bookstagirl's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
therealmette's review against another edition
3.0
This book was one of the extremely few books written by Guyanese authors that I could find (in English). From that viewpoint, it's a great find. The author, being of Amerindian and European descent herself, has a knack for describing both life in the native villages of the savannah, as well as that in the busy capital of Georgetown. The language is to-the-point yet with a hint of magic. In that way, it reminded me of Death in the Andes, a Peruvian novel I read recently.
Story-wise, it's not a super suspenseful read, but I was curious to see the development of the characters and relationships, so it was still quite the pageturner for me.
I'm not sure I completely understood the meaning of the incest theme, but I think it had something to do with nature... Like, sometimes weird things happen in nature that seem unnatural, but it's just the way of the world. Nature is random and unpredictable.
There was also an overarching theme of nature vs culture that I enjoyed.
Story-wise, it's not a super suspenseful read, but I was curious to see the development of the characters and relationships, so it was still quite the pageturner for me.
I'm not sure I completely understood the meaning of the incest theme, but I think it had something to do with nature... Like, sometimes weird things happen in nature that seem unnatural, but it's just the way of the world. Nature is random and unpredictable.
There was also an overarching theme of nature vs culture that I enjoyed.
blueyorkie's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the reading; we dive into the world of Amerindians; we follow the incestuous relationship of a sister and her brother, who recalls the belief of the Amerindians on the origin of the eclipse.
rogerb's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I bought this speculatively in a 2nd hand shop in Narberth.
It's remarkable - a first-novel giving a living and breathing picture of life in Guyana, and all the better as I knew almost nothing about it beforehand. Odd in many ways: linguistic, indigenous background, culture clashing, climatic, ... you could feel the heat and it was possible to tune in to the Indian culture remarkably easily.
Do I want to visit? Maybe yes, but isn't that just voyeuristic? Remember Evelyn Waugh.
I'll look out more from this very productive woman.
It's remarkable - a first-novel giving a living and breathing picture of life in Guyana, and all the better as I knew almost nothing about it beforehand. Odd in many ways: linguistic, indigenous background, culture clashing, climatic, ... you could feel the heat and it was possible to tune in to the Indian culture remarkably easily.
Do I want to visit? Maybe yes, but isn't that just voyeuristic? Remember Evelyn Waugh.
I'll look out more from this very productive woman.
kateofmind's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
megan_eightball's review against another edition
4.0
I'm sure it helped that I was recently in Guyana; references to places and animals and landscape meant something to me. I felt that the author had been to the same museum I'd been to. Perhaps the book loses a lot without that context, but I found the story and language compelling, the characters interesting. Really enjoyed it.
elkcariboubiologist's review
4.0
It took a couple starts to get into it...I don't think this was due to the book but rather attempting to start it at a time when I couldn't concentrate on reading (while taking classes). But once I got through the first quarter, I read the remaining within a matter of days. Very interesting, unique read. A clash of cultures/religions...two illicit love affairs...folk lore...
reallifereading's review
3.0
I’ve been putting off writing about this book because….well, where to begin? No, really, where should it begin?
Perhaps it should begin with what I liked the most about The Ventriloquist’s Tale. Its setting. Guyana.
I know not of other books that are set in Guyana, do you?. I’ve never been to Guyana, nor has that thought – or any Guyana-related thought – ever crossed my mind. So it was a really refreshing setting, a nice change from the modern, western, or made-up world which most books I read live in. Guyana is a land of sounds, of smells, of animals, of cassava, rain and rivers and heat.
It is a story told by a ventriloquist, although I have to profess that I don’t quite understand why. And when that ventriloquist’s prologue began, I was a bit wary – was this going to end up as magical realism? I wasn’t all that keen on that genre. But the narrator throws the reader into the ‘real’ world of Chofy McKinnon, a Wapisiana Indian (who also has some Anglo blood – Scottish more precisely – in the mix). A farmer who lives with his family in the savannahs, he is driven to nearby Georgetown for work. Tagging along is his aunt Wifreda, who is due for an eye operation. There, he meets and falls for Rosa Mendelsohn, who is researching Evelyn Waugh and his journey to Guyana in the 1930s, supposedly spending time with the McKinnon family. But most of the narrative follows the McKinnon family in the early 1900s, offering a comparison of cultures and lifestyles, of different times, religion, and two different love affairs.
After getting over my initial disinterest in this book, I actually found myself quite immersed in this unusual story. But there’s still something about it that I’m not sure about. I can’t say that I liked it enough to gushingly recommend it to anyone, neither did I dislike it to the point of abandoning it or throwing it across the room. The Ventriloquist’s Tale is quite an intriguing debut novel with a unique and quite wondrous setting. The story itself though, isn’t exactly something that will stay with me.
Perhaps it should begin with what I liked the most about The Ventriloquist’s Tale. Its setting. Guyana.
I know not of other books that are set in Guyana, do you?. I’ve never been to Guyana, nor has that thought – or any Guyana-related thought – ever crossed my mind. So it was a really refreshing setting, a nice change from the modern, western, or made-up world which most books I read live in. Guyana is a land of sounds, of smells, of animals, of cassava, rain and rivers and heat.
