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Earl Lovelace

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Dragon Can't Dance Paperback – 1 July 2005

by Earl Lovelace (Author)

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Described as 'a landmark, not in the West Indian, but in the contemporary novel' by C.L.R. James, Earl Lovelace's Caribbean classic tells the story of Calvary Hill - poverty stricken, pot-holed and garbage-strewn - where the slum shacks 'leap out of the red dirt and stone, thin like smoke, fragile like kite paper, balancing on their rickety pillars as broomsticks on the edge of a juggler's nose'. The Dragon Can't Dance is a remarkable canvas of shanty-town life in which Lovelace's intimate knowledge of rural Trinidad and the Carnival as a sustaining cultural tradition are brilliantly brought to life.

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Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Faber Paperback
Publication date

1 July 2005
Dimensions

12.45 x 2.03 x 19.56 cm
ISBN-10

057119317X
ISBN-13

978-0571193172
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Product description

About the Author

Earl Lovelace was born in Toco, Trinidad, and has spent most of his life on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He has been a journalist, been Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies and at universities in the United States and Britain, and has given lectures, readings and participated in conferences internationally.His books have been translated into German, Dutch, French and Hungarian, and his short stories have been widely anthologized. His books include While Gods Are Falling, winner of the BP Independence Award, the Caribbean classic The Dragon Can't Dance, and Salt, which won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber Paperback; 1st edition (1 July 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 057119317X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571193172
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.45 x 2.03 x 19.56 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,077,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 5,875 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- 27,076 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- 51,570 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction

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Amazon Customer

Sooooo good

Reviewed in Canada on 21 August 2016

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I love this book

Roger DeBlanck

A Spellbinding and Magnificent Piece of Art

Reviewed in the United States on 27 February 2013

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Earl Lovelace's novel leaves me spellbound and overwhelmed with how possibly to express the brilliance and beauty of the book. This is a magnificent and extraordinary piece of art with the hypnotic lyricism of its prose, the intricacy of its story, and the depth to which Lovelace investigates the struggles of an entire community. Only the great Naguib Mahfouz comes to mind as having a similar ability as Lovelace in probing the psychological and emotional depths of his characters.

The story takes places in the poverty-stricken shantytown of Cavalry Hill in Trinidad. The plot focuses around the festival of Carnival each year. In this impoverished setting and on the transcendent occasion of the yearly Carnival celebration, Lovelace guides us into the lives of a range of characters that burst off the page in all their pain and joy, their failures and triumphs, their shame and redemption. We meet Cleothilda, the hostile shop owner; Sylvia, the gorgeous maiden; Fisheye, the wayward combatant; Philo, the calypsonian dreamer; Pariag, the minority outcast; and Aldrick, the dragon masquerader. Each of them carries a lifelong weight of both wounds and dreams.

In particular, Aldrick is the focal figure. He is the one who most symbolically undergoes a spiritual transformation each year when he dons his dragon costume. When he becomes the dragon, he asserts both his humanity and his dangerousness while also reminding himself of his past and his need to survive. Everyone attempts to escape their harsh reality by entering the realm of their masquerade during Carnival. The festival temporarily transports them into their dreams and out of the dismal situation of their lives. They are each striving to reach a feeling of hope. After the yearly gala ends, however, problems arise when they must return to their daily hardships. Lovelace charts these phases and transitions with great compassion and empathy. He scrutinizes the dynamics of power, race, and class distinctions. He traces the emotions, motives, and instincts that drive his characters to survive, and he also examines what pushes them beyond their threshold of tolerance and patience to a condition where they snap.

The Dragon Can't Dance is the type of unforgettable narrative that stays with you and percolates your thoughts. It affirms the power of literature to explore the essence of truth and to address the meaning of humanity. Lovelace is a master at showing us how within a destitute community, the yearning to live, grow, and have hope is no different for people anywhere in the world, regardless of their station in life.

3 people found this helpful

Trevor Coote

Fight back or sell out?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 December 2007

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If you read only one novel by a Caribbean author this is the one to go for. Raw, vibrant, and moving, this realistic slice of Trinidad yard culture, and the central role of carnival within that culture, is a relatively unknown gem of international literature. Although the speech and some of the narrative are written in local dialect it is by no means impenetrable and gives a real flavour of the rhythm and patterns of shanty life, a world where hope of escape or improvement ranges from slight to zero. Life is unforgiving and constant hardship forces its citizens to seize whatever opportunities arise, and at whatever cost.
The Dragon Can't Dance strays into similar territory to the earlier novels of V S Naipaul about life in the slums of Port of Spain. However, the characters in Lovelace's novel are more rounded than those in the works of the British-Trinidadian author, and there is certainly greater sympathy towards their plight than in the more comical depiction of slum life by the slightly haughty Naipaul. Clothilda, the yard queen, Philo, the successful calypsonian, Sylvia, the young temptress, Fisheye, the angry pugilistic rebel, Paraig and his wife Dolly, the solitary, isolated Indians and Aldrick, reflective and confused about his role in life; all real human beings, believable and sympathetic, people whose behaviour is explainable and understandable in the context of lives blighted by powerlessness and poverty, and it is these intertwined lives around which the story revolves. There is a plot including a staged anti-police riot, but these play a secondary role to the central dilemma of the novel, and that facing slums dwellers throughout the world: whether to fight back or to sell out. In the Dragon Can't Dance we see characters making their personal choice. Sadly, thirty years on from the publication of this novel, the situation in Trinidad's notorious Laventille shanty - where this novel was probably based -has become considerably worse.

5 people found this helpful

Suyo

A prescient novel of protest and community

Reviewed in the United States on 29 January 2015

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Earl Lovelace's The Dragon Can't Dance, set in Trinidad, positions the complex ritual of Carnival in a socio-political context. Unpacking Carnival is synonymous with examining the Caribbean self, as Aldrick journeys from an anonymous masquerade dragon to an authentic self.

Lovelace explores characters from various backgrounds, exploring the transformation each undergoes as consumerism and corporate influence creep into Carnival. From the 'bad John,' Fisheye, to the rising calypso star Philo, each character is transformed and contributes to the transformation of Aldrick.

At the novel's center is the romance between Aldrick and Sylvia. Across the years and Carnivals, the two do a dance of self-discovery which is not overblown or over dramatic. Their love story is, instead, understated and believable, and represents a solid foundation to a novel with perfect prose and pacing.

2 people found this helpful

O Baker

Wonderful book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2015

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Brilliant book - and now with the West Indies firmly and finally up there in the literary firmament with the Booker Prize win, it's time to celebrate some of the fathers of the literary golden age. I'd never read Earl Lovelace before but this was stunning - total evocation of a place and time, with a universal human theme of striving against failure (or perhaps failing to strive . . . ). Huge echoes of Things Fall Apart - and that's a deserved compliment.

3 people found this helpful

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