Claire of the Sea Light – April CC Book Club Selection

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>^agree, Gaelle deeply flawed, in an unrealistic way </p>

[Mary13]

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@SouthJerseyChessMom

Haiti such a poor country, no natural resources, so the four generation family business was “death”. Follow the money, where there is money there is power. So it seems that the family in the business of death would wield the power in Haiti.

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<p>Great observation (and sad, too).</p>

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@SouthJerseyChessMom

Danticat’s portrayal of Gaelle, was not very positive. Clearly to make the reader feel the pain of Nozias’s decision. Had Gaelle been less flawed many of us might have thought, yes, this is the right thing for Claire, but I shuddered to think that Claire would live with the awful woman.

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<p>Gaelle has her moments, but overall, she is a hard woman, even before her double tragedy. She had the financial means to care for Claire, but not the warmth. Seems like Claire and Josephine (Caleb’s widow) would be a more loving match, but there would be no money there. I especially like the idea of Josephine taking over for Nozias because of Claire’s thoughts about their easy communication and that “her father and Madame Josephine could have been twins, born at the same hour on the same day” (and yes, Tiredofsnow, I thought of The Luminaries, too).</p>

<p>In Gaelle’s defense, she was a devoted mother to her own daughter, so maybe Nozias took that into account. Also, Gaelle recognized that she needed to change. Claire’s birthday had always been a day of mourning for her (the anniversary of Rose’s death), and she tells Nozias, “I need another way to remember this day” (p. 32). But why “Now or never?” All I can think of is that Gaelle is afraid she won’t be able to muster the courage again to make the decision.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>^^^ I agree that now-or-never comes from Gaelle gathering courage to make the decision and being scared that she won’t find that courage again.</p>

<p>I looked up moto taxi and can see how easily a serious accident can happen.</p>

<p><a href=“Amber's Alerts From Life in Haiti: The Moto Taxi: Preferred Mode of Transportation”>http://alertsfromamber.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-moto-taxi-preferred-mode-of.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

[Caraid]

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@ignatius

Much is made of the environmental changes taking place that are affecting the “health” of the town. Also he himself is not in the best of health with his shaking hands and cloudy eyes.

I didn’t make this connection before, but cataracts are also a symptom of mercury poisoning. Does anyone know if this was a problem in Haiti. I couldn’t find anything.</p>

[Caraid]

<p>I don’t think Nozias will give Claire to Gaelle. He was already having second thoughts. I choose to believe that losing her that night was enough to make him realize he should keep her.</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>I was so struck, in the sequence where Max Jr. drives to Cité Pendue, how the sea changes from blue to brown to black.</p>

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>Ignatius, thanks for the link to moto taxi. It’s a motor cycle with tons of people on it. Helpful link </p>

[Mary13]

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@Caraid

Another cause of tremors is mercury poisoning. That’s possible if the fish are contaminated.</p>

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<p>I didn’t make this connection before, but cataracts are also a symptom of mercury poisoning.

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<p>Hey, look at this!: “Embalming bodies for burial or in taxidermy will also place individuals in an environment where higher levels of mercury can be found, as the toxin is used in the embalming process.” <a href=“http://voices.yahoo.com/do-work-environment-high-levels-of-8824751.html”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos;

<p>So maybe that rumor (shaky hands=alcoholic) was just a rumor, spread by people who wouldn’t have the scientific knowledge to make any other assumption. It seems quite possible that poor Albert Vincent is suffering from a job-related disability.</p>

[Caraid]

<p>Thanks for finding that Mary. Maybe Albert suffered from a little bit of both.</p>

[Lipsha]

<p>Wow, coming to this conversation late I am incredibly impressed by everyone’s insights and curiosity about finding out about everything from mercury poisoning to the moto taxi. Like some others, I liked most the setting and community in Haiti since I too know little about it. (By the way, if that element interested you, you might take a look at the wonderful work of Paule Marshall, who writes about Barbados and immigrants from Barbados.) I felt however that some of the lyricism somehow made the poverty less desperate, despite Nozia’s very difficult decision. I like books about family and/or communities told from various points of view where the narrative line is confused–Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, for instance, Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, as Danicat mentioned in her interview. I think Louise comes up with a great term for her writing about community members. “She called it to herself a collage a clef.” 124</p>

[ignatius]

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@caraid

I don’t think Nozias will give Claire to Gaelle. He was already having second thoughts. I choose to believe that losing her that night was enough to make him realize he should keep her.

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<p>I’m less sure. I think that unless Gaelle unexpectedly changes her mind she takes Claire home with her. Claire has made her decision which we learn in the last sentence:

Before becoming Madame Gaelle’s daughter, she had to go home, just one last time.

