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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Another read for school. Not really sure what I’m meant to be feeling rn. Confusion?? Disgust? Sympathy? The first half of this book was super messed up then it just got more and more boring, but maybe I’m missing this big symbolic message idk
All I know for sure is that the way women were spoken about in this book was not fun to read at all. Wdym you’re comparing the trenches to a woman’s vj? Sorry??
All I know for sure is that the way women were spoken about in this book was not fun to read at all. Wdym you’re comparing the trenches to a woman’s vj? Sorry??
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another award winner that I missed the narratological train on. Now, there was something to this in terms of the racialization, the colonization, a tale told and then backtracked and then flung forward of an inculcation of ethics gone awry, where sanity is a sliding scale of violence both begotten and imbibed depending on which white person wears the hat or holds the clipboard. Had it gone along those lines and continued to wrestle white French civilization to the ground, till the latter submitted to taking in Black Senegalese civilization as relativism rather than conquest, there could have been something truly devastating about the sacrifice of those blue eyes and those white hands. As it stands, though, a too heavy reliance on gender as Other made for lackluster metaphors and predictable mirroring, and the tragicomedy that is a Black serial killer on the fields of WWI devolved into a banal puddle of missing mother figures and (supposedly) masterful missionary positions. In any case, I'm still going to be putting Diop's latest on display on the shelves of my workplace whenever I can, cause lord knows the reading populace therein desperately needs some postcolonial deconstruction of antiblackness in their life. This work just missed the mark I was hoping it'd aim for.
Repetitive and dull. I fully get what the author was trying to achieve, but the execution just wasn't up to snuff. I honestly have no idea how this ever won any awards.
Frère d’âme is het relaas van Alfa Ndiaye, een Senegalese jongvolwassene die zich samen met zijn beste vriend – mon plus que frère – naar de loopgraven van de Eerste Wereldoorlog begeeft in de hoop op een beter leven nadien. Diop betoont zich een origineel schrijver die uitstekend in staat is zich in te leven in de protagonist. Door het gebruik van herhalingen zet hij een zekere sfeer neer die het verhaal spannend maakt, zelfs al is die herhaling – par la vérité de Dieu – zo nu en dan wat hinderlijk. Interessant zijn de verwijzingen naar riten uit de Afrikaanse cultuur, die de roman een duidelijke plaats geven in de literatuur over loopgraven.
Dit boek is bovendien aan te raden aan wie zijn Frans wil verbeteren. Evenals bijvoorbeeld Camus schrijft Diop in heldere, goed te volgen taal. De stijl van herhaling maakt het de lezer beslist makkelijker.
Dit boek is bovendien aan te raden aan wie zijn Frans wil verbeteren. Evenals bijvoorbeeld Camus schrijft Diop in heldere, goed te volgen taal. De stijl van herhaling maakt het de lezer beslist makkelijker.
So harrowing and terrifying; I'll be thinking of this one for a long time
- The use of repetition within this novel really speaks towards the descent of our protagonists sanity
- Diop's prose is unflinchingly poetic and disturbing
- The conversation this book has on humanity and inhumanity, guilt and atonement is so captivating
- Anna Moschovakis' translation is so effective, but I'd also love to read this in its original french
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
God's truth, I knew, I understood...I get that this is a writing style but if I never read/hear these words again this way...it will be too soon. Without them, I would have liked the book significantly more.
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
medium-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes