African Trio: Talatala, Tropic Moon, Aboard the Aquitaine

by Georges Simenon

"The time of colonial Africa is running out," Simenon wrote in 1932. But the exotic, alien aspects of life on that continent inspired him to some of his very best psychological fiction. The isolation and perpetual challenge Africa presented to European settlers served as a catalyst for the type of confrontation Simenon has always portrayed with particular brillance: that dark, frightening moment when a man is faced with the kernel of possibility within himself, aware of how helpless he is to control his fate.

"Talatala" (first published in 1943) and "Tropic Moon" (first published in 1933 as Le Coup de Lune) have been translated by Stuart Gilbert and "Aboard the Aquitaine" (first published in 1936 as 45° à l'ombre) by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis.

Genres: Africa, Fiction

325 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.

Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.

He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.

During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).

Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).

In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

African Trio - a trio of Georges Simenon novels - Talatala, Tropic Moon, Aboard the Aquitaine.

African Trio - Not once does Inspector Jules Maigret make an appearance; nope, these novels are romans durs all the way, tales of French men and women sweltering day by day, hour by hour under a scorching African sun - each novel hard as bloody hell on its characters.

My review here is for Talatala, originally published in 1943, excellent English translation compliments of Stewart Gilbert. My reviews for the other two novels are posted separately under their respective titles.

Simenon's typical scenario for his romans durs features a man or woman (generally a man) facing a crisis such as automobile crash, murder, loss of job or death of a friend - and the same goes for Talatala, the crisis consisting of a haughty aristocratic Englishwoman convalescing at the protagonist's coffee plantation (taking over his bedroom, actually), following the crash landing of her private airplane.

With Talatala Georges Simenon widens his lens to focus not only on the psychology of his main character but also what it's like for white Europeans to live in the wide open spaces among the native peoples, plants and animals of Africa.

We're treated to a number of penetrating character portraits. Right on the first page we meet a young couple, Georges and Yette Bodet - Georges, citizen of Belgium and official in the Belgian Congo, a self-effacing, fair haired twenty-five-year old already turning fat from glass after glass after glass of beer; Yette, short for Henriette, a city-bred girl of twenty from Paris with a washed-out complexion who speaks in a shrill, high-pitched voice, continually repeating, "Do you hear, Georges?" every single time she's told a tidbit about people or things relating to Africa. As the couple travels across Africa by plane (Yette's first time on the continent) making stops at hotels along the way, Yette doesn't fail to get on everyone's nerves, especially the English and most especially husband Georges who drinks his beer and sulks in silence.

Among the travelers is Ferdinand Graux, age twenty-eight, a Frenchman and coffee planter en route to his plantation. Graux has been cultivating his coffee plants for the past several years and he feels completely at home in Africa. The native Africans have given him a nickname -Talatala - loosely translated as "white man who can only see with his spectacles on."

Although Ferdinand Graux treasures his tranquility and solitude, somewhat surprisingly, he doesn't mind conversing with Yette, even when the young lady comes out with such brash statements as "Really, considering we pay like everybody else, it's up to them (the African help at restaurants) to understand us." and ""I had no idea Africa was like this! We've hardly seen any niggers."

The novel's drama quickens when Graux the coffee planter reaches his land and discovers (as mentioned above) a crashed plane amid his coffee field and an injured Lady Makinson in his bed. The good English lady apologizes for commandeering his bedroom until her plane is repaired but assures Graux she will reimburse him for his hospitality and any loss of his coffee production.

Grrr! For Graux, money is hardly the main issue. He'll have to sleep in a cot out in the hall and be knocked off his pins respecting his cherished routine. Also, he must put up with Captain Phelps, Lady Makinson's pilot who has taken over the second bedroom, an uppity Englishman who quickly proves himself a complete nuisance. What a bore!

Fortunately for Graux, there's his assistant and friend Camille, a young man he brought with him from France since they both have been friends from childhood. Also, a fifteen-year-old African girl serves as his housekeeper, his cook and his bedmate (a common practice for French men in Africa at the time). But, damn, what will those prudish English think?

