The Doctor Who Would Be King by Guillaume Lachenal (review)

Reviewed by:

• The Doctor Who Would Be King by Guillaume Lachenal
• Matthew M. Heaton

Guillaume Lachenal. The Doctor Who Would Be King. Trans. Cheryl Smeall. Theory in Forms. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2022. x + 301 pp. Ill. $28.95 (978-1-4780-1786-8).

In this rather idiosyncratic volume, Lachenal recounts the life and times of Dr. John Joseph David, a French colonial army doctor who twice found himself in the position of acting as a high-level colonial administrator of French-controlled territories, first on Wallis Island in the South Pacific (1933–38) and later in the Haut-Nyong province of Cameroon (1939–44). In both instances, Dr. David took on responsibilities above and beyond the traditional role of a colonial doctor and in the process established regimes effectively governed by principles of public health, fundamentally linking prospects for economic development and effective administration to the health and well-being of indigenous populations. In both places, David also developed something of a cult of personality, remembered mostly as strong, capable, and variously kind and severe, depending on the circumstances. David’s bearing was so regal that he became known colloquially as “Emperor” in Haut-Nyongo, and as “King” in Wallis, despite never holding either title within French or indigenous political structures.

Telling the story of Dr. David, however, is more easily conceptualized than executed. The Haut-Nyong efforts in medical administration seemed novel on first blush, but ultimately “[led] to a somewhat disappointing conclusion: ‘the Haut-Nyong experiment was not very original, neither in substance nor in form’” (p. 74). Though based on principles of prioritizing public health, David’s developmentalist administration ultimately looked very much like other colonial projects of the time, despite being run by doctors. Hoping that David’s earlier odyssey in Wallis might provide insights to reinvigorate the search for historical significance, Lachenal delves into what for him are new and uncharted waters. In Wallis he uncovers another episode of quintessential colonial bravado, in which David insinuated himself into the local political system and instituted significant economic reforms to incorporate Wallis into the imperial economy. But the story here fizzled out, too, with David leaving unceremoniously in the wake of a catastrophic epidemic of typhoid fever, without much to show for his time as “king.” [End Page 328] Ultimately, Lachenal laments, “Wallis would be a case study that would have no instance of any generality, except . . . that of ‘micro-insularity’ itself” (p. 137).

Lachenal does his due diligence, but the documentary record of David’s tenure is spotty at best. Oral interviews with friends and associates of Dr. David’s in Cameroon and Wallis produce a range of impressions and artefacts, memories and laments denoting “traces” of a past that lingers in the present but which do not cohere into a clear narrative or compelling historical argument. Indeed, the failure of David’s ambitious endeavors are themselves instructive in this regard: “if what you work on is insignificant, you risk falling off the map” (p. 137), Lachenal writes. What are historians to do when the time is spent, the research exhausted, but the stories are not terribly revelatory and the books must still be written?

The answer for Lachenal is to focus on the journey, not the destination. Though the book does provide standard historical narrative and context for David’s adventures, it focuses as much if not more time on Lachenal’s personal process of discovery. The reader accompanies Lachenal in various archives as he uncovers new pieces of information and engages with them. We sit alongside him as he interviews informants, searches for old machetes, and does a guest spot on local TV news. “Investigations like this are like a treasure hunt,” he argues (p. 135). Frequent references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness make clear that Lachenal is constructing himself as a foil to Dr. David, positioning himself as Marlow in search of David’s Kurtz. He becomes enthralled by the ephemera, the “traces” of David in the present, and posits that this, really, is the point of it all. “I am rather interested in forms of material, proven, tangible presences from the past, but the existence of which...