Olympe Bhêly-Quénum

Benin.

This edition has a long, explanatory forward that includes multiple spoilers. Read it after reading the novel.

The first half of the novel flows nicely and is both coherent and somewhat existential. The latter portions are more disjointed, make less sense, and seem sloppier rather than suddenly artfully shifted to a different genre. As a whole, it reads as if the author set aside the manuscript for some time, then picked it back up and finished it without much reference to the style or tone of the first section. I found this problematic and uneven.… (mehr)

This is a story of the life of an African native, Ahouna, in what is now Benin but then was called Dahome (the same Dahome first written about by Sir Richard Francis Burton in his classic work). Ahouna lives an almost mystically beautiful yet realistic life until his early twenties when he starts to be plagued with challenges which leave him in the state in which the book begins. Ahouna's retrospective of his life to that point starts the book. Half-way into the book the reader is caught up to the current day, at which the story continues. While the story does have some contemporary plot twists, it is mostly written in the typical 19th and 20th century African style of a villager/farmer documenting events with sparse yet rewarding bits of dialogue. Ultimately a sad book with warnings for the reader, the novel is touching but not inspired.… (mehr)

This was a slightly oddly constructed book, split into halves that were almost unrecognisable from each other. In the first part the narrator recounts a meeting with Ahouna, a once proud man who has been broken by the events of his life. Ahouna tells the narrator his story, which involves struggling to make a living against the hardships of nature (locusts, floods, disease, etc.). Ahouna and his family overcome these obstacles, only to be undone by a faithless woman, who succeeds where nature failed, and destroys his life. It culminates in Ahouna committing a shocking act. This part is therefore told as a first person narrative using Ahouna's voice. The second part involved the narrator observing the aftermath of Ahouna's act, talking largely in the third person about what he is witnessing. In this part, the snares that have entangled Ahouna close in to stifle him, and we are witness to the ramifications of his crime.
Initially, I thought Bhely-Quenum (BQ) was a poor writer, because the narrative pace was jerky and clumsy. However, once Ahouna had finished telling his story the writing improved dramatically, leading me to assume that BQ was deliberately using an awkward style to reflect the fact that Ahouna's backstory was orally told in the book. As a narrative device it was a little disorientating, and I wondered if it was a deliberate mirroring of Joseph Conrad using the same thing in Heart of Darkness, which Snares Without End could conceivably have been a response to. The second half was much, much better, and a scene in which Ahouna is captured, and a thief and a priest abused, was full of fantastically grotesque imagery. It more than saved a book I was starting to feel negative about, and BQ started to really interest me as a writer.
I'm not sure I can rush to recommend Snares Without End, if only because similar themes have perhaps been addressed more expertly elsewhere (Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye spring immediately to mind), but I enjoyed this book. One to pick up if you come across it, rather than rushing to add to you wishlists, but worth a look all the same.… (mehr)