Marlon James’ literary fantasy book Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a masterfully crafted story, but one with problems that can’t be ignored. James did an undeniably incredible job of telling a fantasy story that stands apart from the traditional LOTR Eurocentric myths and instead indulges in North African Myths as a foundation for its fantasticalness. The story reads like a collection of African folklores weaved together into a cohesive and compelling narrative, a story told from the first person by an unreliable narrator known as Tracker who recounts to an inquisitor his life’s tale beginning with his leaving home and learning how to use his magically endowed nose to find people, with the bulk of his story being about the hunt for one boy, the boy whose death is the reason Tracker is imprisoned. There are continual backstories that Tracker tells to explain himself and the people he travels with, and each tale is like its own little magical folklore story. There are witches and giants-who-are-not-giant and shape shifters and terrifying creatures and portals and impenetrable fortresses and spells and friends and lovers and quests and, yes, this is quite the fun epic, but it also has quite a bit of violence and sex—this story is not for the squeamish.
This book is packed with things to talk about. There are a ton of characters, and each is its own standout individual. With a few words, he describes vivid scenes that transport you into his magical world. He moves through a long and complicated plot with ease, pulling the reader along with continual twists and turns, new creatures and locations, a team of friends and acquaintances that grows and shrinks and grows again, and shrinks again, and we follow a character who himself was lied to for much of his quest, and we follow along learning as he learned, and in the end are left wondering how much of what he told us was true. We don’t understand Tracker because he’s complicated, as we all are. Sometimes we want to hate him, sometimes we love him, and we can’t resist following him all the way to the end of his journey.
I do not feel the same as The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani, whose review, whose review describes James’ story as a “literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe.” For me, it felt more like a detailed folktale of colorful and magical characters, although I can see how it could be transformed into a comic-style story if it were made into a movie. This is a story that draws on different cultures and perspectives to tell an epic fantasy that is wonderfully new and fresh.
I do have two criticisms of this book. The first is the ending, or rather the last act, which skips ahead a few years into Tracker’s second hunt for the boy in what feels like a jarring transition. It required Tracker catching us up by narrating the interim years more awkwardly than was done with the backstories of the first half, and the result was a feeling that I had started a new book. It took me a while to get back into the rhythm of the story, but once I did, it was engaging and moved quickly.
The other issue I have with this book is the excessive violence, sex, and sexual violence. The sex and violence are graphic and pervasive throughout and at times disturbing. James has commented on this by saying, “Violence is violent and sex is sexy,” and he explains the violence as a means to convey the seriousness of violence and the desire to keep the reader from becoming complacent with it. However, I don’t agree that this was a literary choice for him because there are ways to do this without being graphic, and this does not explain the sexual violence at all. I am not offended by homosexuality, but aspects of gay male sex are unsanitary, and the descriptions of it were more like bathroom humor than anything I’d call “sexy.” It was like listening in on the dirty details of a sexual encounter that almost no one wants to hear.
In addition, some of his sex and sexual violence would fit well into a fetish magazine, such as descriptions of giant men having sex with non-giant women resulting in their gruesome deaths. This did not strike me as high-quality literary work. If James wants to break norms and change the genre for the better by breaking into African myths and expressing wider views on sex and gender identities, why would he fill his book with material that is so repulsive? If sexual violence is in a story, it ought to fulfill an unavoidable need in the story and be described with as little detail as possible. Why not describe the emotions of the event rather than the event? Why describe the physicality when the social impact is the more meaningful element?
Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a good story, for the most part, but those less desirable parts are potent enough that I am hesitant to read another one of Marlon James’ books.