- Junior DowieSunday Gleaner Reading Club members, Coleen Brown, left, Jennes Anderson, and Barbara Ellington, read excerpts of Colin channer's 'Satisfy My Soul' during the meeting of the Club on April 24. Missing from the meeting were members Alister Gordon and Maia Chung.
Barbara Ellington, Features Co-ordinator
THE Sunday Gleaner Reading Club met at The Gleaner Company, North Street in Kingston on April 24.
This month's book was written by Jamaican author Colin Channer's and is titled: Satisfy My Soul, and copies were supplied by Novelty Trading Company.
Copies are also available at Sangster's Book Stores and pharmacies as well as Novelty Trading Company.
Unfortunately, two of the participants - Alister Gordon and Maia Chung - were unable to attend due to inclement weather and work commitments. Their summaries are included in this report.
Communications specialist, Colleen Brown, and attorney, Jennes Anderson, joined me in discussing this absolutely mind-blowing book.
THE SYNOPSIS
Playwright Carey McCullough closely guards his privacy but he's constantly haunted by a recurring dream and unhappy memories of his past. He cannot escape them.
He's the consummate womaniser who's lusted after, rejected and even loved scores of women but while in Jamaica on assignment he meets his match in Frances to whom he's drawn like a moth to a flame.
Carey cannot erase the memory of his first encounter with Frances years ago. It has remained in his mind and his attraction goes deeper than his usual desire to have a fling.
He soon learns that there's more to the mutual attraction as revealed by a "reader" woman who informs him of past lives links to their souls.
Carey is sceptical even though he can find no reason for them both knowing the African phrase, Mulewe anekoso kuduwe bana (I will search until I find you").
Added to his problems is the fact that Frances is hiding secrets of her own which have drastic consequences.
During a visit to his best friend and fellow playwright, Kwabena Small in South Carolina, a bond that was previously thought to be unbreakable is put to the ultimate test and all the lies and deceptions and real feelings emerge.
But it's during Carey's mystical journey to Ghana that events really unfold.
MY OPINION
From chapters one to 14, there were several moments when I put Satisfy My Soul aside because I kept wondering what was the relevance of the explicit sex and whether Channer had decided to become a soft porn writer. Was he making a point that sex is all men think about?
Then came the pivotal chapter 15 of the book. Here, Channer examines the tragedy and legacy of slavery; the reality of what our religious beliefs represent and how these beliefs shape our lives.
In the subsequent chapters I realised that the sex detracts from a really good book.
Frances is a complex character and the kind of woman brave enough to admit she has had many lovers. Carey is drawn to her but like all men, he'd prefer if she had been as chaste as the driven snow. Although I'm aware of the existence of spirits and I know such plot lines make for good economic returns, I found the past life and ghostly travel bits a tad far-fetched but it made for good reading.
Channer crafts strong female characters like Carey's mother whose mind became distracted in later years, but who in her heyday was a strong woman. Frances, to whom Carey is attracted, in spite of the long trail of male feet beating a path to her bed, is someone with a mind of her own, capable of doing several things and carving her own destiny.
Frances' ultimate sacrifice for Carey shows that deep within, the things we fight the most such as our religious beliefs - can alter our future for better or worse.
Channer paints male characters who are pleasing to the eye, sensitive and lyrical but flawed. In Kwabena's (his best friend's) case, we see a man who is first of all such a Pentecostal Christian; he's celibate for several years but he's a liar, a hypocrite, jealous of his friends's success, mentally abuses his wife and still harbours feelings of love for Frances with whom he was in love years before she met Carey and whose memory he finds it difficult to let go.
The book examines several themes including love, jealousy, self-knowledge, racism and religion. The latter is not to be taken lightly when we consider that religion and the meaning of the gods we serve are crucial to our lives.
The symbolism is excellent and one of the strongest is when Carey's father "slaughters" his young son's football boots. This experience left lasting scars.
