Rating: 
Summary: The Morality Tale
Review: In The Ventriloquist's Tale, Pauline Melville reconstructs the vibrant, explosive world of interior Guiana during early 20th Century - a world lost in a struggle between the stability of its past and the promise of the future. The Ventriloquist's Tale is an illustration of a world ravaged by European and American colonialism, marked by this confrontation of native and western cultures. Melville lures the reader into the minds of characters who find themselves caught between what they desire to be and the limitations imposed upon them by civilized society.
Melville offers an insightful testament to this cultural confrontation between the Amerindians and their European colonists. The European ideals of progress and innovation, embodied by Scotsman Alexander McKinnon, contrast sharply with the Amerindian worldview. The Amerindians believe that change is an unnecessary phenomenon: "...they laughed at the idea of progress, despised novelty and treated it with suspicion. Novelty, in fact, was dangerous. I meant that something was wrong with the order of things." (99)
European culture infiltrates Guiana through the mission of the Catholic Church, spearheaded by Father Napier, and Melville illustrates its detrimental effects on the Amerindian's ancient culture. Father Napier irrationally believes he will be able to convert the Amerindians, to persuade them to abandon their intricate mythology and their exotic way of life. The Amerindians are inseparable from their mystic stories about the sun, the moon, and the tree of life. Koko Lupi, the Amerindian healer, accuses Father Napier of force-feeding the Amerindians a "dead god on a stick" who will deprive the Amerindians of their passion for life and for the unknown (240). In fact, the European culture's stubborn willingness to repress their desires, to act against their passions, is exemplified by Father Napier's unconsummated sexual obsession with young Amerindian boys.
Melville does not allow European and American colonialism to thrive without grave consequence. The sheer devastation inflicted upon Guiana and its people by these intruders is epitomized by the death of eight-year old Bla-Bla. With exploitative zeal, Americans from Hawk Oil begin to "prospect" the Rupununi. Bla-Bla, the son of Chofy and Marietta, third generation McKinnons, accidentally sets off a dynamite explosion. Marietta's account of the scene is gut-wrenching: "And we found Bla-Bla by the river. Two fish still in the trap. Blood everywhere. The bones of his legs laid bare. Kaboura flies, sandflies and mosquitoes swarming all over him." (338)
The affair between Alexander McKinnon's two children, symbolized by an eclipse, seduces the reader, drawing him or her into Danny and Beatrice's forbidden world. Melville herself refrains from judging the two lovers and presents their incestuous affair as a fact, unclouded by moral bias. Her detachment from the moral issue challenges the reader to reexamine his or her attitudes towards and beliefs concerning incest. Throughout The Ventriloquist's Tale, disparate views towards incest appear. Incest is an embarrassing, taboo subject for the Europeanized Alexander McKinnon. Maba, the Amerindian mother of Danny and Beatrice reluctantly recognizes their affair: "I know it's not good, what Danny and Beatrice are doing, but it's not the worst thing in the world. It's happened before. It's just fate." (215) Father Napier abhors the incestuous act. He believes that Danny and Beatrice's actions should conform to his own religious and moral standards: "he thinks he can stand between the sun and the moon" (240).
Throughout The Ventriloquist's Tale Melville demonstrates the power that ideals of morality hold over us. Even human beings were once ruled by Nature, by their instincts, not socialized or indoctrinated by the institutions of civilized society. Time and time again Melville proves that Nature has no morality. Beatrice herself discloses that her affair with Danny "felt so natural that she could not believe that there was anything bad about it" (268). Melville's characters vacillate between trusting their instincts and upholding the moral absolutes of European culture. They struggle to cope with the atrocities they have experienced and the sacrifices they have made. Yet they remain, in the words of the ventriloquist, "unable to decide whether we should stick to ourselves or throw ourselves on the mercy of the wide world" (357).
Rating:
Summary: A story difficult to ignore
Review: Pauline Melville has taken an approach to narration that enthralls and engages the reader through the strange material. Infrequently in today's literary world does a story-teller capture a reader's attention and retain it throughout the entire span of the novel. Rarely also is an author able to approach topics and cultures which most people do not know about with such ease and make the reader comprehent the emotions associated with the situations. "The Ventriloquist's Tale" does all of this as it seizes the reader's attention immediately. The opening chapter brings questions and the reader is kept wondering who the narrator of the story really is, but the development of the tale allows the reader to be engrossed as he/she learns along with the characters the price of risking safe, responsible life styles for something that is more exciting which entices their souls and sparks their hearts.
