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Summary: Chapter 12

Salim contemplated Yvette’s failure to see through Raymond when she first met him, and he worried that he was now involved with someone as trapped as he felt himself to be. His relationship with Yvette made him feel bound to Raymond as well, which sparked new political anxieties related to the President’s increasing power over the country and its citizens. Indar, who had promised Yvette he would inquire about the prospects for Raymond’s book, never sent any word. Meanwhile, Raymond finished work on the book of presidential speeches.

At one of the dinners Salim shared with Yvette and Raymond at their house, Yvette explained how they used to attend dinners with the President on a regular basis and how the ever-present cameras made it impossible to sustain a conversation with the man. Eventually, the President decided he no longer needed Raymond and broke off their relationship.

Salim learned that Raymond had applied for a position at an American university and did not get the job. Although his proximity to the President had helped build his career, it had also harmed his reputation abroad. Yet despite his increasing irrelevance, Raymond remained fiercely loyal to the President. Salim thought Raymond lived by a code that provided him a sense of self-certainty. By contrast, Salim lived in constant uncertainty. Salim admired Raymond for his loyalty, which he demonstrated for his dinner guests, especially those who criticized the President. For instance, Raymond defended “the cult of the African madonna” that had sprung up in honor of the President’s mother.

Eventually Raymond’s book of speeches was published, but radical alterations had transformed it beyond recognition. Whereas Raymond had curated long extracts from the speeches and linked them with commentary, the book that appeared contained only short maxims. Many copies had been printed and were distributed widely with much pomp and circumstance. However, the majority of people didn’t understand what the book was about. Even so, Raymond remained loyal to the President, and Yvette grew restless.

Summary: Chapter 13

Salim felt his world narrowing as he grew more attached to and emotionally dependent on Yvette. This narrowing made him feel increasingly obsessive.

Out of the blue, a prominent Greek businessman named Noimon sold all his holdings and left town. Other business owners felt shocked and even betrayed by Noimon’s departure, which they understood as marking the end of the town’s boom. But Mahesh felt differently. He insisted that those who left believing they could find greater success abroad would quickly learn their mistake. None of those people, he insisted, would live as well as those who remained. At first, Salim condemned Mahesh’s complacency. But he soon realized that he too preferred to hold on to what he had, which resulted in him “doing nothing.”

Salim received a letter from Nazruddin explaining that the situation in Uganda had deteriorated and that he planned to move his family to Canada. Salim replied to the letter, describing how helpless he felt in the face of recent changes.

The sudden death of Shoba’s father prompted her to take an unexpected trip to the coast to visit her family. She had not returned home since she’d married Mahesh against her family’s wishes. Though she was supposed to be gone for two months, she returned after three weeks, infuriated by the evident political corruption, everyday violence, and petty crime. Upon her return, Mahesh’s former optimism diminished, and he began to suspect a severe economic downturn.

Back in Salim’s house, Salim and Metty listened to a speech the President gave over the radio. Whereas the President used to speak only in French, he now spoke in a simplified mix of African languages. Salim and Metty found the language and style of the speech compelling, and Salim reflected on how the President somehow made all events, good or bad, appear as if they fit into his larger plans for the nation. At the conclusion of the speech, the President announced the dissolution of the Youth Guard. The Guard had been established to empower young men, but these same men had betrayed the faith of the people and now had to be banished to the bush.

Analysis: Chapters 12–13

Despite losing respect for Raymond after reading his scholarly work, Salim still admired the historian’s “code” of loyalty, which offered Raymond a kind of certainty that Salim desperately longed for. At the same time, the town’s deteriorating economic situation revived Salim’s old anxieties about the precariousness of life, and his obsession with Yvette narrowed his worldview. Given his shrinking perspective and growing uncertainty, Salim looked upon Raymond’s loyalty to the President as a kind of code that provided him with a sense of certainty and purpose. Yet Salim’s respect for Raymond’s code also proves deeply ironic since Salim recognized Raymond’s foolishness. His unflinching loyalty to a man who no longer cared about him in return may have given Raymond a sense of purpose, but that purpose could only ever be illusory. Thus, even as Salim longed for the kind of certainty Raymond possesses, he also realized that such certainty had no foundation in reality.

The ambiguous status of the President’s “cult of the African madonna” underscores a deeper tension between indigenous African spirituality and foreign religion. As Raymond explained, the cult of the African madonna emerged to honor the memory of the President’s mother and the sacrifices she made to ensure her son’s success. Whereas Raymond defended this “extraordinary cult” as a reflection of the President’s grandiose ideas about redeeming the status of African women, critics of the President dismissed the shrines as humorous parodies of Christian iconography. In Christianity, a “Madonna” (Italian for “my lady”) is a visual representation of the Virgin Mary. Icons of the Madonna honor the mother of Jesus Christ and provide believers with devotional images that can provide comfort and aid in prayer. For many people the notion of an African Madonna merely exemplified the increasing influence of a foreign religion throughout the continent. The critique of the African madonna recalls the conversation in Chapter 7, when Ferdinand asked whether Christianity had “depersonalized” Africans, and Indar dismissed the question as pointlessly sentimental. The divergent reactions to the African madonna cult express a similar difference of opinion.

The suddenness with which the town’s economic boom ends once again highlights the novel’s preoccupation with the cycles of history. When the influential Greek business owner Noimon left town, others in the business community understood his act as a sign that the period of growth they’d experienced since the conclusion of the last rebellion had ended. Even Mahesh, who initially clung to his optimism, eventually submitted to the sobering realization that the town was going downhill. The downturn ignited Salim’s old anxieties, recalling the beginning of the novel when Salim arrived in an economically depressed town that had just experienced one rebellion and would soon find itself wrapped up in a second one. Already at that time, Salim recognized the reality of economic boom-and-bust cycles. The letter he received from Nazruddin further cemented the lesson, recounting as it did the explosion of tribal violence in what had previously been a peaceful Uganda. Yet despite his clear understanding of the cycles of history, Salim remained paralyzed. Unlike Nazruddin, who fled to Canada to escape the violence, Salim could not find a way out of his situation.

The speech the President delivers over the radio sheds light on his increasing popularity and hints at potentially dangerous changes in his politics. When they listened to the President, both Salim and Metty felt immediately connected to both the language and the style of his speech. The politician’s use of a simplified pidgin influenced by several African languages gave his speech widespread appeal since everyone in the country would be able to understand him. Furthermore, he relied heavily on a particular stylistic tic that generated anticipation among listeners and therefore kept their attention. Yet despite the accessibility of the President’s language and the allure of his style, his speech also hinted at changes to his political outlook. For one thing, the President’s careful elimination of all elements of the colonial tongue, French, indicated an increasing rejection of all things foreign. In terms of the novel’s plot, this change foreshadows the President’s eventual nationalization of all foreign-owned businesses. Additionally, when the President repudiated the Youth Guard and announced his decision to banish its members to the bush, he spoke with animated cruelty that showcased a strain of vindictiveness in his personality, which betokened future violence.

 

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