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ielerol's review against another edition
3.0
Generally, I've liked what I've read by Nalo Hopkinson. I didn't entirely dislike this one, but I for sure didn't enjoy it as much as many of her others.
Part of the problem is that I did really dislike Jeanne Duval and also every single other character she interacts with. They're all irritating and boring, but her every interaction with Charles Baudelaire is just the worst. Like, previously I had no opinions one way or another on Baudelaire as a poet or a human being, but now I don't think I'll be able to hear about him without thinking about how much I hated reading his parts in this book. I did like Mer quite a bit, and I felt invested in the Saint-Domingue story generally, but every time I got into caring about those characters, we switched back to Jeanne, and I felt as trapped and helpless as Ezili.
I liked Thais too, or might have if she'd gotten more time in the book. Structurally I didn't really understand why she was introduced so late, or what she added to the larger theme. Then there's Ezili, who theoretically is the figure tying all the other pieces together. When she was introduced I thought I saw where the book was going with her, but I mostly found her sections confusing interruptions, and her resolution felt tacked on and didn't answer any of the questions I thought it might have. Somewhere in here was a good story I wanted to like about the connected struggles of African diaspora women across history, but I just didn't connect with it.
Part of the problem is that I did really dislike Jeanne Duval and also every single other character she interacts with. They're all irritating and boring, but her every interaction with Charles Baudelaire is just the worst. Like, previously I had no opinions one way or another on Baudelaire as a poet or a human being, but now I don't think I'll be able to hear about him without thinking about how much I hated reading his parts in this book. I did like Mer quite a bit, and I felt invested in the Saint-Domingue story generally, but every time I got into caring about those characters, we switched back to Jeanne, and I felt as trapped and helpless as Ezili.
I liked Thais too, or might have if she'd gotten more time in the book. Structurally I didn't really understand why she was introduced so late, or what she added to the larger theme. Then there's Ezili, who theoretically is the figure tying all the other pieces together. When she was introduced I thought I saw where the book was going with her, but I mostly found her sections confusing interruptions, and her resolution felt tacked on and didn't answer any of the questions I thought it might have. Somewhere in here was a good story I wanted to like about the connected struggles of African diaspora women across history, but I just didn't connect with it.
stephkerrwrites's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery and Sexual content
Moderate: Child death
simonemaybe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Miscarriage
pam_sartain's review against another edition
4.0
Told from the point of view of three black women who are each in a different point in history, along with a goddess who inhabits each of them at various times, but not in chronological order.
We are taken to a plantation in 1804, where Mer is a slave who has is looked to for healing and midwifery, to Jeanne who is described as 'ginger-coloured woman', a dancer on stage and mistress to a poet, Charles Baudelaire in France in 1880s, and the third is Meritet, a half Greek, half Nubian slave who works in a tavern as a prostitute in 345 CE. The goddess who inhabits them is Ezilli, and she is searching for understanding of what she is, and what is happening.
I've seen a description of this book as fantasy folk-lore, and I think that's a very good description! The author has been described as unashamedly sensual, and this is evident in Salt Roads, with sex scenes between Mer and her female lover and Jeanne and Charles, and saying any more would spoil the story!
I thought this was really interesting, and as I feel like I say with a lot of Sword and Laser books, not one I would probably have picked up on my own, but I enjoyed it.
We are taken to a plantation in 1804, where Mer is a slave who has is looked to for healing and midwifery, to Jeanne who is described as 'ginger-coloured woman', a dancer on stage and mistress to a poet, Charles Baudelaire in France in 1880s, and the third is Meritet, a half Greek, half Nubian slave who works in a tavern as a prostitute in 345 CE. The goddess who inhabits them is Ezilli, and she is searching for understanding of what she is, and what is happening.
I've seen a description of this book as fantasy folk-lore, and I think that's a very good description! The author has been described as unashamedly sensual, and this is evident in Salt Roads, with sex scenes between Mer and her female lover and Jeanne and Charles, and saying any more would spoil the story!
