Book Review: The African Witch by Joyce Cary

This post is a review of The African Witch by author, Joyce Cary.

This was an interesting book to read. The subject matter itself was captivating enough but that’s not exactly what I mean by interesting. I’m more referring to all the things around it, the general attitudes of the time, that shaped it in less tangible ways but that clearly made their way into the narrative. In particular, the racism jumps off the page. It’s so tangible in fact that it made it difficult to concentrate. At a lot of points this book was difficult to stomach, but I felt strangely compelled to finish it. In part because the writing itself had enough merit to keep my attention and even, in parts, to thoroughly enjoy.

The second reason I couldn’t look away was more sinister. It was the same phenomenon that compels us to stare lingeringly at a car crash. I had to know just how bad the racist under and overtones would get and the only way was to keep reading.

What is The African Witch about?

Storyline (Blurb) of The African Witch

"It is the many-mooded story of a small colony of whites living peacefully, even smugly, on the brim of a volcano seething with black magic older than any Western civilization. It is s study of conflict between reason and instinct, between enlightened folkways and the ancient powers of darkness.

It has freshness of challenge; it is about things not entirely understood, but real and terrible. Here is brilliant writing, rich on wisdom, excitement, and humor, that will haunt you with mysteries the white man has forgotten, busy in his conquest of the physical world.

The story builds to a climax of utter honesty that will leave your blood racing. For in it you see ideals of the Western world demolished in a moment of time, and the spirit of Africa completely triumphant."

What I Liked About This Book

I’m going to start by talking about what I liked. It’s a much shorter list. Unfortunately, even what I like is tied to something I don’t.

The Writing (Liked and Disliked)

Case and point, I think Cary is a good writer. However, written in 1936, the oftentimes bulky style of the time is reflected in his prose. There were many times when the writing was too dense with detail. In trying to paint every scene so vividly, the grace of the storytelling was lost and I found myself laboring to get through certain sections.

Pacing (Liked and Disliked)

The story takes quite a long time to get going such that there were many times when I asked myself “What is going on?” or “Who is this again?” in reference to a character I was reading about. I’ve read enough old books to know that this is largely characteristic of the time when short attention spans were not a consideration writers had to contend with, allowing them much more space and time to hook the reader. Some things that took long to uncover, like where exactly the story is set, were actually enjoyable and added to the experience of the story. You feel for a long time that this could be happening anywhere along the Niger River until you learn exactly where it is. So, while it’s not particularly the easiest writing to get through in parts, I understand that as coming with territory. 

Characters (Some)

Additionally, I thought Cary showed great instinct and skill for character depictions, particularly his white characters that felt fuller and more complex than their black counterparts (more on that later). Added to that, I enjoyed the quality of the conversations between these characters, finding them to have a real quality and often a humorous one too. Writing great dialogue and crafting complex and distinct characters is no easy feat, and I’m always impressed when I see it. 

Now, let’s dive fully into the things I did not like.

What I Disliked About This Book

The Racist Rhetoric

As alluded to earlier, I want to discuss the blatant racism in this novel, but to fairly do so, I must discuss the context within which it was written and published because it matters a great deal. Context is about putting things within a time and place. Oftentimes, understanding the environment that shaped the thing can be as or more consequential than dissecting the thing itself.

To start, let’s uncover how we end up with a white, Irish man writing this Africa-centric book in the first place. 

The African Witch, written by Joyce Cary, was first published in 1936. Cary was an Anglo-Irish novelist and a colonial officer. In 1936, although the landscape was rapidly shifting with the rise of Germany in Europe and the momentum for decolonization movements across what was the British empire, Great Britain was still the biggest world power. 

One of the countries Great Britain colonized was Nigeria, where Cary’s book is set. Cary himself spent quite a great deal of time in Nigeria as an officer both before and after the First World War. He held several posts in the country, including that of the magistrate and executive officer in Borgu. By all accounts, Cary was passionate about ending colonial rule in Africa, and I believe he felt his novels were the best means of making a case for African independence. Unfortunately, whatever good he wished to do is completely eclipsed by the insultingly shallow world he creates for the superficial characters who live in it. These paper thin characters are no more than a thinly veiled stack of stereotypes meant, one can only assume, to confirm biases long formed about what it means to be an African. 

