Mount Pleasant

Cameroon #1

by Patrice Nganang, Amy Reid (Translation)

A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution.

In 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, a ruler cast into exile by French colonialists. Merely nine years old, she is on the verge of becoming the sultan's 681st wife. But when she is dragged to Bertha, the long-suffering slave charged with training Njoya's brides, Sara's life takes a curious turn. Bertha sees within this little girl her son Nebu, who died tragically years before, and she saves Sara from her fate by disguising her as her son. In Sara's new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya---a magical yet vulnerable community of artists and intellectuals---and learns of the sultan's final days in the Palace of All Dreams and the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had ever seen.

Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to learn about the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for years, ready to tell her story. But her serpentine tale, entangled by flawed memory and bursts of the imagination, reinvents history anew. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang's Mount Pleasant is a lyrical resurrection of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy to the people swept up in the forces of colonization.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Africa, Cameroon, African Literature, Book Club, Literary Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2011

Reviews

[Dagio_maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

”... intrecci di nomi, vite, destini”


E’ la solita storia: quattro sfigati europei finiscono in Africa.
Sfigati perché di solito i soggetti che si avventuravano in questi territori non erano uomini di gran successo in patria e allora chissà perché e chissà come finiscono in lande sperdute dove un uomo poteva avere una seconda possibilità spesso sulla pelle degli altri.

Nel caso specifico, sono quattro commercianti tedeschi che fanno firmare ai capi Doula un accordo di protettorato che di fatto – due giorni dopo- sancisce la nascita della prima colonia (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camerun...).

La storia del Camerun è quella di un territorio spezzato.

Originariamente per la presenza di oltre 238 gruppi etnici, poi con l’invasione europea che se ne litiga ogni briciola.
Germania, Francia e l'onnipresente Gran Bretagna: tutti a tavola e chi tira la tovaglia da una parte e chi dall’altra.
Yaoundé (città fondata dai tedeschi a fine ‘800) viene proclamata capitale del Camerun orientale francese; Buea, ex capitale coloniale tedesca, diventa la nuova capitale del Camerun occidentale britannico.

Insomma, un casino.

”La Storia è una Casa dei mille racconti. È una concessione composta da innumerevoli stanze, con passaggi, corridoi, varchi, porte e finestre; un labirinto, sì, un susseguirsi serpeggiante di catene della memoria, ma anche una casa su più piani”

Il romanzo del camerunense Patrice Nganang, è incentrato negli anni ’30.

Njoya, il sultano illuminato, è in esilio nella residenza di Mont Plaisant a Yaoundé quando arriva una nuova piccola" preda".
Sara a nove anni é costretta a lasciare sua madre per diventare l’ennesima moglie bambina (ne aveva solo 681!!!) del sultano.

Queste almeno le intenzioni iniziali.
Affidata alle mani esperte di Bertha, schiava addetta alla preparazione delle spose, Sara si trova di fronte ad un’inaspettata variazione di percorso quando la donna rivede in lei il figlio perduto.
Da quel momento, con pochi accorgimenti, si trasforma in un ragazzo: Sara diventa Nebu.

La voce che racconta questa storia è una voce del presente.
Una studentessa americana di origini camerunensi che si reca nel paese di origine in cerca di notizie per la sua tesi sul nazionalismo camerunense.
Si chiama Bertha: nome che riaprirà la bocca di Sara ormai novantenne e, fino a quel momento, decisa a non rivelare nulla del suo passato...

Sarò sincera ma l’apprezzamento a questo romanzo lo dedico più ai contenuti che allo stile.
L'amalgama tra Storia reale ed invenzione è ben composta ma é l’organizzazione del racconto a non essermi piaciuta.
Mi ha creato talmente tanti problemi nel seguire la storia che, ad un certo punto, mi sono lasciata trascinare pur di finirlo, il che non è esattamente una bella cosa ma forse l’unica per riuscire a girare l’ultima pagina:

”Ci sono storie che devono essere raccontate per soddisfare prima di tutto chi le racconta, unicamente per chi le racconta.
Dimentichiamoci per un attimo di chi ascolta.”

[Shelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are books that are inevitably going to be polarizing to their readers, not for their content, but rather for their style. Mount Pleasant is one such book, complicated by the fact that it is about a time and place (colonial-era Cameroon) not familiar to most Western readers. Therefore, it takes more effort than most modern consumers of fiction are used to expending on trying to comprehend and appreciate the novels they read, but I for one am glad that I did.

