Mister Johnson

by Joyce Cary

Johnson, a young native in the British civil service, is a clerk to Rudbeck, Assistant District Officer in Nigeria, and imagines himself to be a very important cog of the King's government. He is amusingly tolerant of his fellow Africans, thinking them uncivilized; he is obsessed with the idea of bringing "civilization" to this small jungle station.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Literature, Classics, Novels, Nigeria, Irish Literature

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Cary now undertook his great works examining historical and social change in England during his own lifetime. The First Trilogy (1941–44) finally provided Cary with a reasonable income, and The Horse's Mouth (1944) remains his most popular novel. Cary's pamphlet "The Case for African Freedom" (1941), published by Orwell's Searchlight Books series, had attracted some interest, and the film director Thorold Dickinson asked for Cary's help in developing a wartime movie set partly in Africa. In 1943, while writing The Horse's Mouth, Cary travelled to Africa with a film crew to work on Men of Two Worlds.

Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.

Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.

He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.

As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1939, this novel presents British colonialism through the lens of an exceedingly chipper Nigerian clerk, trapped in limbo between the ruling English and the noneducated natives. Cary was fiercely passionate about ending colonial rule in Africa, and although this novel is too comical to serve a scathing punch to The Empire’s snarling face, the way Mister Johnson is half-educated and exploited at the hands of hypocrite exploiters is pretty apparent as our hero’s fortunes run foul. The reviewers calling the novel racist have swallowed a sickly bowl of missing-the-point, as depictions of racism are not inherently racist, and Cary’s recreation of Johnson’s dialect is coming from a place of empathy and consideration, putting him in pole position as far as anti-colonialist literature of the 1930s is concerned. The novel was Hollywoodified in 1990, with Maynard Eziashi in the titular role, and Pierce Brosnan as the semi-vile officer Harry Rudbeck.

[Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Johnson, a Nigerian menial in a time when Britain was still a colonial power, is a rascal, a conniver, an idler who dedicates himself to ingratiating himself with others. He ingratiates himself with those who read his story.
At the outset, it can appear Joyce Cary is sketching a caricature of Uncle Tom. Mr. Johnson is shrewd, however. As we come to know him we gain insight into how African people came to gain a grip on their own lands and how Britain began to lose its grip. There is no other book about re-World War II, 20th Century colonial Africa which resembles, "Mr. Johnson."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From IMDb:
In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.

Another buddy matinee with dear friend Bettie, watching another movie with Pierce Brosnam.

[Theophilus (Theo) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the movie, with Pierce Brosnan, many years ago and had been meaning to get around to reading the book. I'm glad I finally did. When I mentioned the movie to an African friend of mine back in 1998 she hissed, "that is one of the most racist books." That statement probably kept me from reading it for so long. It is racist, but I have read much worse, like the early to mid 1960s books about plantation life by Kyle Onstott. Mister Johnson does very little character analysis, but a lot of narrative to allow the reader to develop their own analysis of the characters based on their actions.

Mr. Johnson is just a teenager trying to impress everyone (the local natives and white European colonial rulers) that he is important to the English colonial government in Nigeria. His self image eventually overpowers him, along with mounting debts that he pays for with theft of government and local trading post funds, and dooms him. He is at the end convicted of murder (of the white store-owner) and is sentenced to death by hanging. Johnson's last grasp at some sort of dignity is to request the English judge to shoot him instead of hanging him. This he feels is more befitting a man of his stature than hanging like a common criminal. He considers the judge a personal friend who will do him this one last favor. Rudbeck, the English station manager/police chief/judge likes Johnson in a paternal sort of way, but he does not understand what drives him and has no compunctions against convicting him and sentencing him to death. His life is a tragic story also.

