Novel finds dark humor in child soldier's story
Johnny Mad Dog, By Emmanuel Dongala, Translated, from the French, by Maria Louise Ascher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 321 pp., $26
''Johnny Mad Dog" could have been a heartbreaking novel. It has all of the pathos, tragedy, and violence required to bring forth tears and sympathy. Instead, what author Emmanuel Dongala gives us is a satirical, darkly humorous look at war in an African country told from the perspective of two teenagers, one a soldier, the other a refugee.
Johnny Mad Dog is a hot-headed, gullible 16-year-old whose biggest worry is that he may be perceived as weak by his band of fellow child soldiers. They form a fearsome group, innocent in their childlike aspirations yet brutal as they rape, pillage, and kill with cold-blooded glee. Mad Dog, who fancies himself a budding intellectual because he is the only one in his group who completed first grade, often tries to understand the reasons why he is fighting. He believes his superiors' propaganda, that they are fighting to protect the future of their tribe. But he often questions a conflict that requires him to kill his neighbors and friends in the rival tribe. Yet Mad Dog is seldom introspective; his frustrations, fears, and feelings of powerlessness are worked out when he's inflicting terror. He and his unit loot and steal all they can, meanwhile telling themselves that they are ridding their villages and cities of traitors and terrorists.
The counterbalance to Mad Dog is Laokole, a 16-year-old girl whose father was killed by the militia fighters and who is forced to flee with her mother and younger brother as Mad Dog and his crew cut a swath of violence through the city. Laokole is earnest, tough-minded, and mature for her age. She's the main caregiver for her brother and her double-amputee mother. Once the war begins in earnest, she travels among a weary bunch of refugees resigned to running for their lives. Laokole is the arch opposite of Mad Dog in that she fully understands this is a senseless war fought by people who are mostly out for material gain. Kindness is a scarce commodity, and though she comes close to escaping with the help of a United Nations worker, her concern for her family keeps her in the thick of the conflict. Even in the refugee camps she has to keep her wits about her as fellow refugees try to rob and take advantage of her.
The manner in which Dongala juxtaposes these two characters' experiences explains more about these wars than most news stories ever could. On each side of the conflict there seems to be a sense of hopelessness: corrupt political leaders who manipulate children into becoming killing machines, indifferent or overwhelmed nongovernmental organizations and relief agencies, and weary refugees with a stinging sense of isolation from the rest of the world. At one point Laokole, after she has lost both her mother and her brother, is fleeing alone in the rain forest and a helicopter lands nearby. A team of westerners converges on the area, and she runs to them, relieved. But they refuse to take her with them, brutally pushing her away; their job was to rescue endangered gorillas.
Dongala, who is on the faculty at Simon's Rock College of Bard, in Great Barrington, is a native of the Republic of Congo who escaped the civil war in 1997 with the help of novelist Philip Roth, former President Clinton, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and others. ''Johnny Mad Dog" is translated from French, and the American colloquialisms can be a bit awkward and jarring in the narrative. But Dongala's fast-paced, irreverent style makes the novel a memorable, thoroughly enjoyable read.
