Over the Lip of the World: Among the Storytellers of Madagascar

by Colleen J. McElroy

Gifted travel writer, poet, professor of English, and insightful observer of human nature, Colleen McElroy journeyed to Madagascar to undertake a Fulbright research project exploring Malagasy oral traditions and myths. In Over the Lip of the World she depicts with equal verve the various storytelling traditions of the island and her own adventures in trying to find and record them.

McElroy’s tale of an African American woman’s travels among the people of Madagascar is told with wit, insight, and humor. Throughout it she interweaves English translations of Malagasy stories of heroism and morality, royalty and commoners, love and revenge, and the magic of tricksters and shapechangers.

Genres: Madagascar, Africa, Travel, Nonfiction, World Literature

250 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

In my first attempt at graduate school, I was in a PhD program in folklore. An acclaimed program, but not a great fit for me. I took one class where we read and discussed ethnographies, and another where we learned fieldwork technique in preparation for our dissertations. So this kind of writing and this kind of research is very familiar to me in some ways.

The reader has to hang on through a chapter or two before it gets interesting. She chooses to start by giving a background of the languages of Madagascar, and how the history of linguistics and written folklore has been impacted by colonialism and war. Later on in the book she reveals that there was deliberate masking of traditional poetry and song by principle. (When this occurred, I was surprised she didn't question if she was actually getting the entire picture, as an outsider herself.) How language is constructed amongst the various populations on the island nation is very important, as well as the idea of taboos - certain songs and poems are simply not given voice during certain times of year because of various ancestor-based reasons. McElroy touches on these from time to time, but I would have liked more of this kind of information.

The works she collects vary from didactic stories to mythology to poetry to song. It is a nice range, but I'm not sure such a thin collection can truly be representative. I would have preferred a more intensive study of one particular region, but that's the snobbery of the profession I left behind speaking. As a reader, the variety was welcome and interesting. It was clear she made personal connections with most of the people she met, and with the landscape - her descriptions of the flora and fauna were gorgeous, and I'm not surprised that she has done some travel writing.

One interesting poem comes from the section on the annual funeral ceremonies they have to honor the ancestors. It so clearly represents their beliefs - rather than it being about those who have gone, it comes from the ancestors, their point of view as they pass on. I share this for a friend.

The Way to Say Farewell

"The birds no longer fly
The cattle never stop bellowing
The honey never loses its sweet taste
The sun is no longer in the sky
The crossroads separate the path
Those who have gone before own this path
At day's end you close the door....

The red sun makes you long for home
For we are shared by distant gardens
The hills are distant from the valley
The waterfall is swallowed by the river
The house is divided by rooms
And so we leave you even if we are unwilling
We must separate although we are reluctant
Then the slightest goodbyes that we will say
We leave you with the chose farewell
Because this happiness is something aside
And does not keep me from longing for home....

And so goodbye, they say, good people
Have a long life, kind [mother]
We will meet another day
The beautiful morning comes quickly...
Our farewell is not the farewell of fog that separates us forever
But the farewell of the sun that makes us meet again in the morning
Ours is the farewell of love, the farewell of those unwilling to part
And so after shaking hands, kissing hands will make us long for each other."

[Beth]

I went back and forth on this book as I was reading it. At times I was bored and was going to give it only 2 stars, and then I would get to a section that interested me a bit more and I would bump it back up to 3. The book was a combination travelogue and chronicle of Malagasy folktales that the author collected all over the country by talking to village storytellers and others. I found the writing lackluster compared to what I normally read, and most of the folktales didn't do much for me. I did discover the poet Rado, whose more modern poetry I did really like, so I felt that the read was not a total loss. I also learned a lot more than I had known before about Madagascar's history and geography (easy, since I knew almost nothing despite my fascination with the wildlife there). Because of these things, I kept pulling myself through the book, but it was definitely a matter of pulling myself, rather than enjoying the read.

[Wallace]

Prof. McElroy is enchanted by Madagascar's weather, its landscape, its people, and its language. She remarks frequently and colorfully on the beauty of these things. I was surprised how fresh the revolution from France seems to be on people's minds, though perhaps it is because she focuses on a generally older population of storytellers based in tradition.
It certainly makes one wish to travel to Madagascar, though I believe an 'authentic' experience is unattainable. At best, Prof. McElroy emphasizes the great privilege of being allowed into people's homes and listening to their stories. At worst, she seems willing to glamorize Madagascar and overlook any troubles, outside of a 3-page episode about being shaken down by a group of armed bandits on the road.

[Siffy Torkildson]

A beautiful book. Lovely prose, and McElroy was fortunate the Malagasy shared many stories with her. I love they way she tells her story and then the stories she gathers from the regions she visits. It brings back memories of my year living in Madagascar only a couple of years after her book came out. And makes we wish I had learned the stories of my region which she didn't visit. It is nice having the stories translated into English instead of French. Highly recommended for those who have been there and those who have not. Madagascar is such a fascinating place. I hope the story teller tradition continues and the stories are not lost into history; one of the reasons recording them is so important.

[Rachel b00ksrmagic]

I thought I was getting a collection of folktales. But this was actually more of a nonfiction, travel journal with a few folktales interspersed. It does contain some of the folktales that this researcher collected on her trip to Madagascar, although I would’ve preferred some commentary that explained the cultural significance of the stories. A lot of the book is devoted to stories of the people that told the tales to her and how she traveled to see them and what, the countryside and living conditions were like. So it was interesting, but not nearly as captivating as I was hoping it would be.

[Trine]

Essential reading for anyone interested in the culture, history and languages of Madagascar. Great read!