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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Right so ngl this book was fucking confusing as. Like the actual story was good, it wasn’t scary but more so chilling. I really liked the writing style and the way the writer would repeat things in his descriptions. However, the last few chapters left me bamboozled and the ending didn’t really offer much clarity either.
I am very glad this story is getting told, and I think that it does deserve acclaim and attention, but I’m not sure that I understood some of the choices Dios made here. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the first half of the book (things that make you think Diop is setting you up for a huge tie-it-all-together ending), but the ending fell a little flat for me personally. I didn’t feel like all of the repetition and focus on duality really came together or packed the punch that Diop was hoping for in the last few chapters.
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
dark
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Well, this was horrific, but despite how gruesome this story is, I was not really emotionally engaged like I wanted to be. I also found the first half stronger than the second. I'm glad I read this, but it's not a new favorite.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is stunning, I was not expecting it at all. I mostly listened to the audio, though I followed along with the physical book, and it says something when a story that is this repetitive with its phrases and themes did not get annoying on audio. Instead it turned it into something lyrical and poetical, even when the book followed Alfa's descent into madness.
Racism was a huge theme of the book, but it was also about grief and violence and war and how they are all acceptable but only when they're done in the 'right' way. Alfa is killing the enemy but he's not doing it in the right way and he's ruining war for his superior officier. When he is sent to the rear for some 'rest', we get more of his backstory and he finally crosses the line in a way that can no longer be excused by 'war'.
Did I fully understand this book and what the author was going for? No, but that didn't stop this from being a book I enjoyed (even with the very dark subject matter).
Racism was a huge theme of the book, but it was also about grief and violence and war and how they are all acceptable but only when they're done in the 'right' way. Alfa is killing the enemy but he's not doing it in the right way and he's ruining war for his superior officier. When he is sent to the rear for some 'rest', we get more of his backstory and he finally crosses the line in a way that can no longer be excused by 'war'.
Did I fully understand this book and what the author was going for? No, but that didn't stop this from being a book I enjoyed (even with the very dark subject matter).
It’s rare that I read literary fiction that used the device of repetition so often, and so successfully. In this way I was reminded of poetry, as I was in Diop’s use of metaphor and allegory. This is a grim and challenging story, but beautiful, too. The complexities of grief and trauma and war, laid bare.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Set in the French-German battlefront during WW1, we follow Alfa, a Senegalese soldier recruited by the French to fight and“play the savage when it suits them”. Early on in the novel, Alfa’s more-than-brother Mademba is brutally disembowelled, which causes Alfa to gradually descend into violent madness.
Though the plot is tragic and disquieting, the language is rich, rhythmic and repetitive. Imagery is sharply evocative and spare, thus preserving the rapidity of war. Hypnotic repetitions plunge us into a turbulent mind while lending the novel a sense of coherence (Guardian critic John Self notes that the repetitions could represent Alfa’s unfamiliarity with French, while Diop himself has said that he was inspired by the language and narratives of the West-African Wolof people, which are similarly repetitive).
The ending is just *chef’s kiss* because it takes the narrative from the physical to the psychological. I was honestly quite surprised reading the ending and am not quite sure what to make of it (I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say that I’ve read a couple interpretations that suggest that Alfa and Mademba could be read as the same person). All in all, I was genuinely impressed by how much Diop was able to fit in a 145-page novel, from moments of tender/fervent intimacy to critiques of colonialism, racism, and the dehumanising qualities of war.
A favourite quote: “I don’t know what I am, but I think I know what my body would say about me. The thickness of my body, its excessive power, can only bring combat to the minds of others, can only bring battle, war, violence, and death. My body accuses my body. But why is it that my body’s bulk and its excessive power can’t also mean peace, tranquility, and calm?”