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sare1125's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
eelsmac's review against another edition
2.0
Hard meh. There's some really good insights but they get drowned out by the author's inferiority complex.
I bought this book because I'm interested in DR Congo and for an alleged journalist Sundaram does kind of a bad job describing the actual country and people on it. There are needless accounts of his internal experience as he bumbles through a war zone, but ultimately I felt it did an injustice to the people he met and interviewed because his experience overpowers the voices of the actual Congolese people. Which...is kind of just bad journalism, and a little bit imperialist b******* (I don't care that the author is not of the typical ethnicity or nationality that we think of when we talk about imperialism, he writes like an imperialist - I said it, I meant it).
I bought this book because I'm interested in DR Congo and for an alleged journalist Sundaram does kind of a bad job describing the actual country and people on it. There are needless accounts of his internal experience as he bumbles through a war zone, but ultimately I felt it did an injustice to the people he met and interviewed because his experience overpowers the voices of the actual Congolese people. Which...is kind of just bad journalism, and a little bit imperialist b******* (I don't care that the author is not of the typical ethnicity or nationality that we think of when we talk about imperialism, he writes like an imperialist - I said it, I meant it).
kairosdreaming's review against another edition
3.0
This review can be found at www.ifithaswords.blogspot.com or Amazon.com as part of the Vine program.
eraderneely's review against another edition
3.0
I was kind of disappointed. It wasn't descriptive or emotional, so it was sort of caught between in boring-land.
sam8834's review against another edition
3.0
Sundaram's account of his recent time spent in the Congo is more travel memoir than anything else, kept interesting by his independent, low-budget reporting. One gets the impression he's really living as part of the community, instead of observing from afar as most outsiders working for larger news organizations would do. His writing is also mature and expressive enough to bring to life the setting and people. However, I was expecting more of a journalistic take on the conflicts in the region and was therefore a bit thrown by the more personal nature of this book. Maybe that was an incorrect assumption on my part, but I thought the whole basis of Sundaram's journey was to leave his current career track behind, in favor of a legitimate, on-the-ground mission to inform the public about dark corners of the world. Nothing wrong with travel writing as a genre, and those looking for that will likely enjoy this. It just didn't fulfill my expectation of a more investigative, informative work. Oddly enough, I would have far preferred to read any of the handful of articles Sundaram wrote during his time there, of which merely the writing process was discussed.
alangley's review against another edition
2.0
It's hard to describe how I feel about this book because it contains so many amazing and lackluster things. I dove into it with wild enthusiasm. Sundaram has a talent for detail that makes even the smallest moment stand out, as well as a sharp memory. His descriptions caught me immediately and pulled me into the world of Kinshasa. This continues throughout the book as he uses powerful imagery again and again to captivate the reader.
Yet those descriptions are the best part of the book. Sundaram has a volatile relationship with everyone around him. He struggles visibly with his own self-worth and looks to others to support him and help him feel worthwhile. I sympathize with him, but when the people around him act contrary to expectation (or even just look at him askance), he plunges into despair and dissociation. This happened time and again throughout the book, and by the middle i began to dislike him intensely.
Sundaram also struggles to recreate the people he met and worked with as memorable characters. With few exceptions, the characters in this book are very similar, and their traits can be interchanged without confusion. Sundaram classes his characters into type, often based on race or sex - "the Chinese" or "the girl" or "the domestic" - and then fails to look beyond those characteristics. He has a particularly fraught relationship with women, who are universally portrayed as sex objects or harridans.
I was excited about this book because it promised to provide me with a view into the Congo, a culture and country I don't know. The vision it provide was vivid and captivating, but was muddied by the author's personal views and issues, which spoiled the narrative for me entirely.
Yet those descriptions are the best part of the book. Sundaram has a volatile relationship with everyone around him. He struggles visibly with his own self-worth and looks to others to support him and help him feel worthwhile. I sympathize with him, but when the people around him act contrary to expectation (or even just look at him askance), he plunges into despair and dissociation. This happened time and again throughout the book, and by the middle i began to dislike him intensely.
Sundaram also struggles to recreate the people he met and worked with as memorable characters. With few exceptions, the characters in this book are very similar, and their traits can be interchanged without confusion. Sundaram classes his characters into type, often based on race or sex - "the Chinese" or "the girl" or "the domestic" - and then fails to look beyond those characteristics. He has a particularly fraught relationship with women, who are universally portrayed as sex objects or harridans.
I was excited about this book because it promised to provide me with a view into the Congo, a culture and country I don't know. The vision it provide was vivid and captivating, but was muddied by the author's personal views and issues, which spoiled the narrative for me entirely.
highaction's review against another edition
4.0
Certainly some unique views and perspectives on the world. One has to be impressed with Anjan's humility at recounting how absolutely naive and clumsy he was upon arrival in Congo. Some of the relationships in the book are hard to understand and I felt that at times he was making references to people that were only mentioned once in the very beginning of the book. I found myself sometimes unable to recall who he was referring to. Overall, however, this is a kind of book that I like to read and I can sense the rawness and acute awareness of his story, coupled with his initial attempt to relay it in bound form. Humans....
Well done...
Well done...