Book review: The Marriage of Opposites

Published May 25, 2016

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Although rooted in historical fact, Alice Hoffman’s latest work is liberally sprinkled with the magic and mysticism that are her trademark.

Spells, signs, curses and superstitions flicker constantly in the background, while spirits, witches and bats flit through the atmosphere.

If you’re air punching, going “Yesss! Witches and bats, my faves!” chances are you’re already a devout follower of Hoffman’s uniquely entrancing brand of word wizardry.

In The Marriage of Opposites, her subject is Rachel Pomié, mother of Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. The first part tells the story of his parents’ romance and marriage, while the second half revolves around the experiences that shape Camille as an artist.

Rachel grows up on the Caribbean island of Saint Thomas in the early 1800s among a small community of Jews who went there seeking freedom to practise their religion.

Beneath the lush, exquisite beauty of the island lies injustice and prejudice where secrets and scandals flourish in a strict society, providing intriguing sub-plots of families torn apart by bigotry.

Headstrong and free-spirited, Rachel dreams of a future in Paris. But then, to save the family business, she must enter an arranged marriage to a widower with three children, a man older than her father and more than twice her age.

Widowed at 29 with seven children, Rachel begins a love affair with her dead husband’s handsome and much younger nephew Fréderick who arrives from France to settle the estate.

Their relationship is seen as immoral, illegal and scandalous in the eyes of her religion. The elders refuse to let them marry and they are forced to live as outcasts.

Determined that this time she will decide her own fate, Rachel rebels against conformity and fights fiercely to be allowed to marry Fréderick. Camille is their third son, a boy who only wants to paint.

Hoffman has said she kept close to the facts of Rachel’s life, but characters outside her family are fictional. Rachel has a gift for being able to call spirits to her, and is interested in mystical signs and herbal healing.

She inhabits a place where a particular shade of blue, called haint blue, is used to keep restless spirits at bay, and lavender is the herb that brings a person home. One can understand why Hoffman was drawn to her, and to Saint Thomas.

The evocative writing style can best be described as painting with words, which of course slots in seamlessly with this portrait of an artist as a young man born on an island drenched in vibrant colour.

The descriptions engage all the reader’s senses, much like the Impressionist style which saw artists capturing the sensory effect of a scene.

You can smell the limes, frangipani, and jasmine. Stunning shades of colour are splashed and daubed across virtually every page: pistachio, salmon and pale gold, a sky of ink ebony and midnight blue, the sea pale green and turquoise.

Though as a young woman Rachel believed in following her own heart, she initially opposes her son’s wish to become an artist. Camille yearns to escape the bonds of bourgeois life and a career in commerce. Fortunately, he has inherited his mother’s determined will. She discovers his work in the old herbalist’s hut and the sheer beauty of his artistry makes her dizzy.

“Some walls were of Paris, others were incandescent murals of the island.

There were seagulls, pelicans, stars, vines of pink flowers… There were their two worlds, the place where they’d been raised and the city they dreamed of.”

Rachel is not a lovable character – so sharp-tongued that Camille wonders if his mother has been bitten by a werewolf when he sees her gazing at the moon.

Believed by some to be an enchantress, she is mysteriously compelling and captivating. But that might also have something to do with the gorgeous cover photograph.

Considered plain as a girl, Rachel became a beautiful woman, with almond shaped eyes and masses of glossy dark hair wound up and kept in place with tortoiseshell combs.

The story of Rachel and her artist son is a slow-moving one, not that easy to get into. But stay with it, and before long you’ll be lost in a mesmerising, fascinating, sensuous world in which multiple love stories play out. If you enjoy unearthing magic beneath the surface of everyday life, you’ll happily fall under the bewitching spell of Alice Hoffman and her leading lady.

* The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman is published by Scribner

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