On a woman’s madness by Astrid Roemer
Suriname fiction
Original title – Over de gekte van een vrouw
Translator – Lucy Scott
Source – subscription book
I did have a few of the books when the Booker international longlist came out as I have several subscriptions from different publishers one of the first I signed up for was the publisher of this book Tilted Axis as over the time they have been publishing they have push boundaries and brought new voice to English in there books and this is a p[perfect example of there books. Why we had to wait forty years for this book I wonder why it has taken so long. But this book would have been a lot more hard-hitting forty years ago. I feel. Now, Astrid Roemer reminds me of Wilson Harris. They come from countries very close to one another in Latin America. I have looked and can’t see a connection other than they were writing simultaneously. So we follow Noenka story a woman that has chosen to escape her marriage after just nine days.
My marriage lasted exactly nine days, making waves in our tiny riverine country and setting me adrift for the rest of my life.
It started with my extended family, when I knocked on my
parents’ door that ninth night to wake them.
It was raining, heavy and overbearing, and as the roof of our home was fairly flat, the sound of my knuckles rapping on the wood didn’t travel inside: it was, instead, immersed in the beat of the falling rainwater. Dead silence filled the house.
My hands hurt, more than my head and my stomach, and I was soaked through. And scared, not only of the ominous graveyard nearby that the lightning transformed into an even more nightmarish setting, but also of the city’s overall bleakness when asleep – this city that let itself be vanquished by water.
Scared of my mother and father’s house, which was refusing to let me inside on my flight to the odors of talcum powder and brass polish, tobacco and old newspapers, which would get rid of the smell of blood hanging around me.
The opening of the first chapter
We follow Noenka as she bravely tries to escape her marriage. After just nine days of marriage, she knows it was a mistake. But this small town in Suriname is going back 40 years, even then, so the answer is no. She has to escape to the biggest city in the country, Paramaribo. This is the tale of her life there from her escape, hiding in orchids. Flowers are a recurring theme in the book. But also the violent nature of trying to escape marriage in a world that isnt’ queer freeindly we see a woman on her own journey of discovery and her attraction to woman and all that this entails. As well as being black in this world of hers. A society with a very male-dominated view of the world. This is a struggle to be herself, but also a look into how brutal and how much violence was aimed at her. Showing how hard it was to be a lesbian in society at the time.
When I was five, I lived the dream at the lady’s house. Floors that gleamed like the mirrors in brass frames, furniture in dark wood with scroll legs, and colorful satin upholstery, cushions that smelled of flowers. Heavy portraits on the walls, a candelabra full of white candles, and scores of porcelain figurines, sadly locked away in glass display cases.
And there was Ramses. Dressed like a crowned prince from a Western fairy tale: white shirt, bow tie, slim trousers in dark velvet, pristine white socks, and black patent leather shoes, roaming the house when his mother wasn’t looking – playing the organ or reading from an English picture book under her watch. I doted on him with my eyes, my ears pricked up whenever he spoke, and I dreamed that he became a bird and flew away with me and his flock of parakeets.
I like the idea of being a flock of Parakeets
This book leaves you as a reader thinking how much the world has changed. But also for those other Noenkes still worldwide struggling in their own violent macho worlds. This tale is about trying to break free, never quite getting the dream, but it is about trying to be oneself in a complex world. I said Wilson Haris came to kind it is in the richness of Roemer world, and the way the world around Noenke sometimes drifts towards nightmares reminds me of the fever dreams in Harris’ writing. The heat and Humidity of their shared world must draw this writing style. I liked this book; it is a complex and complicated book to follow. One of my fellow Jurors wondered if she had done this after the book was written, but no, it was written in the fragmented style, which, as it was an early novel, makes you wonder what her other novels are like. As I said, this would have been even hard hitting had it come out in English then. But it still rings true and makes you think of other women worldwide struggling to be themselves. Have you read this book?
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