Books: Fable from Martinique

Ti-Covo AND His SHARK (235 pp.)—Clemenf Richer—Knopf ($3).

Ti-Coyo owes this world few debts: his mulatto father is a lame hunchback, his Hindu-Chinese mother “a female monster with a squint.” The family, which lives in the Martinique port of St. Pierre, is forever poor, and to buy the canoe he desperately wants, Ti-Coyo dives for coins whenever the liners pull in. But the competition is terrific; dozens of strapping Negro divers leave only small change for little fellows like Ti-Coyo. How, wonders the boy, can he liquidate his competition?

Ti-Coyo’s shockingly unethical solution is the core of Clement Richer’s novel, which the book jacket accurately calls “an immoral fable for sophisticated people.”

Ti-Coyo catches a baby shark and raises it in a pond. Thanks to the fish Ti-Coyo provides, the shark grows up grateful. Then Ti-Coyo goes after the competition. When a liner full of rich Yankees reaches port, Ti-Coyo and his domesticated shark, Manidou, are waiting. The coins fall, the Negroes dive, Manidou darts out and snaps a diver in two. Ti-Coyo slips into the water, scoops up the coins. The shark looks on benevolently.

Everyone thinks it is a miracle that the boy has survived; but the miracle is repeated several times. Soon no Negro dares dive any more, and Ti-Coyo has a monopoly. Ti-Coyo remains singularly untroubled by moral scruples. With the money he makes, his family builds a new house with a tiled roof and Venetian blinds. Finally, when the great volcano of Mount Pelee erupts and leaves St. Pierre a cemetery of cinders,* Manidou saves Ti-Coyo and his family by guiding them to a safe shore. Love has repaid love.

While not so exotic as the Marcelin brothers’ The Pencil of God (TIME, Feb. 5), Ti-Coyo and His Shark shines with a rich blend of Caribbean mockery and Western sophistication. Author Richer, 37, a native of Martinique who has lived in France since 1927, writes with charm and is tactful enough to keep his fable short. What does it all mean? A satire on imperialism, perhaps, with Ti-Coyo symbolizing the native opportunist? Clement Richer, a nonpolitical fellow who describes himself as a misanthrope, is wise enough not to say; all that can be seen is his literary eye closing in a wink.

*A touch of verisimilitude: Mount Pelee did erupt, in 1902, killing nearly 30,000 citizens of St. Pierre.