Book Review: Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019), by Marlon James

Upon reading the first 50 pages of the novel Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, a good friend of mine said: "Clearly a book this clever doesn't need me to read it." That somewhat accurately describes the way I feel about Black Leopard, Red Wolf. There may have been something very intellectual and advanced going on in this dark, violent, swirling, always difficult and at times excruciatingly confusing novel, but I don't think I "got" it. 

This book was a major slog. In fact, the only reason I read to the end of it was because I paid the full, brand-new hardcover price and had pre-ordered it from the bookstore back in like February or something. I remember trying to read it the day I got it and having some difficulty, then putting it down for about 8 months before giving it another try. If I'd rented it from the library I probably would not have felt the need to finish it. But when you've got $30 invested into a book, something compels you onward. 

As the first part of a trilogy said to be akin to an "African version of Game of Thrones" this book got a lot of fanfare, pre-release. Especially since Marlon James is one of the biggest names in contemporary English literature right now, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings and The Book of Night Women, probably his two best-known works. But I do not think what's actually on the page has lived up to the hype.

Told in a close first-person narrative, this highly-stylized fantasy story takes place in some far distant time-period of pre-colonial Africa and is chock-full of graphic violence, graphic sex (between every conceivable type of party, beware), strange mythical beings from African mythology, and humans with magical powers. The actual story follows the quest of the narrator, called Tracker, who is on a quest to find a missing boy. 

From a plot perspective, it would seem straightforward enough but James manages -- in nearly 600 pages -- to still not properly convey the importance or significance of the quest Tracker is on. Secondly, it's burdened with this hyper zoomed-in narrative style (since, technically, it's a story being told orally by a prisoner to a prison guard) which, for 75% of the book reads like: "This happened, then this happened, then this happened..." etc. etc. which makes you really tempted to tune out after about one paragraph and almost impossible to keep up what's going on at any one time. 

Furthermore, from a style perspective, Marlon James gives his characters this sort of purposely "broken" English (which doesn't quite make sense as they wouldn't be speaking English anyway) but it pervades so much of the book, even the narrator's speech, that it's at times excruciatingly difficult to read. 

During the parts of the book that were possible to comprehend and decipher, Marlon James does manage to create a truly dark, twisted, and utterly unique world, unlike any I've ever encountered on the page. But the book is so inconsistent, and the style so painfully heavy to read, that I can't help but feel like he completely missed the mark and missed an opportunity to really tell a good story. About two weeks after finishing this book, very little of it remains with me other than a few images and the general "feeling" of the world Marlon James created.

There is a large contingent of readers out there who contend that Marlon James's style, characters, and the deliberately confusing aspects of the story were all part of his attempt to mimic African mythology and folklore or something, and that his harsher critics aren't appreciating those aspects of the book. To me, that only works up to a point. You still have to write a good story and realize that no one is under any obligation to "get" anything you've written. I think this is probably the hardest part for readers to accept sometimes, that no matter how "intellectual" or "literary" a particular author is, or how "complex" or "highly nuanced" their tale is, sometimes a book just doesn't click with you or flat-out sucks...and that's okay.

All of that said, I may actually try and read the second book in the trilogy and see if it gets any better. Why? As a writer myself, and an avid reader, I do like to see someone taking chances, experimenting, and trying to move Literature forward in some way. For that effort alone I think Marlon James at least deserves to be paid attention to, if not praised, for Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Secondly, although the book had some very challenging "mechanical" problems, I must admit the upholstery, shall we say, of the world he created -- the tone, the setting, the overall texture -- was completely unique. I'd like to see if he can work out some of the other issues and write a more consistent, accessible book next time. But I probably won't be as determined to finish it if it's not clicking. There's only so much time in a day, after all.