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The Radiance of the King New York Review Books Classics Camara Laye Toni Morrison Books

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The Radiance of the King New York Review Books Classics Camara Laye Toni Morrison Books

Realistic portrayal of African life from the point of view of an African writer. A whole different perspective of village life. A brilliant development of character as the lone White man comes to grips with African society and way of life to finally find acceptance and peace. A beautiful book in terms of writing, plot, and theme.


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The Radiance of the King New York Review Books Classics Camara Laye Toni Morrison Books Reviews

Although Toni Morrison's introduction to this book raves about its unique character and its genius, to me the introduction is more about the deeply thoughtful mind of Toni Morrison and not about this book. I found the main character, Clarence, to be rather shallow and naive and uninteresting, which is why my interest was not able to be sustained throughout its narrative. I understand this work was published in 1954, which makes its author a revolutionary in even conceiving of it, but for me it is allegorical and is teaching an object lesson to white civilization about African civilization. And that lesson is hammered home on every page until finally there is an understanding reached. I think I get it.
Perhaps it's me, but I just can't read novels that are constructed in this way. They are too didactic, too unliterary. I'm sorry Mr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., but I am a lover of literature and I did not admire or enjoy this book. But I do appreciate its historical and sociological importance, and for that alone I gave it 3 stars.
This book is a wild trip. The main character is a white French man, living in an unidentified African setting (although the author must have been inspired by his Guinean background), who is totally broke. We don't know anything about his backgrounds, his reasons for being in Africa, or his prior professional occupations. Rejected by the French community, he is bummed. To get out of his misery, he wants to meet a mysterious African king, and apply for a position as advisor at the court. In his quest to find the king, the white man gives up his 'white' identity, and gets in touch with a variety of weird and fascinating characters an old griot, two annoying boys, a mad village priest. During his journey, 'regular' situations rapidly degenerate into eery hallucinations.
One of the things I especially liked in this breathtaking literary masterpiece was that Camara Laye didn't emphasize human weaknesses of a white oppressor (like Oyono enjoys doing, although I like Oyono a lot); Laye didn't try to denounce Colonialism as a system either, like Cheikh Hamidou Kane or Pramoudya Ananta Toer have done (quite well, of course) - I think that a novel is not the most suited platform to do that characters quickly tend to become boring academic abstractions rather than interesting people and the literary power of the work suffers. Instead, Laye gradually "forgets" the whiteness of his main character, emphasizing the humanity of all players.
Anyway, Camara Laye's "The radiance of the king" (I read the original French "Le regard du roi" - I can only hope the translation is just as good) is a truly unique book in style and content. Definitely a must-read!
Clarence is a European with a gambling debt, who has been austracized by his countrymen in an ambiguous place in colonial Africa and without anything more than the clothes on his back. He is determined to meet the king, thinking that the monarch will certainly take him in as a "worldly" advisor. When initial attempts to catch the king's attention fail, Clarence is lead south by an old beggar and two young boys to await the king, who will be touring this area of his dominion. Time passes as Clarence waits, and as this happens our young and arrogant hero becomes a more humbled through a series of events deep in the forested South.

This story was intriguing to me, and it reminded me very much of Alejo Carpentier's "The Lost Steps" with the theme of a man arrogantly thinking he is capable of anything, but whose ignorance is exposed once he is taken out of the culture and environment he is accustomed to.

There is a twist in the plot of the story which surprised me, but I think some readers would see it coming a lot earlier than I did. There is a lot of symbolism that I completely missed until I read Toni Morrison's introduction after finishing the book. I wish I had read this for a book group because it would spark a great discussion!
Excellent,a must read.
satisfied
A beautiful book and frequently hilarious!
I read this biik 40 years ago and loved it to death. I returned to it over and over again until the pages were loose. Now I have a replacement copy and have returned to the volue and life affirming words of Camara Laye.
Realistic portrayal of African life from the point of view of an African writer. A whole different perspective of village life. A brilliant development of character as the lone White man comes to grips with African society and way of life to finally find acceptance and peace. A beautiful book in terms of writing, plot, and theme.