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<p>I think the author’s comment (previously posted but, since there are no post numbers, here it is again):

Because one of the pressing questions of the book is where is this girl going. Even I wasn’t sure for a long time. My editor, Robin Desser, was asking me until the last moment what would happen to Claire. Is she alive? Is she going to stay with her father? Will she go with the woman he wants to give her to? I have written many different endings. The last thing I did, just before the galleys went through, was decide what happens to Claire.

makes me lean strongly in favor of that last sentence of the book.</p>

<p>Interesting question though, Caraid: Which of us think Nozias and Claire stay together or who thinks Claire goes with Gaelle?</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>I think Claire goes with Gaëlle. </p>

[Caraid]

<p>Ignatius, you present a good argument. It makes me really sad to think she goes with Gaelle. :(</p>

[mathmom]

<p>I think Claire will go to Gaelle, and that it will be part of Gaelle’s healing process. I think the fact that Claire is ready to go is the clincher.</p>

<p>I think nearly everyone in the book is guilty of something or damaged by something. Healing and forgiveness seem to be big themes in the book. Gaelle needs to get past her daughter’s death by adopting Claire. Odile needs to slap Luise George for what she feels is mistreatment of her son. Flore needs to tell her story on Di Mwen. Each time the action provides some sort of catharsis to the character.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>^ ignatius asked (and answered) a much more direct, less long-winded version of question #14:</p>

<p>

14. Although Claire Limyè Lanmè is the book’s fulcrum, her point of view does not appear until the final chapter. Does it seem that Claire accepts her fate and her father’s decision? How does placing those other stories before Claire’s affect your feelings about her in the final scene? What do you imagine will happen to Claire in the future?

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<p>I, too, think Claire will go to Gaelle – and although that makes me sad in some respects, I think that mathmom is right. It will make Gaelle kinder and more “whole.” I’d like to think that if we could fast forward about two years, we would see them both doing very well together. </p>

[Caraid]

<p>But, what about Nozias? If he gives up Claire, how does he heal?</p>

[Mary13]

<p>Nozias plans to leave Ville Rose. Maybe that’s the only way he can heal – by removing himself from the ever-present memories of Claire Narcis.</p>

<p>By the way, re Nozias, I was touched by the fact that he puts on his best suit and attends the adult literacy class in hopes of better educating himself, so as to help young Claire with her lessons. I was unhappy with how Louise abandoned him (and Odile) so cavalierly: “…she got tired of the whole thing and of herself and told them to go home” (p. 129).</p>

[Mary13]

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@Lipsha

I felt however that some of the lyricism somehow made the poverty less desperate, despite Nozia’s very difficult decision.

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<p>Interesting. Apparently, this is an issue that writers and filmmakers struggle with – how to show poverty in a way that will engage and educate the reader/viewer, but will not glorify a terrible situation. I read that movies such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Slumdog Millionaire were criticized by some reviewers for not being able to walk that line–the beauty of the cinematography, the appeal of the characters, and the touching scripts tilt the stories into what one critic called “poverty porn.” </p>

<p>In an interview with Guernica, journalist Katherine Boo talks about this subject in terms of being a reporter:</p>

<p>

We take stories [about poverty] and purvey them to people with money. And in the conventions of my profession, which I try to adhere to, we can’t pay people for stories. Anyone with a conscience who does this work grapples with that reality, and if they don’t, I’d worry. I lie awake at night, and I think, “Am I exploiting them? Am I a vulture?” All of the terrible names anyone could call me, I’ve called myself worse. </p>

<p>But if writing about people who are not yourself is illegitimate, then the only legitimate work is autobiography; and as a reader and a citizen, I don’t want to live in that world. Because if you take a kid like Sunil, who’s been denied the possibility of an education that allows him to write his own story, and all of the people who lack the means and access to do so, they go down the memory hole. They’re lost. What it comes down to is, the only thing worse than being a poverty reporter is if no one ever wrote about it at all.
<a href=“http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/reporting-poverty/[/quote]”>Reporting Poverty – Guernica

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[Caraid]

<p>I don’t like it. Doesn’t seem like there is much possibility for any of the characters to have a happy ending.</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

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@Caraid

Doesn’t seem like there is much possibility for any of the characters to have a happy ending.

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<p>Maybe happy endings are something that occur more frequently in fiction about first world characters?. Just about everybody in Claire of the Sea Light is hurting. However, it seems like all of them are probably going to survive and be okay, largely because of the people they have in their lives that care about them.</p>