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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Honestly I wish it followed a more central plot - it had all the ingredients to be a complete page turner but I just felt myself feeling… underwhelmed. I enjoyed it whilst I was reading it but once I put it down I had no inclination to pick it I’m back up.
This is not a school story of girls coming together to beat the odds stacked against them. If anything, what you get is a tale of how young women very easily become part of a machine that can't wait to oppress others. It's a story of privilege in the making and social awakening, where you will likely be holding your breath if you know in what direction Rwandan history was marching towards in the early 1990s.
The first few chapters of the novel are quite fragmentary and episodic and it takes a bit for it to coalesce into a straightforward narrative, but this works very effectively to introduce and depict the different factions and interests at play in the school and among the students. Just the same, while most characters come across as rather one-dimensional, this contributes to the claustrophobic crescendo of tensions inside the school and beyond.
If you're not familiar with the history of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, I would suggest at least skimming the wikipeda page about it, for some context (the book is self-contained but it is heavily reliant on the context about which it talks very little).
TW: sexual violence, murder, genocide
The first few chapters of the novel are quite fragmentary and episodic and it takes a bit for it to coalesce into a straightforward narrative, but this works very effectively to introduce and depict the different factions and interests at play in the school and among the students. Just the same, while most characters come across as rather one-dimensional, this contributes to the claustrophobic crescendo of tensions inside the school and beyond.
If you're not familiar with the history of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, I would suggest at least skimming the wikipeda page about it, for some context (the book is self-contained but it is heavily reliant on the context about which it talks very little).
TW: sexual violence, murder, genocide
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
there is a very simple and direct tone used here, which emphasises the horrors that were developing, contrasting innocence with cruelty. the girls in this novel are essentially a microcosm of the issues that were inflicting rwanda at the time, culminating in the events of the 1994 genocide. the book discusses the themes and long-lasting effects of colonialism very well, along with the prominent role the catholic church played in this process, highlighting how the divisions and statuses created by european colonists were the root of such violence. a really difficult book to digest as the readers are constantly aware of how this story of rwanda ultimately ends, but also an important one.
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
reflective
"There are girls who imagine that a white teacher has fallen in love with them, that he’ll whisk them off, steal them away, just because he looks at no one else in class, so they’ll leave with him in a Sabena plane; others say the Virgin talks to them at night and they write down everything she says in a notebook; some girls believe themselves to be queens from olden times, nobody can touch them, so precious, so fragile, always on the verge of fainting; others say they’re going to die because they’ve been poisoned, poisoned for being too beautiful, more beautiful than all the rest, the jealous girls are after them with all kinds of evil spells, and they can’t eat a thing because there’s poison everywhere. These are bad ideas that whirl and clatter inside girls’ heads, sometimes they remain there, sometimes they vanish."
Utspelar sig på en privatskola för flickor som är "Rwandas framtid". Svårt att hålla isär karaktärerna, först långt in i boken väger fokus över på några specifika individer. Innan dess får man följa nästan hela klassen. Det ger en överblick och en känsla för sammanhanget i skolan och även samhället utanför, som man inte fått ur endast ett perspektiv. Konflikten tutsi och hutu och hur den eggats på (nästan skapats) av belgiska makter, när är tillfälle att agera och när är det inte?
medium-paced
The elite all girls boarding school - ‘Our Lady Of The Nile’ - sits near the source of the river nile, high in the hills of Rwanda. The students are sent there to be moulded into respectable citizens of Rwanda, over the watchful eyes of colonial nuns. Set fifteen years prior to the 1994 Genocide, the school only permits two Tutsi students for every twenty Hutu, giving the reader an insight into the bubbling racial tensions of the country.
In the first half of the book, we learn more about each girl at the lycée. Whilst the conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi is not directly addressed at the beginning, the sinister dynamic is clear through the language and behaviour of the girls at the lycée.
“So what did you come to the lycée for? You should have stayed in the sticks munching bananas in the fields. You would have made room for a real Rwandan from the majority people.”
Mukasonga brilliantly weaves in the history of colonialism and the ideas that are created by white Europeans in reference to Africa as a whole, as well as the Hutu’s and the Tutsi. These ideas and beliefs are reinforced throughout the country and at the lycée.
“Africa had no history, because Africans could neither read nor write before the missionaries opened their schools. Besides, it was the Europeans who had discovered Africa and dragged it into history.”
The way these colonial beliefs are casually dropped in throughout the book, highlights the devastating impact white Europeans had on building & instigating this conflict.
As the novel moves forwards, the girls increasingly emulate the discrimination they see around them towards their fellow students. This belief system is subtly adopted by the teachers at the school, which further adds to the building tension. Without saying too much, whilst I was anticipating some form of violence, I was shocked at the ease of how it happened and the brutality of it. This was such a moving and eye opening read.
In the first half of the book, we learn more about each girl at the lycée. Whilst the conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi is not directly addressed at the beginning, the sinister dynamic is clear through the language and behaviour of the girls at the lycée.
“So what did you come to the lycée for? You should have stayed in the sticks munching bananas in the fields. You would have made room for a real Rwandan from the majority people.”
Mukasonga brilliantly weaves in the history of colonialism and the ideas that are created by white Europeans in reference to Africa as a whole, as well as the Hutu’s and the Tutsi. These ideas and beliefs are reinforced throughout the country and at the lycée.
“Africa had no history, because Africans could neither read nor write before the missionaries opened their schools. Besides, it was the Europeans who had discovered Africa and dragged it into history.”
The way these colonial beliefs are casually dropped in throughout the book, highlights the devastating impact white Europeans had on building & instigating this conflict.
As the novel moves forwards, the girls increasingly emulate the discrimination they see around them towards their fellow students. This belief system is subtly adopted by the teachers at the school, which further adds to the building tension. Without saying too much, whilst I was anticipating some form of violence, I was shocked at the ease of how it happened and the brutality of it. This was such a moving and eye opening read.