First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

1903, and Captain Lalande Biran, overseeing a garrison on the bank of the Congo, has an ambition: to amass a fortune and return to the literary cafes of Paris.

His glamorous wife Christine has a further ambition: to own seven houses in France, a house for every year he has been abroad.

At the Captain’s side are an ex-legionnaire womaniser, and a servile, a treacherous man who dreams of running a brothel. At their hands the jungle is transformed into a wild circus of human ambition and absurdity. But everything changes with the arrival of a new officer and brilliant marksman: the enigmatic Chrysostome Liège.

Happy Friday, everyone! Another workweek is in the books. Thank goodness we all made it through the week! I do hope you are ending it on a high note. I hope you were able to tick off all, if not the majority of, the items on your to-do list. I also hope you are making significant progress in your goals, especially with the year approaching its close. However, there is no rush. Just bide your time in figuring things out. Also, it’s finally the weekend! Let your hair down and ditch those drab corporate clothes. Wear something more comfortable and slow down and take a breather. Don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back for making it through another hectic workweek. I hope you get to spend the weekend doing things you’re passionate about, spending it with the people you love, and/or completing your errands.

With the workweek coming to an end, it is time for a fresh First Impression Friday update, a bookish meme that has become an essential component of my weekly book blogging. It is the perfect way to cap the blogging week. In August, I continued my foray into the works of European writers, a literary journey I commenced in July. This pivot comes after spending the first half of the year reading the works of Asian writers, primarily East Asian writers. This pivot is also critical in ticking off books from my reading challenges; I realized that I have been lagging behind in them. Most of the books in these reading challenges are works of European literature, among them is my current read, Bernardo Atxaga’s Seven Houses in France, which is part of my 2025 Beat the Backlist Challenge.

Before 2023, I had never heard of the Spanish writer. It was only through an online bookseller that I came across him and some of his works. Curious about what his works have in store, I acquired two of his works. Apparently, Bernardo Atxaga is a pseudonym used by Joseba Irazu Garmendia, a Spanish Basque writer and self-translator. He is a prominent figure in Spanish literary circles, even winning the National Spanish Literature Award. At the heart of the novel is Chrysostome Liège, who signed a contract to serve in King Léopold’s Force Publique at the beginning of 1903. He then travels to Congo, first through a pack-boat from Antwerp to Matadi, by train as far as Léopoldville (present-day Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo), and then, finally, on a small steamship, the Princess Clémentine, to the garrison of Yangambi.

Interestingly, Yangambi is situated in the heart of the Congolese rainforest. There, Chrysostome proved himself the best marksman, to the envy of his colleagues. He built a reputation for being the most stoic and moral soldier of the Belgian Empire. The novel captures his interactions with the other soldiers and locals. Among those he met was Captain Lalande Biran, the commander tasked to look after the garrison. Under his command are eighteen white soldiers and five companies of askaris. Now, askari is familiar to me because I encountered the term in the works of Nobel Laureate in Literature Abdulrazak Gurnah. Askaris are soldiers recruited from Zanzibar and the Congo. I just started reading the book, so I don’t have much impression to share for now.

One thing, however, that I find curious is the premise. It is about a Belgian soldier and his colleagues in colonial Africa. However, the writer is a Spanish Basque writer. I guess I was expecting Atxaga to write about Spanish colonial heritage. I don’t see anything wrong, however, in his writing about a different group of colonialists. Colonialism, after all, is a universal subject, and Africa is a witness to this. Now, I can’t wait to see how Atxaga paints a portrait of Congo and its landscape. I can’t wait to experience his storytelling and immerse myself in his prose. How about you, fellow reader? What book or books have you read over the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!