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The Viceroy of Ouidah
In this vivid, powerful novel, Chatwin tells of Francisco Manoel de Silva, a poor Brazilian adventurer who sails to Dahomey in West Africa to trade for slaves and amass his fortune. His plans exceed his dreams, and soon he is the Viceroy of Ouidah, master of all slave trading in Dahomey. But the ghastly business of slave trading and the open savagery of life in Dahomey slo...more
Paperback, 155 pages
Published
June 7th 1988
by Penguin Books
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A grim, but outstanding story on the evils of the slave trade, with a focus on the African coast. Chatwin crafts a story that is as psychologically probing as Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Kurtz), and as bizarre as Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch (a mad African king, a city of skulls and heads, women warriors with filed teeth). The common ground for all three is moral corruption. However, I think the "horror" of Chatwin's vision, as opposed to Conrad's, is there seems to be no recogn...more
Probably the best novel I've read so far this year. I had never read anything by Chatwin before this and I picked it up with the assumption it was going to just be another novel in the 'English' style. How wrong I was! Chatwin writes like a more bloody and concise version of Marquez, with an incredible ability to evoke landscapes, situations and the oddities of people. Imagine a cross between Marquez and Conrad's *Heart of Darkness* with the addition of several big spoonfuls of voodoo imagery!
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I'll be revisiting this sometime, armed with a dictionary. I swear not a sentence went by that I didn't encounter a word I had never heard of, but which chatwin used with such aplomb and confidence that I knew pretty much exactly what he was on about, or, if I didn't, the sentence was STILL evocative enough to get the word-picture across. He could have been making it all up - the histories, the words, everything, and I still would have bought it.
This is dark, seductive, perverse, imm...more
This is dark, seductive, perverse, imm...more
In questo romanzo Chatwin sviluppa la sua corrente aneddotica, che nei suoi saggi e articoli è funzionale per arricchire l’esposizione, e restituisce una biografia dai tratti leggendari di un personaggio realmente esistito.
La vicenda prende le mosse durante l’anniversario della morte di Dom Francisco Da Silva, quando i suoi discendenti si riuniscono per celebrare l’evento. La famiglia Da Silva, il cui sangue brasiliano è diluito dal tempo, ormai è una parte integrante della popolazione africana...more
La vicenda prende le mosse durante l’anniversario della morte di Dom Francisco Da Silva, quando i suoi discendenti si riuniscono per celebrare l’evento. La famiglia Da Silva, il cui sangue brasiliano è diluito dal tempo, ormai è una parte integrante della popolazione africana...more
A short novella absolutely packed to the gills with imagery and characters. I recognize elements from Marquez (including a definite Hundred Years of Solitude allusion) and Conrad and fans of them will find much to love here, but there is distinctive flavor that must be Chatwin’s alone. There is too much to even hint at in this book, and I guarantee some of the images will inform your dreams and fever visions. It makes sense that Herzog would film this.
Dazzling novel about a Brazilian slave trader who settles in the Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa where he spawns an enormous family of mulatto Da Silvas. Lots of brutality, of course, and Francisco da Silva is by no means a nice man, but you do end up feeling some sympathy for him in the final part of the book where everything falls apart for him.
But there is more to this short novel than just the story of Francisco da Silva. The first part is a brief, but sadly precise account of...more
But there is more to this short novel than just the story of Francisco da Silva. The first part is a brief, but sadly precise account of...more
Was reading this because of Werner Herzog's (not very well received) movie "Cobra Verde", which is loosely based on this. -- Both movie and book are quite OK, not really masterpieces but still enjoyable -- and I think, I like the movie better, conveys more mystery and drama, the book is more over-the-top in comparison. -- Thinking about it, it's rather pessimistic - the characters hardly have any aspirations but still fail tremendously, fundamentally. Not even "wasting your life i...more
Okay, let's face it: as much as I loved Chatwin's travel novels, I never liked his other novels much. They are dry, confusing, stiff. This one is no exception.
Short reads are always really bad or really good. In this sense, my first taste of Chatwin was fantastic. Told in flashback, all the elements of melodrama, adventure and barbarian-like politics reminiscent of Henry Rider Haggard make this an entertaining yet touching story.
Who knew one could feel empathy and start rooting for a slaver?
Who knew one could feel empathy and start rooting for a slaver?
I selected this book because I wanted to break the totally Euro-centric mold of my reading. Admittedly, Chatwin was European (British), but he writes about such exotic locales and topics. In this case, Dahomey (now known as Benin), once at the heart of the slave trade. This book is a fictional account of the Brazilian who ran the slave trade in Dahomey and it's fascinating and bizarre. It reminded me that there's a whole world out there which isn't Europe, which always amazes me because I am...more
A friend recommended this book to me before my first visit to BENIN. It is a very good book in any case, essential if you are going to or are in Benin.
little did I know when I first read this that one day I would end up working in Ouidah. I didn't become a Viceroy though :-(
Intentionally very dark but with an unsatisfying end, a bit as if old Bruce had let its verve run dry.
¿Novela? sin argumento claro, sin trama, sin demasiado interés... Bah, muy poco cosa y Chatwin aburriendo a las vacas.
It is brutal, unforgiving, raw.
Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin (1998)
A fascinating miniature: A generation-spanning saga compacted to 150 pages, with prose and imagery as lush as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Brilliant but occasionally remote, it recounts the bloody and perverse true-life account of a Brazilian slaver in Africa during the 1800s. The basis for Werner Herzog's movie "Cobra Verde."
I always wondered where that ditty about the bight of benin came from. An odd novel about the slave trade.
Brian
marked it as to-read
because I loved 'Utz' and In Patagonia
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