The Dragon Can't Dance is a 1979 novel by Trinidadian author Earl Lovelace, set in a slum of Port of Spain. The novel centers on the life of Aldrick Prospect, a man who spends the entire year recreating his dragon costume for Carnival. Aldrick's interactions with other people who live in his neighbourhood (including Fisheye, a local hoodlum, and Pariag, a rural Indian who moves to the city to get away from his familial heritage) form the backdrop for their individual struggles for self-definition in a society dominated by its racial divisions and colonial legacies. The story culminates when Aldrick and Fisheye, along with a small number of followers, hijack a police van and take two police officers hostage. The events surrounding the hostage-taking, and the aftermath of the event lead the reader on a journey through the colonial psyche, and expose the deep seated problems of a society that still has not reconciled itself with its colonial past and racial divisions.
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Famous quotes containing the words dragon and/or dance:
“Sir Eglamour, that worthy knight,
He took his sword and went to fight;
And as he rode both hill and dale,
Armed upon his shirt of mail,
A dragon came out of his den,
Had slain, God knows how many men!”
—Samuel Rowlands (1570?–1630?)
“We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.”
—Martha Graham (1894–1991)