Julie Mango by N.D. Williams. Xlibris Corporation. 300pages. USA. 2000.
Reviewed by D. Gokarran Sukhdeo
(Winner, 1998 Guyana Prize for Literature.)
The last decade or so has seen an immense number of published works emanating from Guyanese writers at home and abroad; some good, some mediocre. One of these works stands head and shoulders among its contemporaries, and certainly ranks among good modern writing. Julie Mango is a collection of short stories by N. D. Williams. It is however surprising and unfortunate that little is known of this author who has written prodigiously before.
Born in Guyana, he was educated at the University of the West Indies and lived a good deal in the islands before migrating to the U.S. Hence, he writes about the West Indian experience – poverty and astigmatic politics, the astonishing beauty of the Caribbean, and of the anguished peoples sequestered by the sea, their yearning to break out from the limits of their horizons, the opening up of the minds of those who succeed in breaking out, and the sad experiences of those returning to the Caribbean shores.
Good literature is about the purposeful presentation of the lives of people through a language style and structure that will open up the souls of the common man to the reader. It inexorably arouses not just the five senses, but also the deepest emotions, and consequently effects a change in the reader. The reader becomes more informed, more empathetic, more motivated, and more involved. When the good writer describes a desert, the reader must experience a thirst; when he speaks of love, the reader must be ecstatic. The reader must become the protagonist and cry when the hero (or heroine) suffers or triumphs. In the end there must be a lesson to be learned, an example to emulate, or an error to avoid. In effect, good literature, as against the tradition of western popular writings, satisfies a dual purpose – it represents reality, and promotes morality; or simply put, it both informs and improves the reader. The writer therefore has a responsibility to the reader and to society. He must look beyond the mercenary, as one who is responsible for shaping the mind of his younger brother, one who does not merely strut and fret his hour upon the stage, but also one who must leave social and historical footprints. It is within these parameters that good literature such as Julie Mango is examined.
The first story in Julie Mango is the portrayal of a pathetic physician who fails to go the full way, to make full use of the only opportunity that presented itself for him to reconcile with his love. He went only halfway. Halfway because he failed to prevail over the element of nature – a hurricane. Was man created to conquer the mountains, to prevail over storms, both outside and within his soul? Williams seems to say: yes, he should, it is expected of him, or pay the consequence of indignity and devastation. "She stopped moving and waited, her head half-turned listening for what would come next; and in that pause I heard the storm moving further away, I sensed the gray sky opening up tiny cracks for the sun. Half a chance, a promise of reprieve — and all that I had then were rain-soaked words, words of failure, words that to her ears sounded like thin lies. Halfway there!"
The doctor was lamenting to a sympathetic barman. "One night, one storm, one performance (on the stage), one opportunity, One moment in your life, clean as a blade, comes to define you, or ask you to define yourself. All else, before and after, mean nothing at all." But the goodly doctor who in his ego believed that Julie had braved the storm to bring him a peace offering of mangoes, could only deliver half an apology, half an explanation, half an acceptance. The result: Julie was gone … left him forever, with the once proficient physician left "like a man who’d been horned and now didn’t know which way to turn." Like in the poem:
OPPORTUNITY LOST
She came to my door
One stormy night long past,
As I lay alone with dreams of her.
I heard the knock,
Got up and pulled the latch,
And peered, dumbstruck.
The fairy, the princess, the goddess,
The only star that shined
Was at my door that dismal, desolate night.
I stared at her in wonder,
Could she, that astral gem from glory
Descend her palace for my hut?
I looked behind.
The shivering chair, the broken bed,
The sooted pot o’er the fire hung;
They mocked me,
And I turned around
And slowly shook my head.
That night, that stormy night long past,
She came to my door,
And I left her there with waiting arms and cold,
And between us closed my door.
— by Gokarran Sukhdeo
In the stories, Trinculo Walks The Dog, and Your Slip is Showing, Comrade! both more or less socio/political commentaries, Williams laments on the folly in returning home and observing the boorish behavior of keepers of the Republic, their shirtjac and bicycle mentality, their idle working and non-working hours in rumshops, and hypocritical prattle of socialism and party paramountcy interposed with boasts of sexual exploits.
In Trinculo Walks the Dog, the protagonist, Michael PhD, who "cleaves to all that dull damp grayness" of academia, returns home and is bored and disgusted with the Trinculo type lifestyle of people at home. Going home, to him, was a folly, but for types like his English girlfriend, Pamela, expatriate visitors, Mrs. Puddephat, and perhaps other tourists, the West Indies offers "a wonderful energizing light" and a place for sensual gratification where they can "plant green stems in places where people don’t know you".
Williams has a clear-cut opinion of the politics of the Republic. "This boat is run by socialists. See how rusty and broken down everything is? You smell the piss from the toilets…?" And also of the people who run the Republic, like Trinculo who couldn’t make it past high school, but was a big talker and a big officer with shirtjac and bicycle, who, after his affair with Mrs. Puddephat, ate nothing more but white meat, and later landing a big job in representing the Republic on a begging mission to Canada.
There were also those who feasted well at the Captain’s table and then abandoned the socialist boat, having secured a visa–like the Minister’s daughter, Julienne, after a evanescent and volcanic relationship with Corbin, the Minister’s chauffeur.
In the story, Light Of The World, Williams dabbles with the paranormal, evoking a romantic pleasure of imagination over reason, showing how a belongingness with the island bestows longevity and spiritual superiority to the islanders, or at least to those who are contented to remain within their horizons, but far away from the politics of the land. In the Light Of The World, Williams displays a remarkable ability in restoring a lost harmony between the individual and nature, between society and nature, and between the individual and society.
Williams manifests a mastery in the use of metaphors, a lot of which crops up indiscriminately within his stories as a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. This ability and the richness of his creative imagery and foreplay compensate for his painstaking slowness in unraveling the story and reaching climax and resolution. Often, he deliberately and skillfully toys with the reader, dragging him through a labyrinth (so spontaneous he is) of seemingly tangential and unrelated episodes and details, before finally driving home the point.
Somewhat amusing is his amazing skill in reproducing the dialects of the various islands (none of which is actually named, but identified. For example, the first narrative is prefaced with a Selvonian accent…) as well as the British and American idioms. The use of curse words and phrases, and descriptions of sexual details may not be universally approved. However, more and more today in music, film and art, artistes and writers feel they cannot divorce street language from their work and still convey the true image. It is therefore the reader who determines to what extent morality is affected (if at all) in the presentation of unedited reality. But like Michaelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel, each work is evaluated differently, depending on the artist’s motive, and the reader’s interpretation.
Julie Mango, a 300-page anthology of nine short stories, all written by N.D. Williams, can certainly hold its place among good contemporary literature. Copies may be obtained from Barnes and Noble or through Xlibris.com, bn.com, amazon.com, borders.com.
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