The African Queen

* By C.S. Forester.

It dismays me that people confuse this guy with E.M. Forster. World of difference. Trust me. E.M. Forster is, like, one of the best writers of the early 20th century. And this guy, like, is not.

The year is 1914. The Germans are taking control of Central Africa, and their biggest advantage is their position in a big lake, with big guns, in a big boat named The African Queen. No, just kidding. The African Queen is a rickety motor boat, full of explosives and tinned sardines, driven by a funny-talking Englishman named Allnutt.

After the Germans sweep the region's natives into their army and the region's lone missionary dies as a result, Allnutt and the missionary's sister, a heretofore submissive woman named Rose, decide that to both escape and "do their bit for England" they will take The African Queen down an unnavigable river to blow up the Germans' floating fortress.

Rose and Allnutt fall in love about halfway through the book. Hope that doesn't spoil it for you. You've probably seen the movie already, anyway. And the movie's probably a lot better, because it will spare you Forester's excessive, not to mention smarmy, exposition. Forester shuns subtlety; he prefers a sledgehammer, or perhaps a dead horse. Every bit of dialogue, every action, is followed by three times as much prose explaining the characters' current mindset. As if it weren't obvious from the dialogue or actions.

If you just watch the movie, you won't have to endure prose like, "Allnut would not have exchanged Rose for all the fried fish shops in the world," or "Allnut was very dear to her now, and she thought his remarks extraordinarily witty." Actually, that's not the only time our narrator remarks on Allnutt's wittiness. One might think that a certain writer was tooting his own horn. Except that I don't think Forester, much less Allnutt, could wit himself out of a room full of kindergartners on laughing gas.

Forester does, however, win the prize for using the word "uxorious" more than any other author whose work I've read. (Times I'd seen the word "uxorious" prior to reading The African Queen: zero. Times Forester used "uxorious" to describe Allnutt: at least twice too many.)

I did find the book a very quick read, but I think this was not because of the oh-so-intriguing plot (which puttered on at a similar speed to the boat of its title) but because I couldn't wait to get to the end so I could talk about it in this blog.

Posted by Lisa on May 14, 2003 06:58 PM