The Kingdom of This World: A Novel (FSG Classics)

I am an unabashed fan of Alejo Carpentier, so of course I liked this book. It is much shorter and easier to read and follow than some of his later creations, but it is interesting both as historical fiction and as an early example of magical realism. As other reviewers have pointed out, this book deals with the Haitian rebellion and overthrow of the French and their subsequent subjugation by King Henri Christophe, a former slave who turns out to be even more despotic than the French were and who, in spite of being black himself, continues the odious practice of black enslavement. There are numerous characters, but the principal character is Ti-Noel, and elderly slave who becomes free after being lost by his master in a card game. Read together with Carpentier's later "Explosion in a Cathedral," this book provides an excellent insight into the tumultuous and violent history of the Caribbean.

The Haitian revolution is the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world. It is an incredible story, which has been told well by many great authors. This is one of them. Carpentier's novel traces the history of the conflict through the eyes of TiNoel, a slave on the estate of the French planter Lenormand de Mezy in the Plaine du Nord on the fertile north of the French colony of Ste Domingue. The first historical character we meet is Francois Mackandal or Macandal, who attempted to kill the planters with poison and create a free black nation. Next we meet Dutty Boukman or Bouckman, who launched the revolution at a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caiman in August 1791. We learn about the terror, the struggle, and the flight of the French as TiNoel accompanies his master to Cuba. We are introduced to the French General Leclerc, who is sent to Ste Domingue with an army and fleet to reestablish French control, and also meet his wife Pauline Bonaparte and her masseur Soliman. TiNoel returns to Ste Domingue and journeys to the palace of Sans Souci, where he is forced to work on the construction of Le Citadelle La Ferriere and takes part in the sacking of the empire of Henri Christophe, the black king of northern Haiti. The book ends with the flight of Henri's Queen and daughters, as well as Soliman, to Italy. The main omission in this story is Toussaint L'Ouverture, who is barely mentioned, and he is the most important character in the revolution. The book is ultimately about life, about struggles to achieve greatness, whether it be a plantation or an empire, and about suffering and ruin. Carpentier ends his story by noting that "In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no grandeur to be won", therefore "man finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in The Kingdom of This World". It would be good to read up on the Haitian Revolution before starting your read. The Wikipedia account will suffice.

Magical Realism at it's best.I was originally drawn to this story after readingMadison Smartt Bell’s Haitian Revolution Trilogy and Toussaint Louverture leading the world’s only successful slave revolt.This story, for all the voodoo and brutality, is told in a amazing music like prose. Just beautiful.It is the story of the western hemisphere’s only black King. Henri Christophe who rose from being a slave to a king with palaces, although he more than mirrored the brutality of the previous regimes.The story is told through the eye’s of a slave who had been won in a card game and takes you on through his entire life.The novel is somehow much bigger than it seems and is impossible to describe adequately.An amazing part of history that is largely unknown.Ti Noel and his story will hang with you for a very long time.

"That this book is so short seems almost miraculous." But the execution is almost flawless. The narrative breezes by but all the important points are covered, and through the eyes of the slave Ti Noel we see the "proof of the uselessness of all revolt." From freedom from the French slave masters to the rebirth of suffering under King Henri Christophe, made even worse by "the limitless affront in being beaten by a Negro as black as oneself," "when the death of a slave was no drain on the public funds" because there were always black women to bear more children. And Ti Noel lives on disillusioned in this new world which the former heroes could never have foreseen, and his magical encounter with the geese makes it clear to him that even geese are partial and that all geese are not created equal. Carpentier's novel puts on full blast a haunting truth that still lives on today: Not all revolts are helpful, and "a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes...he toils for people he will never know...for man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him." But this is the greatness of man, in always wanting to be better than he is, a greatness that can only be found in the face of afflictions and trials, which no one can truly avoid so long as we live on in The Kingdom of This World.

In the forward, Edwidge Danticat says "Alejo Carpentier allows us to consider the possibility - something which his own Cuba would later grapple with - that a revolution that some consider visionary might appear to others to have failed." And so it is that a successful slave rebellion against French colonial rule leads to a brief but brutal regime led by a former slave, which in the end, leads to the emergence of mulattoes as the ruling class. Carpentier blends magical realism with historical events in a believable way and takes the reader to the darker side of Haiti.

I had never even heard of the writer Alejo Carpentier until I read a collection of Caribbean writing a year or so ago. I was amazed by his story in the collection and have since read his novel The Lost Steps as well as The Kingdom of This World. In both cases, Carpentier's writing (translated into English) is poetic and insightful. His descriptions of the natural world are as powerful as his insights into human nature. Each word carries its own weight with grace. I plan to read more of Carpentier's work as soon as I can.

