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The Festival of the Greasy Pole
This novel is one of the most important statements about the Duvalier regime in Haiti, written by a Haitian who played a prominent role in the revolutionary movement that brought down the Lescot regime in January 1946. The Festival of the Greasy Pole includes a scathing caricature of Papa Doc Duvalier and the bloodbath that he visited on his own country.
- GenresFiction
142 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
René Depestre
57 books53 followersRené Depestre (born 29 August 1926 Jacmel, Haiti) is a Haitian poet and former communist activist. He is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for many years and was a founder of the Casa de las Americas publishing house. He is best known for his poetry.
(from Wikipedia)
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 23, 2018
Magico-realistic fable about Haitian dictatorship and revolt
As a political exile for most of his life, Depestre must have harbored deep despair for the fate of his country, Haiti, forever wrapped in oppression, poverty, and ecological degradation. His feeling boiled over in this novel in which hopelessness oozes from every page. The Haitians are valiant and resourceful, but they are doomed, they are bound to be crushed. THE FESTIVAL OF THE GREASY POLE is not so much a novel as a political fable which explains, far better than an academic treatise or newspaper article, the crushing conditions that obtained during the dictatorship of the awful Duvalier, a.k.a. Papa Doc, who is called Zachary in the novel, and his government, called the National Office for the Electrification Of Souls, or NOFESO-Zacharian for short (?). The word "Haiti" does not appear in the novel, but Haitian culture, especially its connections to the African religion sometimes known as "Voodoo" or Vodun, and Haitian history are squarely in the center of the work. Whether all of this would be comprehensible to a person unfamiliar with Haiti is unclear. It may be confusing to such readers, who, I think it is safe to assume, make up the majority of the readers in the world. Why did Depestre choose "National Office for the Electrification of Souls" as a title ? Perhaps it was meant to show the futility of such a gesture at modernity, of control by the government of everything, but unless you read the translator's notes in the introduction, you are only going to guess at the reason. Perhaps some broadening of scope would have made this a more universal novel. The government holds a festival in which men try to climb to the top of a greasy pole. Can our hero do it and so show the NOFESO-Zacharian dictatorship that its opponents can strike a blow (however ineffectual) against it ? That is the plot of the novel. What can a thinking individual do when totalitarian rulers have completely crushed a nation? This is the question Depestre asks. I am not just intellectualizing about what I may or may not understand as the point of the story. On page 105, the hero asserts "...In the paradise where we live, a pole smeared with s... can be President-for-Life and vice versa." Can the hero conquer this pole? What would be the result of such brave action ? If you are interested in what a Haitian writer, obviously a thoughtful man, has to say about the situation in his country in an allegorical way, then read this book.
As a political exile for most of his life, Depestre must have harbored deep despair for the fate of his country, Haiti, forever wrapped in oppression, poverty, and ecological degradation. His feeling boiled over in this novel in which hopelessness oozes from every page. The Haitians are valiant and resourceful, but they are doomed, they are bound to be crushed. THE FESTIVAL OF THE GREASY POLE is not so much a novel as a political fable which explains, far better than an academic treatise or newspaper article, the crushing conditions that obtained during the dictatorship of the awful Duvalier, a.k.a. Papa Doc, who is called Zachary in the novel, and his government, called the National Office for the Electrification Of Souls, or NOFESO-Zacharian for short (?). The word "Haiti" does not appear in the novel, but Haitian culture, especially its connections to the African religion sometimes known as "Voodoo" or Vodun, and Haitian history are squarely in the center of the work. Whether all of this would be comprehensible to a person unfamiliar with Haiti is unclear. It may be confusing to such readers, who, I think it is safe to assume, make up the majority of the readers in the world. Why did Depestre choose "National Office for the Electrification of Souls" as a title ? Perhaps it was meant to show the futility of such a gesture at modernity, of control by the government of everything, but unless you read the translator's notes in the introduction, you are only going to guess at the reason. Perhaps some broadening of scope would have made this a more universal novel. The government holds a festival in which men try to climb to the top of a greasy pole. Can our hero do it and so show the NOFESO-Zacharian dictatorship that its opponents can strike a blow (however ineffectual) against it ? That is the plot of the novel. What can a thinking individual do when totalitarian rulers have completely crushed a nation? This is the question Depestre asks. I am not just intellectualizing about what I may or may not understand as the point of the story. On page 105, the hero asserts "...In the paradise where we live, a pole smeared with s... can be President-for-Life and vice versa." Can the hero conquer this pole? What would be the result of such brave action ? If you are interested in what a Haitian writer, obviously a thoughtful man, has to say about the situation in his country in an allegorical way, then read this book.
