payment page
Summary
Chapter 4: Safari
Lou Kline, his children Rolph and Charlie, and his girlfriend Mindy are on an African safari with some hangers-on from the music business, a bassist named Chronos and an actor named Dean. One evening, as they all sit around a bonfire and Lou and Mindy canoodle, Rolph asks Charlie if she remembers a vacation they took with their mother to Hawaii. The children try to make Lou uncomfortable, and they succeed. Lou has been divorced twice and has two other children back in LA.
A group of Samburu warriors arrives, and Charlie draws close to them because she recognizes one, a young man with scarification on his chest. He smiles at her. The narrator steps aside from Lou’s story for a second to inform the reader that the young man will die in tribal warfare, but his grandchild will study robotics at Columbia and marry an American. While Charlie watches the warriors, Lou takes Rolph for a walk, telling him that women are all crazy. Lou asks if Rolph likes Mindy, and Rolph says he does. The narrator says that if Lou were an introspective person he would realize how much he valued his son’s thoughtfulness. When they return to camp, Rolph expects Charlie to be asleep but finds her awake and crying, wondering where he and Lou went.
The next day, they travel towards the hills, and the narrator focuses on Mindy. Mindy is an anthropology PhD student at UC Berkeley and thinks of everything in theoretical terms. When the travel agent is rude to her, it’s “structural resentment,” as is Charlie’s distrust of her. She knows that her relationship with Lou is probably temporary, but she isn’t sure what she should do about it, or about her attraction to the tour guide Alfred. The next day, Albert drives the group through the savannah and stops near a pride of lions. Everyone stands up through the sunroof to look, but Mindy and Albert stay inside the car. Albert tells Mindy he wants her, and Mindy says that she’s stuck with Lou for the moment. Chronos gets out of the car to snap some pictures of the lions and is attacked by a lioness. Albert shoots the lioness, and later gets a hero’s welcome when the group returns home and heads to the bar. Rolph and Charlie find some other children at the bar and sneak outside. Rolph returns and Mindy offers to put him to bed, but Rolph senses the electricity between Mindy and Albert and angrily says he can tuck himself in.
A few days later, the group heads to Mombasa to relax on the beach. Lou is proud of how good his body looks, and he disdainfully notes Chronos’ sagging belly. Rolph and Charlie talk and conclude that Mindy and their father aren’t in love; Rolph struggles to understand this, as he adores Lou. Lou takes Rolph swimming, and Rolph tells him about the awkward moment with Albert in order to punish Mindy. Later that night Rolph and Charlie discuss the possibility that their father will actually marry Mindy, and Rolph tells Charlie how much he hates the idea. The story then flashes forward to the future abruptly, explaining that Charlie will join a cult, Mindy and Lou will marry and then divorce, and Rolph will commit suicide at the age of 28.
Analysis
This chapter closely examines gender, the idea of the male gaze, and inescapability of fate. Set against the backdrop of an African safari, the chapter follows Lou Kline, his girlfriend Mindy, and his children Rolph and Charlie, alongside a few hangers-on of Lou’s. Lou is a powerful music executive whom the reader has briefly met in a previous chapter as Jocelyn’s boyfriend. Time-jump moments like this are a little disorienting, as Rhea’s story happens after the events in this chapter. Lou’s presence in this chapter seems confusing and out of context, but just as in real life, his character soon takes up all the air in the room. Even though this story’s protagonist is Rolph, the chapter is largely about Lou.
Lou thinks the world is his oyster, as he believes he controls his fate through his charm and influence. It is true that he’s had a reasonably charmed life up until this point, as his wealth and power enable him to act in whatever way he’d like with very few consequences. Because this chapter occurs somewhere around the 1960s, workplace and domestic politics would have meant that Lou’s power over the women and children around him was absolute. His dismissive attitude towards his children and girlfriend reflects this sense of invincibility. When he speaks to Rolph about women, he’s not trying to educate his son about how to understand them or live harmoniously with them. Instead, Lou tells Rolph that all women are crazy, but that Rolph’s own mother “is not crazy enough.”
Lou’s character is contradictory, because though he’s intelligent and sensitive enough to win over even the suspicious Rhea, this chapter makes it clear that everything he does has an ulterior motive. Because he wields a lot of influence, the people around him tolerate his brashness and chauvinism. At this point in the novel, Lou is the quintessential trope of the overpowered, hypersexual media executive. However, the randomness of fate in the novel does eventually turn on Lou. The overall tone of the chapter is grim and foreboding, as Rolph tells the story of his trip on the safari with real fear and sadness in his voice. The reader can see how confused and disappointed he is by his father’s behavior. The narrator actively intervenes here, telling the reader that the failure of communication between these two is a contributing factor to some horrible tragedy approaching: “If [Lou] were an introspective man, he would have understood years ago that his son is the one person in the world with the power to soothe him. And that, while he expects Rolph to be like him, what he most enjoys in his son are the many ways he is different: quiet, reflective, attuned to the natural world and the pain of others.”
Lou lacks the introspection his “quiet, reflective” son seems to have been born with. It seems like a cruel twist of fate that that quality belongs to the child and not the parent. Rolph’s need for understanding and support are clearly not being met by either his father or Mindy. It’s a narrative that foreshadows a grim future for the entire family, but particularly for Rolph, who is destined to commit suicide at 28. This tragic end calls attention to the idea that destiny is an uncontrollable force that eventually catches up with everyone. It doesn’t matter that Lou has lived badly and Rolph has lived thoughtfully; in this book, fate pays no mind to morality.
