African echoes

[Doug Millison]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14388

This is an essay by Toni Morrison that some Pynchon readers may 
enjoy, for its treatment of Africa as imagined by whites; it's a 
different version of her introduction to a new reprint of an English 
version of Camara Laye's novel Le Regarde du roi. Laye's novel would 
seem to find echoes in GR and M&D, at least as described by Morrison:

"Of the many literary tropes of Africa, three are invidious: Africa 
as jungle-impenetrable, chaotic, and threatening; Africa as sensual 
but not on its own rational; and the essence or "heart" of Africa, 
its ultimate discovery, as, unless mitigated by European influence 
and education, incomprehensible. The Radiance of the King makes these 
assessments concrete in such a way as to invite (not tell) the reader 
to reevaluate his or her own store of "knowledge." [...] Clarence's 
descent into acquiescent stud is a wry comment on the sensual basking 
that Europeans found so threatening. He enacts the full horror of 
what Westerners imagine as "going native," the "unclean and cloying 
weakness" that imperils masculinity. But Clarence's overt enjoyment 
of and feminine submission to continuous cohabitation reflect less 
the "dangers" of sexy Africa than the exposure of his willful 
blindness to a practical (albeit loathsome) enterprise. The night 
visits of the harem women (whom Clarence continues to believe against 
all evidence are one woman) are arranged by the nobu, an impotent old 
man, for the increase of his family rather than for Clarence's 
indulgence. The deceit is an achievement made possible by the 
Africans' quick understanding of this Frenchman's intellectual 
indolence, his tendency toward self-delusion. As mulatto children 
crowd the harem, Clarence, the only white in the region, continues to 
wonder
where they came from. "
-- 
d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>