The Charm Buyers

The Charm Buyers Reading Response
While reading The Charm Buyers, by Lillian Howan, I was struck by how much Marc Antoine resists historical social norms and superstitions while still being constricted by them.  For example, Marc Antoine always says that the historical superstitions of his culture are merely superstitions.  He is fine sleeping in the house where his grandfather’s remains are and he was not scared when bought with his father and his cousin to the graveyard to dig up ancestral remains, as their culture dictates, even though that cultural practice was illegal.  However, when Marie-Laure was sick, he was perfectly willing to make a bargain for magic to save her, magic that he supposedly didn’t believe in.  Marc Antoine is also still constricted by historical social norms is his love for his cousin, Marie-Laure, which is an old fashioned practice no longer considered acceptable.  
Marc Antoine’s saying one thing but doing another in terms of superstition affects my ability to trust him or consider him reliable.  Because right up until it comes down to making the bargain, Marc Antoine is hypercritical of the shaman’s ability to help Marie-Laure.  Even after the bead does help Marie-Laure, he keeps pointing out that she may have woken up anyway and the bead may not have done anything.  Magic may or may not have been present in the narrative and Marc Antoine refuses to make his position on whether magic takes place clear.  I was confused whether the narrative wanted me to believe that magic had taken place and the narrative was a fantasy or not and Marc Antoine did not help me make any conclusions.  Maybe the point was that the reader isn’t supposed to be sure whether the magic did anything or not.
An interesting part of the narrative is that the French nuclear testing existed in the narrative, and yet I didn’t see that as relevant to the story.  I’m not sure if my classmates felt differently, but while I was reading I didn’t feel that focus was put on to the nuclear testing.  But now that I’m trying to see why it was necessary, it seems to reflect Marc Antoine’s relationship with his family, especially his father, which may reflect part of the reason it was included in the narrative.  I actually tried looking back to put in a quote on Howan’s inclusion of the CEP, but there are so few passages that discuss it that I was unable to find one, showing why I overlooked it when I first read The Charm Buyers.  I do think that the damaging colonial relationship that the CEP represents in this book reflects Marc Antoine’s relationship with his family.  His family is very controlling and judgemental, not giving him the opportunities he needs to succeed.  For example, Marc Antoine is not given the chance to enter into the family business at any point, although everyone else judges him as if he is a part of it and has that money and opportunity.  On the CEP side, the French were negatively judgemental of the Tahitians by planning testing there that involved risks that they would not have for their own citizens.
I am also curious if everyone agrees with me that the hermit that Hinerava speaks of is actually Marc Antoine.  The hermit is not mentioned much, but it seemed to be a strange thing to mention if it did not relate to the main plot in some way, and Marc Antoine is living as a hermit at the time.  The passage that made me think that the hermit was Marc Antoine is this conversation between Marc Antoine and Monsieur Li,
“‘I saw that you’ve met Madame Poroi’s daughter.’”
“‘Hinerava?  She says you’re a friend of this hermit.”
“‘The hermit, yes.’”
“‘So he really exists?’”
“‘He does,’ said Monsieur Li” (238).
Monsieur Li seems to be speaking intentionally vaguely about the hermit.  If Marc Antoine wasn’t the hermit, it would seem more natural for Monsieur Li to say how he knew the hermit or something about him instead of immediately changing the subject.  It also seems like a strange passage to include if the hermit is not Marc Antoine, since we never officially meet the hermit.  The passage only serves to confirm that the hermit exists, so if the hermit was another entity, why would an entire passage exist just to prove that this character who never comes into play exists?  

This confusion over the hermit and the CEP describes a lot of my feelings about the book.  I was often left wondering about different story arcs and things that were vaguely mentioned because many things were mentioned and connections were suggested, but never actually explained or made explicit.  This book made me do a lot of the work while reading it, which makes me want to read it again to figure out all the things I must have missed the first time I read it.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2017 at 9:10 PM

    I definitely agree that this book was more difficult and required more energy than most books I read for fun. I thought the plot also took a back seat in importance to other factors, like setting, historical background, and character development. Frankly, I found that refreshing--instead of simply waiting to see where the plot would go to move the story along, I could concentrate more on the characters and actually be surprised with what Howan did with the narrative.
    I did feel that the nuclear testing was important to the story, though I cannot completely put my finger on why. I felt that there was a thread of despair and a slight obsession with the macabre running through the story; it's common to what I feel at times as a Jew among Jews, there's this sense of waiting for your entire world to be destroyed and being absolutely certain it will happen someday soon. I also thought that the nuclear testing was a framing device which implicated the Western reader in the story in an important way, one cemented by the presence of Aurore as emblematic of the failings of liberalism and Western liberal politics specifically. In other words, the nuclear testing made certain that there was no escape for us--that we could not read the novel as a simple escapist fantasy, but must struggle with the weightier issue of colonialist contact and the imperialism that remained/remains long after the "colonialist period" has theoretically ended, long after we all ostensibly know better.
    -Ariadne

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  2. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2017 at 5:27 PM

    Hey Anna,

    I agree that the contrast between Marc's words and his actions affected his reliability as a narrator. As the reader, I wanted to trust what he said, but I couldn't when his actions would directly contradict it. It made me wonder if Marc even understands himself. Perhaps he thinks one thing consciously, but subconsciously he thinks something different. Definitely something to ponder.

    -Erin

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  3. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2017 at 11:39 PM

    I thought your analysis of Marc’s hypocrisy was very interesting, it clearly mapped his changing feelings towards his family and culture. Marc seems to change his mind as the moment suits him, true belief or actual disbelief is hard to keep up all the time and Marc doesn’t attempt to. I wasn’t surprise he went along with the charm he bought, he was so desperate to help Marie-Laure, but you would think someone like him would have done more research into the science part of it before he committed to magic.
    I agree that it was strange no one reacted more to the nuclear testing. Aurore is the most outraged of any of the characters until Ten-Kwok. But having grown up with something out of your control, and have your economy depend on it, can normalize even nuclear testing.

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  4. AryaSeptember 27, 2017 at 11:08 AM

    Interesting points, Anna! I felt like the ambiguity was such an essential dimension of this book -- for example, on page 240, Marc talks about his uncertainty as to whether the improvements to Marie Laure's health and his downfall were inevitable, or magical: "Maybe, maybe, all of that would have happened, sooner or later. I made some bad deals. I went into too much debt for a piece of land and the title wasn't clear. I wasn't thinking. Maybe I was just being stupid. Maybe there isn't anything magical about any of this. It's just the way it goes." I think that the reader isn't supposed to be able to tell the different, just as Marc himself cannot. Same with the hermit. The omission feels purposeful, a nod to the power of storytelling and perspective. How we see the world is based on who we are. I saw all of this as tying into the nuclear ban -- Aurore is the most outraged because she is the one perhaps able to see it most clearly. The rest are bound up in the story, unable to step outside and narrate.

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