Krik? Krak! Final Thoughts
I finished Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak? last night. Initially I was a little disappointed with this book. I started reading it after I finished Blood Meridian. The two couldn’t have been more different. I couldn’t get into the simple, sparce language of Krik? Krak! While McCarthy’s language is sparce at times, it is never simple. After I had time to adjust to its language, I began to appreciate a few things about the book.
I really liked how this book started weaving the short stories—referring to each other as if they are all related. What makes this move even more interesting is that some of the stories have a fairy-tale, fantastical style to them. By connecting these stories to the realistic stories, Danticat challenges our notions of realism. This move suggests that just because a tale is mythological doesn’t mean it is not real. I think this move is particularly apt in writing about Haitian culture, which is full of proverbs and expressions that refer to the culture’s mythology, but nevertheless contain the practical wisdom of the culture.
The title Krik! Krak? refers to an expression in Haitian culture roughly equivalent to the American “Knock knock. Who’s there?” The expression contains a reciprocity between the listener and speaker, young and old, reader and writer. This reciprocity is valued and demonstrated throughout the entire book. Having the stories refer to one another reflects this same sort of reciprocity—often the other tales are referred as history that came before the current story. This device makes the book circular so that reading the first story is in a way understanding the last—and vice-versa. The book’s self-referential form reinforces the book’s major theme of understanding one’s past to understand one’s self, or as expressed in the book’s language as, “You don’t just join a family not knowing what you’re getting into. You have to know some of the history.” Or take perhaps a better passage explaining this concept and how it relates to writing:
“When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are think, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women in your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes, and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.” (220)
I also came to appreciate its simple language. There are times where the simplicity made the prose more powerful; it laid its tradegy bare.
Note: I’m not just speculating about Haitian culture; I am familiar with it because I served an LDS mission in Boston, MA and worked with the Haitian community there. I learned how to speak Haitian Creole and spent most of my days among Haitians. Having that background made this book more enjoyable, although I don’t think one would be missing out on anything without it. Just some of the gestures and exchanges between the characters made more sense having that background.
Here is a link to a list of popular Haitian proverbs: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Haitian_proverbs
