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The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar
‘Tell me if I am mad,’ Adam Avatar, asks his new psychiatrist. Adam, now 49, claims to have lived through five centuries of Caribbean history, reincarnated every 50 years after dying at the hand of the mysterious Shadowman. As Avatar’s narratives of his past selves are revealed to have an authenticity that cannot be explained away, Dr Sankar’s perplexity grows.
606 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2004
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March 21, 2016
Adam Avatar, a Trinidadian of Indian descent, visits a psychiatrist with a very interesting complaint: he believes he is over 500 years old, having been reborn nine times, and that during his many lives he has witnessed many of the important political and social changes in the Caribbean region. His expressed purpose in visiting this psychiatrist is to present the stories of his other lives and hear the doctor’s opinion on whether or not he is insane.
The psychiatrist reads through the documents that Adam presents, a series of first-person life narratives featuring diverse characters who share some of the same features: piercing green eyes, resistance to aging, and a remarkable healing ability. Their personalities, lives, and even genders vary, but each narrative presents a well-rounded individual in a rich historical tapestry. The magic of the novel arises from the richness of these narratives and their connection with the complicated history of the Caribbean.
Diversity
One thing that I very much appreciated was the diversity of the lives presented here: not only are 4 of the 10 incarnations female, but they also encompass a variety of ethnic (Taino, Spanish, English, mulatto, Portuguese, African, Indian) and religious (Native American, Catholic, indigenous African, protestant, Hindu) identities. Almost all of the incarnations are people of color. Many are poor, or even slaves. Some are intelligent, some less intelligent, and some think they are intelligent but prove otherwise by their actions. They speak in different dialects, from an almost unintelligible creole to an intellectual, enlightenment form of English. And the amount of knowledge about their other incarnations also varies widely. Through this diversity, the author shows a wide swath of humanity's experiences.
Read the rest of my review here: http://thegloballycurious.blogspot.in...
The psychiatrist reads through the documents that Adam presents, a series of first-person life narratives featuring diverse characters who share some of the same features: piercing green eyes, resistance to aging, and a remarkable healing ability. Their personalities, lives, and even genders vary, but each narrative presents a well-rounded individual in a rich historical tapestry. The magic of the novel arises from the richness of these narratives and their connection with the complicated history of the Caribbean.
Diversity
One thing that I very much appreciated was the diversity of the lives presented here: not only are 4 of the 10 incarnations female, but they also encompass a variety of ethnic (Taino, Spanish, English, mulatto, Portuguese, African, Indian) and religious (Native American, Catholic, indigenous African, protestant, Hindu) identities. Almost all of the incarnations are people of color. Many are poor, or even slaves. Some are intelligent, some less intelligent, and some think they are intelligent but prove otherwise by their actions. They speak in different dialects, from an almost unintelligible creole to an intellectual, enlightenment form of English. And the amount of knowledge about their other incarnations also varies widely. Through this diversity, the author shows a wide swath of humanity's experiences.
Read the rest of my review here: http://thegloballycurious.blogspot.in...
Displaying 1 of 1 review