A history of (talking about) violence — African Psycho

How to discuss this without plot spoilers? How to enumerate everything Alain Mabanckou makes fun of in his inside-the-killer's-head novel African Psycho?

Mabanckou satirizes much: the novel's ne'er-do-well country, its talk-too-much protagonist, and the protagonist's neighborhood, He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot. The unnamed country's pontificating and sensationalistic media come in for some jabs, too, though Mabanckou is too wide-ranging a satirist to fall into the easy and fashionable media bashing so prevalent in America these days. He has just as much fun at the expense of credulous folks who crave the attention of those very same media.

Foremost among those attention seekers is the novel's protagonist and narrator, Grégoire Nakobomayo. African Psycho narrates Grégoire's plan to commit a murder that will elevate him to the stature of Great Master Angoulaima. That killer and rapist could, according to the legends that encrust his name, change his shape at will, among other supernatural properties, and Grégoire worships him, visiting the Great Master's grave to seek inspiration and to commune with his spirit. That spirit is unafraid to chide Grégoire for his feckless dawdling, and these ghostly, graveside scoldings provide several funny passages.

Grégoire settles upon a prostitute as his target, working his way up to the act with a hammer attack on a corrupt notary and real estate dealer and a sexual assault on a nurse. Both are described in some detail, and the latter especially may disturb some readers.

That's where the novel's title comes in. It plays off that of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, vilified for its affectless depictions of horrific violence. The culmination of African Psycho raises the question of whether such vilification is misplaced, whether it confuses literary depiction and legendary accounts of violent act with the acts themselves.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Alain Mabanckou

African Psycho

With a hat tip to Sandra Ruttan, I introduce you to African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou. Mabanckou was born in the Congo Republic (Brazzaville) in 1966 and studied law in Brazzaville and Paris. (He did this to please his mother, according to his Web site.)

He began publishing poetry while working for the French water company Lyonnaise des Eaux, and he came to the United States in 2001 to teach francophone literature at the University of Michigan. These days he teaches French, francophone studies and comparative literature at UCLA in Los Angeles.

African Psycho's title reveals one of its influences: Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho. (African Psycho is not a translated title. The book is also called that in its original French.) A borrowing like that reflects a sly sense of humor, a quality on ample display in the novel's opening pages.

The narrator, Gregoire, has decided to kill his girlfriend to make his mark in the world and to act in the spirit of the Great Master of crime Angoualima, "the most famous of our country's assassins." The country is not named, though there are several references to "the country over there" across the river. The grimness of Gregoire's task is mitigated by a humorous fussiness of his narration, a narration that stretches back to his beginnings in the neighborhood of He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot, toward which he displays if not affection, then at least a certain resignation. He is a protagonist of interest, and I will report back with more news of him.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Alain Mabanckou