Mount Pleasant is a metaphorical novel, with layers impossible to count; which layers are inside which – not to mention what elements are the metaphors versus the actual root truths – are purposely indecipherable. On the surface is a story about a young Cameroonian girl, Sara, kidnapped as a tribute to the sultan at an early age, who unwittingly winds up standing in as the pseudo-reincarnation of a passionate artist, ripped too soon from his devoted mother, his adoring community, and the aforementioned sultan whose service he was in. It is also the story many others, in particular of two Berthas – one the caregiver of young Sara and the devastated mother of Nebu, the dead artist in whose image she remakes Sara, and the other, a modern-day American historian of Cameroonian origin who, nearly accidentally, meets the 100-year-old Sara in the present day. Bertha (the American one) has so many questions to ask of Sara, so much she wants to learn about the colonial days of Cameroon, specifically regarding Mount Pleasant, the palace/community-in-exile of the wise and kind yet pacifistic sultan trying desperately to fit his people into the rapidly-changing political landscape that was Cameroon in between the two world wars, where no fewer than three European powers were, in turn, its overseers. Yet Bertha also has access to information Sara craves – the truth behind her father, who was gone from her life when she was very small, and his role in historical events as well as his true disposition and honor.

And I think this is where and why the book loses people. Sara and Bertha's meetings are narrated by Bertha, not in a well-organized and structured way for easy digestion for us, the readers, but in actual, linear time, the way it would have happened, replete with non-sequiturs, tangents, gaps of memory, emotional shutdowns, interruptions by eavesdropping bystanders, and Bertha's own internal reflections. This is the most overarching of the books metaphors: memory is imperfect (especially if you are 100 years old); it meanders, it fills in some gaps inaccurately, it flows in fits and starts, it fixates on some details and ignores others, it is bound inextricably to emotions, it is repetitive, it jumps around in time.

So at its heart, Mount Pleasant is about memory – Sara's, the Bertha of yore's, Nebu's, the sultan's – and what can be gleaned from it by those doing the recounting, as well as contemporary/American Bertha, the youths listening in, modern Cameroon, us the readers, and the world at large.

This is indeed a challenging book in which to follow events of the story, but you will be rewarded by absolutely magical, lyrical writing – sparkling, poetic prose with quotes worth remembering on nearly every page. You'll also learn not just facts but also the flavors of Cameroonian history, skillfully evoked through detailed description, dialogue, and storytelling. The ending – or rather I should say endings, since there are so many individual threads that make up the fabric of this book – are dramatic, exciting, surprising, and in just the right places, sublimely delightful. It's not a book for all types of readers, but if you are not averse to investing some effort and patience into an unusual novel, you will find Mount Pleasant a profound treat.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of Goodreads Giveaways.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at about 40%. The plot device wherein we hear the main character's story through a narrative being told to another person (in this case, the first person narrator of the book) does not work in print. It just doesn't. In movies it can be an appropriate plot device because the filmmaker can actually transport you rather than having you watch one person tell another person a story (Titanic is the best example I can think of at the moment - it's Rose's story, which she is narrating to another person, but we don't see her narrating, we simply see her story acted out). In Mount Pleasant, and in every other novel I can think of where this plot device is used, it doesn't work that way. The flow is awkward and clunky, the dialogue is flat, the characters are flat, the story doesn't come alive. And ultimately it's unnecessary. Why use that plot device? Why not just cut out the middle man and either have the main character tell us the story herself in first person or simply narrate the story?

There were additional problems with this novel that kept me from being able to finish. Most of what I did read barely even touched on the main character's story at all. If the reader had been given the story promised by the blurb then I at least might have been able to suffer through the poor narrative plot device. However, so many pages were dedicated to the narrator telling us how interesting the MC's story was, and how much she had to tell, and how many things she had witnessed, and how many important people she met. These types of phrases were used repeatedly without ever really telling us anything about her life or her story. It was like listening to a Trump speech. "I have a plan and it's the best plan you've ever heard of before." Yes, but what is it. "Just trust me, it's an amazing plan and you will be so happy about this plan." You get the idea. The story could have been interesting but it just wasn't well written.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is different sort of novel about colonialism and culture than I've read before. Rather than focusing on what happened in a literal sense, this story circles around the early impacts of German, British, and French colonialism in what would become Cameroon. By focusing on the stories of Sara and Nebu, I got a different view of the rather nonsensical way that colonialism forced its way into the lives of ordinary people who were influenced by cultural exchanges and shifts between their own communities (as well as by Christian missionaries who are also described with a rather bemused eye).

