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Martinique and Guadeloupe—two French-speaking islands in the
Caribbean bathed in brilliant azure blue waters with rolling hills
covered in lush tropical green. Paradise: wildly-colored
orchids, quilled pineapples, sweet sugarcane, extravagant branches
of thorny bougainvillea that cover bungalows and walls in sweeping
sprays of hot pink and red flowers, sparkling lagoons and idyllic
beaches.
Truman Capote’s
Music for
Chameleons
is a marvelous collection of non-fiction vignettes and reportage –
all embellished with his trademark literary verve. In the title piece, Music for Chameleons,
Capote plays us some delightful Martiniquan music – he takes a scene and extracts from
it charming eccentric details. An elegant cultured Martiniquais
woman plays Mozart for Capote in order to demonstrate that
chameleons are in fact attracted to music:
'Three
green chameleons race one another across the terrace; one pauses
at Madame’s feet, flicking its forked tongue, and she comments:
"Chameleons. Such exceptional creatures. The way they
change color. Red. Yellow. Lime. Pink.
Lavender. And did you know they are very fond of music?"
She regards me with her fine black eyes. "You don’t believe me?”"
Capote looks on entranced, as they
'...skittered
across the terrace and scampered into the salon, a sensitive,
absorbed audience for the music played....'
How wonderful then to also change chameleon-like from etiolated
urban denizen to burnished chameleon basking in the sun in the
warmth of Martinique and Guadeloupe’s beautiful beaches this
winter.
Tropical
Vegetation, 1887, Paul Gauguin, National Gallery of Scotland
The two islands are a part of France: to be precise they are known
as départements
d’outre mer - territoires d’outre-mer
or more poetically - DOM TOM’s! Josephine de Beauharnais,
Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife, was in fact born in Martinique on
her family’s sugar plantation. Napoleon fell passionately in
love with the Creole beauty who become Empress Josephine in 1804.
He was her second husband, their marriage was not to last, but the
very last word Napoleon uttered as he lay dying on St. Helena was
“Josephine”. The islands’ spectacular tropical colors
inspired another Frenchman, the painter Paul Gauguin, who spent a
few months in Martinique in 1887. From his tropical haven—a
small wooden shack above La Carbet, Gauguin became entranced by
the island’s brilliant colors and local life—these few months were
a turning point in the artist’s evolution, predating his later,
more renowned Tahitian period.
There is delicious Creole food to be had, rum plantations to
visit. A French highway system that keeps things running
smoothly. Hiking trails that take one to delightful places
with glittering names like the Baie du Trésor.
Martinique’s capital city Fort-de-France was also the setting for
the 1944 wartime film To Have and Have Not (a romance with
Humphrey Bogart as a jaded boat captain and Lauren Bacall as a
charming pickpocket). So this winter we recommend following in the
footsteps of Capote, Gauguin, and other assorted chameleons to
these enchanting islands in the sun....
Read:
Music for
Chameleons
Explore:
Martinique
Travel Guide, nytimes.com |
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