Not only do I LOVE this novel, I love the fact that it compelled me to buy the antique (circa 1900) Rand McNally map of colonial Africa that currently hangs, properly protected and preserved for posterity, in my Manhattan living room. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK WITHOUT A CHRONOLOGICALLY-APPROPRIATE MAP BY YOUR SIDE!!! You'll miss out on so much if you don't follow the balloon cartographically. Here's to Jules' first novel! The aspects of his writing that tend to upset me are spices of Antisemitism and a fundamental inability to write round-charactered women. This first novel features neither, as there are neither Jews nor women involved. Much as I adore his GENIUS, he did still manage to piss me off. This book is about as racist regarding Black people as anything written in the Antebellum American South. But it remains, nevertheless, a masterpiece. If you can't look at works of art in historical context, you are an ignoramus. Period. (This applies particularly to asshole Jew fans of classical music who won't listen to Wagner!)