The Sultan's story is also revealing in the way that Cameroonian leaders might have tried to adapt or weather the Europeans' insertion of themselves where they didn't belong - and the sometimes tragic ways that leaders tried to adapt to something they expected would be over soon enough.

The frame story - a historian interviewing the elderly Sara - provides the anchor and a level of joy and sadness in the discovery lost history, culture, and art. And the primary stories are told with a sort of nostalgic, sort of magical tone that memories might have when they are rarely spoken out loud.

Finally, another great thing about this book is that it describes historical figures like Sultan Njoya and Charles Atangana, even as it spins a fictional story instead of an exact historical account.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

“In Cameroon in 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, the Bamum leader cast into exile by French colonialists. Just nine years old and on the verge of becoming one of the sultan's hundreds of wives, Sara's story takes an unexpected turn when she is recognized by Bertha, the slave in charge of training Njoya's brides, as Nebu, the son she lost tragically years before. In Sara's new life as a boy she bears witness to the world of Sultan Njoya-a magical, yet declining place of artistic and intellectual minds-and hears the story of the sultan's last days in the Palace of All Dreams and of the sad fate of Nebu, the greatest artist their culture had seen.

Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to research the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for decades, ready to tell her story.“


I wanted to like this book. I truly did. There are just too many plots and sub-plots going on at the same time throughout too many years and places.

[Karen Ashmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

A student goes to Cameroon and interviews 95 year old Sara who tells her story of almost becoming the sultan's 681st wife at the tender age of nine years old, when Bertha, the wife trainer, transforms her into a boy to replace her dead son. From there the story catapults to Sara's myriad life experiences which are heavily tinged with magical realism and closely correspond to Cameroon's historical march through colonialism to become a free nation.

[Tien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too confusing to be totally enjoyable. Firstly the shift of perspective were rather random; I understand that they were telling past stories and there'd be bits of conversations between current characters but did that really have to be inserted in the middle of the 'stories'? There were at least 3 strands of past stories and because of the identity overlap, sometimes it confuses me at the beginning of the chapter as there is no indication of change in povs etc.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting story very well told.

[Damien Travel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had just landed for the first time in Cameroon at Douala airport, a Friday evening. Before working the following week in Yaoundé, I had organized to go during the weekend on top of Mount Cameroon, a 4040m high volcano, the highest point of West Africa. Arriving from the airport in Buea, the city at the foot of the volcano, I was surprised to see advertising billboards in English. In an instant, I was reminded that Cameroon is a bilingual country: French and English are the two official languages and English is the main language in the Southwest and Northwest regions. On the way to Mount Cameroon, leaving Buea, one also walks along the former residence of the German Governor. The country was indeed a German colony, and Buea its capital city from 1901 to 1919, before France and Great Britain shared the colony after World War I. Cameroon’s history, not well known, is not simple.
I didn’t think much about that complicated history as I was climbing up the mountain. It is a day and half ascent, without technical difficulties, but with very steep parts on the volcano’s cone, with the afternoon’s sun hitting in the back. After a short night in a rudimentary refuge, I reached the summit in the early morning, measuring my efforts because of the altitude, but enjoying a wonderful view all the way to the Gulf of Guinea.
I learned more about Cameroon’s history thanks to Patrice Nganang’s trilogy which I just finished. Living in the US where he teaches in a university in the state of New-York, this francophone Cameroonian’s novelist was arrested and detained in his home country for three weeks in 2017 because he had written in “Jeune Afrique” an article denouncing the repression by the regime of protests among the anglophone minority.
« Mount Pleasant (Mont Plaisant) » is the first novel in the trilogy. It is set in the early 30s, a few years after the French took over the colonial rule from the Germans. Sara, the central character, is interviewed at the end of her life by a young Cameroonian student who specially came from the US for that purpose. She tells her story and how in 1931, still a child, she was taken away from her family to be given as a present to Sultan Njoya, who was confined in residence in Mount Pleasant by the French colonial administration. But Bertha, the slave in charge of the girls’ education in the harem sees in her Nebu, the son she lost. She removes her from the harem and dresses her as a boy. Serving the sultan, she can discover the palace where he invites many artists to compete in creativity contests and where scholars try to revive a forgotten alphabet. But this brilliant microcosm is not much more than cultural smoke and mirrors since, outside the palace, it is the French colonial administration that dictates the law.

http://www.travelreadings.org/2021/11...

[Betsy T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel guilty saying I read this book because I only got about 35% through. I had to give up because I felt like I was plowing through it just to make it to the end, but not retaining anything. There is some really lovely writing in here, interesting storytelling with a lot of magical realism, and some interesting history about Cameroon. But for some reason the narrative just did not propel me forward, and I lost interest in the characters.

