GONE HUNTING by GEORGES FEYDEAU SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

GONE HUNTING by GEORGES FEYDEAU

SUMMARY
A man named Moricet informs a woman named Leontine that her husband, Duchotel, is having extramarital affairs under the pretense of fictitious hunting trips.  Initially she does not believe Moricet, and she and Duchotel agree that Moricet has been feeding Leontine lies after Moricet leaves.  When Moricet returns for his coat, Duchotel confronts him and Moricet tells Duchotel that Leontine is having an affair.  Duchotel gets a flashy pair of trousers made identical to the ones his playboy nephew, Gontran, owns.  Gontran cons Duchotel into loaning him money although Gontran is already in debt to Duchotel.
Duchotel tells Leontine he's going hunting and leaves.  The wife of Duchotel's hunting buddy, Cassagne, arrives and tells Leontine she is going to have sex with another man in front of Cassagne that evening and that Cassagne hasn't been hunting in months.  Leontine, furious because she now rightly assumes Duchotel is sleeping with Cassagne's wife, storms out.
Leontine goes to a house where Moricet is staying and he convinces her to retaliate against Duchotel by kissing Moricet.  Duchotel unexpectedly comes by and Moricet hides Leontine.  Later that night, Gontran rushes into the house to hide and Moricet, thinking Gontran is an intruder, runs next door to the lodge where Cassagne's wife is sleeping with Duchotel.  Moricet is arrested by police who mistake Moricet for Gontran.
Sensing that Leontine is suspicious, Duchotel buys a lot of meat and shows it to Leontine pretending the meat is game from his fictional hunt.  Cassagne shows up and reveals to Leontine that the meat wasn't hunted by Duchotel and that Duchotel and Cassagne did not hunt together.  Cassagne tells Duchotel that he caught his wife with another man and is calling the police chief over to charge her.
All of the main characters excluding Gontran meet with the police chief.  Cassagne produces a pair of pants left behind by Duchotel at the house where Duchotel and Cassagne's wife had sex.  Gontran appears and recognizes his pants, which are actually Duchotel's identical pants, and Duchotel pays Gontran to take the blame.  Gontran accepts and says he did not know Cassagne's wife was married.  The police chief grants Cassagne a divorce.
After the meeting Duchotel accidentally confesses to cheating on Leontine to her.  She is furious and tells Duchotel she is divorcing him.  Moricet is about to dispose of a love letter written by Moricet for Leontine but Duchotel snatches the letter and assumes it's for him.  Leontine begrudgingly takes Duchotel back after he begs her.

ANALYSIS
This story is told in the form of a play.  Feydau's characters gain a sense of realism from the stereotypes associated with their cultural positions.  Duchotel, Cassagne, and Moricet are all members of a hunting lodge.  People who belong  to hunting  lodges are typically in the upper echelon of financial  classes. All main characters of this play are members of the Catholic religion.  Cassagne cannot divorce his wife until it he proves she cheated on him to the police chief because the Catholic church would not permit Cassagne a divorce unless his wife is guilty of infidelity.  Catholics are stereotyped as being extremely conservative, as are wealthy people.  The combination adds a level of familiarity  to the discomfort Leontine repeatedly voices to Moricet over her infidelity.  Moricet insists that it is only cheating if one is caught, and consequently disgraced in the community as a bad Catholic.  Because the audience knows that the characters of the play are desperate to retain good  standing in the community, from their stereotypical assumptions fed by the characters' hints, Feydeau is able to craft masterfully cringeworthy scenes without even the aid of actors.
Another stereotype utilized by Feydeau is that of the poor college student who is reliant on his affluent family.  Gontran, Duchotel's nephew, is said to put more time into the art of the bachelor than into his bachelor of arts.  Gontran is always asking his rich uncle Duchotel for money.  Because much of the subject matter of the play concerning divorce is quite sad in reality, Gontran provides extra comic relief, rounding out the edges of this light farce to perfection.

