Naivo’s Beyond the Rice Fields (translated by Allison M. Charette) took me to a place I’ve never been before in fiction: nineteenth century Madagascar. The novel follows the trials and tribulations of Tsito, a slave turned craftsman, and Fara, a villager who always wanted to be rich, as they get caught up against Queen Ranavalona I‘s attempts to restore pre-encounter traditions and beliefs.
Spanning nearly twenty years in the middle of the nineteenth century, Beyond the Rice Fields opens with Tsito being purchased by a zebu (cattle) trader. The trader leaves Tsito with his unofficial third family in a central highlands village. Even though he’s a slave, Tsito is raised alongside Fara by her mother and grandmother. Tsito eventually resigns himself to his new life and begins looking for opportunities to make money to buy his freedom. Meanwhile, Fara enjoys her privileged life as a rich trader’s daughter. Someday, she plans to marry a rich man after making her name at the fampitaha (yearly dancing competitions).
Over the course of the novel, Tsito and Fara’s statuses reverse. Tsito makes brilliant connections and acquires marketable skills. Fara, on the other hand, begins to suffer from the first waves of the queen’s policies to stamp out Christianity and other European influences in the country. After her father’s zebu trade is taken away from him, Fara loses her mother to one of the first waves of tangena trials—ritual trials by poison for Christians, sorcerers, and others who piss off the wrong people. Following Tsito and Fara gave me a sense of the deadly chaos that gripped the country.
(Image via Met Museum)
There was one thing that bothered me about this book, even though I really enjoyed the setting. I’m not sure if it’s the translation or if the code-switching was part of the original text. At times, characters would make speeches with what seem like traditional phrases and oaths. Then, sometimes in the same section of dialog, switch to phrases straight from modern English. The weird blend of high and low speech didn’t work for me at all. This translation preserves some Malagasy terms and phrases for flavor, which redeems the book’s dialog a bit.
Apart from the issues with dialog—which might just be my hang up—I was fascinated by Beyond the Rice Fields. Once I stopped switching between the book and the relevant articles on Wikipedia, I settled in for a long read about life, work, love, tradition, belief, revenge, and survival in a place that hasn’t been written about much. I’d love to read more books about the island.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. It will be released 31 October 2017.