The use and validation of the language created here by “our people”, which can give a sense of self-worth to them, is one of the achievements of one of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean’s outstanding novelists, Earl Lovelace.
“I think that, yes, one of the things that I have helped to fashion has been the language of the people. And I’ve found a way to use it to speak for human beings,” says Lovelace in responding to my central question: “What have been a few major objectives of what you set out to do in your writing about the subject matter, and the individual characters in your most widely read and considered books, The Dragon Can’t Dance, The Wine of Astonishment, Salt and When Gods are Falling.”
I feel that we have not done very well with our characters, with our people, who we are. We are always on the defensive or jubilant about nothing. But we haven’t looked with some depth and understanding at the people around whom we grew and knew,” says Lovelace.
Among the characters of “our people” is Pariag, the Indo-Trinidadian living on Laventille Hill, a place of Desperadoes.
Lovelace does not find it strange that he brought Pariag into the society on the Hill: “My wife was an Indian. I think we were at a time in this society when we wanted to find a place for everybody and respect and value everybody.” He also has brought the Indo-Trini society into the narration in “Salt”, an observation on the post-colonial period when local governments took over with the intention of transforming the society from its origins.
“What I remember about these people (all groups) with their struggles,” says Lovelace, “is that you could look at the same characters, Pariag with his bicycle; Aldrich trying to say something through the building of his Dragon Mas; inclusive of Fisheye, the Badjohn, trying to be something too.”
Looking back at the societal and people system we have constructed, “is the question of what have, we as a society or as leaders of a society, done with them and for them, but more or less with them?”
The novelist, who was born in Trinidad, lived in Tobago for a while before his teenage years, when he was considered an outsider and called “Baje” – Barbadian. He was first a copy reader at the Trinidad Guardian, then a forester in Toco and Valencia, where he had close interaction with people and learnt valuable lessons from them.
On the issues of crime and the sense of the straying of groups of young people from productive living, devoid of a sense of self, many from the urban areas, a theme which he develops in Salt, what does Earl think is driving those specific groups of young blacks from the criminal gangs, and the reality of their non-productive activities?
“You have produced a society in which material wealth is the big thing, and you give these fellas nothing; you institutionalised the nothingness, and they have to be magicians to escape; you can’t do that. You have to take the responsibility, not give them the responsibility now.”
Lovelace identifies with those whom he says have been literally and figuratively locked out of society: “I am one of those bad men. You see, we have to organise ourselves to deal with whatever questions they raise, their manners, behaviours, sex excesses, all the social questions they seek answers to; we have to help to find a way to deal with them.”
He urges that we can’t be afraid of these people: “I knew the fellas where I was in Rio Claro, Matura, Valencia, Morvant. I did not stay long enough to become part of them.” First of all, he advocates that we have to identify with them. We have to decide as to what to do, but we have to do it as this belongs to us.
The novelist is also disturbed about what he sees as an imbalance in those who are portrayed positively in the media compared to others: “Who is starring in them? (media) You know, if you didn’t know where the thing (media) came from, you would never believe it come from a Black place. That is not right, and why does that continue? One can’t make a thing about it and say, well, only showing white people alone. Do you think we have done so little as not to bring people to an understanding of ourselves?”
As to him including Indians as characters in his novels, Lovelace refers to the period in Trinidad when “we were at a time in this society when we wanted to find a place for everybody and respect and value everybody. I think it’s important for us to understand that all the problems were not of their own making.”
All of the people that Lovelace wrote about, Aldrich Prospect - the Dragon mas man, Pariag with his bicycle, Fisheye, the badjohn, Miss Cleotilda – the Queen of the Hill, young, beautiful and sexy Sylvia, trying to say something, Fisheye trying to be something. All of these people with a personality; trying to do something.
“What have we as a society, or as leaders of a society, done with them, and for them,” I asked of the writer: “Do you think that the politicians, the Government, the political parties have treated them fairly, have worked with them, have represented and assisted them to move from where they have been, in a few instances for generations, to somewhere else?”
“That is the problem. The problem is that they (the politicians) don’t know them. I think that is what I brought to the characters generally is a kind of knowledge, or at least, what I thought was knowledge. I think it’s important for us to understand that all the problems were not of their own making,” he says.
Examining the achievements of the two major ethnic groups in the society, those he has liberally portrayed in his books, Lovelace says, “The Indians have economically achieved; they maintain their religion and parts of their culture. But there is much more for them to do, or could have done.
“I think that the Africans have achieved a lot when you look at it, but much less than they could have achieved. But let me take my time here. I think they have things that they can look at and say, OK, we have Panorama, we have calypso, but oh, I have a little saying that I have said, and it’s on a jersey here, what have we done with what we have done? And that is really the question for us.
“What does that mean? Where has that taken us? How do you judge a people, or a society, by what means and with what measure? One thing that I might have been trying to do was to see how do we value ourselves.”
Examining what he has done as one of the foremost novelists in T&T and the Caribbean, Lovelace says, “First of all, that I am here and hopefully that I made sense and that it’s valuable to people. I feel there is a lot more that could have been done, but I suppose you engage what you can, and you can’t do everything. I wish we would take more responsibility not only for our language, our culture, for everything.
Lovelace is in the process of writing his autobiography; we look forward to it.
