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kraghen21 's review for:
At Night All Blood is Black
by David Diop
Alfa Ndiaye and his "more-than-brother" Mademba Diop are Senegalese Tirailleurs fighting in World War I. In the grim trench warfare, Mademba becomes fatally disemboweled in an effort to prove his bravery, after the narrator Alfa mocks Mademba's family totem - the peacock - as a cowardly one, compared to the lion of his own tribe.
Mademba dies, begging for Alfa to kill him, however, Alfa - in an act of cowardice - cannot bring himself to do so. From this point on the narrator spirals into a violent grief-stricken rampage, a quest to collect severed hands of German soldiers, and ultimately an irretrievable descent into madness.
The book is very short and very intense. It instantly gripped me, partially because of the interesting colonial angle of soldiers fighting for their colonizers on another continent, but even more so because of the hypnotizing narration.
Alfa Ndiaye's narrative voice is the driving force that made this slender book so gripping. David Diop uses repetitive phrases in a very effective way, that imbues the narration with a certain rhythm, which adds a lot to the character of Alfa.
The first 75 pages or so are relentless and captivating reading, and then the text switches to a slower register for the final two acts; first a mode of nostalgia, and then an unforeseen and slightly untimely ending sequence, which will leave some readers scratching their heads.
For me, the ending was an interesting choice, but not one I was totally convinced by. This leaves me with a feeling of a light 5 star read.
Read it for the gripping intensity and captivating narrative voice of Alfa Ndiaye, and also for the repeated metaphorical image of the war trenches as a woman's sex. It made more sense every time.
Mademba dies, begging for Alfa to kill him, however, Alfa - in an act of cowardice - cannot bring himself to do so. From this point on the narrator spirals into a violent grief-stricken rampage, a quest to collect severed hands of German soldiers, and ultimately an irretrievable descent into madness.
The book is very short and very intense. It instantly gripped me, partially because of the interesting colonial angle of soldiers fighting for their colonizers on another continent, but even more so because of the hypnotizing narration.
Alfa Ndiaye's narrative voice is the driving force that made this slender book so gripping. David Diop uses repetitive phrases in a very effective way, that imbues the narration with a certain rhythm, which adds a lot to the character of Alfa.
The first 75 pages or so are relentless and captivating reading, and then the text switches to a slower register for the final two acts; first a mode of nostalgia, and then an unforeseen and slightly untimely ending sequence, which will leave some readers scratching their heads.
For me, the ending was an interesting choice, but not one I was totally convinced by. This leaves me with a feeling of a light 5 star read.
Read it for the gripping intensity and captivating narrative voice of Alfa Ndiaye, and also for the repeated metaphorical image of the war trenches as a woman's sex. It made more sense every time.