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marinapasovski's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the novel, but it wants to tell too many stories and the language is way too much. The sentences never end and it becomes overwhelming, difficult to follow and annoyingly pretentious. Sometimes less if definitely more.
bookish_by_elle's review against another edition
4.0
Miriam Chancy said that this book attempts to answer the question of whether we inherit our spiritual destinies and had I not seen the video clip, I don’t even think I would have ever thought of the Loneliness of Angels through that lens. But it does. Specifically we are introduced to Catherine, one of the main characters (the book is polyvocal), who is called by Erzulie loa, despite her father’s efforts, despite her not being a vodouisant.
Had you asked me before I had seen the Chancy’s clip what this book was about, my answer would probably be that this story might be about many things. It might be about Catherine’s lineage, through which we learn about her father, a Syrian Kabbalistic Jew and her Celtic Irish maternal ancestor who are both drawn to vodou based on similarities in practice. It is not a connection I would have ever made before partly because my ignorance of Haiti’s history doesn’t allow me to imagine a Haiti with Syrian merchants or a Saint-Domingue with Irish indentured laborers.
It might be a story about dealing with grief and loss. Chancy describes how Catherine loses herself in music after the loss of her mother with prose so vividly and beautifully written that you can almost hear the piano as Catherine recites Chopin. Lucas and Romulus, who like Catherine have lost their parents and have both passed through Tantie Ruth’s doors, deal with their losses in their own way: Lucas embarks on a spiritual journey, as he feels his own calling by the Lao; Romulus, once a famous musician turned drug addict, must evaluate his relationship with drugs.
It might simply be a telling of Haiti’s recent history. This book spans a wide period of time and in the background, and sometimes more directly, Chancy paints a picture of Haiti and its people as political leaders change, as Haiti faces natural disaster. She paints a chilling picture of Haiti under the Duvalier regime, during the 2004 riots, after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 but also manages to capture the warmth of the market women, Haiti’s beautiful mountains and its blue waters.
Had you asked me before I had seen the Chancy’s clip what this book was about, my answer would probably be that this story might be about many things. It might be about Catherine’s lineage, through which we learn about her father, a Syrian Kabbalistic Jew and her Celtic Irish maternal ancestor who are both drawn to vodou based on similarities in practice. It is not a connection I would have ever made before partly because my ignorance of Haiti’s history doesn’t allow me to imagine a Haiti with Syrian merchants or a Saint-Domingue with Irish indentured laborers.
It might be a story about dealing with grief and loss. Chancy describes how Catherine loses herself in music after the loss of her mother with prose so vividly and beautifully written that you can almost hear the piano as Catherine recites Chopin. Lucas and Romulus, who like Catherine have lost their parents and have both passed through Tantie Ruth’s doors, deal with their losses in their own way: Lucas embarks on a spiritual journey, as he feels his own calling by the Lao; Romulus, once a famous musician turned drug addict, must evaluate his relationship with drugs.
It might simply be a telling of Haiti’s recent history. This book spans a wide period of time and in the background, and sometimes more directly, Chancy paints a picture of Haiti and its people as political leaders change, as Haiti faces natural disaster. She paints a chilling picture of Haiti under the Duvalier regime, during the 2004 riots, after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 but also manages to capture the warmth of the market women, Haiti’s beautiful mountains and its blue waters.
bougainvillea's review against another edition
3.0
I've read several articles by Chancy and am very familiar with [b:Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women|930295|Framing Silence Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women|Myriam J.A. Chancy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347982724s/930295.jpg|2645532], so I feel like I "know" Chancy's academic writing, and I really appreciate it, even those rare times when I don't agree with her analysis. It's pretty good stuff.
I've been curious about her fiction writing for a while, but never got around to reading any of it. A few months ago I heard Chancy read two beautiful passages from this book and decided to order it.
Parts of the story are confusing. It took me a while to figure out who Rose was when she was first introduced, for example. And there were several moments where I wondered how/why something fit into the overall story. I still don't get the point of Elise's section at the end.
However, the writing was mostly beautiful. There were passages that were just lovely and that I wanted to read and reread. I loved the descriptions of Catherine playing the piano and the walks in Paris and the rewritings/musings on the Biblical stories. I'm not sure how I feel about the use of the present tense. I didn't hate it, but I definitely noticed it, and my general rule is I don't want to notice the writing except to love it. So, I don't know about that yet.
The sections that seemed smoothest to me were those of Catherine in Canada and Catherine in Paris. I was not crazy about Romulus, except when he was back in the States. I enjoyed his reflections on fatherhood.
One thing that drove me crazy was the amount of Creole mistakes. I'm not talking typos, those would be somewhat understandable since there's still no Creole spellcheck that I'm aware of (can someone invent that already, please?). No, I mean real spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. I found it disrespectful and distracting. In one sentence, I thought one guy asked another "Is that your man?" when he was really asking "Is that your name?" Big difference. There are also geographical errors. I don't have the greatest sense of direction, but the characters could not get to their neighborhood taking that particular route from the airport. And Sacre-Coeur is not in Petion-ville, but in Turgeau. Those details really irked me, but obviously they wouldn't matter to someone not familiar with the area.
All in all, I feel like this was a bumpy read. There were parts that were stunningly beautiful and parts that were very slow to get through.
It was definitely thought-provoking, though, and it was cool to read a novel set in the Port-au-Prince of early 2004. I remember those days so clearly, and yet of course, the way they're described here is not quite what I remember, especially considering my daughter was born in March.
I've been curious about her fiction writing for a while, but never got around to reading any of it. A few months ago I heard Chancy read two beautiful passages from this book and decided to order it.
Parts of the story are confusing. It took me a while to figure out who Rose was when she was first introduced, for example. And there were several moments where I wondered how/why something fit into the overall story. I still don't get the point of Elise's section at the end.
However, the writing was mostly beautiful. There were passages that were just lovely and that I wanted to read and reread. I loved the descriptions of Catherine playing the piano and the walks in Paris and the rewritings/musings on the Biblical stories. I'm not sure how I feel about the use of the present tense. I didn't hate it, but I definitely noticed it, and my general rule is I don't want to notice the writing except to love it. So, I don't know about that yet.
The sections that seemed smoothest to me were those of Catherine in Canada and Catherine in Paris. I was not crazy about Romulus, except when he was back in the States. I enjoyed his reflections on fatherhood.
One thing that drove me crazy was the amount of Creole mistakes. I'm not talking typos, those would be somewhat understandable since there's still no Creole spellcheck that I'm aware of (can someone invent that already, please?). No, I mean real spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. I found it disrespectful and distracting. In one sentence, I thought one guy asked another "Is that your man?" when he was really asking "Is that your name?" Big difference. There are also geographical errors. I don't have the greatest sense of direction, but the characters could not get to their neighborhood taking that particular route from the airport. And Sacre-Coeur is not in Petion-ville, but in Turgeau. Those details really irked me, but obviously they wouldn't matter to someone not familiar with the area.
All in all, I feel like this was a bumpy read. There were parts that were stunningly beautiful and parts that were very slow to get through.
It was definitely thought-provoking, though, and it was cool to read a novel set in the Port-au-Prince of early 2004. I remember those days so clearly, and yet of course, the way they're described here is not quite what I remember, especially considering my daughter was born in March.
dinahrachel's review against another edition
4.0
Fabulous book, covering so much ground (in many senses!). Not easy for me to go with the Bible/Greek Myth/Classical Music subplots (yes all of those) but the characters - the angels - convinced me to do my best and I was with them and all their painful humanness to the end.
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