The feverish glitter of consumerism
'The Fisherman's Dream', an exciting saga by Hemely Boum, tells the story of a Cameroonian fishing family
4' min read
4' min read
"Don't identify with what you have been put through," says the nganga - the traditional doctor, the 'witch doctor' - to his childhood friend, Zacharias, when he goes to ask him for help, thus trying to untie the knot that will mark a family for three generations. The Fisherman's Dream, the fifth novel by the French-speaking Cameroonian writer Hemley Boum, is the gripping story of a loss of innocence whose consequences are passed on from parents to children, from children to grandchildren.
The fisherman, Zacharias, lives in a small house at the mouth of a river that flows into the Atlantic with a beloved wife and two daughters. The fish he procures with his canoe dug out of a single piece of padouk, a wood that does not rot, the vegetables his wife grows, are exchanged for other goods within the community of ndowe, the people of the water, to which they belong, and nothing else seems to be needed. Life, happiness, seem to be taken for granted 'as much as heartbeats that he could not feel'. Everyone in the village knows, however, that they must keep well away from the dangerous stretch of sea where fresh water meets salt water, especially during the rainy season.
One day, western-style 'modernity' arrives to upset the millenary balance, in the form of a fishermen's cooperative, with an attached emporium selling on credit products that no one had previously felt the need for. It insinuates itself into traditional society like river water into that of the sea, and begins to generate effects not unlike the deadly turbulence these two produce when they meet.
The mosaic that made up human, animal and plant life and the landscape breaks into a thousand pieces. Starting with its fundamental constituents, in this case Zacharias's family, which, unlike his wife, allows itself to be enchanted by the glitter of consumerism, becoming a victim of the deception and violence with which it is inherent.
Being a victim, as the sorcerer's illuminating words explain, entails a double drama. In addition to the trauma, there is the imprisonment inherent in the very condition of victim: the trauma in fact infiltrates deeply into the perception that others have of the victim, and above all into the perception that the individual has of himself. Unable to come to terms with it, it contaminates him, overpowers him, dominates him. He finds himself caged in stigmatisation, loneliness, loss of self and others.