While Cary's interpretation of what an African's personal ambitions are and how they drive him to ruin are from the perspective of a foreigner, he tells a compelling story that could be translated into many different colonial situations, such as Asia or the Americas. Cary admits in the author's note that Mr. Johnson is a composite of many different people he met whole serving overseas in the English army. There are probably such characters in any occupied land who believe they are important to the occupying forces and an important link between their own people and the occupiers. Rarely is this successsful, more often it probable results in tragedy.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est sans doute le meilleur roman que j'ai lu de ma vie sur les rapports entre les individus de races différentes dans une societe coloniale.

Mister Johnston est une fable qui illustre les résultats tragiques quand deux hommes (un colonise africain et un colonisateur britannique) de bonne volonté et d'energie depassent les limites permises par les convenances sociales de la societe coloniale. Plus specifiquement, les deux hommes rentrent dans une collaboration trop etroite selon les regles de la societe coloniale dans le but de construire une route qui est bien entendu un projet louable. La collaboration tourne en tragedie et M. Johnston passé devant le peleton d'execution.

Le blanc est navré. Il cache son chagrin et passe le reste de sa carriere dans un conformisme exemplaire.

Monsieur Cary a tendance a fair parler son heros le nigerien le petit negre ce qui lui a suscite quelques reproches d'etre rasciste. Ce n'est pas de tout vrai. L'admirable Mister Johnson est carrément l'heros de cette tragedie aristolienne.

La tragédie coniste dans le fait que leur jeunesse et manqué d'experience dans le milieu colonial leur poussent a mettre leurs forces ensembles dans un projet d'une maniere interdite par les regles de jeu.

Il faut avouer que mon experience avec le systeme colonial consistent surtout des lectures. A la limite, on peut dire qu'en tant que francophone à temps partiel j'ai éte un colonise dans le systeme colonial anglo Canadien. Il y a meme un bonhomme qui a propose cette these avec son livre "les negres blanches d'amerique." Je crois avoir bien jugé ce classique de la literature anglaise bien que mes qualifications pour analyse le colonialism sont effectivment nulles.

J'encourage surtout les Francais de lire ce livre car le systeme colonial est normalement analyse sous une loupe marxiste chez les francais. Ici vous avez une critique qui se sert du bon vieux Aristote.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Film time: http://youtu.be/vADRHPoGjH4
Screenplay by William Boyd.

Why are you late?

The clock is fast!

The clock has stopped, Johnson.

But it was fast when it stopped, sir.

Not such a good quality on YouTube but fine enough for me.
:O)

===========================

The young women of Fada, in Nigeria, are well known for beauty.

That first sentence will throw you right off; time has shifted, along with the singing sands of the sahara, country borders, colonialism, chauvinism and wealth. Fada is in Chad, in that northern section known as Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this so long ago that the details have faded out of mind, but I remembered loving it, underlining passages (in a library book, no less), laughing my head off at some of the dialogue, and having a troubled sense of where the story was headed. Which is why these reviews puzzle me - so serious and so depressing. Leafing through it now, I still remember only the sheer delight of the wonderful character development and description, and the biting cleverness of the writing. Perhaps I should think more politically, perhaps I should be more aware of the plight of somebody somewhere at sometime and be saddened and wiser for it - or, as is more likely, I might simply be moved by a story that is well-told and layered with everything known to man - ambition, folly, desire, disappointment, exploitation - you name it. This is why I will never be an academic.

I recommend it to anyone who enjoys stories about Africa, colonialism, and human nature.

[Lisette · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yes, I know Cary was a part of the colonizing British empire and, yes, I know he attempted to show the harmful ramifications of colonialism but his incessant talking AT the Igbo characters, which resulted in cringe-worthy racist characterizations, is painful and horrific to read. Yes, I know the historical context in which Cary wrote and, yes, I'm fully aware I'm applying a 21st century perspective but I have never been as happy finishing a book than I was when I finished this one. Thankfully, I read Achebe's brilliant Things Fall Apart afterwards.

[F Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, like his other African novels, Mr Johnson has what seems to me to be racist features. Given the context of Cary's time and place, I suppose this is to be expected. In his introduction to the Time Reading Program edition (which intro contains unnecessary spoilers, in my opinion), V. S. Pritchett makes the point that Cary's white colonists are just as ridiculous as his African natives.

Although Mr. Johnson appears at first to be a caricature, he is ultimately a deeply human and deeply sympathetic individual. The same can be said for the white commissioner, Rudbeck. I don't remember having any sympathy for Gulley Jimson or any of the other protagonists in Cary's first trilogy that culminates in The Horse's Mouth.

Mr. Johnson is by far and away the best of Cary's African novels, although it also seems to me that each of the last three is an improvement over its predecessor. Recommended.

[Beatles1964 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately had the displeasure to read this book at school. Would be the most BORING book I have ever read.

[John Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Empire has a lot to answer for!

[Jamie Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the stranger novels I have read. It is interesting and well written, and does a remarkable job of creating a believable psychological portrait of a complicated, difficult individual. The reader is alternately sympathetic and exasperated with the title character, who sometimes behaves as if he inhabits an alternate mental universe that just occasionally has tangential contact with ours.

There is a lot racism in the book, enough to make the reader uncomfortable in places. Much of it comes from the white characters, who are on the whole a sorry lot. Britain was famous for its colonial civil service, sending out dedicated, well educated, competent officials. It is safe to say that none of this type ever made it to the pestilent backwater outposts that the Europeans in Mister Johnson inhabit. Most of the ones here are a dismal lot of torpid, third rate minds, so reflexively convinced of their innate superiority over the natives that their racism seems casual and thoughtless rather than malicious.

The other kind of racism is structural, an artifact of the author’s time and place. It is sometimes hard to pin down, but the reader knows it when he sees it. It is in the way people and places are described, sometimes sympathetic and patronizing at the same time. The novel was published in 1939, and the author had spent time as a young man in the colonial civil service himself. Drawing on his personal experience the narrative uses images and attitudes that were prevalent in the years before the first World War.

Johnson himself is infectiously good natured and constantly seeks the approval and friendship of those around him. He finds himself working for Rudbeck, a colonial officer who has developed a monomaniacal belief that the key to economic success for the region is the building of a new road. His superiors are skeptical, and the project is insufficiently resourced. Johnson is an excellent employee, and with his help the native workers make good progress. When the road project runs out of money, however, Johnson recommends improperly shifting funds from other sources to continue the work. The moral implications of this are lost on him; he sees it as helping the boss he admires, plus it allows him to keep the job he likes and needs. Inevitably, thing go awry, and he ends up as a store clerk for a loutish retired sergeant. The plot twists and turns, but in the end Johnson’s lack of a moral core, his inability to separate what is good for himself from what is legal and and ethical, leads to tragedy. To the end he never seems to grasp the larger implications of his actions.

This novel brings out strong reactions in readers. Some can’t get over the colonial mentality that suffuses the story; some find the portrayal of Johnson racist and demeaning. I understand those views, but still, this is the kind of book that you can’t get out of your head, the kind you keep thinking about. Even the unsympathetic characters are well drawn and believable, and the plot is expansive and interesting. It is a book worth reading.

[Frumenty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mister Johnson was published in 1939, and draws on Cary's experience while serving in the British Colonial Service in Nigeria in the years following the Great War. It is an easy and entertaining read, and I finished it within just 24 hours. Cary appears neither to applaud nor deplore colonialism, but to accept it as a simple fact of life; I'm quite comfortable with that. He is an acute observer of character and personal relationships, and appears to have a good grasp of his subject matter, so the novel recommends itself as a truthful tale of colonial life.