All of the characters seek for a sense of belonging, as is human nature. Melville capitalizes upon this need of being at ease with some one in order to present the extremes to which people will go to achieve it. Social taboos, such as incestual relationships and affair, become an answer for love. Chofy and Rosa embark on their tryst because of a need to escape monotamy and to regain a feeling of freedom. Similarly, the relationship between Beatrice and Danny appears to develop because of the feeling that only they can understand each other and that outweighs the negative associated with their relationship. Through these, Melville is able to give the reader a grasp of the sense of desperation so strong that an individual will rebel against all norms in an attempt to gain comfort with someone else. After finding the solace, the characters are forced to face the consquences of their actions and it is pointed out through a description of Beatrice "She lay in the darkness, dreading the dawn" (222). No character wants to give up what they have, but they recognize it will not be allowed to continue. The matter-of-fact use of language which Melville uses is a tool used to convey this feeling to the reader through a unique situation. The cultures that the story reflects and the situations are not something most readers are exposed to, but because of the simple and honest writing style of Melville, readers are comfortable with the material. Readers find themselves relating to a world with which they would believe to have little or no connection. The brutal honest with which Melville presents the lives of the characters allows the reader to almost be comfortable and justify the rash decisions that the characters chosse, however, along with the characters, the reader begins to feel the embarrasment and discomfort when the choices made are brought to light. The reader becomes disturbed and insecure with the incidents. The actions that different characters choose all seem to be obviously wrong when taken out of the context of the story, but the situations present so many gray areas it is impossible to decide who is able to pass judgement.
The animal imagery used through out the novel is also a technique which brings questions to the mind. Characters are compared to tigers at certain points. If humans are animals, than what are the boundaries of human actions and who decides those boundaries. It again taints the entire novel with grayish hues leaving the reader to question.
The novel is disturbing, yet beautiful. It is enthralling, but upsetting and the combination creates a riviting expression of the loyalty individuals may feel towards one another and to one self. At points Melville can become so enwrapped that it is hard to understand the complete justification of behind the characters' motives, but life does not always offer a real reason and Melville attempts to offer fair perspectives from all sides. A memorable novel that will present many questions about the decisions in life and what leads individuals to their own answers, be it nurture or nature, it is difficult to discern. An intriguing work that is worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: Clash of culture and opposites......magically told
Review: Pauline Melville has written a novel that ranks among the best to be published in the past few years. The subject is a familiar one : the clash of cultural opposites, the subtle tyranny of colonialism in liberal disguise, and the havoc they wreak on lives caught in-between, stranded in no man's land. But its treatment is both unique and magical. Melville is a brilliant writer. Her descriptive prose is so imaginative and incredibly sparkling the reader is quickly swept into an almost make-believe world of savannahs and wild rivers, where mysticism takes over from rationalism and dates and time of day are irrelevant. Scientific explanation has no place in a world filled with dramatic stories of how the moon and the stars and the galaxies that line the sky originate from the uncannily human-like action of fowl from the land and fish from the sea. In this mystical unspoiled world, you are encouraged to feel that even brother and sister incest isn't quite the unnatural and sordid business we are brought up to believe it is. The story of three generations of the McKinnon's living in South American Guyuana with its family secret is unveiled across two timelines, the present and the past. The dual storyline structure, each with its own love interest, resembles that of "Heat and Dust". The modern day love affair between the third generation half-breed Chofy McKinnon and visiting Czech scholar Rosa Mendelson is fraught with painful irony. Melville seems to be juxtaposing and questioning the "naturalness" of this cross cultural relationship against the incestous affair of the past and coming up with an answer that is apparant only from the way she ends the story. For those familiar with the works of Evelyn Waugh (especially "A Handful Of Dust"), there's also an eery reference to the obsessive reading of Dickens by the visiting Waugh to a native that positively shimmers. A lovely touch. Like "Wide Sagarso Sea" to "Jane Eyre". "The Ventriloquist's Tale" is a masterful piece of fictional writing that just has to be read. Go get it !
Rating: 
Summary: Good Storytelling
Review: The Ventriloquist's Tale opens and closes with addresses by a mysterious, third person ventriloquist/narrator, representing the old Amerindian culture of myth and magic of southern Guyana. This narrator indicates that he is not the hero of the book because, as he tells the reader, "Your heroes and heroines are slaves to time.... They've forgotten how to be playful and have no appetite for adventure." As the narrator unfolds the stories of the McKinnon family, half Scottish and half Wapisiana, we see illustrated in their lives the conflicts (and occasional melding) of their ancient ways with western science, religion, and exploitation. The narrator and, one understands, the author come down strongly on the side of the ancients, as the Amerindian characters enchant, amuse, and play with us while they show us their struggle with European intruders, including, at one point, Evelyn Waugh in search of inspiration. We laugh with them, even as they face privation and hardship, and see with their eyes how ridiculously arrogant and ignorant the intruders are, because the intruders do not see that "everyday life...[is] an illusion behind which [lies] the unchanging reality of dream and myth." Despite the repellent, incest subplot, we continue to like the characters, we are intrigued by the old beliefs that the eclipse of the sun by the moon is itself an incestuous act, and we understand how limiting it is to reduce eclipses and relationships solely to equations and to write research papers on the structural elements of myth. And we appreciate and rejoice in the brilliance of the Indians in "divining what you would like to hear and saying it, so you can never be really sure what we think....Ventriloquism at its zenith." A fascinating and unusual novel!
Rating:
Summary: A unique look at the conflicts of ancient and modern ways.
