SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

SF/F Review: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson: https://t.co/qTQx95DdAQ Short Review: 7.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) February 14, 2018

Short Review (cont): A Time Jumping Story featuring 3 Black Women in various points in history as they struggle against discrimination/bondage, connected by the growth & learning of a new Goddess of Love. A slow-paced package that works better than its individual elements (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) February 14, 2018

The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson is one of the harder books for me to review in a while.  Part of that is that this is a rough often brutal story (although far from the first one of those I've reviewed here) Part of that comes from the books structure, which jumps between 3-4 different storylines/timelines throughout, often without any warning (with only one of these "storylines" connecting with the others).  But really I think what makes this book a hard review to write is that the book's messages are often hard to parse, especially through the book's first half, to the point where it felt for me at least like I liked the total package despite not being sure any of the individual storylines involved in the book worked. 

You can tell how I'm rambling above how hard this is for me to review, so let's go a little more basic before the jump - 

The Salt Roads is a series of stories, each connected to real world people and events although largely fictional, of Black people around the world from various parts of history, all connected by the story of a newborn goddess of love.  One storyline features Slaves in Saint Domingue, another features an entertainer (and granddaughter of a whore) in 19th century Paris, and another features a whore in 4th century Alexandria. As you can guess from those descriptions, the book is not coddling to the reader - descriptions of the harshness of slavery, of sex - with strangers or others, and of suffering are an essential part of this book.  But if those things aren't a problem for you, The Salt Roads is certainly interesting at the very least.  

More after the jump: 

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------

On a sugar plantation in  Saint Domingue, a slave's baby is born stillborn. Wise Woman/Healer Mer, together with the baby's mother and Mer's love, another slave woman named Tipingee, helps bury the baby by the river.  And in doing so, from the baby's unused vitality, a new goddess is born, a goddess of love.  A goddess, newborn herself, who doesn't yet understand the world or how it operates, and finds herself tied to several lives throughout history:

The life of Jeanne Duval in 19th century Paris, a black entertainer who loves another woman but attaches herself as the lover of real-life Poet Charles Baudelaire, in order to find a stable supported life for herself and her mother;

The life of a whore who goes by Thais or Meritet in 4th century Alexandria, who feels called to leave the city and go on an adventure to the famous church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem);

And the story of Mer as she attempts to guide the slaves of the plantation, who are beginning to sow the seeds of rebellion under the influence of the mysteriously-magical-powered man, Makandal.  

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I won't go any further into my plot description because it's hard to do here (or without spoiling).  Heck, even listing the Alexandria storyline in my plot summary is kind of a spoiler - the storyline doesn't show up till around 40-50% of the way through the book, then disappears for a while before becoming more prominent in the final 20% of the novel; but since the summaries I see for the book online all mention it, I'm putting it there as well.  

Like I said before the jump, I'm not really sure any of the big three storylines worked for me on their own?  Mer's story, which gets probably the most page-time (though Jeanne is close), is easily the strongest - she's also the most clearly fictional character (Jeanne was an actual real person), and I think it allows Hopkinson to do the most with her story.  Still, even Mer's story didn't quite work out for me, with it coming to a head as it intertwines most strongly with that of the goddess in a confrontation that kind of then....fizzles out?  

Similarly, Jeanne's storyline, which jumps gaps in time, never really comes together.  An antagonist figure of sorts shows up without prior mention (or barely one - this is actually lampshaded by Charles) midway through the storyline, and it's kind of jarring.  Jeanne's ending also seems kind of undeserved - basically, despite being one of the two most heavily featured storylines, it really felt like a story that needed to be fleshed out more, especially in its second half.  

Thais/Meritet's story gets the least amount of page time and barely amounts to much other either.  

Still, I kind of think the book as a whole works as the Goddess' story, as it intertwines with each of the 3 arcs (but the arcs themselves are basically never tied together), actually comes together in a final whole.  I'm again not really sure how to explain this, and it doesn't manage to do this until around the very end of the book - where the book is aiming to go with the Goddess is very confusing until the very end.   But in the end this story DOES come together to form a message about love and anger in the struggle for Black freedom, and how both are needed (amongst other messages in this book) to truly achieve anything.  

Basically for me, the Salt Roads demanded a lot of faith as a reader - it didn't provide many carrots for me to keep reading for most of the story, and I can imagine many a reader will give up midway through as not interested.  I do think it provides enough in the end to make it worthwhile, and I'm still kind of thinking about the messages in what I Just read (if you note me not being very specific about those messages, there's a reason for that).