Introduction
One of the many traditions stemming from Africa is the art of oral storytelling. Mother to daughter, grandfather to grandson, aunt to nephew, friend to friend – from whomever it may be, and to whomever it may go, stories, histories, and traditions are passed down through words of passion. Patrick Chamoiseau, best known for his 1992 novel Texaco, has had a large impact on the créolité movement — a movement emphasizing the history of culture and language in the French Caribbean. The oral form of storytelling from Africa’s French Caribbean is one tradition that, as an alter ego named Oiseau de Cham, Chamoiseau aimed to accentuate in his novel Texaco.
Oiseau de Cham, the Word Scratcher
In Texaco, Chamoiseau writes a fictional narrative based on his experiences living in Martinique and the histories of his family and community. The format of the novel takes on the appearance of a story being passed through many people – whether that be through “The Urban planner’s notes to the Word Scratcher,” “The Word Scratcher to the source,” Esternome to Marie-Sophie Laboriex, or Marie-Sophie to the Word Scratcher (Texaco 115-116). The passing of the story orally through the characters in the novel reflects an inherent culture of Africa, “the origin of the oral tradition” (Sourieau 136).
Through this alter-ego, Oiseau de Cham, the author continues the oral-telling feel of the novel as a character who receives his writing inspiration from the orally told story of Marie-Sophie Laboriex, Texaco’s founder and the main character of the novel. The oral tradition and the evolution of oral tradition are fundamentals of “the expression of Caribbeanness” (Sourieau 132). Chamoiseau “free[s] himself of the unicity of one linguistic practice,” in order to enrich the novel with the “multilingualism that is Creole” (Sourieau 136). Chamoiseau’s passion for the heritage of Creole and the Caribbean is transferred into his character of Oiseau de Cham in the novel. As such, Oiseau de Cham records not just Mari-Sophie’s history, but the history and character of the Caribbean land she and her family inhabited. He records in great detail the plantations, gardens, fields, and cities. He utilizes language in a mixture of French and Creole that is unique to Martinique and its neighbors. He describes the people and their hutches, their traditions, and their relationships. It is clear in the novel that the Word Scratcher’s interest lies beyond that of Marie-Sophie’s story in the feel and voice of her land.
Background
Chamoiseau largely reflects the Creole heritage through the characters in his novels. The novel Texaco, published in 1992, is Patrick Chamoiseau’s third novel. It was the winner of the 1992 Prix Goncourt, a prize in French Literature (Mead 49). In the novel, Patrick Chamoiseau implements himself into the story as a “narratorial alter-ego, Oiseau de Cham” (Mead 49). Oiseau de Cham, also known in the novel as the Word Scratcher, acts as the scribe of the story being told throughout the novel.
France’s influence inspired the character which is Oiseau de Cham to express as much beauty and importance in the land of Martinique in his writing as Chamoiseau does himself. The country of France imposed its strength, the “law of the Father,” on Africa and, subsequently, Martinique — globalizing the continent and changing the future of the culture its power touched (Sourieau 136). As such, Chamoiseau was forever impacted by France’s influence on his Creole heritage, culture, and environment — inspiring the “Creolization” of his writing that he has become known for (A Reader in the Room 349).
Another character in the novel closely tied to Oiseau de Cham is the Urban Planner. This character, also referred to as “The Christ,” was assigned the job of deciding the future of Texaco, the land founded by Marie-Sophie (Texaco 9). After coming to survey the community, the Christ encounters Marie-Sophie, who tells the story of her family and how she founded Texaco. Together, Marie-Sophie and The Urban Planner share her story to Oiseau de Cham. The Word Scratcher writes Marie-Sophie’s story as she tells it, arranging and organizing it into the book we, the readers, consume. Meanwhile, the Urban Planner, who was greatly inspired by Marie-Sophie’s story, shares his own knowledge of her history through letters to the Word Scratcher. The Urban Planner’s letters aren’t the only pieces of writing witnessed in the novel of Texaco, as Marie-Sophie’s own journal entries are interspersed into Oiseau de Cham’s writing as well.
Allegorical Language
Patrick Chamoiseau is known for his unique writing style. Having the tendency to Creolize his writing, in which he implements “a Creole structure that is very particular,” his work stresses the importance of history and “authenticity… the truth of our reality” (A Reader in the Room 345). Many readers find his work to be difficult to read, including his famous work Texaco. This is because his narration has “opaque, unintelligible, untranslatable zones which are maybe true for [Chamoiseu] and do correspond to realities which… are opaque to [readers]” (A Reader in the Room 347). He has no qualms about confusing his readers with language or culture that they may not understand – in fact, he goes as far as to forego a glossary in his original novel Texaco – in order to be true to the reality of the words “such as they are” (A Reader in the Room 347). Chamoiseau’s value of truth and authenticity can be seen in his character, the Word Scratcher. The Word Scratcher, in charge of organizing the information given to him by Marie-Sophie’s story, her journal entries, and the notes from the Urban Planner, chooses to keep in many of Marie-Sophie’s tangents, instead of chronologically organizing the book. He finds value in the truth of her story and prefers instead to follow its authenticity and capture its essence over its logic or sensibility.
Chamoiseau is also partial to figurative language and rhetoric in his writings. He tends to lean towards language that pairs the “truth with a kind of rhetoric that aims to strike the reader, to astonish him, to help him somewhat understand what I am narrating to him” (A Reader in the Room 347). He uses such techniques as “traditional folktale, magic realism, and metafictional devices” in order to combine elements of orality, written word, history, fiction, and the Créolité movement (Mead 49). The character “Oiseau de Cham” is itself another one of Chamoiseau’s figurative tools. The name “Oiseau de Cham” is a wordplay on the author’s last name (Chamoiseau) and can be translated to “Bird of the Field” (Texaco 400). The use of the term bird should not go unnoticed in this instance as the animal is often used as a symbol of freedom. Meanwhile, in Texaco, the author focuses often on the lay of the land that is Martinique. He describes everything from the plantation fields to its cities of Fort-de-France and Saint-Pierre to the gardens of simple, Martinique farmers. The implementation of the character Oiseau de Cham is not a singular occurrence but can be witnessed as a motif in multiple works by the author as a vessel led by “the study of Martinican life” (Texaco 400). Perhaps on this occasion, the name represents the role of Oiseau de Cham as a speaker of truth – of which the author has a high value – on behalf of the culture, history, beauty, and struggles of Martinique. Furthermore, by using the wordplay of “Oiseau de Cham,” the author may be making a statement such that truth is the road to freedom, specifically the freedom and truth of Martinique.
Works Cited
Chamoiseau, Patrick. Texaco. Trans. Rose-Myriam Réjouis & Val Vinokurov. NY: Vintage, 1997.
— & Rose-Myriam Rejouis. “A Reader in the Room: Rose-Myriam Rejouis Meets Patrick Chamoiseau.” Callaloo, vol. 22, no. 2, 1999, pp. 346–350., https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.1999.0094.
Mead, Matthew. “Relay and Translation: An Anglophone Reads Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco.” Kunapipi, vol. 28, no. 1, 2006, pp. 47-58. https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1821&context=kunapipi.
Sourieau, Marie-Agnès. “Patrick Chamoiseau, Solibo Magnifique: From the Escheat of Speech to the Emergence of Language.” Callaloo, vol. 15, no. 1, 1992, pp. 131-137. https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol28/iss1/7/
Editorial Collective
Brooke Simpson, Lena Juenger, Rebecca Loftus
