| Title | : | The Chosen Place, The Timeless People |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0394726332 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780394726335 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 480 |
| Publication | : | First published September 1, 1984 |
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People Reviews
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The book was difficult for me at first, but stay with it. It is a novel you enter into relationship with, and will stay with you forever.
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This book was a lot of work, but I love Paule Marshall, and I was determined to get through it. In the end, it was worth it - especially for those who want a richer perspective of the late 20th century Black Atlantic, and one from a woman's point of view in particular. Also a fascinating look at the power dynamics involved with ethnographic fieldwork. This would be a great companion piece to some of Hurston's work on the subject.
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Really glad I held out and finished this on my vacation. Moving, extremely well written, no characters are left undeveloped. A good book to read while reading Traces of the Trade (the book). Slavery just took on a new face.
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This is one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read. Paule Marshall is a writer's writer. I've always thought she didn't get as much "play" as she should.
This book haunted me for some time after I read it.
I highly recommend. -
one of my all time faves-i could read this over and over...
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The Chosen Place, The Timeless People is a 472 page book which surely has a higher word count than similar length books. In other words, it's very dense, and for that reason is one of those books you cannot fly through any more than an anthropologist can stay in Bourne Island for a few days before jetting off like a tourist. You have to move in. Or maybe the book "moves in" to you; it certainly takes up a lot of your mental space while you read it.
My initial impressions were very positive, but the writing suffered from a lot of info-dumping. This was Marshall's second novel and first with so many POV characters, and for the first 100+ pages, she tirelessly introduces them all with expansive backstories, and that includes the main "character"--Bourne Island and the neighborhood Bournehills. The info-dumping is a bit amateurish, but Marshall's writing is simply so beautiful and the characters so vivid, I was willing to forgive it. The island and its occupants all come to life. After the first 100 pages, the book settles into a comfortable rhythm, with only occasional info dumps. This is easily the best part of the book.
To make a slight detour, I want to talk about Marshall's style. In interviews, Marshall defended the "traditional novel," by which she means literary realism, a relic of the Victorian Era that was long considered passé in literary circles by the 1960s. In the later Victorian Era, the form evolved into psychological realism, which focuses on the characters' psychology.
I was surprised that this novel was so heavy on psychological realism. Her first, Brown Girl, Brownstones was not. Each character is introduced not only as a person, but a psychological profile--part of what makes them so compelling. Initially I was pleased by this aspect of the novel. The characters' depth and relationships create the perfect opportunity to explore the impacts of colonialism and white supremacy.
But after a certain point, Marshall takes a stylistic swerve away from English-language psychological realism and starts writing like Dostoevsky... on steroids. Starting with Part Three, Carnival, the rich character study devolves into nearly nonstop mental breakdowns, violence, death, adultery, etc. One character even has a "Raskolnikov moment" (). Since Marshall wrote the book over a five-year period, it feels like she left off after Part Two and began writing Part Three some time later, in a different style. The shift is abrupt and jarring, and even more, once the onslaught starts, it never stops. It's neurosis and drama until the bitter end. The parts that aren't detailed depictions of people's neuroses read like a soap opera.
Normally, saying something is "like Dostoevsky" is a compliment, but not this time. Marshall saturates the book so much in second-rate Dostoevsky-ness that her strengths get lost in the mess. You don't need drama to keep a narrative interesting; more than anything, it distracts. It's hard not to feel like the narrative core, about the dynamic between anthropologists and the peoples they work with, is lost. There is constant monologuing by the characters (another hint she was influenced by Dostoevsky), which is contrived, overlong, and the revelations feel unearned. The social commentary is heavy-handed and clunky. I'm usually the one defending "depressing" books with complex characters, but sometimes less is more. Not every character needs a contrived, tragic backstory and some kind of neurosis. Otherwise the reader becomes numb to it after a while.
To wrap up the book, Marshall falls back on some silly Victorian plotting. She props it up with social commentary, but it's not very convincing. A soap opera plot is a soap opera plot, even if you put window dressing on it.
