Arts On Sunday
Peepal Tree Press has released another new Guyanese novel in the UK, which has attracted some attention in the wider Caribbean. This book will also generate interest at home largely because of its author, who is very well known for his life before fiction as a journalist, a vanguard politician and a Minister of Government. But the work itself commands significance for quite other reasons, including its subject, its chosen style, and the nature of its contribution to Guyanese literature.
With Al Creighton
Stabroek News
August 26, 2001
Moses Nagamootoo's Hendree's Cure is a first novel with some of the characteristics often found in such works. The author's intentions are clearly set out in his explanatory Foreword and telegraphed by the fact that the book carries a sub-title, Madrasi Experience in a New World. This signals his quite noble objective to document aspects of the post-indentureship life of these South Indian immigrants in a Guyanese village. It is here that some of the truly interesting as well as the problematic elements of the novel begin. The difficulties of fictionalizing history did not seem to have entirely escaped Nagamootoo, since he confesses, "My rationale for blending fictional and documentary styles is based on my conviction that 'history' needs to be recovered... by acts of the imagination." There is truth in that, and surely, this venturing into history and the imagination has produced a sometimes quite lively drama, good moments of narrative inspiration, including an experiment with post-modernism, and an unusual stylistic structure; but it has also provided the book with its major flaw.
The first reason for the book's significance, however, is the oral history into which it delves, providing pictures of a people whose traditions and experiences have not been detailed sufficiently in any account of Guyanese history. These are the Tamils, Dravidians and their descendants; indentured workers who sailed from Madras in South India to cross the dreaded Kala Pani and settle in Guyana. The Madrasis, as they are called, are quite different from their comrades whose origin was North India, who comprise the dominant majority of Indians in Guyana, and whose culture includes the more classical type driven by orthodox Hinduism. The Southerners have been associated with some different brands of folk culture including a few powerful traditions of religion, ritual, music, dance and drumming, some of which Nagamootoo represents in the novel.
Yet, other features of interest concerning these colourful villagers are not only cultural, but socio-political. They were not the best loved immigrants. Distinguished by their sometimes very dark skin tones, there was a tendency to associate them with the demon king, Rawan (Ravana) of Lanka, notorious enemy of Lord Rama the beloved deity of the Uttar Pradesh heartland. In addition, they were more readily creolized in the local community and given to social and religious hybridization which created the Guyanese brand of Kali Mai worship. This church with its animal sacrifice, aggressive drumming and spirit possession endeared itself neither to Hindu purists nor to the colonial authorities. Madrasis did not find favour because of what the administration described as "their reprehensible social conduct." In other words, they were rebellious and had a tendency to bond with their African neighbours.
Many of these elements either inform Hendree's Cure or find a place in its scenes of village life and activities that reflect the sensibility of the people. But Nagamootoo is also interested in what is, to some extent, a biography of his father, represented by the strong character Naga, in the novel. This autobiographical form continues a long and noble tradition in Caribbean fiction, as so many first novels are based on their authors growing up in the colonial Caribbean society. The genre affords the writers opportunities for the reproduction of memory and colourful characters, but also great scope for social and political commentary, which is often anti-colonial and often chooses post-colonialism as form. Nagamootoo follows this practice, dramatizing the growth of a post-indenture rural society into the greater sophistication of contemporary times and contemporary politics. But always, the reader is aware of the author who sometimes finds it difficult to keep out of his fictive narrative. He is given to intrusiveness, political correctness and highlighting the understandable concerns of a writer who is, after all, still a radical politician with a proletarian disposition.
His interests lead him into a mixture of styles and a slightly discordant structure. The book seems to fall into two parts. The first is focussed on Naga, who assumes the stature of central character, but then this dissipates into the story of the idiosyncratic, para-comic Hendree who appears as an itinerant character in the earlier chapters. Nevertheless, this strange arrangement seems to be a part of a very sophisticated form that Nagamootoo courageously attempts. There is, in Hendree's Cure, a kind of base platform of lore and period politics which form part of a framework for the fiction in and out of which various characters wander. This strategy of post-modernism also belongs to a noble tradition and has been more successfully handled by such seasoned writers as V.S.Naipaul, Salman Rushdie and David Dabydeen. Post-modernist fiction is no push-over and its creditable attempt here is the imperfect experiment of a bold, talented apprentice.
He exhibits a considerable command of language and the narrative power of the genuinely gifted storyteller. Nagamootoo exercises satisfactory control over description and humour and captures details of character and incident at times after the fashion of a mischievous raconteur. He can also manage drama and convincing reproductions of creole speech, providing the tale with a number of delightful moments, images and characters. These include items of folklore, the exploits of a champion racehorse called Bright Steel and the cameo portrait of Lionel Luckhoo. Considering the difficulty with which contemporary history and real, well-known personalities are turned into fiction, this sketch of the famous lawyer and turfite is particularly well handled.
Yet, it is this very factor of the fictionalization of history that accounts for the novel's major flaw. Hendree's Cure does not appear to have satisfactorily decided whether it wants to be documentary or fiction and often finds itself moving uncomfortably in both directions. Its subject is well worth recording and despite the already standard format of the autobiographical post-colonial Caribbean novel and the not uncommon depiction of village life, it is a significant contribution to Guyanese literature. However, it goes the way of many good first novels in its zeal to document; the author should remember the principle that when, as a creative writer, you have something that you want to tell your audience, don't do it. Show them instead.
Hendree's Cure was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize First Book, 2000 and was launched in Georgetown in June, 2001.