mkesten's review against another edition
3.0
Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 is a very raw portrait of a post-Colonial state tucked into south central Africa. Tram 83 itself seems to be a bar or whorehouse near a railway station anchoring the urban wasteland between miners and soldiers and tourists, although not the class of tourist one would expect in Miami Beach or Disneyworld,
The dialogue between Lucien, a writer, and Requiem, his pal/agent, is flinty.
Jazz blasts from the stage. Scantily-clad waitresses deliver cold beer and liquor to the tables. Prostitutes and their clientele rotate endlessly in the washrooms.
I am reminded of the super-realism of Bulgakov, or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or Daniel Dafoe’s London. A funny but nightmarish landscape of broken down institutions, violence, and crooked cops.
It seems only to come alive at night.
I almost expect Anthony Bourdain to pop up with a voice-over “I just happened to meet an old friend along the way to the charming neighbourhood bordellos...”
The dialogue between Lucien, a writer, and Requiem, his pal/agent, is flinty.
Jazz blasts from the stage. Scantily-clad waitresses deliver cold beer and liquor to the tables. Prostitutes and their clientele rotate endlessly in the washrooms.
I am reminded of the super-realism of Bulgakov, or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or Daniel Dafoe’s London. A funny but nightmarish landscape of broken down institutions, violence, and crooked cops.
It seems only to come alive at night.
I almost expect Anthony Bourdain to pop up with a voice-over “I just happened to meet an old friend along the way to the charming neighbourhood bordellos...”
jlyons's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
4.25
aalayah's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Classism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Addiction, Colonisation, Death, Alcoholism, Body horror, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Sexism, Sexual content, and Racial slurs
idkwhosara's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
emmatucker_'s review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.5
cvbazley's review against another edition
I don’t want to give this a star rating because maybe something was lost in translation, maybe I didn’t understand something because this book is culturally very different from what I usually read. However, this book is not what I was expecting from the synopsis. I thought it would be more about jazz uniting an international community in the heart of Africa toiling through their universal hardships. Not really. It was more about how this international community gets by on debauchery and perversion. Nearly every page was made sexual, even when it didn’t add to the story.
TLDR: not my thing, but I’m not placing any blame on the author or his vision.
TLDR: not my thing, but I’m not placing any blame on the author or his vision.
anetq's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a bit like watching a week long poetry slam, in strobe lights, in a Congolese mining town nightclub surrounded by women selling themselves ("baby-chicks" or "single mamas" depending on age group), miners (diggers), underage miner boys (slim-jims), the for-profit tourists and the second rate tourists. Everybody trying to get rich or get by depending on where you are in the social strata (getting out is just a dream).
As someone who likes being told a good story, this was hard to get through: Strobe lights make me kind of dizzy, and there wasn't much of a coherent story line to follow. But the truly kaleidoscopic view of the craziness that is a Congolese mining town, living through what we might call "colonianism 2.0" - the form experiment makes sense as a mirror image of what life is like: There is little coherence, story line or sense to be made. Everybody is being exploited and trying to exploit others - and if you upset the power balances, or just happen to be out of luck (or unwilling to play by the rules) there is hell to pay. But it will all go down to a soundtrack of great music from most of the southern hemisphere at Tram 83!
I'll give it 4 stars for the use of form to convey content, the musicality, and the picture it paints of modern mining colonialism (and the DRC Congo!) - but I can't say it was a pleasure to read. An experience, but not easy.
As someone who likes being told a good story, this was hard to get through: Strobe lights make me kind of dizzy, and there wasn't much of a coherent story line to follow. But the truly kaleidoscopic view of the craziness that is a Congolese mining town, living through what we might call "colonianism 2.0" - the form experiment makes sense as a mirror image of what life is like: There is little coherence, story line or sense to be made. Everybody is being exploited and trying to exploit others - and if you upset the power balances, or just happen to be out of luck (or unwilling to play by the rules) there is hell to pay. But it will all go down to a soundtrack of great music from most of the southern hemisphere at Tram 83!
I'll give it 4 stars for the use of form to convey content, the musicality, and the picture it paints of modern mining colonialism (and the DRC Congo!) - but I can't say it was a pleasure to read. An experience, but not easy.
lakerss12's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book bizarrely challenging to read, and I am not positive as to why. Overall glad I read the novel but I think I need to re read to internalize better
black_girl_reading's review against another edition
4.0
A read like no other, Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila is a modern little jam about two frenemies meeting mostly in a bar that represents the Wild West of a small offshoot Central African city state run by a dictator and warlord, featuring a cast of characters both local and expat, as one tries to live by his principles and the other tries to undermine them. There was a lot to like about this book. I think it really captured a place and time and how it shapes the people that live there, and also, really shows who is drawn there from other places in the world and why. It names the realities of living in a trying time without without preaching or aggressively lamenting, the issues speak for themselves and so does the resilience, the humour, and the adaptability of folks. And the way that the cacophony of a chaotic world runs through the text as you come to know two men, but not all of the way, more in the present than the past, allows you to see two people in context, but also accept that this context is fleeting, and whole other lives live below the surface. I wish that I could read in French for this one, and that I knew some of the music a bit more, but still, frenetic jazz ran through the pages and I liked the melody.