Rousseau and the Trial of Diara (Ch. 7-8)


The character of Tiemoko surprises me in these two chapters.  Based on his characterization earlier in the novel, I expected him to be a hot-headed thug, a brute.  And Ousmane carefully describes Tiemoko as being physically large and intimidating, with a "bull neck seeming more massive than usual." (79)  Tiemoko simmers with rage at the strikebreaker Diara, and Ad'jidbid'ji still regards him with an unexplained hostility. 

But Tiemoko is more than a two-dimensional ball of anger and physical power.  In these two chapters, we see him borrow the novel La Condition Humaine from Bakayoko.  This novel depicts the failed socialist insurrection in Shanghai in the 1920s, which creates a hint of foreshadowing that Tiemoko is hoping for mor than just increased pay and pensions, but eventually the liberation of Senegal from French colonial rule. 

The transition from a less organized system of justice to a formal legal system is a key step in the development of civilization, according to Rousseau:  "The obedience to a law we proscribe to ourselves is liberty." (The Social Contract, 196).   Here we see Tiemoko try to impose more formal justice on Diara through his reading of a French novel about a Chinese rebellion.  This complicates Rousseau's idea of the noble savage:  Tiemoko is using the tools of other cultures to try to gain leverage in the eyes of the Senegalese against the French. 

God's Bits of Wood Ch. 5-6

There is no way that I would survive the strike.  Maybe it's the level of comfort that I'm used to, but I find the descriptions of famine and thirst in these chapters heartrending. 

"Real misfortune is not just a matter of being hungry and thirsty; it is a matter of knowing that there are people who want you to be hungry and thirsty - and that is the way it is with us." - Ramatoulaye (p. 53).

To me it is interesting that there is no talk of trying to expel the French from Sengal.   They have reached the point in the colonial experience where the French and Senegalese peoples fates are inextricably bound up together.  You see this when the men think with longing of "the machine", the railroad that the French have brought to their country, but which seems to define the Senegalese men's lives.

I just taught another post-colonial novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which is set in Nigeria.  The difference between the two stories is that Things Fall Apart relates some of the first experiences that the native Africans have with white missionaries.  There is a lot of shock, misunderstanding, and violence.  In God's Bits of Wood, on the other hand, we see a country later on in colonialism, under the control of a frustrated and weakened colonial power.  Keep in mind that the French were in many ways humiliated by the Germans in World War II.  

God's Bits of Wood, Chapters 3-4

The most striking hardship the Senegalese people would have to endure was the lack of water.

"From beneath the mouth of the fountain stretched a queue of weirdly dissimilar objects, over a hundred feet in length.  There were old baskets, frying pans, big stones, earthenware jugs; and each object represented the place in line of a family . . . Now the trenches were dried out and filled with refuse, old rags and bits of paper, and the skeletons of rats, decomposing in the sun." (46)

I have been extremely thirsty with no water; every summer I hike a section of the Appalachian Trail, and, two years ago I was hiking a stretch of the trail in Virginia where all of the springs were marked as contaminated.  I had half a bottle of water and 10 miles to hike to the next possible water source.  This was in late June in 90+ degree temperatures.  The effect was more psychological than physical; my thirst seemed to take on a new dimension because I had no way to slake it.  Once my water was gone, I compulsively tried to drink every last drop of moisture from my Nalgene.

It is important to understand how merciless the French are in dealing with the strike.  While they want to avoid violence, they are fine with cutting off food and water supplies.  They don't even consider addressing the workers' demands.  The French administrator Dejean seems to be the clear antagonist in this story.

God's Bits of Wood Chapters 1-2

This is exciting.  Reading a new novel is a bit like visiting a new country - one is never sure how accessible the world of the novel will be to the visitor.  Many stories require a lot of background knowledge in order to really understand their important ideas. 

I know next to nothing about French colonialism in Northwest Africa, but there are some details I noticed and questions I have after reading the first two chapters:

1)  The natives make reference to the Koran and speaking in Arabic.  What is the history of Islam in the region?  Are most people Muslim?
2)  The railroad seems to be the main economic engine in Senegal.  Looking at the map at the beginning of the book, the main line connects the interior of the country with the coast.  Is the railroad used for exporting raw materials from the countryside?
3)  There seems to be a generation gap between the younger men who are eager to strike and the older men who plead caution.  Niakora also seems upset that the younger women and Ad'jibid'ji tend to disregard her.

Crime and Punishment's Unsatisfactory Ending

Dostoevsky wants to save Raskolnikov, his greatest literary creation. By "save", I mean both literally save his life (Raskolnikov does not follow the path to suicide of Svidrigailov), and redeem his soul in a religious sense.

Whether you buy into these ideas or not, the final chapters and epilogue are a jarring shift from the psychological drama of the rest of the book. I do sympathize with and understand Raskolnikov's redemption through his contemplation of nature and his relationship with Sonia. Perhaps my dissatisfaction with the abrupt shift in tone at the end of the novel comes from its sudden compression of time. In St. Petersburg, we see the minute details of Raskolnikov's thoughts and actions, whereas in prison, we are left to believe that these profound changes could happen over a longer span of time.

Maybe it's my own lack of faith that makes me skeptical about Raskolnikov's complete redemption. To me, nothing in life is that simple. Rodion's and Sonia's lives will not get any easier upon his release from prison. They will, however, probably be better able to cope with life's miseries because of their religion and their mutual devotion.