Souls
All Souls' Rising
About this title: A retelling of an episode of history--the rebellion of Haitian slaves against French plantation owners. Madison Smartt Bell employs a cast of carefully drawn characters, including the legendary Toussaint, a self-educated, second-generation African slave, who is determined to see an end to French rule but equally determined to resist the influences of the mob.
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"A rousing and vivid account of the independence of Haiti."
-Kirkus, 08/01/1995
"A remarkable feat of historical imagination...Bell's gifts have never been more fully on display."
-Washington Post
"The ultimate question behind the novel is: what's a human being? This question is easily overlooked, because in our society it's theoretically no longer an issue. It's generally understood that regardless of skin color, human beings are all human. You don't find any serious exception taken to that. But in the 18th century this belief was not generally shared. It was held by some people, but it was quite seriously being argued at the time that black people were the missing link between apes and men, that they were indeed less than human and that this was sufficient justification for slavery."-Madison Smartt Bell
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posted by Indigobusiness @ Thursday, January 14, 2010
6 Comments
6 Comments:
By dint of a calamity unsought by those now in greatest peril, an unfolding wave of universal loving kindness turns toward the Caribbean when those aware of the chips that are staked on the unfolding concentration on Haitian brothers and sisters of escalating global awareness. You will have all you need.
Z.
This crisis is grinding me down, and I'm just commiserating. Katrina will seem like a cakewalk.
Convert warships to hospitalships. My emotional bones are breaking.
-Indibiz
(having trouble signing in)
Another nail in the coffin of the greatest confidence trick on Earth. Stop referring every sceptic to the book of job. Who the fuck did god ever help? The truth is that a million Haitians will pray to an imaginary entity who wasn't even able to take charge of their destinies or lives. Somewhere, we are told,is a bar called heaven. Best of all, ditch any excuse to engage reality full front on, send every holy tract to the crater of an active volcano, get shitfaced and join the human race.
Z.
Without the message from Job, joining the human race would mean going Postal.
Puppetmasters, imaginary entity or any form of nanny gods...who would ever suggest such things -aside from televangelists or others with moneygathering motives? It certainly has no computation in any honest theology. Just pop theology...feelgood folly. Forget that...why twist it up?
We've become lazy in regard to God. But boy can we slam the barndoor after the cow's gone.
~Ib
Me? Pissy?
Enough piss and vinegar to go around, I reckon.
~Ib
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