April 18, 2024
This man LOVES ladies
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May 25, 2025A middle-aged ex-Senator becomes the face of revolt against the Duvalier regime when he attempts a feat of strength during a national festival. An cri de couer to the embittered Haitian people from an exiled dissident.
May 10, 2017
A wonderful story: a man's personal fight against being crushed by autocratic forces set in a parody of Papa Doc Duvalier's Haiti: the morality of existentialism meeting the morality of satire.
May 10, 2020
I wanted to read a book in French, I hadn't for a while and even if I was more in the mood for a Maryse Condé when my Aunt gave it to me I was like "Meh, why not it's only 200 pages".
To keep the theme going this review will be in French. I'd rather do it in Creole but I still need it to be readable to most people that could stumble upon this post.
Mystique est je pense l'un des adjectifs qui qualifie le mieux ce livre, l'histoire de base et déja un peu "particulière", Henri Postel un ex-sénateur et rebel contre la dictature de Zacharie (personnage fictif) décide de participé à une compétition où des compétiteurs doivent grimpés à un mât suiffé et être le premier a arriver au sommet.
Cette décisionde la part du protagoniste déja, sort d'un peu nul part, surtout que Postel était au départ en train de procéder a son évasion et soudainement décide de rester pour disputer ce tournoi.
Outre ça, le monde qui est décrit est surprenant et semé de vaudou. Les personnages sont haut en couleur avec des noms tantôt sogrenu et ridicule tantôt des références culturels à Haiti (les sobriquets par example) mais dans tout les cas durant l'entièreté de l'histoire les personnages sont surnomé et insultés de manière plus extravagante les unes que les autres (des expressions comme Bouc-mulâtre au cheveux rouges).
En tout cas l'histoire est courte et d'après moi assez intéressante (je n'ai pas eu la tentation de lâcher le livre), mais est simplement une narration bizarre qui a pour intriguante particularitée une obession pour l'organe sexuel masculin (entre les jeux de môt avec phallus, les références au pénis des personnages et la métaphore du mât comme un sexe que les grimpeurs essaye de gravir), je me demande si Dépestres n'avait pas des penchant...
En gros je ne conseillerai pas ce livre, il y a tellement d'auteur du bassin Caribbéen francophone avec des oeuvres plus intéressantes que celle là qu'il n'y aaucune réelle raison de le lire outre que pour faire passer le temps.
Ou peut-être qu'il y a un profond message derrière mais je suis trop ignorant pour le comprendre.
Enfin de tout manière je ne le relirais pas pour comprendre.
Méchant 4/10
To keep the theme going this review will be in French. I'd rather do it in Creole but I still need it to be readable to most people that could stumble upon this post.
Mystique est je pense l'un des adjectifs qui qualifie le mieux ce livre, l'histoire de base et déja un peu "particulière", Henri Postel un ex-sénateur et rebel contre la dictature de Zacharie (personnage fictif) décide de participé à une compétition où des compétiteurs doivent grimpés à un mât suiffé et être le premier a arriver au sommet.
Cette décisionde la part du protagoniste déja, sort d'un peu nul part, surtout que Postel était au départ en train de procéder a son évasion et soudainement décide de rester pour disputer ce tournoi.
Outre ça, le monde qui est décrit est surprenant et semé de vaudou. Les personnages sont haut en couleur avec des noms tantôt sogrenu et ridicule tantôt des références culturels à Haiti (les sobriquets par example) mais dans tout les cas durant l'entièreté de l'histoire les personnages sont surnomé et insultés de manière plus extravagante les unes que les autres (des expressions comme Bouc-mulâtre au cheveux rouges).
En tout cas l'histoire est courte et d'après moi assez intéressante (je n'ai pas eu la tentation de lâcher le livre), mais est simplement une narration bizarre qui a pour intriguante particularitée une obession pour l'organe sexuel masculin (entre les jeux de môt avec phallus, les références au pénis des personnages et la métaphore du mât comme un sexe que les grimpeurs essaye de gravir), je me demande si Dépestres n'avait pas des penchant...
En gros je ne conseillerai pas ce livre, il y a tellement d'auteur du bassin Caribbéen francophone avec des oeuvres plus intéressantes que celle là qu'il n'y aaucune réelle raison de le lire outre que pour faire passer le temps.
Ou peut-être qu'il y a un profond message derrière mais je suis trop ignorant pour le comprendre.
Enfin de tout manière je ne le relirais pas pour comprendre.
Méchant 4/10
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October 7, 2018La cucanya
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews