Scan barcode
impla77's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I have mixed feelings on this book. I liked the stories of the grandmothers and mothers much more than those of the children, which is really when the story becomes more intertwined. Its defo very ambitious, perhaps too much so. Just some aspects don’t really work. Also perplexed why this was even categorised as a sci fi book, let alone won awards for being a sci fi book, when the sci fi element is clumsily incorporated and almost tacked on towards the end. I would be interested in reading more books from this author, but perhaps would like a smaller scale story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Pregnancy, Grief, Death, Classism, Colonisation, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, Murder, and Kidnapping
Minor: Vomit
aegagrus's review against another edition
4.75
The Old Drift is a story about Zambia, deeply infused with a sense of place, but always approaches that place (and the project of telling its history) somewhat askance. The essential details feel almost incidental. We meander through genres, through literary voices, through moments in time, and though we are given much cause to reflect along the way (even explicitly enjoined to), the narrative is riverine, bearing us with its current and arresting reflection. Though the emplotment is in some sense intricate, and the overarching structure of the book clear and intentional, the experience of moving through this book is one of meandering: drifting.
Serpell takes us in many directions with this book. Some readers will not connect as readily to some of its themes. This is hardly a disadvantage. In the end, The Old Drift has one key virtue: for a book which could spawn endless rumination and analysis, its most essential lesson is laid out clearly, elegantly, and even explicitly. In some ways, this is a book which demands a great deal from its reader. In other ways, it is shockingly direct. The reader can -- and should -- approach the book on both levels.
Narratives about the global south, and about Africa in particular, are often strikingly deterministic. Places are the way they are for Reasons, many of those reasons located in intentional acts -- of colonialists, politicians, soldiers. The Old Drift has quite a lot to say about such people, their actions, and their reasons. But at its most essential, this book is a rejoinder to such a determinism. It is a vehicle for imaginative reinvention and critical analysis, both evoked through Serpell's beautiful and painstaking writing.
Serpell takes us in many directions with this book. Some readers will not connect as readily to some of its themes. This is hardly a disadvantage. In the end, The Old Drift has one key virtue: for a book which could spawn endless rumination and analysis, its most essential lesson is laid out clearly, elegantly, and even explicitly. In some ways, this is a book which demands a great deal from its reader. In other ways, it is shockingly direct. The reader can -- and should -- approach the book on both levels.
Narratives about the global south, and about Africa in particular, are often strikingly deterministic. Places are the way they are for Reasons, many of those reasons located in intentional acts -- of colonialists, politicians, soldiers. The Old Drift has quite a lot to say about such people, their actions, and their reasons. But at its most essential, this book is a rejoinder to such a determinism. It is a vehicle for imaginative reinvention and critical analysis, both evoked through Serpell's beautiful and painstaking writing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Medical content, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Blood, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy
More...