Out of Darkness, Shining Light

The journeys of Livingstone in Africa between 1851 and 1873; Public Domain

Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah

All I ever knew about David Livingstone’s exploration of various regions of Africa was Henry Morton Stanley’s quote upon meeting him in Ujiji: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Nor did I have any real interest in learning more about him, either, until I heard about Petina Gappah’s new novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light, which chronicles the aftermath of Livingstone’s adventures from the perspectives of two members of Livingstone’s crew.

I read Gappah’s short story collection An Elegy for Easterly a few years ago and remember being captivated and impressed by the engrossing, deftly-crafted tales about modern Zimbabwean life, and so was eager to read her novel which, according to the acknowledgements, was some twenty years in the making. Out of Darkness is a departure from Elegy—it is historical whereas Elegy is modern, features an intricately woven plot and prolonged character studies whereas Elegy was necessarily limited by its short story format—but just as engaging and vivid.

The first section of the novel is narrated by Halima, Livingstone’s cook and a relentlessly sharp woman who is forever seeking to express her personal power and autonomy within the societally-imposed constraints which hold her: she is illiterate, she is a woman, she is attached as a common-law “road woman” to the abusive but highly respected Amoda, she has lived her entire life as a “bondswoman”—not precisely a chattel slave, but nonetheless someone whose freedom is constrained first by the Zanzibari official who owned her mother, then by the man who purchased her to serve as a member of his household, and third by both Livingstone, who purchased her for Amoda, and by Amoda himself.

Each chapter of Halima’s narration is preceded by a quote from Livingstone or Stanley’s journals, a nod to the fact that the thoughts and observations of these white British men have been preserved for posterity, published, whereas Gappah’s version of Halima’s own thoughts is a work of imagination: Halima’s thoughts and observations were never written down from her own perspective. The inclusion of these quotes also felt like a way of showing the author’s work; showing the “violence of the archives” and the cracks this violence creates boldly and unapologetically: yes, maybe there are contradictions between the quotes from Livingstone and Halima’s own narration. Who do you trust?

The second half of the novel is narrated by Jacob Wainwright, a young Yao man who was captured and enslaved as a youth before being rescued by a British anti-slavery mission, taken to a Christian missionary school in India, and eventually joining up with Livingstone’s party as an attendant and scribe. The shift between Halima’s narration and Jacob’s is stark. Halima is chatty, irreverent. While certainly aware of the power and cultural differences between herself and the other African crewmembers as opposed to the white bwana (master, as she refers to Livingstone and other white men), Halima is also unconcernedly confident in her own knowledge and capability. Jacob, on the other hand, is stiff, proper, performatively devout as a convert to Christianity with missionary zeal and ambitions. In some ways just as aware of the power and culture differentials as Halima, Jacob responds to these differences by attempting to conform as much as possible to white, British, Christian standards of dress, language, and comportment; he clearly sees Africans as unenlightened, and desires nothing more than to be ordained as a minister in England and return to Africa in order to convert Africans to Christianity. With his wordy, pompous style full to bursting with humble-brags and references to the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress, Jacob’s narration is simultaneously boorish and engrossing, skillfully conjuring this unlikeable character who is full of ambition, contradiction, and subconscious self-hatred wrought by the racist, missionary, colonial nature of his education.

There is no question that Halima and Jacob see things, on both a small and large scale, differently, and Gappah doesn’t attempt to reconcile these disparities. Instead, she allows them to settle, full and vividly drawn, into themselves, restoring thorough individuality and personhood to these two historical figures, sidelined along with the rest as mere members of “Livingstone’s exploration.” In so doing, she crafts a portrait of the famed expedition which highlights its multicultural nature—members of the travel party were Christian, Muslim, and Hindu; women, children, and men; formerly-enslaved and always-free. She highlights the humanity of the various players as petty, loyal, strong, weak, confident, well-traveled; quiet, ribald, skillful, two-faced, devout, violent, creative, principled and various other characteristics alongside. Altogether, she creates a reading of an epic, challenging historical journey which is gripping, stimulating, human, and restorative.

Subjects this book contains which some readers may be sensitive to: slavery, murder, death of a child.