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Cathedral of the August Heat
Cathedral of the August Heat, Pierre Clitandre's first novel in English and the first novel from Haitian French translated for a new generation, is a modern classic reflecting the kaleidoscope of Haitian life and the struggle of the very poorest people of the Americas that still goes on today.
The vibrant action of the novel leads towards the August Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, a date of symbolic importance not only in religious terms but also politically as the first day of the uprising in 1791 that led to the establishment of the world's first independent black republic and the first society to abolish slavery after the French Revolution. This key date lies behind Pierre Clitandre's dynamic, colorful and unforgettable portrait of Haiti's shantytown dwellers brought to the brink of rebellion.
Recommended by EDWIDGE DANTICAT: "Pierre Clitandre's Cathedral of the August Heat is a compelling and captivating novel that takes us deep into the heart of a turbulent time in Port-au-Prince. Through the eyes of the witty and determined John, a tap-tap driver, we see the unique inhabitants of this gorgeously chaotic city in all their nuance and complexities. We witness their dreams and nightmares as they attempt yet another rebellion to change the course of their lives. This novel follows in the great tradition of those lyrical and political novels which portray the nuances of a world we think we know while unveiling both the beauty and horrors surrounding a nation and its people who, in spite of many attempts at destroying them, refuse to be either defeated or conquered."
"Powerful moments, and a lively translation by the poet Bridget Jones" New York Times Book Review
"This extraordinary book...encapsulates what 'the Third World' is all about." The Guardian
"A dreamlike prayer for Haitian liberation...compelling and forceful." KIRKUS
The vibrant action of the novel leads towards the August Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, a date of symbolic importance not only in religious terms but also politically as the first day of the uprising in 1791 that led to the establishment of the world's first independent black republic and the first society to abolish slavery after the French Revolution. This key date lies behind Pierre Clitandre's dynamic, colorful and unforgettable portrait of Haiti's shantytown dwellers brought to the brink of rebellion.
Recommended by EDWIDGE DANTICAT: "Pierre Clitandre's Cathedral of the August Heat is a compelling and captivating novel that takes us deep into the heart of a turbulent time in Port-au-Prince. Through the eyes of the witty and determined John, a tap-tap driver, we see the unique inhabitants of this gorgeously chaotic city in all their nuance and complexities. We witness their dreams and nightmares as they attempt yet another rebellion to change the course of their lives. This novel follows in the great tradition of those lyrical and political novels which portray the nuances of a world we think we know while unveiling both the beauty and horrors surrounding a nation and its people who, in spite of many attempts at destroying them, refuse to be either defeated or conquered."
"Powerful moments, and a lively translation by the poet Bridget Jones" New York Times Book Review
"This extraordinary book...encapsulates what 'the Third World' is all about." The Guardian
"A dreamlike prayer for Haitian liberation...compelling and forceful." KIRKUS
- GenresFiction
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 1, 2015
This is a Haitian novel, originally in French but translated into Creole-like West Indian English, from the late 1970s. I understand it’s written about contemporary Haiti but mirroring on the slave uprising and ultimately first free slave republic. There is not a huge amount of story but appears to span several years centred on bus owner John and his young son Raphael. They transport people around the shanty town nearby are the sugar plantation shed owned by the corporation. The locals are of course poor but their culture holds things together until authorities take reprisals for the killing of a shed guard after protests.
The novel feels more like a series of vignettes from which seep Haitian life, death, smell, colour and heat. There are some poetic turns of phrase in that classic non-magical realism Latin American style.
A quote:
“Like a huge eye appalled at the sight, the old sun rose over the dead. He had knocked around the hill-tops on Death’s-Door, disappearing at the narrow opening of I-believe-in-God alley before he shone right down into Jesus-Grave, the name that had eventually been given to the deep crevasse carved out by the falling thunder-stone on the sixth days of the great rains. The wind blew away the dust and smoke of the burnt-out shacks with the odour of sacrifice. No more groaning.”
This was a very good read and worth at least 3 stars.
The novel feels more like a series of vignettes from which seep Haitian life, death, smell, colour and heat. There are some poetic turns of phrase in that classic non-magical realism Latin American style.
A quote:
“Like a huge eye appalled at the sight, the old sun rose over the dead. He had knocked around the hill-tops on Death’s-Door, disappearing at the narrow opening of I-believe-in-God alley before he shone right down into Jesus-Grave, the name that had eventually been given to the deep crevasse carved out by the falling thunder-stone on the sixth days of the great rains. The wind blew away the dust and smoke of the burnt-out shacks with the odour of sacrifice. No more groaning.”
This was a very good read and worth at least 3 stars.
July 10, 2013
This book is widely recognized as a classic, but I was not overly impressed. There were some very beautiful parts and I could certainly see why it is so highly regarded, but I didn't love it. This new edition did not help. There were so many mistakes, it made it hard to read. Missing or misspelled words, letters smooshed together, repeated phrases, bad typesetting... I think it's great they decided to re-edit this book, I just wish they had done it well. Maybe I'll read this is in another edition one day and see if I like it more.
