I laughed (out loud, as if there were any other kind of laugh) several times at the misadventures of Morgan Leafy in post-colonial Kinjanja. As satire-cum-farce this reminded me of Lucky Jim and Black Mischief, with Graham Greene and Tom Sharpe representing its tonal extremes. It's not subtle — a major subplot involves the corpse of a woman named Innocence, struck down by lightning and therefore untouchable, decaying not-so-gradually in the street — but it is satisfyingly cruel and, in the pathetic figure of Leafy, boasts a delightful antihero. ( )

wanted to like this but so boring and kind of stupid
whitbread literary award for best first novel 1981
Somerset Maugham award 1982 ( )

[A Good Man in Africa] - William Boyd.
That Good Man in Africa is Morgan Leafy; sexist, racist, usually drunk and very British who gets to play the hero in the end, but it's all OK because it's satire. The black Africans are either corrupt or stupid or both, while the white British consulate staff are just as stupid, but know when they need to assert their authority. This book comes from a long line of British satire writers on the lives of their hard pushed countrymen who are trying to make sense or make their way in the Dark Continent. Boyd who was educated at Gordonstoun and Oxford follows in the footsteps of successful authors such as Evelyn Waugh, and Kingsley Amis, but Boyd writing his first novel in the 1980's has no excuse in treading this well worn path.

Satire as I understand it is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticise peoples stupidity or vices. It seems to me that Boyd works very hard to convince his readers that for the most part a small African country that was under imperial rule is just like he says it is. Our hero Morgan Leafy is quite content as long as he has a steady supply of beer and sex and he doesn't have to work too hard or think too hard to keep the supply coming. He is open to corruption, he throws his ever increasing weight around and thinks only of himself. I felt that Boyd wants his readers to have a soft spot for this racist, misogynist. Poor Morgan Leafy with all the weight of the world's troubles on his shoulders largely caused by his own actions is just looking to survive. This is not a bildungsroman or a novel about redemption, the satire does not bite it is just played for the readers amusement, with plenty of sexual titillation.

I suppose you should know what you are getting when British journals like The Times call it "Wickedly funny" or the Spectator 'Splendid rollicking stuff' and the novel won the 1981 Whitbread Literary Award and later the 1982 Somerset Maugham Award. The writing is certainly of a good standard and Boyd furnishes plenty of detail while keeping the story moving along. It is easy to label this novel as just good fun, but good harmless fun I don't think it is, I might have enjoyed this forty years ago, but not now; I almost felt like I needed to take a shower to wash away the underlying sleaze that rises up from this book. 2.5 stars. ( )

Morgan Leafy is a civil servant in the early 1970s Foreign Service posted to the small (mythical) country of Kinjanja in Africa. He simultaneously has inferiority and superiority issues -- he walks around with a huge chip on his shoulder but feels innately more important than any of the Africans. While this dicotomy is exaggerated in this satire, I suspect that it is not uncommon in people with Foreign Service postings in out-of-the-way places in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. However, Boyd's satire didn't entertain me the way Evelyn Waugh did in his African satires -- the humor is more caustic and felt more mean-spirited. ( )

A comic Heart of Darkness for the post colonial period, mocking much of the pretension of the European in Africa and reminding us that, whether we recognise it or not, Africa's heart (or better said, our understanding of it) is still shrouded in darkness. I ended up grudgingly feeling some sympathy for the struggles of characters I initially held in mild distaste as the author skillfully revealed just how out of depth they were in their African environment. 15 November 2015 ( )