book reviews: the salt eaters
TRANSCRIPT
New Directions
Volume 8 | Issue 3 Article 15
4-1-1981
Book Reviews: The Salt EatersHarriet Jackson Scarupa
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Recommended CitationScarupa, Harriet Jackson (1981) "Book Reviews: The Salt Eaters," New Directions: Vol. 8: Iss. 3, Article 15.Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol8/iss3/15
Joe," and the romantic sentiment of"Louisiana Pastoral."
Part Seven, 'Washington, D. c.," con-sists of a previously unpublished poemand others that are not generally acces-sible, including the technically accom-plished "Puttin' on Dog," with itsinfectuous dance rhythms.
Part Eight, "Remembrances," is a groupof romantic lyrics ranging in style fromfonnallove lyrics and nature poems tothe love song "Isaiah to Mandy" andone of the poet's best known blues,"Long Track Blues."
Despite some important omissions anda few textual errors, this volume goes along way toward giving the reader acomprehensive look at the poetry ofSterling Brown, professor emeritus atHoward University. .
The reviewer is director of the Institute for theArts and the Humanities at Howard University,and author of "Understanding the New BlackPoetry."
The Salt EatersBy Toni Cade BambaraRandom House, New York295 pp., $9.95
Reviewed by Harriet Jackson Scarupa
"I need another sixties. The energy ofthe seventies just don't do me nuthin."So says one character in ''Broken FieldRunning," a short story in Toni CadeBarnbara's collection, "The Sea BirdsAre Still Alive."
Through this collection and her previ-ous one, "Gorilla, My Love," Barnbarahas earned a reputation as one of ourpremiere writers of short stories, storiesthat have been likened (byMari Evans)to "shavins off our Black experience-like chocolate. Bittersweet, that is."
In her first novel, "The Salt Eaters,"Barnbara takes some of the themes shehas explored in her short stories-e.g.
the contrast between '60s activism and'70s narcissism-and weaves an intri-cate poetic mesh. The result is at timesperplexing, at times exhilarating, butnever boring.
The novel opens with a demandingquestion: "Are you sure, sweetheart,that you want to be well?" It is a ques-tion posed by Minnie Ransom "in herflouncy dress and hip shoes withflowers peeking out of her turban andsmelling like coconut Afro spray."Minnie is a healer, "the real thing," forshe is "known to calm fretful babieswith a smile or a pinch of the thigh,known to cool out nervous wives whobled all the time and couldn't standstill, known to dissolve hard lumps inthe body that the doctors in the countyhospital called cancers."Right now Minnie holds center stagein a room in the Southwest CommunityInfirmary in a southern town calledClaybourne. Beforeher, on a stool, sitsone Velma Henry, a radical communityworker who has succumbed to despair.Velma had worn her identities like astring of cowrie beads: activist, na-tionalist, feminist, environmentalist,wife, mother, daughter, goddaughter,sister, friend, neighbor. ... But nowshe has added another bead to her stringof identities: attempted suicide. Whichis why she is now sitting in the South-west Community Infirmary, hospitalgown covering her body, expressionfrozen on her face, and listening toMinnie as she demands: "Are you sure,sweetheart, that you want to be well?"And again: "Just so's you're sure, sweet-heart, and ready to be healed, causewholeness is no trifling matter. A lot ofweight when you're well."
Barnbara never tells us exactly whatled Velma to seek the final solutionthrough slashed wrists and gassedlungs. Instead, she suggests, implies,assumes, hints, evokes, juxtaposing thepas de deux of Minnie and Velma in
the healing room against bits and pieces 29
of Velma's life and of those who areconnected to it and against snippets ofmyths that speak of our heritage.
Barnbara's is not the tale of one par-ticular woman's neurosis-in the man-ner of so many of the "women's books"being penned these days. Hers is thetale of all who are committed, still, tomaking the world a better place at atime when such sentiment almostseems anachronistic and of all thosewho tend to put everyone else's needsbefore their own. Does Velma's mentalcollapse indicate her selfishness, hersurrender to self-centeredness? Perhaps.But one of her friends offers anotherexplanation: ''Velma's never been thecenter of her own life before."
Just as she has in her short stories,Barnbara proves oh-so-adept at strikingthe chords of our common experience.To 'put everyone's life before one's ownseems that special weakness of women,especially Black women. To seek escapefrom relentless pressures in sickness-whether mental or physical-is a temp-tation we've all experienced. To liveamidst decaying ghettoes and poisonedair, to watch fonner "revolutionaries"fritter away their time in "id ego illogi-cal debates" [Bambara's words], to re-peatedly confront racism and sexismand militarism and all the other de-structive isms, to simply pick up a news-paper with its monotony of horrors, todo all this and more and still manageto hold onto hope-and one's sanity-is no mean feat. Or as the inimitableMinnie puts it, "wholeness is no triflingmatter."Barnbara challenges us to confront thisreality and then, through Minnie, shethrows a second challenge our way:"Decide what you want to do withwholeness."
And so, the chord is struck: wholenessis no trifling matter. Then, too, Barn-bara's is no trifling talent.
NEW DIRECTIONS APRIL 1981
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Scarupa: Book Reviews: The Salt Eaters
Published by Digital Howard @ Howard University,
30 Her forte is the vignette. Sometimesher vignettes are poignant as in thescene where a former '60s activist visitsVelma, finds her surrounded by pam-phlets, posters and the ever-presentmimeograph machine, and cries irri-tably: "And still into the same idealisticnonsense, I gather .... You honestlythink you can change anything in thiscountry?" Sometimes her vignettes arewickedly witty as when she shares awaiter's dream ofmarketing "Disposal,""an educational board game for so-phisticates of the nuclear age," whichchallenges players to find novel ways ofdisposing of radioactive contaminantsin the environment. Always her vi-gnettes are telling.
Throughout, Bambara's dialogue shows.how attuned her ear is to the nuancesof Black speech. Throughout, her frameof reference attests to her sophisticationand her scholarship while her use ofpoetic language attests to her crafts-manship (craftswomanship? ? ?).Throughout, too, her imagination daz-zles-e.g. "ancient mud mothers fromthe caves" carry their children aroundin hides; a multi-ethnic singing groupcalls itself "Seven Sisters of the Grain;"a bus driver speeds his bus past themarshes, dreaming of crashing headlonginto them and communing with hisdead friend; a storm seems to symbolizeboth doom and renewal ....
It is when confronted with Bambara'sorganization of all this literary richnessthat I felt let down. Not only let down,but often baffled. Nothing in "The SaltEaters" happens directly. Nothing hap-pens in seemingly logical sequence. Notransitions ease the way as Bambarashifts from present to past and backagain or from one character's viewpointto another. Instead, one must piecetogether the story from her enticingfragments. A challenge? Undoubtedly.Exasperating at times? Equally so.
NEW DIlECTlONS APRIL 1981
What is most unfortunate is that manyreaders may be so put off by the intri-cate, indirect, fragmented way in whichthe novel is constructed that they willnot stick with it long enough to relishits wisdom, its voice and, above all, itshealing vision. For salt is Bambara'smetaphor for that which is essential forgrowth and survival. ("The body needsto throw off its excess salt for balance.Too little salt and wounds can't heal."]And "The Salt Eaters" ultimately is thestory of one woman-and a people-insearch of salt's healing properties. D
The reviewer is staff writer for New Directionsmagazine.
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New Directions, Vol. 8 [], Iss. 3, Art. 15
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