Tram 83 and the tang of sulphur
Tram 83, as a bar or club in a part of Africa called the ‘Ville- Pays’- ‘Town- Country’- is the focus of nightmare, is like Hieronymus Bosch’s depiction of Hell- is a mirror to, a disturbing metaphor for, a continent. Mabanckou, the subject of a previous Reading Group, gives us, in comparison, a prosaic and tame family album; with Mujila, we are allowed a shocking poetry, a terrible insight into the grim heart of Africa, through the device of Tram 83.
The book starts in a train station- the ‘Gare du Nord’- where everything is run down and chaotic and brutal. Amidst the debris of a nation, where people are no better than jackals, Lucien meets Requiem. The relationship between the two is one axis around which the novel turns, the other being, of course, the infamous Tram 83. Fornication and death, betrayal and blackmail, prostitution and writing, all become part of a Hogarthian melee. Is Lucien coolly and objectively recording what is around him, in his notebook, or is he as swept up and taken over by the seedy decadence as everyone else? Is Requiem, the worldly wise friend, fated, with all his shady endeavours, to play with and then abandon the semi- naïve, Candide- like Lucien, a milksop figure concerned only about his scribbling at the expense of having a real life? Perhaps Requiem is a character in the Mephistopheles mould, an unsavoury blackmailer full of brimstone quotes such as: ‘chacun pour soi, la merde pour tous.’ This book, to repeat, encourages us to witness all the comings and goings at the core of Hell.
The novel does not entirely work. The characters- such as Lucien, the not- yet- successful playwright- and Requiem- are possibly two- dimensional and underdeveloped, and the book’s plot can remind one, not always happily, of the very brashest sort of ‘Bande Dessinee’. But the focus throughout on the club that is called Tram 83 seems to provide the book with a running thread, a ‘leitmotiv’, even if at times one feels one is looking at hand- me- down Houllebecq, with the intention to shock of Houllebecq, but not always the same verve. Still, Mujila, the author, appears able to give us a nice manipulation of phrase; his diction could be said to be poetic, indeed in a startling, stabbing, scoffing manner. For example, in reference to torture: ‘Or, la torture est avant tout un art, une discipline artistique au meme titre que la literature, le cinema ou la danse contemporaine.’ The acidic laughter of irony is one way to pour scorn on something as terrible as torture. Sentences such as this one, and dialogue that is pithy and cutting, indicate we will not be presented with the cute/ self- regarding humour found in Mabanckou. The laughs, if we can describe them as such, are definitely full of deliberate torment. The comparison with Hieronymous Bosch’s triptych, ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, seems very appropriate. Mujila, the same as Bosch, contrasts the all- devouring pursuit of sex, seeming bright and ecstatic, in the club, Tram 83, the site of cabaret, booze and whores, with the darkness of Hell, its deformations and manipulations and essential all- consuming torture. The sham pleasures of the Tram 83 are in bitter contrast with the desolation of the train station (a repeated theme), the darkness of the mines, the rebellions, for some probably insincere ideology, the dictatorship, the pain and peril embracing Central Africa.
The prostitutes in Tram 83 are graded according to age- from the ‘canetons’, under 16, to the ‘filles- meres’ between 20 and 40, to the ‘femmes- sans- age’ above 41. This sort of acidic categorization confirms Mujila as a thorough cynic. As I pointed out, with a pained shyness, to the Reading Group, prostitution runs through this novel the same as the lettering through a stick of rock.
November had galloped along, with all its usual frosty unpleasantness, the sweet heat of Summer was now left behind, leaves were scattered around South Kensington’s parkland and the concrete roads, and we, the victims of late autumn’s clouds and frosts, were gathered in the salons to discuss a new novel originating in Francophone Africa. The moderator was M. Dominic Glynn, from London University, returning to the Reading Group after an absence, and he was accompanied by the translator of the novel into English, who had actually met and consulted with the author, Fiston. We thus were discussing not only the book, but also the process of translation, a thing that is far from easy- going and care- free, even if the intention would seem to make the finished task as natural and smooth as possible. The translator said the French deployed in the novel was basically classical, though I pointed out later there was some element of argot in it. He added that he usually translated just ordinary text books or ‘coffee table’ tomes from English into French, but ‘Tram 83’ had been the first novel he had worked on. It is also Mujila’s first novel. The translator had been himself involved in theatre, as was Fiston, and Lucien is of course a playwright, albeit one without much convincing success, in ‘Tram 83’. M. Dominic Glynn pointed out the translation had been nominated for the Booker prize. The author has asked the translator to work on the next novel Fiston produces.
One recalls the cliché that every first novel is autobiographical. ‘Tram 83’ shows how Lucien’s concern for literature has something naïve about it in a world where dream and hope are soon tarnished. Mujila may have identified with Lucien, to a degree. There is surely an embittered hint of Voltaire’s ‘Candide’; Lucien resembles Voltaire’s eponymous hero/ victim in all sorts of bizarre scenes, the viciousness of human actions being emphasized as against the futility of idealism and ideology. ‘Tram 83’ is worldly satire, convinced that ‘civilization’ is an illusion and a sham.
