I love this author! In this story, told through different characters' viewpoints, the dynamics between them, and their own change and growth is explored. They are mostly poor people, but Carnival gives them a chance to come out of their simple existence and shine. Lovelace has a gift to make a character come to life in your mind's eye and feel, acutely, for them and their individual woes and joys. ( )

The dragon can't dance is set in Calvary Hill, a shantytown on the edge of Port of Spain, and it deals in a (surprisingly) humorous and lively way with the classic postcolonial dilemma of balancing the need to resist and the need to assimilate the metropolitan culture and better oneself. In a Prologue, Lovelace reminds us that slaves had had to resort to "asserting their humanness in the most wonderful acts of sabotage they could imagine and perform, making a religion of laziness and neglect and stupidity and waste: singing hosannahs for flood and hurricane and earthquake..." In the postmodern world, the men of Calvary Hill are still trapped in this tradition: they have merely advanced to hanging about on street corners looking threatening, or engaging in pointless traditional battles with men from other steel band clubs in other parts of the city. Meanwhile, their women either become prostitutes or look for menial employment.

The book follows a small group of characters who all have some dim idea of breaking out of this cycle, mostly frustrated by circumstances. Aldrick, the central character, is a man who has somehow managed to survive without doing anything in his life (he seems to have been trained as a signwriter at some point) except during the pre-carnival season, when he fabricates a new and spectacular dragon costume for himself each year. His dragon is meant to be a genuinely frightening one, and for the two days of the carnival, he becomes the dragon, rattling his chains, breathing fire, and rebelling against - whatever it is he is rebelling against. He sacrifices his chance of getting together with the girl he loves because he knows that it would mean changing his life, and that would take him into a realm he doesn't want to start thinking about, in fact doesn't even have the equipment to.

It is only after he gets drawn into an episode of totally pointless, unplanned rebellion and spends a few years in the prison library that he's able to clarify his thoughts and get an inkling of how to get beyond "rebelling against": we don't learn what he does with that knowledge, but the end of the book leaves us with the feeling that from now on he's going to be trying to take purposive, united action for change.

As you might expect from a book that has glowing references from CLR James on both the front and the back cover (Faber paperback edition), this is good old-fashioned postcolonial Marxism, but very down-to-earth Marxism, with a lot of jokes and put-downs and a total absence of theory. And it manages to convey a great sense of the language and culture of Trinidad. Definitely worth a look. ( )

As much as surveillance is a nearly palpable force within this work, the narrative is surprisingly humorous and quickly paced. Lovelace's wonderfully written work is grounded in a shantytown of Trinidad, and rings with the dialects and carnivals of the area, but each of the colorful characters in his narrative is also personally at war with the shadows of a postcolonial reality that makes even festivals seem something of a farce at real living. As a novel and as a narrative, this is an entertaining journey full of humor, love, cynicism, and strength. And as an exploration of postcolonial worlds and feelings, this is also a necessary work of truth and individual terror, held together with themes of surveillance that preoccupy each of Lovelace's characters even as they enjoy their denials of reality or attempt escape. Absolutely recommended. ( )

Just re-read. One of my favorite books ever. Man writes like a dream. Thanks Vanessa for the rec! ( )

Just re-read. One of my favorite books ever. Man writes like a dream. Thanks Vanessa for the rec! ( )