So, let's just say, I'm disappointed. For the first half of the book I couldn't have imagined giving it fewer than four stars. I thought it might dethrone Brown Girl, Brownstones for my favorite Paule Marshall novel. I was ready to write that this was a lost 20th century classic. Now I feel like the book ended halfway through, and the rest belongs in another book entirely. It's like one of those TV shows where they kept ramping up the drama in later seasons to keep up ratings, so the show became a cartoon of itself. Very sad indeed. I can only give it three stars, and that's on account of the first two parts. It's the most frustrating reading experience I've had in a long time. -
A few months ago Steve Almond had an insightful essay in the “Riff” section of the NYT Magazine about contemporary writers’ fear of a narration in fiction. For Almond, it’s a fear of something merely passing for an all-encompassing narrative, which can never be possible. Almond’s riff seems a tired one, didn’t this start with the appearance of le nouvel roman in the 1950s (not to mention what early readers made of Tristam Shandy). Given the tremendous popularity of genre fiction at the moment, which is primarily characterized by its adherence to story, it is safe to say that many readers still have room for narration. I believe we have more than enough room for all kinds of writing on our lists, shelves, and devices. Plus, there are plenty of gems that have not gotten the readership they deserve. If you are in the mood for good story, then I always recommend this under-read Paule Marshall novel. It is set on Bourne Island, a fictional setting for this exploration of the vicissitudes of power. The novel follows a group of American researchers and island’s residents trying to decide on the best development project to ignite the economy and modernize the island. That all-too familiar plot becomes one of the novel’s best features because it will unfold in all the ways you expect, so you can focus on what matters most here: the characterization of the place, the people, and the human interaction.
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Very slow start but well worth the effort. Has a beautiful logic and flow, captivating characters that become only better more complicated versions of themselves as the story progresses Deep and full of radicalism - especially in the ways it creates coexistence with subtlety and honesty across and among races. That might be rambly as it is 2:30 a.m.
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This book has a lot of good things going for it:
interesting, deep characters
beautiful imagery and language
deep insight into a different way of life
But I can't rate it highly just because I had such a hard time reading it. It was very slow-paced with many difficult, sad moments and not many happy moments. I found it too unrelentingly depressing and very long. -
Much of this story was already familiar to me because I read her memoir first. Paule Marshall is my first pick for Black history month and well worth the effort. She tells a story that is timeless, adultery, yet fresh, the people of the fictional island of Boure.
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One of my favorite books!
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Great characters, well written. Might be a bit too long. At times the book seems to stop. Powerful ending, it stays with you.
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So.Tedious. I skipped about half of the middle and still got the contours of the futility the author wanted to convey.
It’s set in a formerly English colony, but the playbooks is the same as Haiti.
The white saviors were told nothing changes in Bournehills. It was mostly true. Nothing changes for the locals but the white saviors’ lives irrevocably change before they go home.
Boring with too much minutia and bleak.
It’s done. That’s the nicest thing I can say & now I can move on. -
Exquisitely beautiful prose and excellent narrative point of view. The only down side to the prose is that it made it hard to read very fast, as every sentence contained so much.
White supremacy is a big and ancient scheme. This novel does such a good job taking it out of the American context, while also reminding the reader how much white supremacy is reinforced by American imperialism. Even if that imperialism wears the face of an anthropologist... -
A bit dated in terms of it's portrayal of homosexuality (not that it's homophobic so much as it employs tropes that would now be considered cliche and overused), but it is a very nuanced and sensitive look at race, colorism and class. Well worth the read.
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One of my all-time favorites. I think it is about Haiti, or an island a lot like Haiti. And this is a novel that shows how "helping" or aid organizations more often than not do not help-- they damage. Beautifully written, funny and heartbreaking.
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This is one of the most amazing books I've ever read and I want to share it as much as possible. It is the perfect example of what the realist novel can do.
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Wow, wow, wow. It’ll take me a while to coherently formulate thoughts on this. This was dense and beautiful. Paule Marshall is one of the very best!
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This is a powerful statement. It is long and tends to lengthy thought soliloquy(s) and deep conversations but it is a fine demonstration of the privilege of the oppressor standing in the way of the humanity of the oppressor.
