The horror, the horror

摘要

"Bongo bongo in the Congo"-that is how many of those who spend time in one of the world's most compelling and cruelly dysfunctional countries sometimes disparage what is written about it. Such writing has some unmistakable hallmarks: a nervous oscillation between fear and fascination with the country and its people; a gnawing suspicion that they may be cursed, evil or mad; and an obligatory reference to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", a novella written over a century ago, when Congo was an unmapped slave state. Anjan Sundaram's account, "Stringer", has all this and more. It is off-putting in several ways. Start with Mr Sundaram's basic narrative-that, forsaking a lucrative job in banking, he plunged into one of the world's most ignored countries with the improbable aim of rescuing it from obscurity and launching a career in journalism. This is, to put it kindly, an exaggeration. Congo is one of the most written-about countries in Africa. Jason Stearns, Gerard Prunier and Michela Wrong have recently done so with authority and brilliance. Far from obscure, Congo has also launched many journalistic careers: had Mr Sundaram wanted, as he claims, to bring a benighted country to global attention, he should have gone to the Central African Republic.