Afrika
by Daniel Kehlmann
In my early teenage years, I came across a collection of P.G. Wodehouse novels at my local library and quickly became hooked. I still consider him one of the greatest comic authors in the English language. Then I went through an Evelyn Waugh phase that I’ve never really left – I still prefer his early satires to his later works, with Scoop being a particular favourite. In the past few years, I haven’t read much comedy or satire, so Daniel Kehlmann’s Afrika is quite a departure from my usual reads. It was certainly worthwhile.
Afrika is rooted in a historical occurrence: the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884–85, convened by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to regulate European colonial expansion and trade in Africa. The conference helped establish the framework for the subsequent partition of the continent, while the international recognition of King Leopold II of Belgium’s control over the Congo Basin paved the way for its exploitation as his personal domain. It also accelerated the European powers’ “scramble for Africa”, which led to untold human suffering and human rights violations over the subsequent decades.
The novel features real-life figures such as Bismarck, King Leopold II of Belgium and Henry Morton Stanley (and, more obliquely and surprisingly, Franz Liszt and Buffalo Bill), all lampooned with a caricaturist’s eye and wit. Kehlmann introduces among them, like a pigeon among the cats (rather than the other way round), the novel’s antihero, Legation Counsellor Strinetzky, a minor Austrian diplomat who is ordered to step in at the conference at the last minute so that his superior, the ambassador, can spend the day practising a czardas that his old friend Liszt has written for him.
Africa could not be further from Strinetzky’s mind. His wife is cuckolding him, his mistress has left him, his scheme to misappropriate Austro-Hungarian funds to finance his amorous escapades is close to being discovered and, even more worryingly, he has landed himself in a pistol duel scheduled for the following morning. As Strinetzky tries to extricate himself from this predicament, he unwittingly plays a role in high-level diplomacy.
Kehlmann’s writing is edgy, witty and often laugh-out-loud funny. It reminded me of my old heroes: Waugh in the absurdist dialogue (expertly conveyed by translator Ross Benjamin), Wodehouse in the set-pieces, such as the Crown Prince’s Ball, featuring a dance by “African children” who turn out to be Berliners daubed in black body paint. The tragedy of it all comes when one realises, on reading the author’s afterword, that this farcical scene actually occurred.
And it is here that the novel’s strength lies. Good-quality satire is ultimately always moral in nature. Afrika is not about cheap sniggers, but about exposing the inherent cruelty and evil of European imperialism. Strinetzky may be corrupt, vain, vindictive and not particularly bright, but he is likeable when compared to the real villains of this black comedy: the leaders who carved up a continent between them, without any thought for the human tragedies that would ensue. Bubbling beneath the comic veneer is a seething rage that lingers long after the laughs have died out.
No comments:
Post a Comment