The main characters are Bertha, an American historian, and Sara, an old woman who was married off to a sultan but somehow ends up passing as a boy in the sultan's household. Bertha and Sara switch as storytellers throughout, telling seemingly unrelated stories about the sultan and Sara's father, an activist named Joseph. Other characters are featured In their stories and I'm sure more show up on later pages I didn't get to, but I couldn't figure out why any of them were related or mattered.

If I were reading this as part of a post-colonial literature class, I'm sure someone much smarter than I am could have pointed out themes to deepen my appreciation of the book. But, I'm just a Philistine reading for pleasure, so anything deeper eluded me. I'd definitely recommend that others read this book and give it a chance, especially those that enjoy magical realism (which I generally do not).

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I worked really hard for this book, but I do feel like my effort was mostly rewarded. It took me a long time to finally adapt to the writing style and organization, but I finally got there, I think. I definitely learned a lot of history, which I appreciated. Although I didn't love everything about this book, I think I'm even willing to try to tackle the sequel. I can understand readers who gave up on this one, but I'm glad I persevered.

[BECKY ROE]

I began with the same enthusiasm I try to apply to any book I read. I must admit I was not able to finish it. I just couldn't absorb any of the details necessary to enjoy a book. The writing just wasn't enjoyable. I felt as though I read for hours and had zero recall of what I read, which is contrary to the real me. It was repetitious; I tried so VERY hard to love it, I just couldn't.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very ambitious novel about a particular era in Cameroon's history told by a old woman who as a child, lived in the Sultan's court. It's more Salman Rushdie than James Michener - history by way fables, gossip and old wives tales - literally. For me, it fell apart at the end - but I appreciated what it was going for.

[Christa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I confess that Africa is blank space in my knowledge of the world, so this novel was a good introduction to how colonial regimes changed Africa in the 20th century. I was surprised at the positive feelings about Germany compared to dislike of the English and especially the French. It a complex story and I hope to read more of Nganang’s novels and essays.

[Valeria Spencer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I did not give it a fair shake, but I quit after 50 pages. The story was not compellingly told and was very repetitious. I do not recommend spending your time on this tale.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book had a lot of well written parts and a few parts that were not written well. I had a hard time with the history that had to do with colonists, which was written for me in a very dry robotic language that made it hard for me to understand. I find I understand history better when if is mixed in with a beautiful fictional story. Also I found it very difficult to relate to the Njoya in the book. I found him to be very distant. In the ending of the story when he gets mad because of the position that the colonists put him in was wonderful, and was the only time I so him as a human. Destroying the printed press was very artistic. The printing press represented all the good and bad that the colonist brought. Both of which are metaphorically connected together.The story of Sara was amazing. She explained how Bertha transformed her to look like a boy to remind Bertha of her boy that lived an interesting but complex life. I really enjoyed the story that involved Nebu, Nebus Dad, and Ngungua (Nebus Dads new wife, I probably butchered the name) . The sex scene with Nebu and Ngungua was artistic and beautiful. I also found it interesting how Nebu dad went around trying to find someone to hang him after finding Ngungua having sex with his son, and Ngungua telling him the she could never love a wrinkled up old man like him self. Nebu rise to fame to become a master of art was amazing. There was one scene when the author said that Nebu was so into sculpturing the palace that he didn’t care that the whole world around him was at war. I don’t understand why Nebu had to die. I really liked his character. The story about the story of Jesus was very crafty too. The teller of the story put Nije as Jesus would be betrayed by a man named Judus, and the people kept on talking wondering who this man was who would betray a Nije. At the end when Sara is exposed that she was for being Nebu a boy was a good way to tie both of the stories together with Jospeh Sara’s father and the past and the Nije. Josephs life in Berlin was well told. I particularly like the scene when he fights the three Germans in he alley, and he remembers his ancestors telling him to just fight one. When he walks into a German Bar and they buy him all the beers that he can drink probably because he is a black man talking German.

[Ming · Rating 2 out of 5]

A curious book but moreso I'm scratching my head over it.  It's an "as told to" book and the levels of who is telling what becomes murky because the perspective changes. And then some of the stories seem like side stories or background stories.  

Overall, it's meandering as well as disorganized.  I can't recommend this.