I cannot imagine the target audience for Cary’s books were the Nigerian people he was writing about, but rather the British people back home who wondered after his adventures in the deep savage jungles of Africa. I think Cary’s dilemma is that he desired to meet his audience’s appetite for the African as a savage needing to be tamed, while also trying to put forth a good faith argument for the liberation of these same people. As a result, all his characters became caricatures and the sincerity of his liberal views became questionable. 

I find the racism in and around this book to be layered. The first, in all fairness, is not on Cary, it’s rather just a sign of the times in which it was released. Remember, Great Britain was still a colonial power which means that forced white governance over the so-called colonies created and upheld systems of white supremacy. Also, there was no such thing as worrying about the political correctness of anything. Still, it was quite jarring to read this on the book cover. And I quote “Perhaps, because of his own Celtic background, he is not bewildered by the psychology of the superstitious negro.” Luckily, we’ve moved far enough past this that I think most of us would find that language shocking, and I would hope that even more of us would find more issue with the ideology behind it. In any case, that’s the first form of racism, the most direct and obvious- that you could just call black people ’superstitious negros’ in broad book daylight and in real daylight and that it was completely acceptable. 

Characters Crafted From Racist Stereotypes and Tropes

The second form of racism is also blatant and obvious, but this time it is on Cary. There is a particular callousness and disrespect with which he treats his black characters. It reads and feels like he’s putting them down. Worse, this abuse is so central to the writing that without it he wouldn’t have a story. That need for an entire cast of characters so stupid, wild, and without any of the virtues we would ascribe to people we like is its own sinister form of oppression. His descriptions of the ‘negro’ and ‘negress’, both physically and intellectually feel like they go far past what can be considered ‘creative license’. 

Of Coker, a black character, he writes “He was not reading. He seemed vacant, half asleep. His face, as he sat sideways in the lamplight, gazing in front of him with his eyebrows raised high, a wrinkled forehead, a dropped under-lip, was like that of an imbecile. In fact, he was not thinking anything. His mind was completely vacant as if his body were inhabited only by a collection of organs. Like other negroes, he was capable of falling into this condition at any time, and passed long hours during which he was unaware of the passage of time. His body informed him when it was time to feed or sleep. He had then, no personality, only his body had physical idiosyncrasies.” 

Now, it would be one thing and completely acceptable if this description of Coker was kept to just him. It’s not a crime to write a stupid character, no matter the respective races of either the author or the character. I am all for artistic freedom. But Cary’s description goes past this to paint these characteristics that he’s ascribed to Coker to “all negroes”. As such, this is simply racist. Whatsmore, for a white author writing about black characters in the land in which he is actively a colonial officer governing over them- one would think he would feel even more compelled to handle their representation with care. Instead, he reduced them into these shallow, unimaginative, and detrimental stereotypes. It’s incredibly ugly and profoundly insulting. 

In general, there is a lack of care for the black characters that is painful to witness, but it doesn’t feel like the work of a writer whose crafted it that way in order to make you feel that discomfort on purpose or for a point- it’s just not there because the writer didn’t feel he needed to have it for them. They are things, objects to be used for the purpose of electrifying the pages. Their constant savage acts had much in the form of shock or comic value, but little in what made them real, full, and human. This inability to humanize the characters leads me to my final form of racism. 

Black Stories As Written By White Authors Who Don't See Their Humanity

The third form of racism present in this book is the deepest and heaviest. It’s that true racism that fails to recognize the full humanity of what it has classified as a lesser race. I see this in Cary’s characters. They can be manufactured into these larger than life portraits, shadows of real people, because he never fully humanized them. I have to ask myself, are they that way on the page because that’s how he saw them in real life?

