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A review by inkerly
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
2.0
Man...
I don’t want to write this review. Because I feel like I was biased. And still am. I WANTED this to be a super awesome epic African fantasy novel. I wanted it to be the next African GoT. And given the African representation in fantasy novels and film you can see why.
But holy moly.
It’s not that this is a bad book. But think about if there was a story about a tribal man searching for answers about himself, Life, and love... And then throw in Royal pedophiles, gang-raping hyenas, bestiality, nipple-sucking vampires, incestuous brothers and sisters, men/women/beasts/spirits/even children who kill for sport, and an aspiring psychopath / untrustworthy narrator for a protagonist who hunts and slaughters people like he’s the freakin Ex Machina. And you have this book.
This book did not do it for me. The incessant sex and violent scenes/references and suffocating poetic dialogue aided in that. But I think the main problem with this book is that, beyond the fact this book was meant to be a epic of stories and tales, it just falls short of sending a clear message as to what its purpose is (or what it could be).
There were a lot of potential directions this book could have gone. It could have been a tale of self-discovery, of not bending to other people’s conventions or ideals of who you should be, of how viciously corrupt the ancient African world they’re in is, anything. And, if the book was polished up a bit in terms of voice narration and dialogue, this would make an EXCELLENT AUDIOBOOK. Marlon James narrating this is AMAZING. His voice brings this world to life. But it’s a life that’s marred with plot holes and characters that you may find stubbornly unbearable (ahem, protagonist,ahem) that you just wish this novel’s manuscript had gone through more pairs of eyes.
But towards the latter half of the book, you stop caring. No one changes. No one is worth fighting for (not even Tracker the protagonist, or the boy he’s looking for). No one is worth dying. Characters come and go, rise from the dead and are killed again, die and are never mentioned again, and don’t have any purpose except to kill or be killed. Nothing about this novel is consistent, except that it’s consistently inconsistent. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, that’s the brilliant overarching theme that James tries to relay, that Life is inconsistent (along with the notion of Gods, Power, Love, Money, Evil, etc), and meaningless.
To James, and the characters in the book, Life may very well be meaningless. Everything is meaningless. And when humans attempt to find meaning all they do is destruct and destroy. That’s what I gained from this monstrous 637 pages. Because there’s this painful cycle of death and destruction by Tracker, by Leopard, by the supporting characters, that you don’t even know if this message is even enjoyable to glean in the last 300 pages.
If you end up liking it great. But this is not going to be on my read-again shelf anytime soon.
P.S
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT FALL ASLEEP READING THIS BOOK. I listened to the middle half of this book as an audiobook and fell asleep accidentally while doing so, and dreamt about trying to escape with my life in a tutu on a train as flesh eating zombies attacked me. SLEEP IF YOU DARE.
I don’t want to write this review. Because I feel like I was biased. And still am. I WANTED this to be a super awesome epic African fantasy novel. I wanted it to be the next African GoT. And given the African representation in fantasy novels and film you can see why.
But holy moly.
It’s not that this is a bad book. But think about if there was a story about a tribal man searching for answers about himself, Life, and love... And then throw in Royal pedophiles, gang-raping hyenas, bestiality, nipple-sucking vampires, incestuous brothers and sisters, men/women/beasts/spirits/even children who kill for sport, and an aspiring psychopath / untrustworthy narrator for a protagonist who hunts and slaughters people like he’s the freakin Ex Machina. And you have this book.
This book did not do it for me. The incessant sex and violent scenes/references and suffocating poetic dialogue aided in that. But I think the main problem with this book is that, beyond the fact this book was meant to be a epic of stories and tales, it just falls short of sending a clear message as to what its purpose is (or what it could be).
There were a lot of potential directions this book could have gone. It could have been a tale of self-discovery, of not bending to other people’s conventions or ideals of who you should be, of how viciously corrupt the ancient African world they’re in is, anything. And, if the book was polished up a bit in terms of voice narration and dialogue, this would make an EXCELLENT AUDIOBOOK. Marlon James narrating this is AMAZING. His voice brings this world to life. But it’s a life that’s marred with plot holes and characters that you may find stubbornly unbearable (ahem, protagonist,ahem) that you just wish this novel’s manuscript had gone through more pairs of eyes.
But towards the latter half of the book, you stop caring. No one changes. No one is worth fighting for (not even Tracker the protagonist, or the boy he’s looking for). No one is worth dying. Characters come and go, rise from the dead and are killed again, die and are never mentioned again, and don’t have any purpose except to kill or be killed. Nothing about this novel is consistent, except that it’s consistently inconsistent. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, that’s the brilliant overarching theme that James tries to relay, that Life is inconsistent (along with the notion of Gods, Power, Love, Money, Evil, etc), and meaningless.
To James, and the characters in the book, Life may very well be meaningless. Everything is meaningless. And when humans attempt to find meaning all they do is destruct and destroy. That’s what I gained from this monstrous 637 pages. Because there’s this painful cycle of death and destruction by Tracker, by Leopard, by the supporting characters, that you don’t even know if this message is even enjoyable to glean in the last 300 pages.
If you end up liking it great. But this is not going to be on my read-again shelf anytime soon.
P.S
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT FALL ASLEEP READING THIS BOOK. I listened to the middle half of this book as an audiobook and fell asleep accidentally while doing so, and dreamt about trying to escape with my life in a tutu on a train as flesh eating zombies attacked me. SLEEP IF YOU DARE.