SOURCE
Feydeau, Georges.  Gone Hunting.  Trans. Sara O'Connor.  Illinois: Dramatic, 1995.  Farce concerning an unfaithful Catholic couple.

THE INSECT SUMMER by KNUT FALDBAKKEN SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE INSECT SUMMER, or, INSEKTSOMMER, by KNUT FALDBAKKEN


A 15 year old boy named Peter lives in a city of Norway.  Every summer he goes to the countryside to spend time with his Aunt Linn and Uncle Kristen on their farm, during which time he celebrates his birthday.  Kristen is Peter's biological uncle.  A girl named Marie lives in a cottage on Kristen's land and performs maid services for the family.  Peter has a friend named Jo who lives on one of the nearby farms.  Jo's sister, Gerd, has shown interest in Peter in the past.
When Peter gets off the train in the countryside, his uncle informs him that Marie has disappeared, and that there is a new tenant living in the cottage, named Cathrine.  Jo trades Peter pornographic magazines for dancing lessons.  Linn sends Peter up to deliver milk to Cathrine, and Cathrine makes a sexual advance toward him.  Kristen sends Peter into town to pick up some roofing supplies, and Peter runs into Gerd along the way.  As Gerd and Peter ride their bicycles back into town, it begins to rain and they take shelter in a barn.  There, Gerd and Peter kiss eachother and Peter feels her breasts.
The next day, Peter is fishing when he decides to find a place to take his clothes off because it is so hot outside.  Stretched out on the grass, he sees Cathrine, and some of his uncle Kristen's items.  Peter returns to fishing.  As he looks around for a new spot, he sees Kristen cutting Marie's dead body loose from a tree limb overhanging the river, and Kristen explains that she had drown by becoming entangled in the limb.
A funeral is held for Marie.  In his bedroom, Peter finds a love letter addressed to Kirsten from Marie.  Although he cannot prove anything, Peter becomes suspicious that Kirsten killed Marie.  The town has a dance.  At the dance, Peter drinks alcohol with his friends who dare him to dance with Cathrine.  As he approaches Cathrine, however, he runs into Gerd.  Gerd and Peter dance until a fight breaks out over Cathrine at the dance.  Kristen and Peter both fight well, and then Kristen takes Cathrine home.  Peter returns home an hour later and, observing that Kristen is not home, Peter tells Linn that Kristen is with Cathrine.
Linn sends Peter to deliver milk to Cathrine.  While Peter is at the cottage, he confronts Cathrine about her relationship with Kristen.  Cathrine promises to break off her relationship with Kristen and to have sex with Peter if he can sneak away from his birthday party.
During Peter's birthday party, Peter sneaks away to the barn to wait for Cathrine.  Gerd shows up instead of Cathrine.  Peter sees Cathrine and Kristen sneaking away together and has sex with Gerd.  Peter returns home to find that Kristen is informing Linn that divorce papers will be arriving the next day.  In the morning, Peter finds Linn hanging in the barn, having committed suicide.  Kristen remarries to Cathrine immediately and Peter returns home to the city.

ANALYSIS
This book approaches the subject of becoming a man.  Peter begins to notice women for their beauty.  He feels jealous of Cathrine and of Gerd for their romantic interests, yet he pursues both women simultaneously because he is so eager to have sex.  Peter and Jo have a borderline homosexual relationship as they waltz with eachother, and Jo offers to masturbate with Peter and asks Peter how gay men have sex with one another.  While he is standing in the woods, Peter has a moment during which he realizes his heterosexuality as he ejaculates in his pants while staring at a woman.  Generally, Peter is confused and sexually aroused.  He acts upon any opportunity he gets to pursue a heterosexual relationship and is unaware that Jo's actions imply homosexuality.
The subplot regarding Kristen's murder of Marie, and then divorce of Linn, keeps the book exciting.  Kristen probably murdered Marie to keep her quiet about their relationship, although there was not much motivation for him to do this if he planned to divorce Linn, anyway.  Kristen represents full yielding to sexual urges over morality, to me.  Peter looks to Kristen as a role model in his time of need and is greatly disappointed.

