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beanie_bob's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Reading Around The World (1/199): Gabon
Spoiler Free Review: Dark and dramatic without being pulpy but it still retains a noir vibe. I feel like this would translate really well to film (and in fact, it has been but I can’t find it readily available anywhere). This book is exactly what it says on the tin; reading the introduction really does set a basis for how to approach the text and Simenon’s anti-colonialist views.
There are no heroes in this book. Once the plot is set in motion there is no stopping it and Timar’s feeble attempt at the end is only met with his own feverish demise - moonstroke.
I thought the final chapter was weak and more of an epilogue to the cliff hanger of chapter 12. I think that’s more reflective of the time period this was written. I think a contemporary author might have filled in the falling action between Timar’s outburst in the courthouse and his winding up on the boat. That’s my only issue with the writing/structure.
This anti-colonial book is written by a white Frenchman and is mostly about the mentality of white French colonizers. Adele, the antagonist and love interest, kills Thomas a black boy on her hotel staff when he tries to blackmail her (since she has taken Timar as a lover). And then frames a Gabonese villager for the murder.
So we see how the black people of Gabon are lesser in the eyes of the white colonizers; the white loggers abuse them, Adele lacks respect or compassion for her staff & vendors, and Timar sees them as interchangeable, dull, simplistic and childlike. When they laugh or joke he can’t imagine that it’s sincere or intentional, he thinks it’s babble for the sake of noise.
And the Gabonese have worked out their own limited hierarchy under French colonial rule; the men sacrifice their women to be raped or whored. The chief selects a man in his village to take the fall for Thomas’ murder -in exchange for what? Food, protection, work? It’s unknown.
This book is sad. There is no justice and the truth dies as Timar succumbs to fever and delirium. Timar transforms from a naive ‘promising young frenchman’ to an angry drunk to a mad man. He’s pitiable and hatable and as much a threat and disturbance to Gabon as any other colonizer or expat in the book.
Spoiler Free Review: Dark and dramatic without being pulpy but it still retains a noir vibe. I feel like this would translate really well to film (and in fact, it has been but I can’t find it readily available anywhere). This book is exactly what it says on the tin; reading the introduction really does set a basis for how to approach the text and Simenon’s anti-colonialist views.
I thought the final chapter was weak and more of an epilogue to the cliff hanger of chapter 12. I think that’s more reflective of the time period this was written. I think a contemporary author might have filled in the falling action between Timar’s outburst in the courthouse and his winding up on the boat. That’s my only issue with the writing/structure.
This anti-colonial book is written by a white Frenchman and is mostly about the mentality of white French colonizers. Adele, the antagonist and love interest, kills Thomas a black boy on her hotel staff when he tries to blackmail her (since she has taken Timar as a lover). And then frames a Gabonese villager for the murder.
So we see how the black people of Gabon are lesser in the eyes of the white colonizers; the white loggers abuse them, Adele lacks respect or compassion for her staff & vendors, and Timar sees them as interchangeable, dull, simplistic and childlike. When they laugh or joke he can’t imagine that it’s sincere or intentional, he thinks it’s babble for the sake of noise.
And the Gabonese have worked out their own limited hierarchy under French colonial rule; the men sacrifice their women to be raped or whored. The chief selects a man in his village to take the fall for Thomas’ murder -in exchange for what? Food, protection, work? It’s unknown.
This book is sad. There is no justice and the truth dies as Timar succumbs to fever and delirium. Timar transforms from a naive ‘promising young frenchman’ to an angry drunk to a mad man. He’s pitiable and hatable and as much a threat and disturbance to Gabon as any other colonizer or expat in the book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Alcohol, and Racism
Minor: Rape
tvdetective's review
4.0
Tropic Moon is one of Georges Simenon's "hard" or serious novels. Set in the 1930s, it tells the story of a young man named Joseph Timar who moves to the then-French-colony of Gabon for a job.
My first thoughts stemmed from the title and the time period: tropical imagery inspired by bold and colorful travel posters from that era. However, the book is really about disillusionment with those romantic, exoticized ideas of Africa; the protagonist even reflects on the contrast between what people at home probably imagine and reality.
The reality is drunk, listless, and rather hopeless. What sticks out in my mind when picturing Timar's existence in Gabon is the oppressiveness of the sun. When Simenon describes Timar putting on his sun helmet and walking through deserted streets in overwhelming heat, it almost gives the impression that the sun is actually behind all his troubles.
While the travel poster idea didn't fit, the question of how people "back home" formed conceptions of distant places did seem relevant to the novel. Instead I looked to a more subdued form, cheap postcards printed with plain black ink. Instead of an exotic scene, though, the image only shows a shadow - representing, of course, the force of the sun.
https://mo-kerwin.com/tropic-moon
chalicotherex's review
5.0
Fever dream colonialism. Completely malarial. Better than Joseph Conrad and all your Apocalypse Nows. Even better than Fitzcarraldo (I always found the backstory better than the movie: Kinski shooting into the tent, the Peruvian natives offering to kill Kinski, Herzog not realizing they disassembled the boat before dragging it over the mountain). The intro compares it to Dr. Destouches's writings about Africa in Journey to the End of the Night, and yeah, I'd say that's about where it belongs in the pantheon. Brutal, and perhaps portentous.
From the introduction:
If novels could give you dengue fever, this one would.
From the introduction:
An aspect of empire that Simenon captures well is the ethical blankness, the cloud of unknowing, it seems to engender in the psyches of the imperializers, at all levels. The characters in Tropic Moon may experience odd moments of vague disquiet that interrupt the peculiar emotional equilibrium that reigns while dark deeds are routinely transpiring, but deep recognition of what is truly happening is rare, and when it occurs, costly.
If novels could give you dengue fever, this one would.
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