Dreaming Jungles

by Michel Rio

In 1913, a young scientist finds himself changed after an affair with Lady Jane Savile, the leader of an English expedition, and several months alone in the African wilderness

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Michel Rio is a french writer born in Brittany and who spent his childhood in Madagascar. He lives in Paris.

He studied semiology and published his first novel in 1972.

With more than twenty novels published, is body of work spans genres such as crime fiction, theater, essays, and short stories. His absolutely literary work, translated from the start in the United States, is now published in more than twenty languages.

Michel Rio has won several prizes (Prix du Roman and Grand Prix du Roman by the Société des Gens de Lettres, Prix des Créateurs, Premier Prix du C.E. Renault, Prix Médicis).

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A naturalist from France (the book is translated from the French) goes into the West African jungle to study chimpanzees. He’s a young scientist, from the upper class of course, an arrogant know-it-all and a cynic who manages to offend everyone he deals with. The year is 1913 and looming World War I and its outbreak provide bookends to the action in the novel.

The African setting with the elite white Europeans coming to study makes the novel a bit Conrad-esque. The scientists’ camp is like an African colonial city in miniature with a European sector --- large individual tents -- and an African one – squalid group quarters. And of course, “camp” may be a bit of a misnomer since the wealth of the white Europeans provides them with all the luxuries of home – even fine dining by candlelight with food served by African cooks and waiters.

The camp is run by a beautiful, sexually liberated British woman scientist. Around the table the conversation is elaborate and focused on topics of evolution, science, altruism, consciousness, biology and the role of art. Dinner is a chance for the Europeans to joust intellectually by showing off their verbal dexterity. It’s a stretch to hear these folks talk to each other in mini-lectures, but we get things like “I really do not understand why we insist on systematically attributing to the mind what we consider noble in ourselves and to instinct what we consider base. It recalls the foolishness of dualistic philosophies which postulate a radical difference of essence between the soul and body.”

The man and the woman develop a relationship that reverses stereotypical roles. He quickly falls in love with her but she sees him as a sex object and tries to intellectualize their relationship. Here’s an example of some of the things she says to him (good break-up lines if you need them): “You make me feel vulnerable and scattered. Every day you are more and more of a burden on my mind. It comes at the wrong time. I would like to free myself of you, in vain. You are an unwelcome emotion for me, a pleasure that drives me to despair. I believe this amorous distraction is the main cause of my failure, and perhaps of my weakness in the face of illness.”

Faced with this hostility and to prove himself to her, the male scientist goes off for a year entirely on his own to live with and study the chimpanzees. This is his “year without words” and it changes his attitude, we might say.

This is a very short book (112 pages) and low-plot – pretty much what’s outlined above; the one bit of suspense being: do they stay together or not? It’s a good read but the blurbs are overblown: “incredible intensity,” “a classic,” “a perfect book.” Good, but not THAT good.

[Bart Hill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wouldn't have bought this book if it hadn't been on clearance for $3.00. Wouldn't have read the book if I hadn't taken it on a long plane ride. Wouldn't have finished the book if I could have used it to start a fire on the plane.

[Timmy Cham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rio's (translated) prose is definitely on-point for
the era he's portraying (1913). That said, my
critique falls into two parts:

[1]
Many novels excel because of their
supple use of language to depict events or
characters (and their evolution).

Not in this novel. The characters rarely receive
description; all we learn about the main love
interest of the book, Lady Jane Savile, is that
she pleasures herself on the first date, she
speaks "ironically," and she demands sex
from the book's protagonist. Beyond that,
the reader isn't given an inkling of specific
insight for the protagonist's orgasmic reaction
to her. Rather, Rio relies on flatulent
generalizations:

She seemed happy, and I wondered whether
this stemmed from action, closeness to the
experiment, and the hope of discovery, or
from an emotional state. There was a certain
melancholy in this question (p. 74)

Which brings us to the next quarrel with
the book. Remember how early writing
teachers told us, "Show, don't tell!"?
Well, one could make a drinking game
out of violations of this yardstick:

"...experience tended to show me that
an organism was not the simple support,
the slave of its own genes, subject only to
their will to propagate themselves (pp. 98-99)

Really? How, pray tell, did
"experience" tend to "show" this?
Examples? Ironically, the novel's
protagonist is on a one-year safari
to observe the behavior of chimpanzees
--yet there's only one slender episode
where he actually observes
the chimps he's supposed to be
studying (pp. 100-101)! Then again,
perhaps this paucity of detail is to be
expected when an author tries to cram
10 months of events into a bare 13 pages
(pp. 87-102)!

Even more frustrating, the protagonist
returns from his 10-month foray with
"an enormous bundle of ink-blackened
papers" which are said to be "the results
of [his] observations" (p. 105). What a
shame that none of them bled their way
into the protagonist's masturbatory
reveries!

[2]
But maybe this is to measure the novel
by the wrong yardstick. Perhaps Rio
intends his book as a "novel of ideas,"
rather than a novel of events or characters.
The book's inside flap indeed bills it as
"a brilliant novel of ideas."

Problem is, the book falls flat on that score,
as well. For starters, the author doesn't win
a knowledgeable reader's trust by putting an
anachronistic understanding of evolution theory
into the mouths of his characters. The characters'
vocabulary and conceptualization are more in
line with the modern synthesis understanding
of evolution-cum-genetics of the 1930s,
rather than the understanding of Darwin's theory
afoot in 1913. As a result, Rio's characters' dialogues
on evolution ring anachronistically false (pp. 57-61, 68-72)

Rio also has one of his characters suggest the
theory (now known as) "kin selection" (pp. 69-70)
This again seems anachronistic, since the theory
of kin selection wasn't really in realistic currency
until much later than 1913.

Most amusingly, Rio has one of his characters
ape the well-debunked allegation
that Darwin's theory is a tautology (p.59).
Astonishingly, none of the other interlocutors
point out this sophistry's fatal flaw. In
light of Rio's failure to grasp the state of Darwin's
theory afoot in 1913, one wonders whether the
author himself is scientifically literate enough to
realize the error of the "tautology objection."
This is not a good sign for a book pretending
to be a "novel of ideas."

Anyhow, by now I've flogged this horse to
death 10 times over. On to another book...

[Leo W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The negative reviews here on Goodreads I find perplexing. I thought this delightful.

[Meter]

Hyper psychological. Sounds intellectual. Overall boring and silly.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh- overall, a bit to full of snobbery for my tastes, but seeing through that, interesting look at the psychology of narcissist transformed.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short book, except for the dull philosophical dinner.