511. The Roots of Heaven

The Roots of Heaven
Romain Gary
1956
Around 375 pages

Well, that was unexpected. Based on the title, I was expecting some war drama with a heavy religious themes. Instead, it's a book about elephants, the third noblest creatures on Earth (after giant pandas and platypuses). I did see that this was adapted into an unsuccessful movie in 1958. I can only imagine how offensive that was.

There's an outlaw on the loose in French Equatorial Africa. Morel, a survivor of a concentration camp, is a Frenchman on a crusade to save the elephants from hunters. If it were possible to marry a literary character, Morel might just be the one (he can duel with Mr. Darcy over my affections). Morel is a headache to the higher ups, who cynically believe that Morel cares little about elephants and is merely using them as a symbol. Like any good outlaw, he makes the men angry and the women swoon.

Hunting is unfathomable to me, and of course, reading about the ivory trade was immensely upsetting. But as several characters point out, you can't have a modern country with elephants walking around. Of course, I don't care about that, I just want a baby elephant to try to sit on me because it doesn't realize how heavy it is.

Romain Gary sounds like he was a real bad ass during the War. Of course, this is a white man savior type story, but I think intention and context matter here. I think having a World War II survivor wage this battle is poignant, and I appreciated that the characters weren't blind to the metaphor in-universe.

A surprisingly good read, I always love it when they sneak up on me like that.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Huston later said of the film adaptation that it "could have been a very fine film. And largely owing to me was not a good film at all."

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