Reviews

Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

kingkong's review against another edition

4.0

I like how the language evolved as it went on

dtcguo's review against another edition

3.0

This deserves a second try. There are so many artful metaphors and unanswered questions.

rdebner's review against another edition

4.0

What a mash-up of a story! By the time I got to the end, I'd completely forgotten that the book had started with the arrival of the city planner, and thus the ending came full circle. In order to tell the story of Texaco, the main narrator goes back to tell her father's story, which also tells the story of Martinique from that point forward. The book is a pleasure for anyone who: has read other Francophone Caribbean novels, doesn't need a purely linear plot line, and likes word play and creativity with language. While it is a complicated narrative, interspersing excerpts from Marie-Sophie's notebooks and commentary from the urban planner and the "word scratcher," it is an excellent story that attempts to reproduce the storytelling rhythms of a hybrid culture.

readbyrodkelly's review against another edition

5.0

The translators of this novel make a joke in the introduction that if they made this book readable then they have failed in their job. This is definitely a difficult read that challenged me in several ways but it was worth it in the end!

Texaco charts the founding of a majestic city and it's lively quarter, populated by resplendent and provocative people who speak in parables and riddles, guided by ancient cosmologies and auditory dreams that bend time and reality, so that the clear facts are never within the reader's grasp. There are big themes addressed: colonialism, oppression, colorism and class, all wrapped up in a shape-shifting and scintillating narrative. Definitely a brilliant novel.