Review: The Ventriloquist's Tale opens and closes with addresses by a mysterious, third person ventriloquist/narrator, representing the old Amerindian culture of myth and magic of southern Guyana. This narrator indicates that he is not the hero of the book because, as he tells the reader, "Your heroes and heroines are slaves to time.... They've forgotten how to be playful and have no appetite for adventure." As the narrator unfolds the stories of the McKinnon family, half Scottish and half Wapisiana, we see illustrated in their lives the conflicts (and occasional melding) of their ancient ways with western science, religion, and exploitation. The narrator and, one understands, the author come down strongly on the side of the ancients, as the Amerindian characters enchant, amuse, and play with us while they show us their struggle with European intruders, including, at one point, Evelyn Waugh in search of inspiration. We laugh with them, even as they face privation and hardship, and see with their eyes how ridiculously arrogant and ignorant the intruders are, because the intruders do not see that "everyday life...[is] an illusion behind which [lies] the unchanging reality of dream and myth." Despite the repellent, incest subplot, we continue to like the characters, we are intrigued by the old beliefs that the eclipse of the sun by the moon is itself an incestuous act, and we understand how limiting it is to reduce eclipses and relationships solely to equations and to write research papers on the structural elements of myth. And we appreciate and rejoice in the brilliance of the Indians in "divining what you would like to hear and saying it, so you can never be really sure what we think....Ventriloquism at its zenith." A fascinating and unusual novel!
Rating:
Summary: A magical and complex narrative
Review: This is a magical and complex narrative that speaks to the mystery of life and transcends the more immediate messages of conflicting cultures and the evils of imperialism. The author gets deeply into the soul and substance of Indian life on the savannahs of South America and wraps the reader with the wisdom of people whose lives are intertwined with their natural surrounding. I can only wonder with amazement how this apparently British writer knows so much about the vegetation and animal life and look and feel of this landscape. Her scene of fireflies creating a carpet that mimics the sky left me breathless. This book is a compelling and intriguing story but also a work of poetry. I am a writer too, but as Charles Durning said of George C. Scott (in my latest book It Happened on Broadway/co-author Harvey Frommer)"I wish I had some of that."
Rating:
Summary: Good Storytelling
Review: This novel consists of two main story lines, and a number of subplots. The author is an accomplished storyteller, and the stories are unusual in that they revolve around life in a part of the world (British Guiana) that we don't often hear about. The first story takes place in the Rupunnuni District of southern Br. Guiana, around 1920, and concerns an intimate love relationship between a brother and sister of Amerindian/Scottish descent. Apparently many people find this sort of thing revolting. However taken in the context of the Great War of 1914-18 which had just ended, it is difficult to get too excersised about it. This pair of lovers are not a particularly attractive couple. The brother is weak and ineffectual, and the sister is strong and pretty savage. You wouldn't want to tangle with her.
The other story takes place in the coastal town of Georgetown, probably in the 1960's, and involves an infidelity between another Amerindian/Scottish man, and an English woman who is involved in some really esoteric literary research. This is a really boring bussiness between two very selfindulgent people.
Besides all this, the author has several axes to grind. She doesn't like the Colonial British, she doesn't like the Roman Catholic Church, and she doesn't like the city folk of Geiorgetown. She is reallly high on the Amerindans and their way of life. However what she says about them is that they are very superstitious, and very arrogant, but they do understand how to live in an environment that is very close to nature.
There is a great deal of mumbo-jumbo in the book about incest and the moon and on and on. A lot of it is charming and unusual, and we all enjoy what is mysterious. But it is so much claptrap.
So I gave it three stars. for good storytelling, but I was put off by some of the attitudes expressed, which were too much part of the authors baggage.
And how does it all come out? Well as someone once said " ...the good ended good and the bad ended bad, that is what fiction is."
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Mythology
Review: With such delicate observations of human emotions and insight into conflicting desires it is hard not to be swept away by the narrative voice of Pauline Melville. She has with this story created the most intriguing and important work in post colonial literature to date.
Telling the story of an Amerindian family in Guyana trying to adapt to imperial culture it makes use of indian myths to follow the tradition of indian storytelling. These myths are interwoven with the unfolding of events that build up the tale itself, creating a link between magic and reality. Still, the author also makes use of realism in the portrait of the characters and their world where magic is stubbornly keeping its significance in every day life. The two powerful love stories, one a taboo, the other impossible, are both magic and real and told with a flow that is a joy to read. The realism also makes the characters and the journey they undertake, even when it takes extreme and unexpected turns, not only highly believable but in fact also convinces us that it is the only way possible for the characters to be and for the journey to go.
More than with any other character in any other novel I felt a strong kinship with Beatrice who has to separate herself from her indigenous past in a clash between two incompatible worlds. Her struggle is particularly moving as she finds that the colonial world feels unreal and that to succumb to a life set up by rules so different from her home and family would be a betrayal.
The stark contrast between self-sufficiency and self-containment of the indigineous Guyana and the self-effacement and alienation of the modern world makes the cultural conflicts that boils underneath all the more relevant. It speaks directly to us and makes us question the way in which we still colonize countries both by corporative and academical means and force them to lose their identity and way of life. It also makes us question our own way of life and opens up the possibility to learn from other cultures in order to preserve them in a world that spins ever faster into homogeneity.
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