Willi Chen is a Trinidadian of Chinese origin, who, in addition to writing, sculpts, paints and designs. He is also a critic, printer and baker. Chutney Power and Other Stories is his second book; his first was King of the Carnival. Chutney Power was shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
There are 21 stories and a glossary in the 162 pages of this book. This fact should alert the reader to one of the features of the collection: most of the stories are quite short. No fewer than six of the stories are set at Christmas – and another six concern various feasts and festivities – including dances, weddings and of course carnival. There is thus a general air of celebration about the collection, notwithstanding the often sad or gloomy events of the stories, and extreme poverty of many of the characters. There is also quite a lot about food. The culinary diversity of Trinidad and Tobago is on show in this book in a manner that its landscape is not. The landscape is mentioned, but just not in the same loving and sensuous detail that the food is.
The stories are mainly set in rural areas, and in communities that are predominantly Indian. Among the exceptions is the first story in the collection – ‘Mas’ Is More than a Creole Thing’ – which is set in Port of Spain, though its protagonist is an Indian from a rural area. He is called Bhim, and his desire is to play ‘King of the Band’ in Carnival, a desire that provokes both derision and hostility. This is because Carnival is seen as an urban and black festival. However, Bhim is able to fulfil his dream (not the least because he has the money to pay for it – a salutary lesson). ‘The Last Day’ and ‘Hostage’ are almost oddities in the book. This is because they seem to belong to an almost entirely different milieu from the other stories. ‘The Last Day’ is set in a prison, and it follows the last hours of a condemned man. ‘Hostage’ tells the story of a woman caught up in an attack on government headquarters (such as the one conducted by the Jamaat al Muslimeen against Red House in Port of Spain in 1990). These two are almost self-consciously ‘tough’ and ‘hard-boiled’ in their style, but the sentimentality and melodrama on display in the other more comic stories is also evident in them.
It is the inclination toward melodrama that ultimately undercuts the effect of the longest story in this book – ‘Turning Point’. It is difficult to take what are undoubtedly supposed to be serious events (either a rape or near rape) seriously, because of the manner in which they are presented. The characters’ reactions are simply not credible; a problem which flaws several other stories. It seems that the narratives share a common desire to achieve a sort of sentimental emotional ‘tidiness’ that in the end violates the characters’ believability. For example, in ‘A Chicken-Foot Christmas’, two characters who had been feuding with two other characters, are not in the least bit angry when they find out what those characters have done to their fowl. The other example is perhaps even more inclined to arouse incredulity: In the story ‘Red Candles for Christmas’, a woman welcomes back a straying husband without even a hint of anger.
One of the essential features of melodrama is of course the privileging of emotion over characterisation, so it is not surprising that the characters struggle to attain believable life. They are often little more than stereotypes – and not always pleasant ones either. While it may be true that people like this exist in that particular environment, it is troubling that at times it seems that they and their difficult circumstances simply exist to foster a joke or a laugh (at their expense). So it is that a story like ‘How She Go Look?’ places before us a set of country bumpkins, behaving in the most unsophisticated way possible, and invites us to laugh at them. The story has the potential to be more than it is. However, it cannot be more than it is without combating the urge to solicit easy laughter.
Part of the problem is simply the length – longer stories provide the opportunity to develop characters. But length alone is not enough. Once again, the story ‘The Turning Point’ may be used as an example. It is unclear what the story would like to be: a cautionary tale (to women) about not surrendering to sensual impulses and only following ‘spiritual’ impulses, or a story about a man’s failure to recognise what is involved in his role as husband. The story’s narrative viewpoint is unclear and so is its theme. Its handling of gender – or perhaps inability to handle it – is also something shared by other stories in the collection. The women are mainly one of two categories: long suffering, positively saintly wives and mothers or teasing temptresses. The men are either fools (gamblers, dreamers, drinkers, wanderers; weak or ignorant in some way) or they are ‘bad-men’ who are really good – so that their badness is part of their goodness. This latter characterisation is especially troubling in a story such as ‘Hostage’, where the man who dies in a blaze of gunfire is obviously meant to be some kind of hero – to the grown woman whom he took hostage. It seems clear that we are meant to share in her admiration of him. One may question this.
The collection could also have benefited from some judicious editing – there are quite a few phrases that seem imprecise or wordy and details that do not make sense. For example, in the story ‘A Chicken-Foot Christmas’ one character is “young, asthmatic, seven-year-old Ashraph.” Since we have been told his age, the word young is totally unnecessary. That same story also features the phrase “composite fabric of patchwork antiquity” which defies attempts to unravel its exact meaning. The story ‘Hostage’ contains the phrase “queasy grating” and it is utterly unclear what this is supposed to refer to. Such lapses are irritating, but what are more serious are the instances when the details of the story are so unclear as to puzzle the reader. In the story ‘The Turning Point’ the character Sharon takes shelter in a place which has a priest – but is not clear whether the building is a church or merely the priest’s house. It is absolutely unclear in the story ‘Red Candles for Christmas’ why Rachel’s children no longer live with her. It is tempting to surmise that they are grown-up – but then it seems that they are still young, because of their behaviour and the presents they are given.
Chutney Power is therefore a collection which must be approached cautiously by an older or more mature reader. There are elements to be enjoyed in the collection – mainly the details of the food and the odd bit of humour, but these must be balanced against the imprecision of the language and at times, the failure of the detail. One final note on the matter of detail: the title notwithstanding, there is no story in the collection called ‘Chutney Power’.