Cary's Johnson, a junior clerk in the colonial administration of Nigeria, barely literate and less numerate, with a very inflated notion of his own importance, reckoning himself "an English gentleman", and dismissing other africans as "uncivilised bush apes", uses his position in the colonial administration for self-aggrandisement and peculation. Many who have travelled will have met people who are in some ways like Mister Johnson, in places where education is basic, horizons are limited, and poverty and petty corruption are a way of life. He is not uniquely a product of colonialism, but I suspect that his type was more commonly encountered in colonial times. A decade after the book was published, Cary wrote in a preface that Johnson "turns his life into a romance, he is a poet who creates for himself a glorious destiny". That comment struck me as making too grand a claim for a character who could quite easily be dismissed as simply a compulsive liar and a spiv who believes his own hype. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Cary presents the confabulating Mister Johnson in the character of traditional storyteller, and supplies lengthy sections of traditional poetry (in English translation) to support this. I actually thought the images in the poetry quite good, but for all that Johnson is a self-deluding fool who can make very limited claims on our sympathy. Cary's partiality for Johnson betrays itself most blatantly near the end, when this anti-hero is briefly transformed into a sort of african Billy Budd. It could be said in Johnson's defence that there is no malice in him, but he is a complete fool and has proved himself a dangerous fool at that, so I'm inclined to think that Cary's sentimentality is ill-directed.

I can't refrain from mentioning my enjoyment of the deliciously black comedy of the weighing of Johnson in preparation for his hanging, which Rudbeck must somehow manage without scales. That will remain with me for a long time.

An enjoyable read, but not a great book. A much better book I think, with a rather similar anti-hero, is V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas.

[Mark Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having worked in West Africa (Sierra Leone) for several years, I looked forward to reading this book, which took place in Nigeria. I also wanted to see how the relationship between an African clerk and his British bosses developed. And I wanted to read what some say is the best novel to be written about Africa, despite its author’s inconspicuous formative years when he barely earned his degree from Oxford in 1912.

Mister Johnson is a warm-hearted, enthusiastic, but incompetent, government clerk on probation at the outpost of Fada, Nigeria who entertains poetic notions of grandeur and glory as he bumbles his way through the trials and tribulations of life.

He is a British Colonial Service official to the very core, and although he may not spell accurately, he was somewhat of a poet. And although he’d often drive his supervisors to distraction, there was something about having him around the place: his ingenuousness is touching, his optimism infectious.

According to V.S. Pritchett, an acclaimed author in his own right, “Johnson has one flash of genius: he sees that he can get hundreds of men to work on Rudbeck’s roads if he turns labor into a game… He is not the childish native, but the childish artist in a community of artists. Though they may reproach him, foresee his downfall and eagerly report all the scandal about him, they know he reflects something of themselves.”

Johnson’s infatuation with a voluptuous village girl, Bamu, reveals the poet in him with illusions of glory. He knows and follows the European tradition in which his wife must wear an English gown whether she likes it or not, and they are obliged as a couple to entertain lavishly on every conceivable occasion, leading to considerable debts with every tradesman in town. But his dreams of transforming her into a civilized lady are doomed, as the self-possessed beauty had other ideas in mind.

As is often the case in West Africa, petty thievery is brought to new levels of perfection that surprised even our protagonist, “Johnson, still amazed and delighted by his unexpected brilliance as a thief, greets Rudbeck (British High Commissioner) with explosive joy. “Oh, good morning, sah. God be with you, sah.”

Johnson’s great flaw, and eventual downfall, would be his illusions about his relationship with his British supervisors. When asked about the “High Commissioner,” Johnson is laughing, “He my frien’—soon as he see me—he smile and say, “Why, is dat you, Mister Johnson? Is you still here? Den he shake my hand and he say, “God bless you, Mister Johnson—I ‘gree for you—I pray for you…”
This illusion would be fatal towards the end of the story when he’s charged with thievery and the murder of a trader, and Rudbeck, who must determine his fate, is depressed at the options. “Johnson, seeing his gloom and depression, exerts himself. “Don’you mind, say, about dis hanging. I don’ care for it lil bit. Why”—he laughs with an air of surprise and discovery— I no fit know nutting about it—he too quick. Only I like you do him yourself, sah. If you not fit to shoot me. I don’t ‘gree for dem sergeant do it, too much. He no frien’. But you my frien’. You my father and my mother. I tink you hang me yourself.”

