Close Proximity to Many, Centering One

“Grabbing Paul’s bag, he darted under a bed, shrieking, It’s mine! It’s mine! as though trying to convince himself first of all. Imperious to the magical virtue of these cries, Paul prepared to settle that dirty stinker’s hash but good. Mam Ninotte wasn’t around, so it was the Baroness who saved his live by checking Paul’s homicidal fury. Then she introduced under the bed a long, slender, and formidable hand that brought the culprit to his sense then and there.”

One of the first a-ha moments I had with Patrick Chamoiseau was the realization that he was able to center the little black boy, here in this example and throughout the novel, all while staying in close proximity to the other characters. He does this by seemingly switching to their perspectives, from their bodily or perceptive standpoint. “Imperious to the magical virtue of these cries, Paul prepared to settle that dirty stinker’s hash” shows that we are getting some of the vantage point of Paul, the language he may use or wish to use towards his little brother. We also get this sense for the Baroness the following sentence as she slides her “long, slender, and formidable hand that brought the culprit…” Wow. It is not too often that we feel centered in one character while also feeling a deep sense of closeness to the movement and perspective of the other characters. Mind you, this all occurs in a paragraph. 

Although we get the little boys interiority to some extent because we know why he hastily scribbles his name, what chattering Creole language is in his head as he is introduced to French, and so on, our understanding of what is going on within some of the other characters grows deep. From Mama simply wondering what she did to the Goodlord to deserve a wild child like little boy to when the Teacher’s “flickering language would grow even more painstaking, guarded, distrustful of itself” and “desperate desire to be articulate.”  I would like to explore in class how folks felt about Big Bellybutton and whether or not we ever get the sense or feel of his interiority, motivations, etc as in-depth as other characters. 

Patrick Chamoiseauv is the narrator, narrating about his school days, and also feels like a character because of how present he is. He is both seemingly a voice of the gods, seeing everything about this world, and also himself, his charming self. I believe his first presence, outside of his quirkiness, is when he addresses the reader, “You can take my word for it.” Or page 123, “Ah, children don’t mess around, no indeed!” 

We, too, feel like characters with the use of second person POV. Page 95, “You discover a new Syrian…you discover tangled jackstraws…you discover that watchmakers who has become immortal…” Our views of this world and the impressions we are left with, forming in our own minds thereafter, make us feel more than addressed, but included. I know I was feeling as if that cod liver oil was in my mouth1