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Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'
Waiting: A Novel of Uganda's Hidden War by Margaret Daymond, Goretti Kyomuhendo
1 review
aegagrus's review
4.25
Waiting is an appropriate title for this story, a novel about the uncertain and unfinished experiences of rural Ugandans, buffeted by political changes which are at once distant and immediate. This is a story of observation, expectation, and dread. Kyomuhendo's characters are far from passive, and do what they can to respond to their fraught circumstances. Ultimately, though, they are required to wait. Though Waiting's plot covers the ground that would be expected of a novel, this pervasive sense of hazy anticipation and dislocation makes it read more like a short story, or a vignette.
Waiting is a straightforwardly feminist book, highlighting the ways in which violence and displacement ripple outwards and place particular burdens on women. The resulting novel is very bodily, focusing on bodily experiences (ranging from daily functions to pregnancy, illness, and injury), and the ways in which women in particular are forced to live an embodied existence. Male characters often directly pass uncomfortable tasks along to the women. The novel, in turn, passes those experiences along to the reader, making it at times a quite uncomfortable read, but very intentionally so. Waiting also has interesting things to say about social loyalties, such as ethnicity, nationality, and language, and the ways in which war and conflict recast those identities and their relationships to each other.
The immediate and embodied way daily life is presented is one of Waiting's strengths, but also its most significant weakness. The characters make difficult choices, and respond to their context in nuanced and interesting ways. These decisions, though, are mostly presented in terms of sensation and action. Kyomuhendo lives by "show, don't tell", and the resulting narrative meaningfully conveys that merely existing from moment to moment is a challenge for her characters. Even under such strain, though, there is a depth and richness to mental life which does not always come across here. Although Waiting is in some sense structurally introspective, the immediacy and sensory nature of its narrative at times detracts from directly exploring that introspection, an absence for which the overall work suffers.
Nonetheless, Waiting is a well-crafted, singular, and affecting story -- if an uncomfortable one.
Waiting is a straightforwardly feminist book, highlighting the ways in which violence and displacement ripple outwards and place particular burdens on women. The resulting novel is very bodily, focusing on bodily experiences (ranging from daily functions to pregnancy, illness, and injury), and the ways in which women in particular are forced to live an embodied existence. Male characters often directly pass uncomfortable tasks along to the women. The novel, in turn, passes those experiences along to the reader, making it at times a quite uncomfortable read, but very intentionally so. Waiting also has interesting things to say about social loyalties, such as ethnicity, nationality, and language, and the ways in which war and conflict recast those identities and their relationships to each other.
The immediate and embodied way daily life is presented is one of Waiting's strengths, but also its most significant weakness. The characters make difficult choices, and respond to their context in nuanced and interesting ways. These decisions, though, are mostly presented in terms of sensation and action. Kyomuhendo lives by "show, don't tell", and the resulting narrative meaningfully conveys that merely existing from moment to moment is a challenge for her characters. Even under such strain, though, there is a depth and richness to mental life which does not always come across here. Although Waiting is in some sense structurally introspective, the immediacy and sensory nature of its narrative at times detracts from directly exploring that introspection, an absence for which the overall work suffers.
Nonetheless, Waiting is a well-crafted, singular, and affecting story -- if an uncomfortable one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Excrement, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit
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