This could be described as a schoolboy novel, in that the plot is not particularly inspiring, and the concentration on sexuality feels merely ‘teenage’ and can become tedious. But what appears to redeem ‘Tram 83’ is that, where Mabanckou is prosaic, and, ultimately, dull, Mujila seems overwhelmingly- and slyly- poetic, in imagery and language. Fiston’s references to the horror that is prostitution are not about titillation, but are a terrible metaphor for the way Africa willingly sells herself, to colonial meddlers from Europe in the past, to its own dictators nowadays, to China in the future. The translator stated that the book’s comments on prostitution are both a realistic record of what occurs in Africa, and a ghastly metaphor for the continent’s exploitation. An audience member, who had been in Africa in the 1970’s, said prostitutes had indeed been common there; however, with the advent of HIV and AIDS, the trade in female sexuality became a lot less alluring. The translator responded that ‘Tram 83’ should have included the effect of the AIDS epidemic. Mujila does mention sexually transmitted diseases, but in a general way, and briefly (they are included in lists of causes of death for the various groups who attend the club that is Tram 83. Death is just another guest at Tram 83). ‘Vous avez l’ heure’ is a repeated sentence of sexual soliciting in the book. Requiem, that personification of weary sarcasm, describes to Lucien the women of the ‘Ville- Pays’, who attach themselves to a man with fake friendly passivity, only to seek money for drink, food, and transport after bed: ‘… mets ta jambe comme ca, pose ta main droite sur mon ventre, fais comme si j’ etais ton cheval… recule, avance, recule…’ Here the author is condemning the banality of exploitation, both of womanhood, and of Africa as a whole.
There is definitely a whiff of sulphur about this book. The mixture of sexuality, torture and blackmail with quotations from the Bible, which are frequent, must be intended to make the reader uneasy. The quotation that prefaces the book is a manipulation of Genesis: ‘Tu mangeras par la sueur de tes seins’. That is, ‘You will eat by the sweat of your breasts’ (the implication being to depend on prostitution) rather than ‘You will eat by the sweat of your brow.’ The latter sentence is God’s admonishment to Adam and Eve after the Fall. Africa has long ceased to be any sort of Eden. Mujila’s warping of the Bible is typical of his view, like Houllebecq’s, of humanity as essentially, starkly irredeemable. Ideology- Christian or communist- is mocked pitilessly in ‘Tram 83’.
The first page, which the translator (and, incidentally, I also) seemed to find exciting, gives us, aswe have already noted, the impression of lives in decay- we are transported to the ‘Gare du Nord’ (The North railway station),built by Stanley, turned by attacking shells into a crowded wreck where people as predators do everything from making love to defecating. We are situated by Mujila at his novel’s start in the Third World and its anarchy. Again and again, Mujila is playing, very uncomfortably for us readers, with symbols. The run down rail network is the symbol- or the actuality- of the rottenness within Africa, the moral gangrene that the author details so venomously.
I commented, with my usual sad nervousness, that the book appeared, to a degree, a prose poem. Phrases and sentences are repeated through the work, to give it a sense of unsettling eerie resonance. Often, the episodes in the novel may be seen not so much as part of a plot, as far from polite metaphors on the problems of Africa- corruption, tribalism, dictatorship, vulnerability to foreign encroachment. For example, the closing by the general of the mines when his erectile dysfunction becomes inconvenient is an example of Mujila’s delightfully nasty satire. Here, he is lampooning the brutal narcissism, the all- destructive pettiness, inherent in the character of a dictator, in a manner that again recalls Voltaire’s ‘Candide’.
As the Reading Group neared its close, the translator gave us a reading from the novel in the style of Fiston, with whom he had collaborated to produce the version in English. The translator seemed to have all the velocity of jazz and rap as he careered loudly through the French sentences, and he showed that there is a certain joy in the energy of the book’s style, however depressing issues such as prostitution must be. I concluded that ‘Tram 83’ is about not just the tragedy of Africa, but the sadness too of all humanity. The whole world is in Tram 83, and the whole world is perpetually weak and wrong.
This Reading Group appeared to give us insight into how a novel is wrenched from one language into another. The translator said he had a dictionary by his side while he toiled, and his manifest fascination with the work permitted him to trudge arduously through page after page as he shifted a piece I found difficult to read out of French into English. Above all, he seemed to have benefited from working in a two- man team with ‘Fiston’, whom he saw as a friend from Africa and whose personality he evidently understood. Of course, when a writer is dead, it is impossible for the translator to work with him or her in the flesh- but the translator will surely fail who does not have some grasp of the soul of the author being addressed. For example, in translating Baudelaire, it is not only the poet’s words, but also the poet’s heart and life- force (eventually so awfully crushed in Baudelaire’s case) that need to be conveyed.
The Reading Group was terminated. We ambled downstairs, eventually into the cold of South Kensington’s streets. The weather was freezing, all too much like death itself. The pulsating heat, the adorable anarchy, of Tram 83 were alas very far away.
ZEKRIA IBRAHIMI (AGED 57)