The Anglo-Irish novelist developed his character based on a clerk who had been a disappointment - “he was stupid and he could not be trusted with the files. He seemed also, a rare thing in an African, unapproachable. This poor clerk was nothing like Johnson, but I remembered him when I drew Johnson. He reminded me, too, of something I had noticed as a general thing, the warm-heartedness of the African; his readiness for friendship on the smallest encouragement.”
One of my favorite authors, William Boyd, who wrote, “A Good Man in Africa” reflects, “A wonderfully evocative portrait of a bygone colonial life... Mr. Johnson, in short, is a great literary creation; he can safely take his place beside any of the characters world literature has presented us with: from Falstaff to Zeno, from Candide to Humbert.”
William Boyd

Cary’s book reflects the trials, tribulations and complexities when two cultures and worldviews clash in Africa. Appropriately, the author ends the book with, “But as Johnson does not judge, so I did not want the reader to judge. And as Johnson swims gaily on the surface of life, so I wanted the reader to swim, as all of us swim, with more or less courage and skill, for our lives.”

Product details
• Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (1965)
• ASIN: B00KQSXEOA
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces

Walker was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala and spent over forty years helping disadvantaged people in the developing world. He came to Phoenix as a Senior Director for Food for the Hungry, worked with other groups like Make-A-Wish International and was the CEO of Hagar USA, a Christian-based organization that supports survivors of human trafficking.

His book, Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond, was recognized by the Arizona Literary Association for Non-Fiction and, according to the Midwest Review, “…is more than just another travel memoir. It is an engaged and engaging story of one man’s physical and spiritual journey of self-discovery…”

Several of his articles have been published in Ragazine and WorldView Magazines, Literary Yard and Literary Travelers, while another appeared in "Crossing Class: The Invisible Wall" anthology published by Wising Up Press. His reviews have been published by Revue Magazine, as well as Peace Corps Worldwide, and he has his own column in the “Arizona Authors Association” newsletter, “The Million Mile Walker Review: What We’re Reading and Why.”

His honors include the "Service Above Self" award from Rotary International. His wife and three children were born in Guatemala. You can learn more at www.MillionMileWalker.com and follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/millionmilew...

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to describe - at times I enjoyed it, but I frequently became depressed by it. Originally published in 1939, the language is dated, and would be considered offensive now, but it pefectly highlights how Africans and their white bosses spoke to one another, and how each was viewed by the other. Johnson, an irrepressible character, who it's is hard not to like instantly, is set on a collision course with disaster. Johnson is quite childlike, in his eternal optimism and his reverence of the white men he works for.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun read, Mister Johnson is a likeable buffoon with delusions of grandeur, who doesn't quite realize that he is not fully human within the colonial system. Overly ambitious and moody, Johnson is a fun character, if not fully believable. Cary's text is revelatory of colonial conceptions of the 'native' as alternately buffoon and savage.

[Alan Fricker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charity shop random pick

[Sevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

After this, I don't ever want to read again.

[Jefferson Fortner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was somewhat ambivalent about this novel. Published in 1939, I wondered if it would be replete with colonialist stereotypes of “natives” in Nigeria, and to a certain degree, this turned out to be true. However, the overall product is not necessarily tilted in favor of the English. Since Cary was Irish, and this book is a satire, everyone gets his or her fair share of ridicule. No one is competent at their job. Everyone is foolish.

The strength of the book actually lies in its portrayal of the damage to Nigerian customs that the British caused through the impact of unintended consequences. The title character, Mr. Johnson, is a Nigerian early-adopter of British identity, and he is also a man who lives in the moment without thinking of the consequences of his actions. He works as a clerk under the local English district officer (DO), Mr. Rudbeck, and Rudbeck is obsessed with the potential trade prosperity that roads would bring to the area. Throughout the book, Rudbeck and Johnson work on building their grand road. Rudbeck doesn’t realize that the road is pouring unsettled populations into the area and upending the traditional ways of life for the local tribe, even though the local emir and his main servant stress that this is exactly what will happen.