• Boy goes to visit aunt and uncle on a farm during the summer
• He meets the new tenant of their cottage and wishes to have sex with her
• Boy finds the old tenant of the cottage dead in the river, suspects his uncle of killing her
• Boy ends up in a relationship with his best friend's sister, and his uncle divorces his aunt
• Boy's aunt kills herself, and the uncle marries the new tenant, and the boy goes home

SOURCE

Faldbakken, Knut. The Insect Summer. Trans. Hal Sutcliffe and Torbjorn Stoverud. London: Peter Owens, 1991. Print. Book about a boy's summer at his aunt and uncle's farm.

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA by ABDOURAHMAN A. WABERI SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA by ABDORAHMAN A. WABERI

SUMMARY
The world began as Pangea, a single land mass, and split apart into several continents.  Africans had high confidence from the beginning due to their high degree of separation from other races in regard to skin color.  There was once a Devil in Africa, but African Queens defeated the Devil, banishing it to Europe.  Europe is then chronically consumed by war and strife between ethnic groups while Africa is relatively peaceful.  One uncharacteristically violent African administration left in its wake the country's first railroad.
In the 21st century, many impoverished Europeans are flocking to Africa.  Many Africans advocate a practice known as 'Africanization', or, the removal of all non-native Africans from the continent because European refugees are draining the African economy.  When European settlers die there is no investigation into their murders, and there exists a city cleanup machine in Africa to sweep bums off the streets.
A white girl named Maya lives with adopted parents.  She excels in school and the arts, despite being taunted for her race, and creates inspiring European art.  Maya's adoptive mother falls ill and she returns home in time to watch her adoptive mother die.  Her adoptive father is unable to care for himself so Maya must supplant her adoptive mother as the old man's caretaker.
Fed up with prejudice against whites in Africa, and her curiosity enlivened by the death of her adoptive mother, Maya goes to France to meet her biological mother.  Maya's biological mother lives in Paris, FR, and has rotting teeth due to France's poor dental care.  Next, Maya meets her biological father in a shack which smells badly.  As Maya's father prepares to give her what looks like a packet of coal, the room's stench overwhelms Maya, who runs out of the room, and showers in her hotel room immediately.  The next day, Maya is on a flight back to Africa.

ANALYSIS
This book attributes Africa's poverty to random bad luck.  In this universe, the problems of Africa have stricken Europe rather than the cradle of life, leaving Africa to rapidly progress as Europe has.  Considering the first great civilization, Egypt, was in Africa, a highly advanced Africa in comparison to Europe is not an impractical scenario.
Maya's personal journey transitions from dissatisfaction to gratitude.  She is unhappy that she faces racism until racism is the least of her problems in impoverished France, when she becomes grateful for her adoptive African parents.  The inconveniences of first-world problems are put in context by her experience.
On the other hand, Maya is, in a sense, homeless.  She is viewed as an outsider in Africa for her skin color and she is viewed as an outsider in France for her cultural background.  Maya's predicament raises the question of what gives a person their national identity.  However, the novella does not answer the question it poses, which leaves the reader to decide what defines a person themselves.
Waberi writes this book from the perspective of an unknown narrator who speaks in the tone of a bedtime story and is intimate with Maya.  The narrator is not one of her adoptive or biological parents.  The novella is told through a sequence of stories which have occurred in the past as they are related to Maya.

• an advanced student from 1st world Africa is adopted
• the student is mocked for having European heritage
• the student visits Europe to find her biological parents
• the student is appalled by her parents' poverty and gleefully returns to Africa

SOURCE

Waberi, Abdourahman A. In the United States of Africa. Trans. David Ball and Nicole Ball. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2009. Print. An adopted woman seeks out her biological parents.