The Charm Buyers Response


            This book touched on many subjects, love, money, magic, and spanned many years in the narrator’s life.  I found myself immersed in the realities of a different land, as well as a different culture.  Just these two subjects could have been the main focus of the book, but they served more as the background to Marc’s story.  Marc goes from a teen to his mid twenties in this book, and his story deals a lot with growing up, but the book is far from stereotypical.  Marc is a complex character and even rebelling from his father feels fresh and different when told from his perspective.  Marc feels largely reliable to the reader, Marie-Laure’s affection for him made me give him some credit, but his father’s succinct summary of his inappropriate behavior while a teen made me question him.  I was interested in Marc as a character, I didn’t always understand him or agree with what he was doing, but I wanted to see what he did next.
            Marc feels many things over the coarse of the book.  He feels Apathetic, passionate, rebellious, submissive.  Even though we get access to his thoughts, there does seem to be a big divide between his thoughts and actions.  Sometimes it takes the other character’s opinion of him for me to get a clear picture of him.  Radish explains how reckless he is.  Aurore complains about his unwillingness to talk to her.  Marise De Koning comments on his salesmanship, “”You’re so full of shit,’ said De Koning.  ‘Odile said that you could sell coconuts back to the coconut tree.’” (Howan 225).  For me, this helped me understand Marc much better than his narration alone would have.  You get Marc’s thoughts, but also the distance of how other characters see him.  Marc can only be so truthful or insightful about himself.  The other characters allow the reader to weigh different versions of Marc against one another. 
            Marc’s childhood with his great grandmother strongly connected him to his cultural heritage.  He learned the oral history of his ancestor’s through her, and spoke their original language with a fluency that his peers did not possess.  All this gave him a type of access to the magic of his culture.  He was considered special because of this, even though he didn’t feel confortable in this role or very aware of it.  Even after seeing ghosts, he never meddles with magic until Marie-Laure is in trouble.  This relationship is unusual, they are cousins and haven’t seen each other for years by this point.  But, Marc loves her and so enters into an agreement with a sorcerer.  It seems to be Marc’s love for Marie-Laure that marks him as a good candidate, but it could also be his cultural awareness that gives the spell its special strength.  Everyone is impressed with his knowledge in this area, but he is unaware of this power or will at least not admit it to other people.  The spell works, Marie-Laure recovers and Marc loses his money and Aurore as a lover.  There’s enough doubt created that you really are not certain if the magic is real.  Marc questions if he’s losing his fortune because of some of his illegal dealings.  But it’s hard to fully discount the magic as Marie-Laure recovers and believes in his ability to work such magic.  The magic in this book is very subtle.  It doesn’t try to force you to believe.  It is set up in a series of moments of doubting and believing that lets the reader choose how to interpret what happened.  There is just enough skepticism and belief to create an even balance, forcing the reader to think about it, to make decisions about what they believe.     

            Marc refuses to get involved in the layered politics of the island.  He acknowledges the gossip all around him, but his lack of participation hinders his ability to successfully navigate through the social landscape of his environment.  He isn’t sure when he’s keeping a secret or not, his relationship with Aurore may not have been kept as quiet as he originally thought.  Musan is unfortunately waiting for Marc when he messes up in a big enough way, and it appears that people have been trying to drag Marc down for a long time.  The very nature of Marc and Aurore’s relationship is unclear.  They both have a sexual attraction to each other, but while Marc’s interest in Aurore is solely based on this, Aurore may be motivated by money, prestige, or an obsession with his race and culture.  Neither one is very honest or open with the other one, but by the end of the book Aurore is reduced to a cornered animal desperate for survival, while Marc is heartbroken.  There are moments when Marc is not putting Aurore first, when Marie-Laure is sick he disappears without telling Aurore, but Aurore’s lies about her living situation and relationship with Musan stack up against her, making her seem all the more guilty.  Strangely, Aurore is the only character deeply against the nuclear testing.   But she has the luxury to do so, her salary does not depend on the business surrounding the tests.  Marc feels betrayed by Aurore, but maybe he betrayed her as well with his love for Marie-Laure, a love Aurore was never able to extinguish.   
-Iris Keenan

Comments

  1. MelodySeptember 26, 2017 at 11:11 PM

    I appreciated that you focused on ther complexities of Marc's
    relationships with others, likely because that his character is best
    defined through the eyes and words of others. He isn't so honest with
    himself, or with us. I found the relationships with A-Tai and
    Marie-Laurie to be the most positive, and those with Musan and Aurore
    to be more complicated and harmful. I couldn't quite figure their true
    motives out.

    ReplyDelete

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