Colonialism

The shadow of colonialism looms over the entirety of the novel, and indeed, its very title announces its interest in unraveling the colonial mindset. Lloyd, the novel's protagonist, is portrayed immediately as a kind of colonizer, mocked for his sham interest in the local culture (which he has largely plucked from books) and his disrespectful and demanding treatment of the villagers, whose ways of life he seems interested in capturing but not in effecting.

The arrival of Masson, another member of a colonial nation (France) only further deepens the conversations the novel is having with the psychological impact of colonialism, particularly given Masson's own fraught relationship with the colonial nation he hails from; Masson is the child of a French man and an Algerian mother, and he is haunted by his memories of the abusive relationship that existed between his parents largely as a result of...