In the end, Johnson has completely lost his moral compass (and is a tragic figure), the local society is becoming increasingly unstable, and Rudbeck is swamped beyond his capabilities in the administrative details of managing a devastated society.

This is hardly a defense of colonialism. Certainly, Cary is guilty of presenting stereotypes, but the stereotypes are of both colonialist and the colonized. The stereotypes serve the satire, and the satire is a condemnation. Overall, this is an interesting novel.

[David]

A very sad book in many ways. Everything from the inevitably tragic plot to the terrible stereotyping that pervades all descriptions of the Africans. One thing does work towards redeeming it: all the white Europeans are equally bad. The whole idea of Europe in Africa comes across in this book as totally doomed.

[Matthew Stechel · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a character study than a straight ahead plotline of this African clerk/aide in a small African village in the middle of Nigeria that has a British outpost where a representative of the British government is supposed to provide services (mostly of the judicial nature, but also of the keeping things running and orderly in the manner of a civilized society--like if someone has a hole in their roof, they can file an official complaint in this outpost and they'll assign someone to take care of it, thinks like that) Mr. Johnson is this character with his heads continually daydreaming of parties he wants to throw and things he wants to buy for his new bride whom we see him negotiating a price for at the beginning of the novel. She being a bush woman doesn't quite know how society works because she's always lived with her family whom all live primitively rather than the way that people in societies do. Mr. Johnson sees her tho and is quite taken with her and is soon haggling with her brother over a price to bring her with him into the village he lives in. There's a running thread thru this where the title character will be excited over something (or very upset over something) and will start babbling or ranting to his wife whom at first can't understand what her new husband is going on about but also doesn't care to find out because she thinks him a fool.

Anyways Mr. Johnson is one of these fast talking/fast thinking guys who fancies himself an Englishman because he doesn't wanna live the way his countrymen do, he i think considers himself sort of an aristocrat rather than a commoner even tho he's as poor as everyone else in his village, but because he has this government job as an aide to the British rep, he thinks he has it made as a government man. ("I am a government man!" is something he keeps saying)

The story basically revolves him continually "Borrowing" money from the office safe--because he is the accountant/book keeper of the place (and is of course incredibly good with numbers) he thinks he can sorta fudge the numbers a little bit here and there to hide the slight embezzlement. He doesn't take a lot, just enough to sorta afford the parties that he likes to throw. (He's kind of a "I shall pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" type of guy and indeed he's known throughout the village in addition to the parties he throws as a guy who continually owes debts to various people but he swears he's good for them, and he seems to always somehow just manage to get away with that) This habit of his unfortunately gets exposed when the new British govt rep comes in and is obsessed with building a paved road that'll connect the main town to all the little outposts where all the primitive people live. (He wants to build this like 50 mile stretch of road--the guy associates civilization with roads) he sorta becomes obsessed with this idea--enough that he soon finds himself out overseeing construction of this road (using British funds) and leaves Johnson in charge of the day to day stuff, when the British rep runs out of funds for the highway--Johnson advises him to take funds from the other areas, the govt back home will never know that you're spending the money meant for this on the construction of the road. (I believe the term is re-allocation of funds, but it never gets said outright in the book)

This leads to well you can guess where this leads honestly, but the book as I've tried to indicate isn't really plot driven as much as it is character driven. Mr. Johnson sorta talks a lot to anyone who'll listen to him, but in a kinda bragging way, he's sort of a tall tale spinner, you could say he's a liar, but it's more like he talks so much that he talks himself into believing the stuff he says. He keeps insisting that he and the govt man are best friends or that he's this, or he's that. There's two friends that Johnson is always talking to--one works in a general store, and one is a postman, and they both continually listen to Johnson sorta talk and talk and are both happy to attend his lavish parties but the guy in the store is kinda continually rooting for Johnson's downfall--and we see Johnson continually dance/hover around the edges of serious trouble and continually somehow (almost miraculously) fast talk his way out of it, and each time the friend who works in the general store is both amazed and frustrated. Every time some new trouble brews for Johnson (and it does several times throughout the novel) the guy is always like "Oh this time you're in for it, your goose is cooked for sure this time!" It's kind of an amusing running thing throughout. (In contrast the postman is more even tempered and is genuinely worried for his friend Johnson and is forever advising him to just get a laborer job so he can stop continually worrying about money but Johnson needs to live the flashy braggart lifestyle--that's sorta who he is as a person)

