29868: Hermantin(News)In the Land of Mountains (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Sun Post

Posted January 18, 2007

In the Land of Mountains
Madison Smartt Bell Scales the Heights — and the Depths — of Haiti

If the U.S. hadn’t stretched its military to the breaking point in its effort 
to start and sustain World War III, we could staff a UN mission in Haiti.

By John Hood

Madison Smartt Bell is no ordinary scribbler. A Nashville son of Vanderbilt 
alum who’d been friends with Allen Tate and other Fugitive poets, he learned to 
read at 4 and write, for real, in high school, when he was sidelined by a 
collapsed lung. His early ’80s work — which includes the novels The Washington 
Square Ensemble and Waiting for the End of the World — unerred on the tough 
side of fanciful New York during a time when fancy seemed to be de rigueur. His 
characters, he says, “are the guys that would have been mugging McInerney’s 
characters as they stumbled out of the Odeon at three in the morning.”

In ’95 Bell returned to the scene of a certain previously explored spirituality 
and unleashed All Souls’ Rising, the first of what would become a revered 
Haitian trilogy. Both mad and maximalist, the book not only induced nightmares, 
but it too became a finalist for both the National Book Award and the 
PEN/Faulkner.

Now fully fluent in the patois of this hemisphere’s most mysterious island 
nation, Bell continues his Haitian chronicles with Toussaint Louverture 
(Pantheon, $27), the story of the country’s most storied character. We caught 
up with the rad cat on the eve of his East Coast onslaught and shot him a few 
questions — here’s how he answered:

Why Toussaint Louverture?

Well, I think one can make an excellent case that he is the greatest African 
American of all time. Certainly the only such hero to overthrow slavery from 
within and lay the foundation of an independent black nation. And, his career 
has the pattern of classic tragedy, which is appealing to the storyteller. And, 
I believe his story can be very valuable to many more people than it has so far 
reached.

Why Haiti?

When I was researching my first novel in the early 1980s I read a handful of 
books about Haitian Vodou. Later on, it seemed to me that a Haiti based project 
would give me a good opportunity to spend time in the Caribbean and practice my 
French. Fifteen years later when I actually did start going there, I fell in 
love with place, as all foreigners who aren’t driven mad by it do (and some who 
are driven mad by it for that matter....).

Do you think Preval can stabilize the country?

He has a better chance than any other single individual. I admire him 
tremendously, and I think he is the best president that could possibly have 
been elected the last time out. Turning Haiti around is a taller order than it 
was 10 years ago ... much. I hope and pray Preval can do it. I do think he has 
the fortitude, the talent and the will.

Should America stay out?

Depends on what you mean by that. U.S. involvement in the last couple of 
decades has had a nasty double-edge to it — i.e., we keep exporting our own 
partisan strife to Haiti — e.g., with one hand we restore Aristide to his 
elected office while with the other we underwrite and organize his overthrow by 
the same far-right elements that ran the military dictatorship of the early 
’90s ... this sort of thing is not very productive and it has made a lot of 
Haitians despise and mistrust the United States.

On the other hand, the intervention of 1990s did have a positive side. The 
troops on the ground, especially Special Forces groups, had a good relationship 
with Haitians around the country and they were actually prepared and motivated 
for a nation-building effort. If the U.S. hadn’t stretched its military to the 
breaking point in its effort to start and sustain World War III, we could staff 
a UN mission in Haiti with Haitian Americans who speak the language and 
understand the culture. That’s a very hopeful idea, though unlikely to happen 
under present conditions, and it would require a longer-term commitment than we 
were willing to make previously. Meanwhile I think there are certain advantages 
to having a UN mission staffed by Latin America and the Caribbean community 
instead of the US.

Did you read/dig Graham Greene’s The Comedians?

Oh yes. I read it in my teens, and again after my first trips to Haiti in the 
mid-’90s. It’s not his best book but interesting if you’ve been there — plus in 
Port-au-Prince I stay in the Hotel Oloffson, the model for Greene’s “Hotel 
Trianon.” But the situation in Haiti in the ’90s reminded me more of The Quiet 
American — a better Greene novel, and quite apropos....

Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World?

Yes. I didn’t know that book existed when I started my trilogy on the Haitian 
Revolution and I waited to read it until I was done. It’s the opposite approach 
to mine — fantastic, brief, idiosyncratic in the sense of playing around with 
the facts. It’s curious that while he names the other big leaders of the 
Revolution, he doesn’t name Toussaint, although there is a character that 
resembles him in some ways.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse?

It’s an interesting book, full of impressionistic vigor (though her picture of 
Vodou is fragmentary).

The work of Hugh Cave?

I missed him. Had to Google to learn who he was ... looks interesting. I did 
read Francis Huxley’s book on Vodou [The Invisibles], which maybe comes about a 
decade later.

Wade Davis’ The Serpent and the Rainbow? The movie?

The two best books in English on Vodou are The S & R and Maya Deren’s Divine 
Horsemen. (Her book’s a little better but Davis’ is much easier to find.) Most 
writers on Vodou get distracted by external rituals and so on. Davis and Deren 
have an unusually firm grasp of the heart of the matter.

The Serpent and the Rainbow movie is a so-so horror flick (at best) which has 
practically nothing to do with the book. I don’t blame Davis for taking the 
money, but the association has cost him a lot of credibility (especially since 
he was enthusiastic about publicizing the movie, so I’ve been told).

Any Haitian or Haitian-centric writers/filmmakers you care to recommend?

Haiti has one Nobel-quality novelist I know of — Lyonel Trouillot. He’s a great 
master, but not much of the work is translated in English, and that not too 
well. See also: Yannick Lahens, Rodney Saint Éloi, Ephele Milce. Franketienne, 
for sure. I am a huge admirer of Edwidge Danticat, who has solved the language 
problem by writing directly in English.

I’m not an expert on Haitian film but [Port-au-Prince-born director] Raoul Peck 
is awfully good....

Off topic, your novel Straight Cut made a great pulp paperback, any plans for 
any more for Hard Case Crime?

Perfect, really. They are doing an anthology of original stories I mean to 
contribute to ... and there has been a little talk of putting a couple other of 
my quasi-thrillers on their list.

We can’t wait.

Madison Smartt Bell is scheduled to speak about his latest book on Wednesday, 
Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. Admission is 
free. Call 305-442-4408.

_________________________________________________________________
Type your favorite song.  Get a customized station.  Try MSN Radio powered by 
Pandora. http://radio.msn.com/?icid=T002MSN03A07001