Visions in the Caribbean, Witnesses in Boston
I read "Slave Old Man"; plus a neat retreat where the elite meet to wash feet
Creatures, do with this information what you will, but if somebody propped a box on a stick, put a book under the box, and described that book as a) about slavery and b) “hallucinatory”… I would swiftly find myself writing this newsletter while trapped in a box.
In this edition, Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man; plus a queer Catholic retreat in Boston for which I encourage you or you-adjacent people to register now!
The Maroon Earth
Slave Old Man, which I read in the Coverdale translation, is about a man in Martinique who has lived so long on a sugar plantation that nobody left alive there ate the feast at his baptism. He has never given any indication of unexpected thought or feeling or desire. He has only the name the slaveholder gave him, which we never learn; the only indication that he is not eternal, parentless, defined by his enslavement is his navel. Until one day he escapes into the woods.
The book is also about what it means to be Martinican: what it means to be native to a place where the original inhabitants were mostly exterminated, and the new inhabitants are only there at all because of economic and political domination. The slave old man is intertwined with the country itself, its natural world:
The only sign that this is all a mistake is that, one morning, on awakening, he does not answer the call. No one yelled out his name, of course, but his hand is missing in certain places where no problem usually occurs. A mule no one can calm down. Then a boiler that macaye, acts-up, when no poking around can find the cause. Then a sugar overheat that exhales toward the Great House the novel smell of singed caramel. Other annoying events leave everyone at a perplexing loss. Rats trotting in broad daylight all-round the cabins. Bêtes-longues [snakes] flowing from the canebrakes, their fangs spurting with anxiety toward the sky. Mantou-mangrove-crabs erupting from muddy dormancy to hang in clusters from the branches of orange trees.
He is hunted by a dog, a molosser (more or less a mastiff). This molosser’s sole job on the plantation is to hunt runaways. It’s a monster; it’s a representation of the slaveholder’s soul, leashed to him by a rope and eventually also escaping him. It’s a funhouse mirror for the master and also for the slave. It crossed the ocean in the hold of a ship, and that terrible passage seems to have driven it mad. It is “pathologically alive.”
The whole story of the book is the old man moving through the woods—through time and space, among masks and memories—and the dog hunting him. They are trapped in the same hole, though not at the same time. They confront one another.
The man becomes other kinds of creature, or seems like other creatures:
Water, invisible, showered in drops from certain large leaves; at other times, it became a sweat that greased his skin until he seemed covered with scales.
He discovers a stone, “engraved all over,” in curlicues and figures telling a secret history of Martinique. This discovery seems to have been the purpose of his journey.
The final chapter is the frame narrative; it’s autofiction, I think the term is, it’s the story of a man who writes novels and nonfiction about what it means to be Martinican and how he found the bones of this slave old man. This chapter seemed a bit too blunt to me. A bit too much of a wall caption, telling me what the art means. But it does have this one strange refrain: The narrator keeps saying that he should not have touched the bones.
He never says why. Nothing else there. Just this taboo, which connects the reader and the narrator (I think this is why the last line is what it is). There is something in this old man, in the weight of his slavery, that Chamoiseau (or Chamoiseau-the-character) and I still can’t touch, handle, use, or name.
Eunuchs for the Kingdom Eunite!
...This slogan needs some work. ANYWAYS yes, registration is open for Building Catholic Futures’ first Confident Witness retreat. This is the only retreat of its kind, as far as I know:
Confident Witness is a three-day retreat centering on leadership and mentorship for LGBT/SSA+ Catholics who embrace Church teaching in full. Through lectio divina, discussion, workshops, prayer and fellowship, participants will discern their own gifts and challenges, explore gay Catholic spiritual journeys, and become more effective voices in their local communities.
The first Confident Witness retreat will take place in Boston, August 7 - 10. We'll gather for an opening dinner at 7pm Thursday, 8/7, and close with Mass on Sunday, 8/10.
If you register by July 4 (thus helping us manage the logistics), it will only cost you $250. For more details and to register, go here. (I do not plan for us to wash feet tbh. But the Akbar and Jeff of it all was hard to resist.)
The Church needs the voices of queer disciples. And those disciples need spiritual formation and camaraderie. I’ve learned so much from my work with BCF, and I can’t wait for this retreat as a chance to share what we’ve learned (about queer spiritual journeys, about working with Catholic leadership from a wide range of perspectives, about what makes for good and bad mentorship) and learn more.
Come join us on the adventure! And if you know anyone who might be interested, please pass this newsletter along.
Photo of me and Keith in teacher mode via BCF.