Letters to Fantine

I commend Susan Straight for stepping so completely into the shoes of a black woman with a completely different culture than the typical white person's. She so immersed me into Fantine's voice that I forgot she'd written the book: Fantine wrote it! Therefore, it is to Fantine I wish to direct my critiques.

I did not enjoy the choppy sentences or the referrals back to previous (5-6 or more pages previous) parts of the book. They made me wrack my brain for the last time Fantine said something, and when I simply couldn't remember, I felt frustrated. Nor did I enjoy the Louisiana French aspect of the book. It could have been much clearer! The language is an important part of Fantine's life, and it captures the local color of the story, but it was not always clear to me what the characters (namely Enrique Antoine or Gustave Picard or Aunt Monie) were saying/indicating with their Louisiana French. I looked some of the words up on Google Translate, but some of the French-sounding words were unavailable because there is no language selection that says 'Louisiana French'.

Another hugely confusing aspect of the book was all the Moinette Antoine-Marie-Therese-Marie-Claire line of the story. I've read the book twice and I still am confused about who is who's relative and who got sold on the river and who had children and who those children were and how those children connect with Fantine, Victor or Glorette. Again, this is frustrating in a novel. Though Fantine seems to have some great  descriptions of the different places and people around her, I find these descriptions and metaphorical statements fuzzy and sometimes nonsensical: I couldn't relate. I cannot picture a "vague, taupe person": I literally see a smudge. I like to be able to picture the people I meet in books, and I simply could not picture Fantine. I'm sure this contributes to Fantine's awareness that people think she could be "Italian, Brazilian, Mexican, Hawaiian, etc..." but to me, images of people I know flashed around in my mind and none stuck for Fantine. I still don't know what she looks like.

Even though Glorette was more beautiful, and "hammered gold and purple velvet eyes" sounds really nice and beautiful, I could not picture Glorette. I have problems when people are described as having purple eyes. I have never met anyone with purple eyes. Fantine's descriptions were very vague--I could only imagine a sliver of what she was talking about. I had to look up levees, bayous, cypress trees, etc. in order to know what those things look like. I know she described them, but I feel that she could have described them a little better.

I have to say that I thought this story was going a whole different way when I read the first chapter: there was virtually nothing about those five women after that, and I think just that story would have been really interesting (escape to California, their lives once they got there, Gustave and Enrique joining them and marrying them, building the new Sarrat)--perhaps more interesting than the book itself. I liked Victor's character, but I felt that he crossed himself sometimes. He didn't seem like someone who would just ride with gangsters for no reason: how did he start riding with them? Why? When did he begin college? When did he graduate from high school? If he is 22, shouldn't he have finished a 4 year program, not a 2-year? WHat did he two in the two years before or after high school when he wasn't in college? Why, exactly, did Mando shoot him? I understand the reason was petty, but the reasons seemed wishy-washy and all over the place.

I should probably stop talking about the things I did not like. I thought the story was powerful and resonant in modern culture, where everyone (okay, not everyone, but a lot of young people) wants to be the 'cool' gangster (whatever 'race' of gangster they feel they fit in) type with their pants hanging off their asses and and their spiky hair and blah blah blah. I wish Victor's valiant resilience had been brought out more. I have a lot of questions. Maybe I will ask Susan Straight, but I will probably be too nervous. I'd like to read another of her books, because I've heard this one is different from the others in some ways, probably because Fantine "wrote it." I do think Fantine did great at narrating the voices of her family members (aside from the French), and the ways they acted: quiet, hardworking, etc.

I have such mixed thoughts about this book. It wasn't boring, though it did get long while Fantine was searching for Victor. Just find him already! Was my glaring thought in those chapters. And the ending wrapped itself up a little too neatly. How did Jazen die in Katrina but Tony was perfectly fine? Anyway. I will stop now. ;)


Laura Strawn Ojeda