Bonaventure: A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana by George Washington Cable

Hardly ragin’ Cajun

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the golden age of American literary realism, when authors popped up all over the country to write naturalistic novels of their hometowns, states, and regions. George Washington Cable (1844-1925) is one such regionalist whose beat was Southern Louisiana. His novel Bonaventure: A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana, was published in 1888. Bonaventure Deschamps, an Acadian (a.k.a Cajun) boy, is orphaned at a young age and taken in by the Beausoleil family of Vermilionville. He is raised alongside Zoséphine, the daughter of his guardians, and falls in love with her. Bonaventure grows up assuming that he will one day marry Zoséphine, but as they reach adolescence a rival appears on the scene in the form of her first cousin ‘Thanase, a handsome fiddle player. Romance must wait, however, as the Civil War descends upon their sleepy hamlet.

While the novel starts out well enough, Cable makes some bizarre narrative choices. In the first of the book’s three sections, Bonaventure makes some stupid decisions that cause him to lose the love of his life. Then he becomes a schoolteacher, which culminates in a silly classroom climax. About halfway through the book, a marriage is mentioned, out of the blue, that makes the reader think, “Huh? Where did THAT come from?” Bonaventure doesn’t even appear in the second half of the book, while we follow another character as he woos Bonaventure’s soulmate. Considering that the bulk of the book revolves around three or four romances, the love stories end up being woefully unsatisfying.

Not only does the story have its flaws, but also the way it’s told. Cable employs an annoyingly “clever” stylistic device that he uses way too often. In many chapters, he relates the story without naming the characters, instead simply referring to “this man,” “that man,” or “the young girl,” etc. Then, at the end of the chapter, he reveals that “this man,” was Bonaventure or “that girl,” was Marguerite, for example. Meanwhile, you just read an entire chapter full of pronouns in which it was very difficult to keep all the nameless characters straight and discern exactly who was speaking to whom. Try getting emotionally invested in that.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Bonaventure, however, is that it doesn’t really succeed as regional realism. After all is said and done, one doesn’t feel like they really learned much about Acadian Louisiana. We’re told that the majority of the region’s inhabitants consists of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, yet for protagonists we are given a schoolteacher, a surveyor, and an encyclopedia salesman. Other than some occasional French dialogue, the novel is low on local color. The Civil War goes by in a blink, slavery is barely mentioned, and race doesn’t play an integral part in the narrative. For the most part, the story could have taken place in New England, or England, for that matter. The characters may be Cajun, but Cable seems to want them to act out some Jane Austen novel. Perhaps his intention was to assert that Acadians are more educated, refined, and urbane than the prevailing stereotypes of them, but the story often feels unrealistically forced in that direction.

Like much regionalist fiction, Bonaventure will likely appeal mostly to readers of its particular region. It doesn’t have the universal appeal of novels by the likes of Mark Twain, Willa Cather, or William Faulkner, nor does it reveal as much about the American South as the books of Charles W. Chesnutt or Harriet Beecher Stowe. One wishes this “Prose Pastoral” were a little more pastoral. Overall, Bonaventure is pretty mediocre fare and a corny love story that just happens to be set in Cajun country.
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