A few quotes:

Of course Sara would also hear the gruff voice of Njoya calling for her from the depths of his deathbed, calling for her, much to the stupefaction of the six hundred and eighty royal wives. Oh, Sara would hear all of these voices spreading out endlessly over the green hills of the part of the town known as Nsimeyong; she would hear these cries, these calls, these shouts, these songs of destiny. For her story is, in truth, a song; a song so poignant and so profound that it can find its echo only in the silence of the father, who, on the day of her departure, was himself absent. All her life Sara would search for the voice of this father--all her life long. The solid voice of this unknown father, she would catch hints of even in the echo of dogs barking impatiently or in the nocturnal yowling of cats.

"My body is an archive," retorted the doyenne. "It remembers stories that I don't know."

...He realized all too late that he had opened up his mind to take in the breadth of the world only to come back to a country held captive by colonial mentalities; that he had left the streets of Berlin, fleeing from the threat of Adolf and other scoundrels of his ilk, only to come back to a camp...."

[Rose Sybrant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book but I didn't like it. I don't know why I added it to my library list but at some point, I think it was after reading other reviews, I deleted it. I eventually forgot I'd deleted it on purpose, thought it was a mistake and added it to my list again.

I read it. On the positive side I learned more about colonialism and the history of Cameroon, particularly when the country was under the control of Germany than the transition and division of the country into colonies controlled by the French and the English.

What this western reader didn't appreciate as much was the circular story telling, the timelines that seemed to morph and overlap into one another. It's a struggle for those of us right-brained thinkers. It was long and I often found it tedious. There are lots of characters. Their names change, they have multiple names, they pop up out of nowhere, they're renamed. I tried to go with the flow as much as possible. I was relieved to finally finish it and be able to move on to something easier.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first learned about Patrice Nganang through a New Yorker article, though I decided not to finish the article when I realized it would spoil his novels for me. “Mount Pleasant,” the first in a trilogy about Cameroon’s history, was simultaneously difficult to follow but easy to imagine. The story generally outlines the history of colonialism in Cameroon—the Germans, the French, the English—and also how religion, spread via that colonialism, changed.

The scene that stuck with me the most was Ngono’s death in the cacao plantation—how even after living in Germany, studying and becoming “westernized,” marrying a German despite already having a wife in Cameroon, only to be condemned and socially exiled, and the fact that he died in a fire he accidently set himself in a plantation that is the exemplification of colonialism in Cameroon.

At times, the narrative was hard to follow, but overall I learned a lot!

[Marla · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 50%. I really wanted to like this book and I tried to get through it for weeks. The story was a jumble of different stories from different timelines arranged in a confusing way. I truly enjoyed getting a feeling for colonial Cameroon and the characters of that time. There were short sections of the book I loved. However the interaction between the American narrator telling Sara's story was what killed it for me. There was so much description of how great Sara's story was and how you wouldn't believe it - instead of telling the story.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the author's writing style, but I think the book was too disjointed. He jumped around between several different characters and timelines and I think the book would have been more enjoyable if he had focused on just one or two main characters. Learned a good amount about the colonial history of Cameroon, though.

[Cari · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I tried - I really did. The historical aspect of the story was interesting - completely new to me. But I found the writing overblown, the shifts in timeframe from present to past confusing, and - as a result - the characters to be flat. I made it past halfway mark and then decided my reading time could be better spent otherwise. Friends in my book club similarly didn't finish and hated it.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended for its insight into colonialism in Africa, particularly Cameroon. The mood of the times and places are well-drawn. The structure of the novel is not at all straightforward, jumping back and forth through time, making it a challenge to keep track of when the events are taking place.

[Booksnaps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended for its insight into colonialism in Africa, particularly Cameroon. The mood of the times and places are well-drawn. The structure of the novel is not at all straightforward, jumping back and forth through time, making it a challenge to keep track of when the events are taking place.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never warmed up to the odd semi-epistolary style of this historic novel. It felt too long, with unnecessary repetitions. I was often confused about which Nebu was being referred. That said, it was an interesting indictment of colonialism.

[Tim Wilcox · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lack of stars is more about how it was written versus what was written. Not the easiest read. I would not say it was incoherent but it demanded that I stop and trace back details that had not been mentioned in the last 4 to7 chapters

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why some people have trouble with the style of this novel, because the structure and narrative voice is really different, but I like it. It felt like being told rambling family stories by older relatives.

[Sandra]

DNFing at 50%, this story is too meandering for my liking. I came here for Sara's story but the narrator takes all kinds of detours and tells us about other people who I don't care about.

[Clivemichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well crafted history lesson.

[John Fetzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of a story like Rushdie, but set in Cameroon. Twists of plot interwoven with palace intrigues, colonial gamesmanship, and sex. An unexpected good book.