Alejo Carpentier’s magnum opus, “The Kingdom of This World”, is one of those seminal works that manages to compress not only a unique, prolonged Revolution, but also its prologue and aftermath within the confines of a short novel, and that’s no mean feat. This is accomplished by the use of short, crisp imageries and words which are so meticulously chosen, the overall effect is akin to building a magnificent tower with the least possible number of bricks. Of course, a few short cuts are taken recourse to in such a grand scheme of things, and that’s something I shall briefly touch upon later.The story revolves around those turbulent years in Saint Domingue ,as visualised through the eyes of Ti-Noël, an indentured Creole slave owned by a tyrannical Planter, Lenormand de Mezy , and bound to his sugar and indigo plantation in the Plaine-du-Nord (a commune of French Royalists, the so-called Grands Blanc’s, established close to Cap-Français, a border town that served as the capital of Saint Domingue in the past). Predating the Slave Revolution by a few years and culminating in the post-independence era following the abolition of Slavery (a period dominated by the equally repressive administration of one of Haiti’s famed revolutionary heroes, Henri Christophe), the novel encompasses the unvaryingly tortured plight that the ordinary citizen is destined for, through the highs and lows of the process of Nation-building.Carpentier skilfully merges fact with fiction, blending pre-revolutionary figures of the likes of one-armed François Mackandal into a tight storyline with actual heroes of the Slave Uprising like Dutty Boukman. Spanning a decade, Ti-Noël serves as the tenuous bond in the novel connecting personalities as diverse as these, who, at the end, really turn out to be quite the same.Similar because the Haitian freedom struggle initially drew its inspiration not from its local leaders , but rather from the pantheon of the great Loas (spirits) of West Africa, through revolutionary Vodou high priests like Mackandal and Boukman . And thus, one sees in the plot an intricate blending of fact with fiction. with tales of Heroes who showered death on the White Devils, but in the blink of an eye, transformed into butterflies, green iguanas or dogs to escape persecution. The seeds of magical realism thus sown were later to find deeper roots in the works of stalwarts like Marquez and Fuentes.“To the Victor go the spoils”, or so they say. The novel shows the literal truth of it in its later half, where the last of the surviving members of the revered late revolutionary trio of Louverture, Dessalines and Christophe, gains absolute control of the Northern Republic of Saint Domingue , subsequently embarking on his personal victory parade of self-aggrandizement. Those events too, are seen through the eyes of Ti-Noël, now turned into a Serf in the orchestrated system of forced labour established priorly by Dessalines for Nation-Building and forced into hard manual labour in the construction of Henri Christophe’s dream projects (the Sans Souci palace in Milot and later, Citadelle Laferrière). Christophe makes his grand exit pretty soon though, a victim of his persecutional mania that culminates in the bloody uprising of his oppressed subjects. The final chapter sees the miserable departure of Ti-Noël, now evicted by the purveyors of modern-day Haiti from the self-proclaimed “benevolent” kingdom that he had established on the ruined and crumbling plantation of de Mezy.There are no proverbial heroes or villains in this story. The beheadings of White children and mass-scale violation followed by massacre of defenceless women perpetuated by the Slaves under the command of Boukman (with Ti-Noël an eager participant) does make the reader queasy and to an extent, sympathize for the outnumbered French aristocrats. That effect is further heightened by the display of indomitable human spirit and faith in the survivors of the Revolt who started a new life from ruined edifices after their exodus to Santiago. This, I felt, was one of the few weaknesses of the short-form novel factor. The build-up to the uprising in the backdrop of the terrible tyranny of Colonialists was not highlighted enough.The second fallout of this concise approach is the exclusion of the true architects of the Haitian freedom struggle. Toussaint Louverture thus finds no role in the scheme of things. Nor has the tug of war between England, France and Spain for the ownership of St. Domingue’s coffers been highlighted, although from the point of view of the humble protagonist, none of that may have mattered.But all that is set to right by the display of effective short form imageries like “sea turned rain” or “vultures like cross of feathers”. Carpentier is someone who delivers all the goods through the shortest possible route, a far departure from the established verbose writing style of that era. And that bit of Spanish magic has been faithfully captured in translation by Pablo Medina, with the same economical usage of words. That, by itself, is an accomplishment.I could go on with my ramblings, but that would take the fun out of self-discovering the nuances of this little gem. For the Reader interested in those distant uprisings that shaped quite a bit of the modern world, grabbing a copy is my heart-felt recommendation.

The courier delivering the book was concerned because the envelope had been opened during its journey to me! Luckily the book was still inside: luck for me, full marks to courier for concern.This book is one of the best I have read with pure (if there can be such a thing) magic realism as its foundation.An excellent escapism, wonder and visit to the unknown within the known.

Superb book. Learn about Cuba and Haiti through this bizzarre and enthralling novel written by Cuban author Carpentier, often attributed with being the grandfather of magic realism.

The book is great. Can't complain. Apparently.

A unique and moving book. Not hat I expected but could not put it down.