I liked it, I didn't love it, but it's relatively short-ish (It's 227 pages) and it kept me involved enough to wanna see what was gonna happen to the title character. I liked the fast patter of the main character, some might say it keeps him from being likeable cause he's forever refusing to face reality, but he's kinda one of these types who sorta makes his own reality just thru sheer force of will-you know what I mean? I wasn't really a fan of where the book leads tho there is a certain logic to it. I rather felt like the end almost betrayed the light spirit of the book because up til the last 20 or 30 pages, the book has this sorta joie de vie spirit where despite Johnson occasionally getting himself into a bad situation, he's always able to make the most of it and ultimately talk his way thru it, and then the end comes and sorta crushes that viva life spirit work for him and that had made the book a relatively fun read for the most part once you get into it.

So I liked it until I didn't--but fortunately the part I didn't like didn't come until literally the last like 30 or 40 pages of the book when stuff happens that didn't really work for me tho it was consistent with the way Mr. Johnson had been thinking throughout the entire novel. It's a little bit different from the novels I normally read which are much more plot driven, but I was curious to check this out mostly cause i was interested in the movie they made from this. Glad I read it, I'm not sure I would've liked the movie without having read this since you really get a strong sense of who the title character is here.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this but I ought to reread it since ALL that I remember is I liked it a lot. Why I do not remember.

Time for a reread.

Triptych: Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth
1.Herself Surprised
2.To Be a Pilgrim 4 stars
3.The Horse's Mouth 4 stars

*Mister Johnson 4 stars

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1939. Set in early 1900's during British colonial rule in Nigeria. A very racist portrayal of African peoples and culture, but an interesting picture of how things worked in the colonial administration. His insightful analysis of the complex motivators of the main British character contrasts sharply with the buffoonish portrayal of all the Africans in the novel. Recommended as an example of racist colonial literature about Africa.

[Karen]

* 1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list

Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel – they appear here for the first time in a single list.

[Debbie Windley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to read in 2010 as the portrayal of Mr Johnson as a simple, comical native would seem to be offensive as is certainly the language. Yet all the characters in this colonial farce are equally ludicrous, self obsessed and trying to make the best for themselves out of the incompatability of the 2 cultures. essentially a comedy but an illuminating one.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

We read this book in my college geography class, and it is extremely racist. None of the information in this book is even remotely accurate, and my teacher from Ghana was highly offended. He says it depicts African culture as rudimentary, and honestly I have to agree with him. I know its a classic, but it supports horrible ideas.

[Linda Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hard book to read. I kept having the sense it was all going to go bad in the end even though there was a lot of humor & funny spots. Colonialism of Africa in the early 1920s & how there was so much potential for the simplest things to bad. It's part of what happens when there is so much difference between the haves & the have nots & when cultures are so incompatible.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The West African setting is perfectly captured for English readers - but the story of the upwardly-mobile Johnson is bitter-sweet & poignant. A man caught in the abyss between his native cultural ties & the new perspectives offered by so-called 'civilised' values. A rare excursion by a European writer into a complex dilemma of many colonial Africans in the last days of empire.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although Cary is as critical of the British in Africa as he is of the natives, there is certainly a question of poitical incorrectness here. Still in the end, in the clash of civilizations, everyone comes off poorly.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a quick, fairly enjoyable read, but Mister Johnson's character at times feels too much like a caricature... But then again, it is a book about an African written by an Englishman. I suppose you'll have that.