SOURCE: A review of The Madman and the Medusa, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 223-24.

Below, Malin considers The Madman and the Medusa "as an epistemological and linguistic mystery."

Although Tchicaya's brilliant novel [The Madman and the Medusa]—part of the acclaimed Caraf series—can be read in several ways, I would like to look at it as an epistemological and linguistic mystery. From the very first page we see the uncertainty principle at work. We are told in an "introduction" that "this story took place about the same time when, so they said, a white man used to wander at night through the native village of Pointe-Noiri and with a magic wand turn men, women, children and dogs into corned beef which people called monkey meat." There is an opposition between the white man and the natives—the novel is set in Africa—which...