To add an extra helping of drama to the equation, Graux is engaged to lovely Emilienne who is living with her lawyer father back in France and she's scheduled to join her fiancé in Africa in a number of months.

But Emilienne's travel plans might change when she becomes alarmed reading the latest batch of Graux's letters. What is he talking about when he writes that he's undergoing a great transformation? She knows her fiancé as a levelheaded man disinclined to give in to emotional outbursts. Does his current state have anything to do with that English lady waiting for her airplane to be repaired? Didn't Graux alert her that Lady Makinson is in her early thirties, married and has two young children? The more Emilienne considers the possibilities, the more upset she becomes.

Lastly, Africa makes its presence felt on every page. For Simenon fans, Talatala is not to be missed. Order African Trio and you'll have three Simenon for the price of one.


Georges Simenon, 1903-1989

"The sky hung low, like a vast pane of frosted glass suspended close overhead, and the ground here was almost level. It was as if one were moving in a two-dimensional world, scaled down to man's stature. Sometimes the tall grass bordering the roadside parted silently to frame the dark, still form of the watching black. At long intervals a lean and leafless tree, usually a silk-cotton tree, rose above the level green expanse. Rarely did one see a native hut; yet there were huts everywhere, twenty or thirty meters back, in the bush, the only tokens of their presence being clumps of bananas, with long pendent leaves like elephants' ears." - Georges Simenon, Talatala

[Nicholas George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A departure from Simenon's psychological mysteries. These three novellas all concern the experiences French men (and some women) have in colonial and newly independent Africa. The first two are ultimately tragic, with the men falling for the wrong women and becoming intoxicated by the equatorial heat and strange culture. The third has similar elements, an assortment of French citizens on a problem-plagued cruise, seen through the eyes of the ship's doctor, who ends up becoming the saviour of one poor freshly-married passenger. Overall, fascinating and evocative.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never read any Simenon. will read more..

[D'face · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three novels set in Africa based on Simenon’s experience whilst travelling there. In Talatala a Frenchman growing coffee comes back to his plantation to find that an English woman has crash landed her plane amongst his crop and taken up residence in his bedroom until her plane is repaired and she recovers from her injuries. They become lovers which is more significant for him than for her. When she moves on he rashly follows her not knowing that his fiancé is about to arrive from France. She arrives to find the plantation needs attention and at the same time a couple of French expatriates in the little town are fighting until one kills the other.
In Tropical Moon a young man out from France arrives at a hotel and has an affair with the female hotel manager who is known to have slept with almost every white man in the area. Her husband dies and she kills a black man. She convinces the newcomer to join her in taking up a plantation up river where she can escape justice but he cannot get her infidelities out of his head and succumbs to fever and madness. Eventually he is repatriated back to France.
Aboard the Aquitaine recounts the voyage of a passenger and cargo vessel from Africa back to France and the various crew members and passengers. There is a group of Vietnamese or Chinese who are slowly dying on the exposed deck. In first class there are colonists and government officials and a young couple returning to France with their tails between their legs as they have broken contract and their young child is very ill. At the same time the vessel strikes a sand bar and is damaged so that it lists and limps back to France with predictions from one old passenger of disaster at every step.
Only in writing this review did I notice the link between the three stories of madness and the return voyage.
When Simenon travelled to Africa he said he deliberately did it the hard way so as to have the authentic experience and he conveys well the difficulty, isolation, heat and discomfort of being in Africa and the pent up atmosphere of returning by sea.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tropical Moon", the middle story in this omnibus, is the best but all of them are worth reading if you are interested in getting a taste of French & Belgian colonialism. The European attitudes towards the blacks shown in these stories vary but be prepared for some blatant racism (and some inhumane treatment).

[Mikee · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the plot line is a bit shallow (at best), this story (Talatala) shares many of the characteristics of the best of Simenon -- his love of place and his beautiful character portraits. I was sorry when I finished this tale.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellant book.

[Elizabeth]

Tatatala
Tropic Moon
Aboard the Aquitane