Patrick Leigh Fermor. The Violins of Saint-Jacques. Introducton by James Campbell. NY: New York Review of Books.
This novella can be read in one relaxed reading-filled day, but it is packed with good solid words, both English and French. Fermor uses at least a handful of words that I haven't come across before, such as "orgulous" and "unarmigerous." Each sentence is made up of wonderful consonants, hard and soft, that find their way into the small vacant spaces in one's brain. I wanted to write down and record every sentence as I was reading. Here is an example -- you should read it out loud to get a feel for these words.
"The orgulous record of their gestures - the carnage they had wrought among the Caribs and the English, their Christian virtues, the multitude of their progeny, their valour in attack and their impavid patience in adversity, the suavity of their manners, the splendour of their munificence and their pious ends - was incised with a swirling seventeenth-century duplication of long S's and a cumulative nexus of dog-Latin superlatives that hissed from the shattered slabs like a basketful of snakes" (p. 20). (so many v's!)
Fermor, is a travel writer, and he does excel at description. In this novella, the narrator is a traveler who has landed on a small Greek Island after traveling in the Caribbean. The novella opens with a brief history and description of the island, Saint-Jacques, located on the "sixty-first meridian," a "few leauges windward from the channel that flows between Guadeloupe and Dominica and well to the south-east of Marie Galante, where it hung like a bead...." It's disappearance from the maps is "no mystery," but the reader doesn't learn of its fate until near the end of the novella.
The narrator tells its story as he hears it from an aging artist who, in the 1890s made her way from France to St. Jacques to serve as a governess to distant relatives. The story is one of opulence, class and racial division, colonial privilege and eccentricity -- as though the inhabitants of St. Jacques were rare species that had evolved in isolation from others of their kind. What seemed distasteful to me in the everyday practices of St. Jacques is related by the narrator without flinching or signs of distaste. Fermor published the novel in the 50s, so I don't know whether this acceptance of privilege and racial division is truly unremarkable to the author, or if the tone of the novel is ironic. I think it could interpreted that way.
The main event of the story told within the story of the novella is a Shrove Tuesday ball hosted by the Serindans, the great family of the island. Fermor minutely describes the Serindans' preparations, the food, the costumes and elegant dress, the activity of the family and the guests, and the heightened emotions of the day.
To learn about the fate of St. Jacques and its inhabitants, you'll need to read this novella for yourself. Set aside a little time and take it in all at once if possible -- or several bus rides if an empty day doesn't present itself to you. It is truly enjoyable to take in Fermor's writing and the story's climax is a surprise.
Put your feet up and slip off to an imaginary island and settle into a few beautiful hours of reading.
This novella can be read in one relaxed reading-filled day, but it is packed with good solid words, both English and French. Fermor uses at least a handful of words that I haven't come across before, such as "orgulous" and "unarmigerous." Each sentence is made up of wonderful consonants, hard and soft, that find their way into the small vacant spaces in one's brain. I wanted to write down and record every sentence as I was reading. Here is an example -- you should read it out loud to get a feel for these words.
"The orgulous record of their gestures - the carnage they had wrought among the Caribs and the English, their Christian virtues, the multitude of their progeny, their valour in attack and their impavid patience in adversity, the suavity of their manners, the splendour of their munificence and their pious ends - was incised with a swirling seventeenth-century duplication of long S's and a cumulative nexus of dog-Latin superlatives that hissed from the shattered slabs like a basketful of snakes" (p. 20). (so many v's!)
Fermor, is a travel writer, and he does excel at description. In this novella, the narrator is a traveler who has landed on a small Greek Island after traveling in the Caribbean. The novella opens with a brief history and description of the island, Saint-Jacques, located on the "sixty-first meridian," a "few leauges windward from the channel that flows between Guadeloupe and Dominica and well to the south-east of Marie Galante, where it hung like a bead...." It's disappearance from the maps is "no mystery," but the reader doesn't learn of its fate until near the end of the novella.
The narrator tells its story as he hears it from an aging artist who, in the 1890s made her way from France to St. Jacques to serve as a governess to distant relatives. The story is one of opulence, class and racial division, colonial privilege and eccentricity -- as though the inhabitants of St. Jacques were rare species that had evolved in isolation from others of their kind. What seemed distasteful to me in the everyday practices of St. Jacques is related by the narrator without flinching or signs of distaste. Fermor published the novel in the 50s, so I don't know whether this acceptance of privilege and racial division is truly unremarkable to the author, or if the tone of the novel is ironic. I think it could interpreted that way.
The main event of the story told within the story of the novella is a Shrove Tuesday ball hosted by the Serindans, the great family of the island. Fermor minutely describes the Serindans' preparations, the food, the costumes and elegant dress, the activity of the family and the guests, and the heightened emotions of the day.
To learn about the fate of St. Jacques and its inhabitants, you'll need to read this novella for yourself. Set aside a little time and take it in all at once if possible -- or several bus rides if an empty day doesn't present itself to you. It is truly enjoyable to take in Fermor's writing and the story's climax is a surprise.
Put your feet up and slip off to an imaginary island and settle into a few beautiful hours of reading.
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