Darkstar Trilogy: Black Leopard, Red Wolf [Spoilers]

[.H.]

I just finished this book and figured I'd make a place where we can discuss the book's detail without, one, having to hide spoilers.  I find spoiler tags just annoying anyway.

In any case, there are a number of things to consider in analysis of this book.  First, to what extent is Tracker "reliable?"  Following that, we should likely think about why his is and/or is not.  Considering what he says at the end of the book:

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Maybe this was how all stories end, the ones with true women and men, true bodies falling into wounding and death, and with real blood spilled. And maybe this is why the great stories we told are so different. Because we tell stories to live, and that sort of story needs a purpose, so that sort of story must be a lie. Because at the end of a true story, there is nothing but waste.

In fact, I got the sense, somewhat early on, that perhaps this wasn't even really a "fantasy" story at all.  Mainly because I didn't (and still somewhat don't) believe that Leopard was actually a shapeshifter at all.  In fact, I think that, perhaps, most, or even almost all of the "supernatural" elements are either artifacts of how Tracker came to understand what happened, or, in the spirit of the quote above, are narrative contrivances meant to generate "meaning" to the events that unfolded.

Anyone with thoughts on this?  Likely there are many people who have better attention to detail that can find all the places where Tracker's account simply does not add up.

Also there is the further consideration of the effect of the next POV.  James has already revealed it in an interview, although I think it was pretty clear who it would be from how the book ends.

Lastly, there is the huge aspect of the African mythos from which a great deal of elements spring, to which I am completely ignorant, but would be interested in learning more about.

[polishgenius]

I definitely don't think the fantasy elements are meant to be invented, at least not most of them (you might have a point on Leopard, I'm not sure there's anywhere in the book that him actually being a leopard is directly relevant, and I'm also thinking there's a high chance that Tracker's account of his own relationship with Leopard misses out on it being Tracker doing things that cause Leopard to go sour, and nothing to do with the boy. His reunion with Leopard after the quest had a ring of off-ness to it). And I think there'll be other moments there, of Tracker having made stuff up because he hates certain people, or possibly because he's guilty of his role in things and edits it to lay more blame on others.

But things like the doors, the vampires, even Tracker's nose- like if all of that stuff is invented then so much of the story has to be untrue that it's pointless Tracker having told it at all.


Tbh I think the quote you have there is Marlon James being a bit pretentious and going well my story doesn't have a happy ending so it's a real story rather than giving clues that it's all made up.

[.H.]

On 2/16/2019 at 4:04 AM, polishgenius said:

But things like the doors, the vampires, even Tracker's nose- like if all of that stuff is invented then so much of the story has to be untrue that it's pointless Tracker having told it at all.

Tbh I think the quote you have there is Marlon James being a bit pretentious and going well my story doesn't have a happy ending so it's a real story rather than giving clues that it's all made up.

Well, I don't mean to imply that I think it is all made up.  I think the majority of the story itself is likely factual, just how Tracker tells it is unlikely to all be true.

Case in point, I think Tracker's account of how he loses his eye is just not exactly factual.  Now, maybe hermaphroditic hyena demons do exist in that world, but I don't think that even if they do, they didn't take his eye.  What is more likely, to me, if that Nyka did indeed sell him out, plausibly also to a cabal of women who wanted revenge on Tracker, but were they hyena demons?  I find that unlikely.

I guess it's plausible that James is just sort of waxing poetic about his wiring style, but I can't help but think that it is still Tracker saying something about how he decided to tell the story though.  That is, to make it more of a story and not just a recounting of facts.

He even says as much:

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And that is all and all is truth, great inquisitor. You wanted a tale, did you not? From the dawn of it to the dusk of it, and such is the tale I have given you. What you wanted was testimony, but what you really wanted was story, is it not true? Now you sound like men I have heard of, men coming from the West for they heard of slave flesh, men who ask, Is this true? When we find this, shall we seek no more? It is truth as you call it, truth in entire? What is truth when it always expands and shrinks? Truth is just another story.

The story might well be true, but the account (seems to me) to likely not be entirely factual.