Kwaku: Or the Man Who Could Not Keep His Mouth Shut : A Novel - Softcover

Heath, Roy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714530239 ISBN 13: 9780714530239

Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

Having begun life as Guyanan village idiot, Kwaku Cholmondeley quickly learned that he was perfect for the part: "A quick look round at his fellow men convinced him that there was much protection in idiocy, and that intelligence was like the plimpla palm, bearer of good fruit but afflicted with thorns." But Kwaku still retains his childhood dreams of a glorious destiny and decides to set off on a search for the ideal wife, the perfect job and the easy life. Roy Heath's brilliantly conceived and hugely enjoyable story follows his trials and tribulations as Kwaku, part conman and part holy fool, fanatically hustles and schemes his way to happiness, rising up and then being brought low by his joyously unbuttoned lip.

About this title

Review:

"This is the tale of Kwaku, who was reduced to a state of idiocy by intelligent men, but made a spontaneous recovery." So begins Roy Heath's Kwaku, or the Man Who Could Not Keep His Mouth Shut, a novel published in England in 1982 that appears for the first time in the United States this year. Kwaku Cholmondeley is the Guyanan version of Charles Dickens's Mr. Pickwick. Like Pickwick, Kwaku is an innocent of sorts, and like Pickwick, he falls in and out of adventures and meets all manner of odd and interesting characters. In Kwaku, Heath chronicles his title character's early life--a life that he'll continue to tell in the sequel The Ministry of Hope. As a child, Kwaku becomes convinced that "there was much protection in idiocy," and he wisely falls into the role of village idiot. Secretly, however, he nourishes dreams of greatness, and, once grown to manhood, he sets off in search of the perfect wife, the perfect job, and the perfect life. What follows is a perfectly hilarious account of one man's rise--and fall--all due to his inability to keep his tongue between his teeth.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A first American edition of the 1982 novel (winner of England's Guardian Prize) that introduced the appealing antihero of Heath's recent The Ministry of Hope (1997). Protagonist Kwaku Cholmondeley is a native Guyanese householder whose struggles to support his ever-increasing brood lead him into an amusing succession of schemes, scams, and misadventures (he blithely characterizes himself as ``shoemaker. . . inveterate liar, would-be photographer, near-bigamist and father of eight children''). The tale of his fortunes is both a delicious episodic picaresque and a tightly structured narrative that consistently reveals and develops character as it traces a whirlwind path through the Babbitt-like Kwaku's variously successful and disastrous enterprises: the arrangement of his marriage to the formidable Miss Gwendoline; a checkered career as a ``healer'' in the metropolis of New Amsterdam; and several seriocomic attempts to provide for and settle his troublesome children (the most memorable of whom are his ``cantankerous'' twin sons and his headstrong favorite daughter Philomena). Kwaku falls into adultery as effortlessly and inevitably as he takes to lying, and displays character flaws sufficient to destroy a less resourceful man. But Heath so persuasively communicates Kwaku's genuine desire to become a better man and his essentially loving nature that few readers will fail to identify with him. This accomplished fiction is further enriched by vigorous descriptions of Guyanese customs and family life, and sparkling dialogue filled with laugh-out-loud pidgin English inversions (``Is why you laugh?''). Heath is a master of droll, understated comedy; his affectionate empathy with his characters is never for a moment compromised by condescension. He's a somewhat flintier R.K. Narayan, and there's more than whiff of Kipling in his avuncular fascination with scramblers and hustlers. A wonderful novel, which stands impressively both on its own and in tandem with its equally irresistible sequel. There's no longer any doubt that Heath is one of the world's best writers. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0714530239
• ISBN 13: 9780714530239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 254