Makenzy Orcel’s The Emperor, translated by Nathan H. Dize, is a novel of contradictions. The narrator, who has been deprived for years of his autonomy living under the control of the Emperor, a corrupt religious leader, must use his voice to fully free himself, even though he lives in a “world that brings death to freedom” (11). Emanuela Cacchioli, in her review of The Emperor in its original French — it was first published as L’Empereur in 2021 — characterizes it as “a novel of waiting, a long journey made up of multiple physical displacements, even if in reality the protagonist does not move from his apartment” (my translation). Even the unforgivable crime that is the catalyst for the narrator sharing his story — he is waiting in his apartment for the police to arrest him — is a contradiction. The narrator knows that he will be caught and lose the freedom he struggled for, but contends that he “had to do it” (6). Conversely, this act also seems to be the final step in achieving a new kind of freedom:
And free I will be once more, even after the police arrive to beat me down, walk all over me, crush me and all the things we allow only criminals to endure, before putting me in handcuffs and tossing me in their wagon on a one-way trip to hell. It feels unavoidable. (9)
What initially seems like another contradiction — how can the narrator be free if he is imprisoned? — reveals that freedom is not necessarily a physical state for the narrator, but a mental one. He assesses his crime as “unavoidable” in a sort of resigned acceptance that every event in his life led up to this unforgivable act.
Tuned in to his emotions throughout the novel, the narrator has even categorized different parts of himself. He talks about being guided by the Other Within, who he describes as “the sorcerous voice inside myself” and “a dark and fragile creature whom I love and cannot resist” (7). It’s never specifically said what, if anything, the Other Within represents, but while reading I connected the “dark and fragile creature” to the sort of child that the narrator used to be (with all the innocence and selfishness and capriciousness of a child), or could have been were it not for the Emperor.
The narrator’s recollection of how exactly he was picked up by the Emperor and brought to the lakou — a shared courtyard — are fuzzy. He remembers that he was “waiting for the bus” (9) but does not remember why he was waiting and can only infer that he must have been abandoned by his family based on “[c]ertain accounts” of families “[giving] their children up to nature” (10) after a hurricane. He comes to this conclusion so impartially and tentatively, like he is writing a mathematical proof rather than piecing together brief memories of his childhood. Specifically not talking about — or not remembering — the emotions he was feeling at this time drives home the loss and confusion that the child narrator must have felt, to not even be able to explain in his own words why all this came to be.
His new role at the lakou as a restavèk — a child whose family sends them to do domestic work for other families — is given to him just as abruptly as he arrived: “You taught me how to play the drums—rather, you stuck a drum between my legs. And there I was, a restavèk, a slave, a sheep, an entertainer for the spirits” (9). Learning the drums, and therefore becoming a restavèk, is suddenly and violently required of the narrator, with the specificity of the drum being placed between the narrator’s legs mimicking images of sexual violence. Notably, any sort of commentary on the restavèk system, which has been characterized as domestic slavery, is done purely through the narrator’s own thoughts. Dize also does not provide an additional definition for restavèk, maintaining the subjectivity of the narrator’s story.
Orcel’s narrator is never an ideal subject of the Emperor. Even after being beaten for supposedly playing incorrectly, he says that “my performances … continuously strayed from sacred and ritual dance rhythms so that I could express my depths, my secret trances. To get as close as I could to my own life” (44). Though drumming was initially forced on the narrator in order to serve the Emperor, he still manages to use it as a creative outlet. Not only is he desperately trying to maintain his own identity even though doing so invites more violence against him, he tries to maintain his identity by using an object associated with his oppressor. It is also interesting that in describing his drumming, the narrator still associates himself with an animal, although not a “sheep” like others in the lakou: he says that his playing style “awakened the dogs within me” (44). I was reminded of dogs that were bred specifically to herd sheep; perhaps this is the first instance at the lakou where the narrator realizes, if only unconsciously, that by using his voice he gives a voice to others who are oppressed. Even though he claims not to see the purpose in any kind of relationship and is very individualistic, it seems like he cannot help himself from searching for connection — when addressing the Emperor, he says that he lends his voice “to the dust, to the rivers, to the plants, to the birds, to the centre tree, to the drum, to the Very Old Sheep” (15).
The narrator’s story is associative to the point where it is sometimes hard to follow — since it is his firsthand account, as the readers we are left with the same uncertainties and gaps in memory that the narrator has. The narrator often trails off sentences with ellipses or interjects a completely different thought in the middle of a sentence. This not only reflects how people naturally talk, and thus reinforces the stream-of-consciousness style, but also clues us in on his state of mind following the crime — anxious, disorganized, trying to get all the words out before the police come. Additionally, the narrator often mixes very short sentences in between very long ones; for example, when thinking of the present-day Emperor, he says, “You must be so old now, struggling to hide your trembling hands, retrenched in your solitude, your gaze empty, awaiting death, or perhaps dead for some time. The temple disgraced” (15). The first sentence is made up of so many interconnecting clauses and is rather poetic, so the abrupt shift to a very short sentence makes it so we can almost hear the disgust in the narrator’s voice — it’s like he is gritting his teeth and biting out the words.
These juxtapositions in style are also present in the narrator’s descriptions. When describing a festival that takes place over the week of January 6, he mentions “the sacred source (a white enamel basin filled with water)” (49), and when describing the emperor’s “affectation[s],” he mentions “[t]he vèvè, the spirits’ itineraries” (54). Referring to these objects meant to be revered with such clinical, dry language reflects both how the narrator does not buy into the belief system promulgated by the Emperor as well as the Emperor’s falsity in being a religious leader who runs his religious activities like a business. The narrator’s criticism of religion, however, is not flat-out condemnation; he seems to mostly take issue with how easily people’s beliefs have been exploited by people like the Emperor and how easily religion can be used to make people into “sheep.”
Because it is so fragmented, The Emperor is, in my opinion, designed to be reread, for us to try and put together the pieces of the narrator’s life that he has shared with us, just as he himself has done. This declaration in chapter 1 reads differently after hearing of the narrator’s experiences in the lakou: “[E]ven prison and its horrors cannot force me to feel remorse. Let them lock me up, isolate me from society, punish me, allow me to atone for the freedom to love, for trusting my instincts to the very end” (7). The narrator feels no remorse not because he is callous or evil, but because isolation and punishment are no longer threatening to him — in the lakou, they were what he endured for simply existing.
Orcel, Makenzy. The Emperor. Translated by Nathan H. Dize. Seagull Books, 2024.
Serena Atkinson studies English and French at Oberlin College. She is fascinated by anything to do with language and is currently production manager at The Oberlin Review.
An interesting review of a very interesting book and one that we would be well-served to read if only for the sheer art of the subjective narration. It might be useful to readers of this review, however, to understand that “lakou” and “restavèk” are Haitian Creole words (I looked them up) and that the “lakou became a grassroots opposition to any state action tending to reinstate the plantation order. Existing entirely outside the state, the lakou became what Gérard Barthélemy called “an egalitarian system without a state” (Haiti Lab 2021). Since there is already a tension in this novel between the preservation of the self and the brutal oppression of individual people by the state, it is further interesting to note the tension implied between the state within a state of the lakou and the initial impetus of the lakou as a protection against the “state”, that is the brutal control of the plantation system. I will likely buy this interesting book!
Strangely, the photo related to my comment is not me. Just a note. DPS
Thank you for this lovely review, Serena! You’re right, D.P. There are many words in Haitian Creole in the novel, some of which are richly concept-laden like ‘restavèk’ and ‘lakou’ – I’m looking forward to hearing what you think of the novel 🙂