Book 199: Guadeloupe (French) – Victoire, les saveurs et les mots = Victoire, the flavours and the words (Maryse CONDÉ)

How different were the circumstances of this departure from the one from Marie-Galante, sixteen years earlier when the mother had tried to protect the daughter. This time, it’s the daughter fleeing from the mother. She goes in front, dressed in the elegant uniform of Scottish cloth, pleated dress flapping at her heels, blouse buttoned up to her neck, half-heel patent leather pumps, and wearing the coquettish white panama as demanded by her sisters.

[my translation]

Maryse Condé won the 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize (the official one wasn’t originally awarded to anyone that year). From this historical novel I’m not sure why – not that there was anything wrong with it, just that it didn’t seem anything special to me. But she has written many other works which are apparently better – this is the only one I’ve read.  

So here we are in Guadeloupe (with brief excursions to Martinique, France and the US). As an aside, I have a complaint. Guadeloupe is shaped like a butterfly. The smaller part is called Grande-Terre (Big Land), the bigger and higher part is called Basse-Terre (Low Land). Someone’s idea of a joke, or just perversity?

The story concentrates on the life of Victoire, Maryse Condé’s grandmother, whose one great skill is her cooking although she never really gets the benefit she deserves from it. Both she and her daughter Jeanne have hard lives. Her mother (Caldonia) adores her but is not good at raising her – Victoire always remains illiterate. It is uncertain as to who was her father (presumably some white soldier). Her skin is surprisingly white. She suffers humiliation and detestation from her youth.

As his servant Victoire has ambiguous relations with Boniface Walberg, but they certainly involved sex – something a master could still expect from his servants as a hangover from the time of slavery. Nevertheless, she is at least fond of him. Similarly ambiguous is her relationship with his wife Anne-Marie, who becomes a great friend.

Her relationship with her prickly daughter Jeanne is always difficult, and they are total opposites (Jeanne would struggle to boil an egg). In the racist local terminology Jeanne is born “mal sortie”, in other words blacker than her parents. Because of this her social class rejects her and she has a hard life. She disapproves of her mother, especially of her relationships. Victoire had however made sure she got an excellent education.

Unfortunately, the novel had no glossary, and although it is written in standard French, the Creole words and phrases are not clarified. Some were obvious but most were obscure to me.

The character of Victoire is based on Condé’s real grandmother. In all I found the story unexciting but pleasant enough.

CONDÉ, Maryse (1937 – ), Victoire, les saveurs et les mots, Folio, Mercure de France, 2006, ISBN 9782070355259