"Bones": Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country — Reading Notes

The Voice of the Narrator

Wallace’s narrator adopts a knowing, slightly sardonic tone that treats colonial governance as a theater of absurdity. The description of Bosambo’s 'unauthorized but no less magnificent' robes hints at the gap between official hierarchy and actual authority. The narrator freely editorializes, noting that Bosambo was 'too cheery and optimistic a man to doubt that his action would incur the censorship of his lord.' This narrative voice blends the detached perspective of a historian with the intimacy of a gossip, often undercutting the pomp of empire with a wink.

Dialogue as Duel

The exchanges between Hamilton and Bones are the book’s comic engine. Bones’s self-aggrandizing claims—'I practically saved the life of one of Bosambo’s headmen'—are met with Hamilton’s deadpan deflation: 'I expect it was your funny nose that did the trick.' Their banter reveals character without exposition: Bones’s earnestness and Hamilton’s weary sarcasm. The dialogue is rapid, with interruptions and non sequiturs, as when Bones suggests a Victoria Cross and Hamilton responds by eating a sandwich. This verbal sparring mirrors the physical skirmishes of the plot, where bravado and competence are constantly at odds.

Setting Through Detail

Wallace builds the African setting through small, concrete details rather than broad description. The narrative notes 'the forest paths, by canoe, from fishing villages, from far-off agricultural lands near by the great mountains,' grounding the story in a geography of movement. The battle scene is rendered with specific imagery: 'the bivouac fires of the Houssas gleamed redly amongst the anemones.' Such details—the flowers, the preserved tongue, the marmalade on a biscuit—anchor the exotic in the mundane, making the colonial outpost feel lived-in rather than picturesque.

Structure of the Prologue

The prologue, titled 'Sanders—C.M.G.,' operates as a self-contained story that introduces the book’s key tensions: unauthorized action versus official procedure, and the gap between report and reality. It begins with a direct address to the reader about the limits of the Blue Book, then plunges into Bosambo’s palaver and the subsequent invasion. The narrative moves from political explanation to action, ending with the comic aftermath of Bones’s self-promotion. This structure—framing a tale with a meta-commentary on documentation—recurs throughout the collection, inviting readers to question whose version of events holds authority.

Readers will find that the pleasure of 'Bones' lies less in the plot than in the texture of its language—the clipped dialogue, the narrator’s asides, and the way character is revealed through what is said and left unsaid. Pay attention to the moments when official language gives way to colloquial banter, for those are where the story’s true tensions emerge. The book rewards a slow reading that savors its verbal play and its sly commentary on empire.