The Roots of Heaven by Romain Gary

Of all the 20th Century’s literary bad boys – and yes, it’s a category that’s almost quaintly masculine – Gary is the most intriguing. A Lithuanian Jew born in Vilna in 1914, he was fluent in six languages. He became a master of multiple literary personae, a decorated hero of the French resistance, and two-times winner of the Prix Goncourt.

Hephzibah Anderson – bbc.com

Romain Gary wrote under several aliases and The Roots of Heaven, which was made into an indifferent and much altered movie in the late 50’s, was his first major commercial success outside of France.  Set in Equatorial Africa after the Second World War, the book follows the efforts of the Frenchman, Morel, to save the elephant from extinction at the hands of poachers and big game hunters.  Morel has conceived this plan while an inmate of a German concentration camp and pursues it with the single mindedness of the newly converted.

Sadly, he is a rather one-dimensional hero and, for this reason, the reader’s interest centers more on the disparate group of people he attracts - for and against his venture. These include, Father Tassin the 70-year-old Jesuit, Waitari the ex-patriate black leader unable to unite the African tribes behind anything other than the need for meat, Minna the German refugee prostitute seeking atonement for her country’s past, Peer Qvist the Danish naturalist who has already lost the battle to save the forests in Finland, and Korotoro the black vagabond ‘who had dragged his felt hat through all the prisons in Africa’, and who cares nothing for the elephants, but only for the end to loneliness Morel’s band offers him.

What sets this book apart is that in the course of relating the story of the African herds, Gary presents us with every moral dilemma known to Man.  This makes for a spiritually and intellectually uplifting novel, as if he has somehow tapped into a force both beyond and mightier than himself.  One is swept along on whole passages, each of which seems more significant than the last, and each of which cries out to be re-read, or read aloud to others.

Also of note, is the coming of age of Gary’s views on conservation, many of which must've seemed ludicrous to a 1950’s audience.  Likewise, the politics of Africa are discussed with brutal honesty.  The young guerillas accuse Morel of using the elephants as a ‘dodge, a camouflage (which) enables (him) to have a conscience at peace, a smoke screen… behind which (he) can get on with the dirty work of colonialism.’  Waitari sees that to the African ‘the elephant’s only beauty was the weight of his meat and, as for human dignity, that was first and foremost a full belly.  When the African does have his belly full’  he says, ‘perhaps then he too will take an interest in the aesthetic aspect of the elephant’. 

The Roots of Heaven is my favorite book of all time.  I’ve bought multiple copies for friends and relatives, most of whom never bothered to open it.   But if you’re looking for a life-changing read, this is the novel to buy.