Channer is maturing into a writer who can craft the language into images that transport the readers into other times and places.
For these reasons, I will not give away the ending of this book because it is only in the final two chapters that readers will see what I consider a very powerful conclusion that puts the flashback technique into phenomenal realms. And so, for me the message is that sex may satisfy the body but it does not satisfy the soul.
JENNES ANDERSON'S OPINION
I think Channer could have done a great job with less sex but the book is well written in a very good writing style.
Channer limits himself and his audience unnecessarily with the book's overt sexuality. I can see its purpose in terms of using sex to satisfy the soul but with his language skill and ability, he could have achieved that aim and not limit his audience (age wise).
It takes a certain maturity to be able to put that level of overt sexuality into perspective, in relation to the theme of the book. It has much more depth than is obvious. I like the author's impression of the gender theme.
The characters are sexy yet gentle and vulnerable. The females are strong - Frances knows herself and what she's about. I am also impressed by his male characters acceptance of the imperfections of the mature women with stretch marks, pockets of fat etc.
The symbolism is great and without harping on it too much, I wonder if the sex was overplayed for commercial reasons. It is an excellent book.
COLEEN BROWN'S OPINION
Who are we really? What is love? Is religion the opium of the masses? Colin Channer's talent cannot be simplified by terming him a romantic novelist. This writer has once again soared, with a knowledge that skilfully explores a myriad of intricate psychological issues, pitted against a backdrop inhadited by characters whose destinies are inextricably intertwined.
Channer has demonstrated a penchant for sensitive male characters, vulnersble yet exposed, intelligent yet naive.
Carey McCullough's deep psychological scars seem to have stemmed from his unfortunate relationship with his father. The importance of paternal love should not go unnoticed, given the negative reputation of many males in Third World societies, who have largely been nurtured by women. Frances Carey presents a defiant challenge to societal norms. She's been around and in her, Carey has met his match. Channer seems to suggest that until we discover self, we are unable to share ourselves with a significant other. Therein lies Carey's dilemma with the woman who is assured in her feelings for him.
The relationship between Carey and his best friend, Kwabena, perhaps best underscores the central theme of self-discovery and truth. Whose understanding, whose truth, whose god? The universe and its complex layers are metaphors for the inexplicable events in man's existence. How many worlds will he traverse, how long will he search? There are no easy answers. Satisfy My Soul is erotic, engrossing, moving. Food for the mind.
Maia Chung's opinion
The book Satisfy My Soul is undoubtedly well-written. However, there were several elements that I was dissatisfied with - the interconnectedness of the characters was not to me believable, based on the span of of countries the book is set in, and I found it hardly likely that the Frances character conveniently was an ex-love interest of Kwabena.
Frances' immediate knowledge of her past connections with Carey was also hard to swallow, simply because the whole re-incarnation thing to me, is not generally something worn on the sleeve. My dealings with re-incarnation have suggested that there is required a certain amount of delving before arriving at a theory of re-incarnation in one's life (yes I remember the whole willing suspension of disbelief).
But, for a writer as skilled as Mr. Channer, some more development of that idea - I felt - could have been done, this is especially relevant in the beginning of the book.
There was a great deal of gratuitous sex, not easily linked with the themes being explored in the novel.
The ending I found surprising as billed, but I wondered if it was easier for Channer to take the "sudden death" end instead of a more "worked out" resolution, especially of the whole love theme between Frances and Carey. I did enjoy that among the familiar "black themes" being looked at racism, poverty, alienation etc., the struggle for finding a religious identity was included, that for me is novel among the black characters I have read about.
I felt disappointed that, although the hero is defined as so forward thinking, he is still trapped in the sexism game, where a woman with a sexual past as varied as his own is seen in a disparaging way.
Add to that the several uncomplimentary remarks made about the woman by other characters in the book, when to me she seemed reflective of many millenium women. However, I did enjoy my read of the work.
