Dave's Book Blog: "At Night All Blood Is Black" by David Diop

Thursday, 30 December 2021

"At Night All Blood Is Black" by David Diop

A Senegalese soldier fighting for the French in the trenches of World War One witnesses the death of his best friend, his "more-than-brother". His terrible revenge tips him over the edge into a madness so extreme that it stands out even in the organised madness of the trenches.

Written in the first person and immersed in the protagonist's perspective, this beautifully written short novel makes use of repeated phrases (such as "more-than-brother", "la terre a personne, 'no-man's-land', as the captain says", and "God's truth") which make the simple narrative into a sort of epic poem.

It is structured with short chapters. There is a major turning point half-way through the novel so that this novel, despite seeming to ramble, is carefully structured.

The author's surname is Diop, which is also the name of the murdered friend, which resonates with the clever (and significant) twist at the end.

Selected quotes:

"My stench is the stench of death. Death has the stench of the inside of the body turned outside its sacred vessel. In the open air, the inside of the body of any human being or animal becomes corrupted. From the richest man to the poorest, from the most beautiful woman to the ugliest, from the most feral animal to the most harmless, from the most powerful to the weakest." (Ch 3)
"The rumour spread. It spread, and as it spread it shed its clothes and, eventually, its shame. Well dressed at the beginning, well appointed at the beginning, well outfitted, well medaled, the brazen rumour ended up with her legs spread, her ass in the air." (Ch 6)
"I had left the door of my mind open to the thoughts of others, which I mistook for my own." (Ch 8)
"Here, there isn't any real sun. There's only a cold sun that doesn't dry anything. Mud remains mud. Blood never dries." (Ch 10)
"That's war: it's when God lags behind the music of men, when he can't untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time." (Ch 12)
"In war, when you have a problem with one of your soldiers, you get the enemy to kill him. It's more practical." (Ch 13)
"You have to promise me that when you get back you'll stop mutilating the enemy, understood? You will content yourself with killing them, not mutilating them. The civilities of war forbid it." (Ch 13)
"The captain is a devourer of souls. He showers war with presents, he spoils her with countless soldiers' lives. The captain is a devourer of souls." (Ch 13)
"Mademoiselle Francois returned my smile right away and her gaze lingered on the middle of my body." (Ch 15)
"Until a man is dead, he is not yet done being created." (Ch 16)
"He was as old as the immutable landscape, she was young like the changing sky." (Ch 16)
"God's truth, my body had experienced all sorts of great joys before Fary. I had felt its power in back-to-back wrestling matches. I had pushed it to the edges of its resistance in long races on the beach after swimming across the river. I had sprayed it with seawater beneath a sun as hot as hell, I had quenched it with cold water drawn from the deep wells of Gandiol after swinging a daba in my father's and Sire Diop's fields for hours and hours. God's truth, my body had known the pleasures of reaching the limits of its power, but never had anything been as powerful as Fary's warm, soft, and moist interior." (Ch 18)
"My father is a soldier of everyday life who only lived to protect his wives and his children from hunger." (Ch 19)
"If the hidden story hides too well beneath the well-known story, it stays invisible. The hidden story has to be there without being there, it has to let itself be guessed at, the way a tight saffron-yellow dress lets the beautiful figure of a young girl be guessed at." (Ch 25)