful words of Esternome and Marie-Sophie I was given a 150 year history of the African experience in Martinique.

Brilliant!

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Beautifully writted and translated mosaic 28. August 1998

Von powar@cibc.com

Format:Taschenbuch

Chamioseau has written a beautifully compelling novel that traces the sources of conflict and conciliation among the peoples of Martinique through the experiences over two centuries of a father and daughter. Told largely through the eyes of Marie-Sophie, the daughter, the book traces the emergence of Martinican society through her experiences and those of her father, Esternome, within, without, above, below, beyond and through all elements of the island culture. Marie-Sophie and Esternome live and brush against the lives of each of the contributing elements of modern Martinican society -- plantation slaves, maroon escapees, free blacks, Creoles, poor white underclass, and white "beke" aristocracy. Each tile of this mosaic is lovingly painted, whether it displays steadfast endurance, sexual bliss, or stubborn cruelty. Each section can be surprising as displayed under a different light. Viewed as a whole, the glory of the complete work surpasses, but can not be distingushed from, the sum of its parts. Chamoiseau thus demonstrates that the Martinican civilization is itself the harmonious sum of seemingly dissonant parts. Collective history is made up of individual stories -- some profound, some profane. The stories -- the lives -- of the strugglers, the stragglers can not be ignored. Their lives are the history, the essence, the being of the island. They must not be bulldozed into oblivion. Texaco must survive.

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Oiseau de Cham sings of New History 13. April 1998

Von hfancy@spenceschool.org

Format:Taschenbuch

From beginning to end, Chamoiseau provides a delightful yet difficult read. This challenging text is not for the faint of heart for it pushes the reader to read contrapuntally, against the grain; in fact, one is not so much reading as listening. A brilliant translation of the French captures this challenge. The prose is startingly original, and the turns of phrase will spark devotion.

The reader is asked to trace the history of Sophie Laborieux as she labors to carve a space for herself in a History that will not hear her. Texaco represent the dangers in all post-imperial nations not only external, as the title suggests, but also internal, the loss of imagination, creativity, heterodoxy. What emerges, in short, is a personal yet univeral narrative, one that bridges the gap between story telling and history making.

This text aligns itself with other notable works by Amin Maalouf, Salman Rushdie, and Ben Okri.

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