“Broken Glass” was unlike anyother novel that I read from Africa as part of OBOC. It had to be one of the lightest reads with the exception of Mongo Beti’s Mission Accomplished. Still I had a bit of difficulty plodding through the novel and I will explain why in a bit, but I should say it was only when I completed it and spent some time thinking about it I started to see the merits of the novel.
It is obvious that Alain Mabanckou is in love with words and literature so much so that he didn’t want punctuations to distract us from the letters. Sentences flowed in one continuous stream with no periods or any other marks besides commas, reminding me of Cormac McCarthy’s style of writing (although Alain uses quotation marks). Along the way Alain also pays tribute to many of the leading writers across the globe from Borges to Tagore and to some of the best loved comic characters like Asterix to Tintin and Snowy. The book is also like a puzzle or a treasure hunt with hidden references to many other works some of which were lost on me (unfamiliarity with French literature and History). It is certainly a fresh, young voice in African Literature.
The story in a nutshell is about Broken Glass - a has-been teacher, who aspired to be a literary figure when young. He is now a 64 year old alcoholic, suspended from his job for inappropriate behavior, abandoned by his dad when young, orphaned by his mom who drowned herself, and left to his own by his wife Angelica (aka Diabolica). His only solace is the bar Credit Gone West which has managed to stand despite being attacked by local thugs and corrupt officials with “iron bars from Zanzibar, clubs and cudgels from Medieval Christendom, poisoned spears from the time of Chaka Zulu, sickles and hammers from the Communist Block, Molotov Cocktails from May’68, machetes left over from the killing spree in Rwanda”. (One of my favorite sentences in the book BTW, one sentence that captures the history of Africa).
The bar owner Stubborn Snail, enlists Broken Glass to chronicle the history of the bar and its patrons a motley crew of desperate souls. In a country of oral tradition, Stubborn Snail doesn’t want Credit Gone West erased from the memory of future generations. So he trusts only the written word to preserve the memory (“didn’t want Credit Gone West just to vanish one day, and added that people in this country have no sense of the importance of memory, that the days when grandmothers reminisced from their deathbeds was gone now, this is the age of the written word, that’s all that’s left”)
Through the potpourri of patrons we get a glimpse of life at the very bottom rung of the social ladder in Trois Cents. Whether it is the “Pampers Guy” who was violated in prison or the “Printer” whose life in Paris was shattered by the appearance of his illegitimate son, or Mouyeke a con artist cum sorcerer, or Robinette the prostitute who can “outpiss” any drunk, you will realize these are not characters that are going to create legendary fiction with larger than life heroes. Some of these stories were outright gawdy, gross and gruesome making it a difficult read for me especially with all the discussion on scat. But that precisely is the point of Alain, he is giving voice to the voiceless and he manages to do it through the ramblings of one of them.
I can’t say I enjoyed the book completely, but I can certainly see myself re-reading certain sections just for the delight offered by Mabanckou’s words and to try and solve some of the literary puzzles. I guess like the title “Broken Glass” the image offered by the book is in bits and pieces which challenges the reader to put together the pieces by themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment