Slave Old Man
A Novel
by Patrick Chamoiseau translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale
QUESTIONS
The runaway slave narrative has a long tradition in the United States, stretching back to the antebellum South. How is Slave Old Man, written by a Caribbean author and set on the island of Martinique, similar to these narratives, and how is it different?
Why do you think Patrick Chamoiseau chose to infuse this story with so many “magical” elements rather than write it as a straightforward historical narrative of a slave’s escape to freedom?
The narrator writes, “Stories of slavery do not interest us much. Literature rarely holds forth on this subject.” Is this really true? Why does the narrator make such a debatable claim? (p. 3)
The novel begins, “In slavery times in the sugar isles, once there was an old black man, a vieuxnègre, without misbehaves or gros-saut orneriness or showy ways. He was a lover of silence, taster of solitude.” Does this characterization of the man shed light on why he would suddenly risk his life and run away? (p. 3)
Who is the “Storyteller”? Is he/she the teller of this story or someone or something else?
One of the key characters in the book is a fierce dog, the mastiff, who chases the old man through the jungle. Do you think the mastiff represents something more than a mere dog?
One passage says, “The mastiff is like that, but it commands a mass of instincts that delude the dog into seeing sense there, a meaning now tied to the taste of the bloody flesh the Master feeds the beast as the meaning of existence. The dog is the Master’s rudderless soul. It is the slave’s suffering double.” How are the old man, the Master, and the dog bound together? Do they form a kind of unholy trinity, and why would Chamoiseau link them in this way? (p. 32)
Why does the old slave blindfold himself?
About midway through the narrative, the telling of the old slave’s experience shift from a third-person to a first-person narration. What is the purpose of this shift in voice?
Would you say this is a novel about memory? If so, whose memory?
In the final section, the narrator writes, “I was set on finding out how a vanished people could inhabit us, in what ways and what mystery.” Do you think that Chamoiseau achieves this goal? (p. 114)
The novel was originally written in a combination of French and Creole. Why did Chamoiseau do this? What does he achieve or fail to achieve through this device?
The translator chose to leave many of the Creole passages in the original language. Did this fact enhance the storytelling for you or detract from it?
Bones are a recurring symbol in the novel. What do they represent?
Rather than chapters, Chamoiseau calls the sections “Cadences” and gives them the names Matter, Alive, Waters, Lunar, Solar, The Stone, and The Bones. Why do you think he structured the novel this way? Does it shape your reading of the story in any way?
In the afterword, translator Linda Coverdale writes that through his writing career Chamoiseau “has tried to portray a Martinique true to the fading authentic realities of an island in sociocultural crisis, a threatened heritage that gives the lie to the image of carefree French citizens untouched by social injustice and racism.” In what ways does he do this, even in a book that is set in the past and so tied to dreams and imagination? (p. 124)
While the mastiff and the old man have one final encounter in the forest, the Master is lost in the wilderness until the dog returns. They head back to the Plantation in a melancholy mood, the Master “bearing something he could not name.” What transformation has the Master undergone and what does it mean for the future? (p. 109)
The old man’s flight ends in death. Is death a form of freedom in this story?
Why do you think stories about slavery resonate with readers long after slavery has been outlawed in most societies?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Chamoiseau is the author of Texaco, which won the Prix Goncourt and was a New York Times Notable Book, as well as Creole Folktales and Slave Old Man (The New Press), among other works. He is one of the founding theoreticians of the Créolité movement. He lives in Martinique.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Linda Coverdale has a PhD in French Studies and has translated more than eighty books. A Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, she has won the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the 2006 Scott Moncrieff Prize, and the 1997 and 2008 French-American Foundation Translation Prize.