Book #19

Mimi and Toutou Go Forth
by Giles Foden

I picked up this book at a book sale -- probably the library sale in Scappoose, but who can remember? I got it because of the title, of course: Mimi and Toutou Go Forth. I decided to read it now because I wanted to read the next Stephanie Meyer book and catch up with Toni, and since Greywalker was a supernatural book with a female hero, I wanted to throw something in the middle, there. I got thrown for a loop, though, when I first opened the book and glanced at the author's other credits: Giles Foden wrote The Last King of Scotland.

Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger! (Sorry, you have to imagine the flailing arms.)

We watched that happy tale of Idi Amin just a night or two before I grabbed this book, and since this one is also set in Africa, I was a bit apprehensive. Right from the beginning, though, it is very clear that this story is very little like that one. But you know, now that I think about it, there are some definite similarities: this is about colonial Europeans using and destroying Africa for the most absurd of reasons, and that was what got Idi Amin "elected," and what made him powerful and influential despite the atrocities he committed.

But come on: this one's about Mimi and Toutou.

I got thrown again after reading about ten pages, when I realized: this isn't a novel. This is a historical narrative, based on actual facts and actual people, not characters invented by the author. That made it much more interesting for me -- which was good, because the story was a bit far out of my realm. Next time I go looking for history, I won't look to World War I in Africa.

The basic story here is that the Germans had the East Coast of Africa as a colony, between the Indian Ocean and Lake Tanganyika, which is part of the Rift Valley of Leakey/Lucy fame. And a big game hunter (and this was the part that seemed like a novel, because it starts off in this guy's POV, and who the hell believes in big game hunters nowadays? They're like knights errant or Shaolin monks living in the Wild West. Absurd fantasies. Cartoon characters.) realized something: on the other side of Lake Tanganyika was the Belgian Congo (of Heart of Darkness fame, and I don't mean the coffee) and a British colony or two, so if the Allies could take over Lake Tanganyika, they could use it to move troops and artillery all over German East Africa and throw the Boches right the heck off of the continent. So he went and pitched an expedition to the British: since the Germans had brought a large steam-powered warship to the lake by rail, he proposed that the British bring smaller boats in, also by rail, through central Africa, and take over the lake and thus central Africa. And since the Germans could potentially have used African troops in the war -- hundreds of thousands of them, that is -- this actually was an important thing to do. So the British Navy did it. They sent two wooden boats, armored and packing big engines and fairly big cannons, up rivers and along railroads and even overland, to Lake Tanganyika, where they managed to fight off the Germans and save (possibly) the war.

Now here's the absurd part: the mission was led by this incredibly ridiculous figure, who I still have a hard time believing was a real person, but of course he was. This guy bragged constantly of his hunting prowess, and yet couldn't hit an ox -- an ox! -- from ten feet away. He forgot to order enough food for his men, but he made sure to order enough monogrammed cigarettes for him to chain-smoke over the entire 4-month journey. He wanted to name the boats Cat and Dog, and when the Navy refused to name a boat HMS Dog, he went with Mimi and Toutou, which are the French versions of cat noises and dog noises. And he thought that was funny.

He wore a skirt. Honest to goodness, a skirt. He said his wife made them for him and they were great in the heat.

The great thing about this story, which Foden unfortunately couldn't verify beyond a doubt, was that this dumbass gained a reputation as a powerful man, and so was idolized by the tribes around the lake, who went so far as to carve fetishes of him. Two foot statues, with a recognizable caricature of his face, wearing a skirt. Priceless.

So the book was quite good, really too ridiculous to seem like actual history, but a little bit sad what with reading about how incredible a place Africa was. Before the honkies fucked it all up.