December 27, 2017
Desolate Canvas
Somebody called once called Haiti "the best nightmare on earth". I've never been there, but living destitute in fetid slums full of violence and disease is certainly not a uniquely Haitian condition. Born of desperation and crying for hope of a better future, Haiti has never lived up to its dream. Perhaps nobody can live up to a dream, but Haiti has fallen far from the gallant aims of its slave liberators who threw out several French armies with the help of Mr. Malaria and General Yellow Fever. The 20th century saw the country reduced to a pitiful shadow of its founders' vision, living under the heel of despots in black Cadillacs and gangs of pistol-packing hoodlums in reflecting sunglasses. The poor were reduced to the horrible existence on a denuded and dried-out land, violently exploited in Dominican canefields, or in the mosquito-infested slums of Port au Prince where foreign business interests always got priority, thriving on cheap and pliant labor. Haiti could be compared to a completely clapped out bus, constantly about to conk out forever, but still going down the potholed roads because of a few dedicated tinkerers, willpower, and soul. Clitandre's novel opens, in fact, with one such tap-tap....a street bus full of poor citizens.
With overtones of Jorge Amado and perhaps Carlos Fuentes, CATHEDRAL OF THE AUGUST HEAT promises to be a novel of the Haitian common man in all his difficulties and despair. Indeed it is a poem of that very thing, but maybe not a novel after all. The author must have poured his whole soul into this book. I found it moving and very poetic, but the lyric qualities interfered with plot development. Magical realism, folk tales, zombies, visions, and lyrical feelings of love and dignity crowd the pages, along with rose laurel (mentioned on nearly every other page for some reason), but the eventual uprising of the oppressed against the forces of dictatorship and exploitation, the uprising that occurs on a day significant in Haitian history, never clarified by the author (perhaps he never thought a foreigner would read his book), remains unexplained. For a person without any idea of Haiti or Haitian history, who does not know of the Dominican exploitation or Papa Doc, etc., no quarter is given. Either you know or you can hit the road. It concerns more the uprising of all poor people against their oppressors, it is a poem against injustice and cruelty. I might look at this novel as a painting by Rivera or Orozco, even as a symphony of inspiring tones, but I wonder if it will hold the attention of many non-Haitians or even be understandable. I fully realize that it was not written with foreigners in mind. Still.....
Somebody called once called Haiti "the best nightmare on earth". I've never been there, but living destitute in fetid slums full of violence and disease is certainly not a uniquely Haitian condition. Born of desperation and crying for hope of a better future, Haiti has never lived up to its dream. Perhaps nobody can live up to a dream, but Haiti has fallen far from the gallant aims of its slave liberators who threw out several French armies with the help of Mr. Malaria and General Yellow Fever. The 20th century saw the country reduced to a pitiful shadow of its founders' vision, living under the heel of despots in black Cadillacs and gangs of pistol-packing hoodlums in reflecting sunglasses. The poor were reduced to the horrible existence on a denuded and dried-out land, violently exploited in Dominican canefields, or in the mosquito-infested slums of Port au Prince where foreign business interests always got priority, thriving on cheap and pliant labor. Haiti could be compared to a completely clapped out bus, constantly about to conk out forever, but still going down the potholed roads because of a few dedicated tinkerers, willpower, and soul. Clitandre's novel opens, in fact, with one such tap-tap....a street bus full of poor citizens.
With overtones of Jorge Amado and perhaps Carlos Fuentes, CATHEDRAL OF THE AUGUST HEAT promises to be a novel of the Haitian common man in all his difficulties and despair. Indeed it is a poem of that very thing, but maybe not a novel after all. The author must have poured his whole soul into this book. I found it moving and very poetic, but the lyric qualities interfered with plot development. Magical realism, folk tales, zombies, visions, and lyrical feelings of love and dignity crowd the pages, along with rose laurel (mentioned on nearly every other page for some reason), but the eventual uprising of the oppressed against the forces of dictatorship and exploitation, the uprising that occurs on a day significant in Haitian history, never clarified by the author (perhaps he never thought a foreigner would read his book), remains unexplained. For a person without any idea of Haiti or Haitian history, who does not know of the Dominican exploitation or Papa Doc, etc., no quarter is given. Either you know or you can hit the road. It concerns more the uprising of all poor people against their oppressors, it is a poem against injustice and cruelty. I might look at this novel as a painting by Rivera or Orozco, even as a symphony of inspiring tones, but I wonder if it will hold the attention of many non-Haitians or even be understandable. I fully realize that it was not written with foreigners in mind. Still.....
January 25, 2013
This book absolutely tops my list of "hot" books, just above Under the Volcano and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Heat is a character in Clitandre's novel of Haiti, and it blankets the impressionistic episodes and eras of the island. Beyond the heat, though, the novel is a perfect peoples' history of a singular nation, complete despite its length. Read it.
July 20, 2023
Could be subtitled "Weep for me Haiti" As Haiti careens towards a status of "Failed State", you could do worse than read Clitandre's love letter of sorts to the people who struggle to survive in the slums of Port Au Prince. Beset on all sides by climate, politics, economic destitution, the ranks of the dispossessed are constantly swelled by arrivals from the countryside. The life of a slum is portrayed with brutal honesty by Clitandre. It's not all poverty, brutality and death and destruction, the other side of the coin is presented as well as the slum inhabitants come together to resist and repel the brutal "Tonton Macoute" who prey on the destitution.
While the narrative jumps arounds a bit, I highly recommend this novel, if you'd like to gain some appreciation of Haiti.
While the narrative jumps arounds a bit, I highly recommend this novel, if you'd like to gain some appreciation of Haiti.
Read
January 23, 2022A tale of the Haitian slums, told in part through myth and legend and in part through the earthy and despairing misadventures of its inhabitant. Vivid, lyrical, horrifying, good.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews