“The White Rock” by Anna Hope: an incredible journey through time around the origin of the world

With this new novel, Anna Hope takes us on a journey through time and history with a handful of characters whose focus is a White Rock, a tiny and rocky piece of island off the west coast of Mexico, considered as the origin of the world by the natives. The White Rockpublished on August 18, 2022 by Le Bruit du Monde.

The story : a lieutenant on an expedition on a Spanish ship (1775), two deported Yoemes sisters (1907), a rock star in distress (1969) and a writer on a pilgrimage, in search of meaning and a subject for her next novel (2020 ). All converge on the same point, the White Rock, a small rocky island located off San Blas, on the west coast of Mexico in the Narayit region. The White Rock is a sacred place for the Wixaricas, who consider it the origin of the world. San Blas was also the starting point for a large number of expeditions to the Pacific.

The “writer” travels to Mexico with her husband and daughter. They are there to celebrate the birth of their child. In a minibus with a shaman and a group of tourists, they gently make their way to the White Rock for a New Age ceremony with the native peoples. But their couple is floundering, and on the other side of the world, a pandemic is coming to the fore. The writer takes care of her little girl, and thinks about her next novel.

“The singer”, very clearly inspired by Jim Morrison, failed the teams on his tour. Disappeared from traffic, he drags his boredom to a hotel on the Mexican coast. Tired of notoriety, he seeks meaning in this life intoxicated with success.

“The girl” is a Yoeme (Native American people, editor’s note). With her sister, they try to survive in the expedition which must lead them towards a fate which they guess is disastrous. Crammed with others in a boat with deplorable living conditions, they have been uprooted from their land and are forcibly taken to the coast. His sister is injured. The two young girls cling to the stories of their childhood, to their culture, in an attempt to survive.

“The Lieutenant” is an expedition captain. He shares it with other explorers. One of them, Captain Manrique, is suddenly seized with ramblings. He has the vision that the race in which the colonial empires have embarked, which he serves, “will end in ruin”. “We are agents of the Fall. We must repent. Make offerings. Return home”, breathes the Captain. His words are considered a betrayal. The lieutenant tries to save him, without jeopardizing the expedition, “there is no choice”.

“His heart leaps at the scene before him: the White Rock, eclipsed by the magnificence of these ships and all their cargo, these ships that are ready, with their sails spread, and he feels that momentum – yes, they will hoist sails tonight, heading west into the night.”

“The White Rock”

page 222

The White Rock appears as the stage of a theater crossing time and resonating with the tragic destinies of this handful of characters in search of meaning. It is also the metaphor of an immutable force, silent witness to the agitation of men, their unbridled and insatiable will for love, for power, witness also to the inevitable vanity of their existence.

But when time has no more age and all the stories melt at the foot of the rock, these men and women, in the midst of the offerings, escape for a moment from their condition, and find the way of their humanity.

Anna Hope casts a sharp eye on the brutality of the colonial conquests of the 19th century, and the devastation they caused on the native peoples, and on the Western, materialistic society, in search of a spirituality at the other end of the world, among those very peoples that it tried to annihilate in the name of progress two centuries earlier.

“To include the voice of a yoeme girl in the novel was to run the risk of projection and cultural appropriation. I relied on the following mentors and resources”takes the trouble to justify in a note at the end of the book the novelist, before citing her sources, “indigenous scholars, researchers and artists”. Wise precaution in an area that raises many debates.

Deployed in a colorful language, The White Rock transports us to the atmospheres of different eras. Built in several parts which alternate the different stories, going back and then back down in time, this ample choral novel by Anna Hope embraces both the twirling story of the adventures that the different characters go through and their torments, as well as the story with a great H. He devours himself like a real page-turner.

The White Rockby Anna Hope, translated from English (Great Britain) by Elodie Leplat (Editions Le Bruit du Monde, 320 pages, €22)

“This is the West. For a long time there was only water here, water that
seethed, clacked and spoke only to itself:
sometimes the water was an eagle, with the horns of a stag.
Sometimes a gigantic two-headed serpent.
Sometimes a great ear, listening to the ancestral
brackish darkness.

And then one day a rock appeared, white peak
above the waves: the world’s first solid object.
The water moved against him: slapping, pricking, sucking, pulling.
In this movement, this friction, made steam,
became a cloud, fell as rain, gave life.

This is the place where for the first time, the shapeless fell in love
of shape.
And so, and so, and so then, that’s how the world was born.”
(The White Rockpage 195)

“The White Rock” by Anna Hope: an incredible journey through time around the origin of the world