Fiction, 2018
Right before sitting down to write this newsletter, I was reading an essay for my History Sleuths class. It was about what it means to be in the midst of an event that fails to bear witness to itself. A situation that not only defies language, but subverts memory and time for experiences that are too horrific to plot into a timeline, or compress into a sentence. At its core, I think that’s what At Night All Blood Is Black seeks to unravel—the struggle between needing to tell, yet at every turn, failing to narrate.
I had to read the novel for my Postcolonial Literature class, and my professor gave us a warning beforehand. He said that when he read it (in the original French), it took him 3 months to finish, despite being only 150 pages. The story was so graphic, so fundamentally traumatising, that he couldn’t read more than a few pages in one go. Upon finishing it, I can understand why. If you’re looking for a light recommendation or a fun read, come back next week, for this is a masterclass in despair, blood, the loss of identity, and spilt guts.
We follow Alfa Ndiaye in the trench. It is WW2, and he is fighting for the French army against the Germans and has just watched his best friend—his more-than-brother—be brutally killed. And that is all I will say about the plot, partly because you don’t need to know more (the first page will reel you in), and partly because that is the extent of what happens.
I finished the novel in the metro on my way home, which I initially thought was the worst possible place to finish such a story. But upon reflection, it might have been the best. What Diop tries to show us is that we are not individuals and that there is no single story, there are only bodies. And what better everyday representation of that than the Delhi metro?
Song - The Show Must Go On - Pink Floyd (but all of The Wall actually)
Film - Apocalypse Now ( I know I’ve recommended this before but it’s a great film and it still works)