Random thoughts on The Charm Buyers

Lillian Howan’s The Charm Buyers is a beautifully detailed story of magic, love and life. It is constructed of secrets and illusions; contradictions and dichotomies are the primary structure used in this book. “The things you have heard about me- they’re true, especially the lies” (pg. 1) Marc Antoine is a Hakka Tahitian living in the 1970’s is born of two large wealthy families, pearl dynasties, but he directly benefits little, either financially or relationally, from this privileged birth. Marc Antoine does however benefit significantly from his exceptional good looks, quiet intelligence and his considerable mysterious charm. Marc Antoine lives with his grandmother, A-tai, from age three to ten in the van-tui , the back country and the lessons that he learns here are the most obvious themes in this book. But the events that are briefly described, the legacy of the tumultuous relationship between his parents which inevitably broke, “into thousands of fierce pieces” and the nearly total abdication of parental responsibilities towards Marc Antoine are clearly apparent in his adult choices. I found it intriguing that after seven years he spent with his grandmother, he then found sanctuary in his grandfather’s mausoleum where he was better able to avoid the unpredictability of his father. It is within these juxtaposition that Marc Antoine creates both his success and his ruin.

Howan’s use of language, Chinese, French, Hakka and Tahitian is a wonderful way to create layers of cultural and historic context. This is one of the main tensions in this book and in Marc Antoine relationship with others in his life. Aurore, his older French lover is a painter, an activist, a beautiful woman whom appears to readily accept the contributions of men despite being well educated and married. She explores the Ugly Tahiti; the colonization, the French government nuclear testing program the oppressive social, cultural and gender roles of the people of Tahiti.

“You don’t know” no one will explain it to you becomes a reoccurring theme in the Charm Buyers...I was struck by the fact that this is a plural noun not singular noun. Marc Antoine “buys” a charm to save the life of Marie-Laure, which he pays deeply for. In order for a magic charm to be effective, it must be secret and you must be willing to sacrifice all that you hold most dearly. In many ways, many of the characters are charm buyers, holding secrets and making great sacrifices for love and to either achieve material success or to hold on to ancient ways. Marc Antoine for all of his secrets was the most transparent character and as the plot unfolds others true natures are revealed.

Two of the things that I most appreciated was the structure of the novel and the authors decision to narrate this from a male character. Howan was able to make statements about beauty, the human tendency to be exploitive of things (ie. pearls), persons, places of beauty which are considered to be less civilized. The use of poetic language and these interspersing of these naked truth were afforded greater credibility by virtue of them coming from Marc Antoine’s voices; it felt less prone to victimization one might assign to a beautiful native girl. The titles of the novel also gave structure to the book; Islands, Ghost, the Charm, Chessboard and Hauhine all gave new territory to define and redefine the places and characters, their relationships, and explore how they change over time and how they endure. In many ways it read like a mystery as it invites the reader to speculate , it engages you to draw your own conclusions, while accepting that sometimes there is not always a neat conclusion and some things cannot be known but that beliefs can be transcendent.