Reportedly,  During the First World War, Cary served with a Nigerian regiment fighting in the German colony of Kamerun. His short story "Umaru" (1921) describes an incident from this period in which a British officer recognizes the common humanity that connects him with his African sergeant. My issue with this story, and Cary’s brand of ‘literary activism’, is that this common humanity has to be discovered. This rests on the assumption that, prior to whatever event forcibly bonded him to these characters, they were not fully humane in his eyes. 

As an African who has always known my own humanity and that of my people, the idea that someone had to discover it- and was shocked to find it when they did- is mind numbing. The further idea that this person, so impressed with his discovery of African humanity, wrote books as a means of trying to convince other white people to see it, and that this is considered a form of racial advocacy- and as such, a thing that black people were meant to be grateful for-  is soul crushing. 

I have not read Cary’s other books and I probably won’t, but I know that many other people have raised similar concerns and criticisms of his other works. “Mister Johnson” (1939) by Joyce Cary has been criticized for its racial stereotypes and portrayal of African characters. The novel has been called racist by some critics, including Chinua Achebe. Achebe, a celebrated Nigerian author, said the novel was superficial and helped him decide to write his own novels about Nigeria. I don’t believe there is an African child who doesn’t know Chinua Achebe. In school, “Things Fall Apart” was required reading and that started my love affair with arguably one of Africa’s greatest and certainly one of its most impactful writers. I had no idea that his frustration with how Cary depicted his country and countrymen was what decided his writing path. So, if for nothing else, I am certainly grateful to Joyce Cary’s books for that.  

Reductive Premise

Aside from the racist rhetoric, another great flaw of the storyline is the reductive reasoning of the premise. The book jacket describes the book as “a study of conflict between reason and instinct.” It’s not explicitly stated, but it’s obvious that the reasoning whites are at odds with the instinctual blacks. I find this condescending but also nonsensical. Surely reason isn’t the enemy of instinct, are there not enough instances where the instinctual reaction is also the most reasonable? 

In his defense, I do think this blurb meant to highlight Cary’s intention to showcase that, in fact, sometimes, instinct trumps reason- so, sometimes, the rudimentary ways of the savage negro are just what’s called for instead of the meticulous reasoning of the white man-particularly in his own environment. As I hope is clear, even at its best, this is insulting. The blurb continues to describe the story as building “to a climax of utter honesty that will leave your blood racing. For in it you see ideals of the Western world demolished in a moment of time, and the spirit of Africa completely triumphant.” This is perhaps the most telling sentiment, that what Cary has written is considered a triumph of the African spirit. How poor must the view of the African and her spirit have been to warrant such praise for this most shallow, reductive, and hurtful of depictions? 

The answer is probably ‘astoundingly poor’ and, in that context, I can actually understand how in their time, Cary’s books might have been a force for good. I understand why he wrote his books. I even understand why they were celebrated. What he wrote and how he wrote it offends all my sensibilities and that is not the luxury of time speaking- I would dislike it a hundred years ago as much as I do now. However, for his time, he was much further along than most in his ability and willingness to see his version of African humanity (however limited it might have been) and to advocate for its liberation. In this way, he no doubt moved the needle forward and helped to shape better racial attitudes, however little, within his race and class. That he chose to use his art form to this end is in itself commendable, even if I cannot like the end product. 

Verdict: 2 Stars

As a matter of objective criticism, one of my guiding principles is that art doesn’t care about the facts but it does ask that you stir true feelings within the audience. For books, this requires characters that feel real and complete, and in that completeness, we can examine their words and actions and know when they feel true to those same characters. Cary failed to do this. So, fundamentally, even with an interesting subject matter and some objectively good writing, he failed to write a good book because a lot of these characters never felt real. 

Additionally, the various forms of racism present in this book made it an even tougher read. The luxury of writing this 100 years after some of his works were published is that it allows me to enjoy the fact that they have not aged well. That, at least, gives me hope.

Let me know if you pick it up and what you think of it.

Happy reading and talk soon,

Nonjabulo