It is a story told by a ventriloquist, although I have to profess that I don’t quite understand why. And when that ventriloquist’s prologue began, I was a bit wary – was this going to end up as magical realism? I wasn’t all that keen on that genre. But the narrator throws the reader into the ‘real’ world of Chofy McKinnon, a Wapisiana Indian (who also has some Anglo blood – Scottish more precisely – in the mix). A farmer who lives with his family in the savannahs, he is driven to nearby Georgetown for work. Tagging along is his aunt Wifreda, who is due for an eye operation. There, he meets and falls for Rosa Mendelsohn, who is researching Evelyn Waugh and his journey to Guyana in the 1930s, supposedly spending time with the McKinnon family. But most of the narrative follows the McKinnon family in the early 1900s, offering a comparison of cultures and lifestyles, of different times, religion, and two different love affairs.
After getting over my initial disinterest in this book, I actually found myself quite immersed in this unusual story. But there’s still something about it that I’m not sure about. I can’t say that I liked it enough to gushingly recommend it to anyone, neither did I dislike it to the point of abandoning it or throwing it across the room. The Ventriloquist’s Tale is quite an intriguing debut novel with a unique and quite wondrous setting. The story itself though, isn’t exactly something that will stay with me.
juditkovacs's review
4.0
This book starts off with a very off putting prologue, which I needed to tackle twice. But after that it switches to an omniscient third person narrative and becomes really interesting.
It reminded me of the writing of G. G. Marquez, who is one of my favourite authors. The style is very similar, and the feeling you get while reading the story is similar. But while Marquez uses time and skipping back and forth in the story to create and additional feeling, Melville does not do that, she follows a very linear story telling way, it still reminded me of the world of Gabo.
The other difference is that while in Marquez's world there is magical/supernatural things happening all the time and they are considered part of reality, in The Ventriloquist’s Tale there is no magic, but there is talk about a lot of the native American mythology and how that plays a role in the thinking of the characters, and it affects their story and informs their actions.
There is a free thinker character and a female (!) atheist character, but there is also a catholic priest on Christ's mission. They all clash with the mentality of the savannah and the world view of the native Americans, who look at these strange white people and their customs with calm bemusement. While this last seems like a cliché and overdone, it is very much from the inside. So this look of bemusement is shown from the inside, it's not described by yet another white outsider talking on behalf of the native people. The judgement is done from the perspective of the native American mindset. Melville does a good job at pulling back the curtain and showing you his.
All that said, and while at a certain level I fully appreciate the amount of insight this provides me into a particular native American mythology, something I was not familiar with, as a rational person, and an atheist, by about the half point of the story I was a bit annoyed at all the mentions of myths. But it's interesting because it annoyed me in the exact same way as it annoys me when I talk to someone in real life and they try to convince me of their own paranormal belief. What I mean to say by this is that, the characters are so well done that you can sometimes forget that they are fictional characters and not an actual person's words.
I think this is one of the more unique books I've read in the past year (having had a similar feeling about a book about a year ago), and I would highly recommend it to anyone. My only problem remains with the prologue and the epilogue, written form the perspective of a character that I'm not too sure of who it's supposed to be within the world of the book. That part is so strange, so much of a ramblings of a madman that it's off putting to read. If you read the first few pages and think this is all crazy, just skip that and the epilogue and maybe you'll enjoy the story itself much more. I suspect that this part is supposed to be some kind of sweeping statement by the author and the big moral of the story, but it's done in such an obscure way that for the reader, not familiar with the context in which the author says this, completely misses the point and is left in the dark.
It reminded me of the writing of G. G. Marquez, who is one of my favourite authors. The style is very similar, and the feeling you get while reading the story is similar. But while Marquez uses time and skipping back and forth in the story to create and additional feeling, Melville does not do that, she follows a very linear story telling way, it still reminded me of the world of Gabo.
The other difference is that while in Marquez's world there is magical/supernatural things happening all the time and they are considered part of reality, in The Ventriloquist’s Tale there is no magic, but there is talk about a lot of the native American mythology and how that plays a role in the thinking of the characters, and it affects their story and informs their actions.
There is a free thinker character and a female (!) atheist character, but there is also a catholic priest on Christ's mission. They all clash with the mentality of the savannah and the world view of the native Americans, who look at these strange white people and their customs with calm bemusement. While this last seems like a cliché and overdone, it is very much from the inside. So this look of bemusement is shown from the inside, it's not described by yet another white outsider talking on behalf of the native people. The judgement is done from the perspective of the native American mindset. Melville does a good job at pulling back the curtain and showing you his.
All that said, and while at a certain level I fully appreciate the amount of insight this provides me into a particular native American mythology, something I was not familiar with, as a rational person, and an atheist, by about the half point of the story I was a bit annoyed at all the mentions of myths. But it's interesting because it annoyed me in the exact same way as it annoys me when I talk to someone in real life and they try to convince me of their own paranormal belief. What I mean to say by this is that, the characters are so well done that you can sometimes forget that they are fictional characters and not an actual person's words.
I think this is one of the more unique books I've read in the past year (having had a similar feeling about a book about a year ago), and I would highly recommend it to anyone. My only problem remains with the prologue and the epilogue, written form the perspective of a character that I'm not too sure of who it's supposed to be within the world of the book. That part is so strange, so much of a ramblings of a madman that it's off putting to read. If you read the first few pages and think this is all crazy, just skip that and the epilogue and maybe you'll enjoy the story itself much more. I suspect that this part is supposed to be some kind of sweeping statement by the author and the big moral of the story, but it's done in such an obscure way that for the reader, not familiar with the context in which the author says this, completely misses the point and is left in the dark.
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