“The Rivals”
by Andrea Lee
from the January 4 & 11, 2021 issue of The New Yorker
The first fiction of the new year is Andrea Lee’s “The Rivals.” Lee’s most recent New Yorker fiction was published last year, when we got “The Children” in the 2019 summer fiction issue. Those who commented on this site seemed to like that story, so let’s hope that “The Rivals” gets us to a great start to 2021!
Here is how “The Rivals” begins:
When Floristella catches sight of Pianon on the Red House veranda — the side that overlooks Madame Rose Rakotomalala’s jackfruit tree — he gives a martial bellow, charges down the garden path, and attacks his neighbor with a walking stick. And though the two old Italian men, both well over seventy, are ludicrous combatants — Floristella, a diabetic, is ponderously fat, while tall Pianon is skeletal from annual bouts of malaria, so that their skirmish suggests a clash between Falstaff and Ichabod Crane — their energy and passion run high, and no one who witnesses the incident feels inclined to laugh.
Now I think that is a fun way to begin!
I hope this post finds all of you well, wherever you are, and that we can look forward to 2021 with hope. My best to you as 2020 comes to a close.
I enjoyed this story. Conventional, but well done and good characters and good incidents. Worthy of Peter Taylor or Carson McCuller.
I didn’t detect any subsurface elements, did you?
Perhaps one meta-idea: Between the rivals, who won and who lost? Even deeper: who was the story about? Who was the main character? We would say one of the two western men. But maybe we should focus on the native woman. A post colonial view.
I enjoyed it thoroughly. Sure conventional but well-done. Satisfying. I definitely think if there has to be a “winner” it is the native woman.
The social/cultural atmosphere in this story seemed to be presented in such a way that I could practically feel it. That was good, and the plot of the story had an interesting kind of morality tale flavor that I thought was more amusing than heavy-handed, which I liked.
One complaint, though: I don’t like when authors write in one language, but drop in words and phrases from other languages. Three other languages, in this story, and none that I know beyond a few words. What does the author think a reader is going to experience when they come across language they don’t understand, embedded in a story supposedly in a language they do understand? Does she really want the reader to stop the flow of reading, and stare at the word(s), trying to puzzle out a meaning from context? Does she think the reader should drop the story entirely and go find the meaning on the internet? Or what? It is very annoying, to me.
Worse, sometimes the meanings are explained, but whether any given instance is translated seems completely random. Or the reason for the choice of another language is obscure. For example, why “château d’eau” instead of “water tank”? Yes, I know, “château d’eau” is prettier, but it also made me stop reading to try to figure out what was meant.
Another clunky and weird thing is when a character mostly speaks in English (when we know they actually would be speaking in some other language) but suddenly switches to, say, Italian. Huh?
Okay, I’ll stop ranting about this pet peeve now. In spite of the language issue, I really did enjoy the story, overall.
I’m wondering about a comment I submitted. It was a few days ago. Wondering if it got lost or rejected?
Hi Callie, sorry about that! It was in the spam folder for some reason (I didn’t put it there!), so I had to go mark it as not spam. It is now above.
Thanks!