What begins as seemingly as a book about British colonial presence in Africa during WWII ends as a novel about “faith,” “faithfulness,” and marriage. I know of this novel from a handful of different sources; one, it’s famous in its own right as a novel; two, it’s on the MLA top 100 list of 20th century novels; three, a college professor for a modernism class gave of an overview of British fiction of the 20th century and this one was one of his favorites.
It’s a good novel, and an interesting novel, and I am completely confounded to understand why it takes place in west Africa, except that it does. We start with a tight camera on Wilson, a recent arrival and an attache of indeterminate industry drinking at a bar and not understanding much of anything of the local British culture. As we move a little from him, we begin to understand the shape of the story here: Scobie, an deputy police commissioner is finding out that despite his years of loyal service, he’s likely to be passed over for a promotion as his supervisor considers retirement.
He returns home to his faithful wife, faithful in the sense of being a devout Catholic, who upon hearing the news asks him for the first of many times in the novel to go to confession with her.
Instead he convinces her he’s thinking of retirement and she should take some time off from this life and go abroad for a bit. As soon as she does, he finds a sick young woman languoring from malaria who he helps nurse back to health and begin sleeping with.
The lines are drawn now between a dutiful, but chaste marriage, and this new potential path.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Matter-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0142437999/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+heart+of+the+matter&qid=1551800989&s=gateway&sr=8-1)