''Le Coup de Lune'' (; literally "moonburn" or "moonstroke" in
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
, but translated into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
as ''Tropic Moon'', is a 1933
novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer who created the fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most prolific and successful authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 ...
. It is one of the author's first self-described ''roman durs'' or "hard novels" to distinguish it from his ''romans populaires'' or "popular novels," which are primarily mysteries that usually feature his famous
character.
In a larger context, the novel deals with French attitudes towards
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
ns and the French colonial experience. ''Coup de lune'' has much in common with the
noir fiction
Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a subgenre of crime fiction.
Definition
Noir denotes a marked darkness in theme and subject matter, generally featuring a disturbing mixture of sex and violence.
While related to and frequently confused with ...
subgenre of
hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
detective fiction, and could be described as being a "colonial noir" story, though arguably there are also some
existential
Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value ...
elements present in the narrative. In his introduction to the
New York Review Books
New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, ...
edition,
Norman Rush
Norman Rush (born October 24, 1933) is an American writer most of whose introspective novels and short stories are set in Botswana in the 1980s.
He won the U.S. National Book Award and the 1992 ''Irish Times''/Aer Lingus International Fiction Pr ...
third person limited
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
narrative voice.
Plot
The story concerns Joseph Timar, a sensitive young
Frenchman
French people () are a nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.
The French people, especially the native speakers of langues d'oïl from nort ...
Libreville
Libreville (; ) is the capital and largest city of Gabon, located on the Gabon Estuary. Libreville occupies of the northwestern province of Estuaire Province, Estuaire. Libreville is also a port on the Gabon Estuary, near the Gulf of Guinea. A ...
in
Gabon
Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...
to work at a job his
uncle
An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent, as well as the parent of the cousins. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an un ...
has arranged for him at SACOVA, a
logging
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, truckshotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...
where he ends up spending his time drinking and playing
billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...
with a group of hotel regulars: an assortment of loggers and minor government officials. After the first night of his stay, Timar awakens to an unexpected sexual encounter with Adèle, the proprietor's wife. Shortly thereafter, a black servant, Thomas, is found murdered and Adèle's ailing husband Eugène finally dies of
snail fever
Schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever, bilharzia, and Katayama fever is a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic flatworms called schistosomes. It affects both humans and animals. It affects the urinary tract or the intestines. Sy ...
.
The night before Eugène's
funeral
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
, using the pretence of leaving Adèle alone to grieve, the regulars convince Timar to come with them on a late night jaunt to a native village. Here the group picks up African women, one of whom is married, but whose husband seems used to his wife being treated as a
whore
Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...
by the white colonials. The group drives to a clearing in woods and a drunken party ensues. Timar stands by while the others steal the women's clothing and drive off laughing.
After the funeral, Adèle convinces Timar to use his uncle's influence to acquire a
concession
Concession may refer to:
General
* Concession (contract) (sometimes called a concession agreement), a contractual right to carry on a certain kind of business or activity in an area, such as to explore or develop its natural resources or to opera ...
for the two of them for which she will provide the
capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
. Despite a growing suspicion that Adèle is being less than honest with him, Timar agrees in the heat of his passion for her. The details are worked out, the uncle's letter arrives, and the two begin the journey by
riverboat
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury ...
to their new territory. They pause at a village where Adèle inexplicably disappears into a native hut for a time before returning. Timar contracts
dengue fever
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. Asymptomatic infections are uncommon, mild cases happen frequently; if symptoms appear, they typically begin 3 to 14 days after i ...
along the way, and spends the rest of the trip in a state of
delirium
Delirium (formerly acute confusional state, an ambiguous term that is now discouraged) is a specific state of acute confusion attributable to the direct physiological consequence of a medical condition, effects of a psychoactive substance, or ...
. Some time later, Timar is still suffering, and Adèle decides to bring him back to Libreville for treatment in a boat manned by Gabon tribesmen. He lies in the bottom of the boat, semi-delirious while the tribesmen row, and the return is a blur to him.
Back in Libreville, still weak and intermittently incoherent, Timar learns that a village man is to be charged with the servant Thomas's murder on the basis of eye-witness accounts. Timar later learns that Adèle's stop at the village going upriver was to bribe the witness, who will testify at the trial and convict the innocent villager of Thomas's murder. Because Adèle is the one bribing the witness, Timar realizes that she was the murderer, and he discovers that Adèle did it to stop Thomas from blackmailing her. Thomas had threatened to tell Adèle's husband about her adulteries with Timar and a half-dozen other men, all of whom, including the police commissioner, are now helping Adèle get the innocent villager convicted so that they may continue their relationships with her. Timar becomes further unhinged by all of this knowledge, and now completely helpless, is put on a ship headed back to France, muttering incoherently to himself as the ship leaves the port.
English language editions
There are two
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
, which has been included in two anthologies: ''In Two Latitudes'' (
George Routledge
George Routledge (23 September 1812 – 13 December 1888) was a British book publisher and the founder of the publishing house Routledge.
Early life
He was born in Brampton, Cumberland on 23 September 1812.
Career
Routledge gained his early ex ...
, 1942;
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
, 1952) and ''African Trio'' (
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. It was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1 ...
, 1979). The second translation is by Marc Romano (New York Review Books Classics series, 2009).
Adaptations
The 1983 film ''
Équateur Équateur, French for equator, may refer to:
Places
* Province of Équateur, a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2015
* Équateur (former province), a former province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1966–2015
* Équa ...
'', written and directed by
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor, composer, and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provocative rel ...