I thought this was really interesting, and as I feel like I say with a lot of Sword and Laser books, not one I would probably have picked up on my own, but I enjoyed it.
1002didi's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.75
hrjones's review against another edition
5.0
The Salt Roads is a beautiful, brutal, crystalline and ambiguous novel tracing the lives of three women of the African diaspora and one mystical spirit. The principal characters are: Mer, an enslaved woman who is a healer and worker on a sugar cane plantation on Saint Domingue during the early stages of the slave rebellion of the late 18th century; Jeanne Duval, the Creole mistress of 19th century French decadent poet Charles Baudelaire; and Thaïs (or Meritet) a sex worker in early Christian-era Alexandria, who in this story inadvertently becomes Saint Mary of Egypt (combining the legends of two early desert saints). They are tied together in this story not only in sharing a cultural and racial heritage, and by the experience of not having ownership over their own bodies--whether in a formal sense in the case of Thaïs and Mer, or due to economic necessity, in the case of Jeanne. But they also share the hosting of an entity--call her a goddess perhaps, although it takes a while for her to come (back?) to that understanding of herself--who shares their experiences and can sometimes guide or control their actions, using the imagery of a Vodou deity riding them (although I don’t think that word is used). Thaïs and Mer are open to understanding these visits as a religious experience, though Jeanne seems largely unaware of her guest.
But that’s just the bare bones of the structure. I would say that this novel defies plot summarization--it doesn’t have that kind of arc, being unmoored in time with the sequence of scenes for each of the three human characters being interleaved across the ages representing how their spirit guest experiences them, moving back and forth as she’s able. And she has her own quest of discovery and self-awareness whose goal is the making of those connections across time. I call this a “brutal” novel and it’s one where the concept of “happy ending” has no meaning, except to the extent that each individual may succeed in making choices that she won’t regret and taking what measure of autonomy over her life that she’s able to grasp.
The prose and exposition is the sort that delights me, where the reader is plunged into an unfamiliar world and acquainted with it through the immediate experiences of the characters. Though, to be fair, I’m not going to discount the usefulness of having at least a passing familiarity with the history of Saint Dominque, with the French decadent poets, and with early Christian hagiography. It’s a novel that rewards coming to it with a broad historical literacy and it won’t hold your hand if you don’t meet it halfway.
One thing I always appreciate in stories that are woman-centered like this is the easy and unremarkable inclusion of the wide variety of affectional and erotic bonds that women can have with each other, even while participating in the obligatory heterosexuality of the dominant culture. All three women have a rich variety of bonds with other women that include, without not necessarily focusing on, romantic and sensual relations. (I had something of an epiphany with regards to this element in the context of representation in fiction that is going to turn into a separate essay.)
The Salt Roads is a deep and powerful story about surviving and thriving and connecting with personal and cultural roots (the essence of the quest that the unifying divine spirit comes to understand). It explores exciting structural territory and narrative rhythms, not only in the non-temporality, but in the use of interleaved voices and shifts of mode. This book left me thoroughly satisfied as a reading experience.
jonmhansen's review against another edition
4.0
Hm. Interesting. Didn't realize until I was a ways into it that some of the characters were real people.
staycee_franklyn's review against another edition
4.0
This book! So rich with Haitian history and African mythology. The novel follows three women and their struggles with love, culture, and bondage in slavery. The text was rich with imagery and thoroughly researched to give a complete picture.
aimnorth's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A complex book full of complicated, unique, likeable, and unlikeable characters that you find yourself rooting for and engaged in. It can be a little hard to follow, and is a book that most likely warrants multiple reads with multiple lenses. Important commentary on the past, and a book lead by and full of strong, African women.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Racial slurs, Miscarriage, Blood, Sexual content, Incest, Pregnancy, and Excrement
Moderate: Grief, Drug use, and Racism
Minor: Sexual harassment and Domestic abuse
This book has very explicit verbage around bodily fluids during sex and birth, and often times some of the language came off too raunchy for my taste in a way that would have been difficult to people with those triggers in a way you often don't run into in books.