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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
n This Mournable Body, we meet a Zimbabwean woman, Tambudzai as she is between jobs and seeking a more permanent living situation than the hostel she has “aged out of.” We follow her as she continues to seek to better herself in a country that will not grant her any favours in doing so.
Y’all this book was an absolute struggle for me to get through. I only managed to get through it because after reading 50 pages of the physical book, I switched over to audio.
The book explores important topics of postcolonialism, capitalism, class mobility and obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe.
While I understand why it was employed, the use of the second person narrative causes such distance between you and the protagonist that it’s so hard to connect, feel something or root for her. She is also completely insufferable and self sabotaging so that didn’t help.
I don’t wanna be uncharitable because Tambudzai is dealing with a lot. She is from a small village and as gotten an education that should be guaranteeing her success, but due to the effects of colonialism still plaguing her country, the fact that she is a woman and the excessive pressures she places on herself to excel, it all becomes too much and she has several mental breaks.
It was slow, boring and dragged. Just did not do anything for me. It had no plot and then on top of that had no vibes.
I may have also shot myself in the foot by reading this and then finding out it’s a third book in a trilogy. It might have given me more of a connection to and therefore some feeling for Tambudzai.🤷🏾♀️
Y’all this book was an absolute struggle for me to get through. I only managed to get through it because after reading 50 pages of the physical book, I switched over to audio.
The book explores important topics of postcolonialism, capitalism, class mobility and obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe.
While I understand why it was employed, the use of the second person narrative causes such distance between you and the protagonist that it’s so hard to connect, feel something or root for her. She is also completely insufferable and self sabotaging so that didn’t help.
I don’t wanna be uncharitable because Tambudzai is dealing with a lot. She is from a small village and as gotten an education that should be guaranteeing her success, but due to the effects of colonialism still plaguing her country, the fact that she is a woman and the excessive pressures she places on herself to excel, it all becomes too much and she has several mental breaks.
It was slow, boring and dragged. Just did not do anything for me. It had no plot and then on top of that had no vibes.
I may have also shot myself in the foot by reading this and then finding out it’s a third book in a trilogy. It might have given me more of a connection to and therefore some feeling for Tambudzai.🤷🏾♀️
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Rounded up from 3.5. Second-person narrative is unusual for me so I struggled a bit with this book. I also haven't read the previous books in the series so I'm not sure if that would have helped. Ultimately. I understand how it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I also posted this review on my book blog:
This Mournable Body is the third novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s loose trilogy that begins with her breakthrough 1988 novel Nervous Conditions. Just as a disclaimer, I have not read either of the previous novels in this trilogy. I went on the advice of other reviews that it wasn’t necessary to do so, and I agree with that assessment, but I can see how my experience with the novel would have been very different if I had read the other two books first. The trilogy follows the life of Tambudzai (aka Tambu), and This Mournable Body opens on Tambu approaching middle age and living in a hostel in Harare with little idea of what her future looks like. From there, the novel follows Tambu as she moves between the homes of others and falls in and out of various jobs as she grows more and more convinced that she has squandered her promising youth.
For me, this book was a little difficult to get into. While it is told chronologically, it doesn’t adhere to a conventional narrative arc. It relays various developments in this period of Tambu’s life, but to me it didn’t feel like there was anything that held the plot together other than the passage of time. I couldn’t figure out why the author decided to start and end the story where she did. The ending left me scratching my head, as the two-year period of the final job Tambu takes is relegated to a space of only a couple of pages.
One thing that often gets talked about in this book is how it is told in the second person. I personally found that I stopped noticing it almost immediately. We spend so much time in Tambu’s head that to me it read the same as a first person or third person narrative would. Other reviewers have had different responses to its efficacy, so it definitely depends on the type of reader. If the purpose of the second person is to put the reader in Tambu’s shoes, then I would say it contributes to making this an uncomfortable reading experience at times. Tambu, while her motives are understandable, is far from the most sympathetic character. In fact, she is outright despicable at times, such as when she participates in the public shaming of another woman and during one particularly violent incident that occurs when she works as a biology teacher. Luckily, I don’t think it was the author’s purpose to make us sympathize with Tambu, but I think instead we are meant to see the flaws of the wider nation through her story. There is a scene where Tambu seeks forgiveness from someone she has hurt, but they refuse to give it to her. This mirrors how the issues that Zimbabwe faces can not be so easily resolved.
My favorite part of the novel was definitely the way it presented various social issues that have been haunting Zimbabwe since, and sometimes before, its independence. The lack of awareness of women’s movements and the treatment of women is much lamented by Tambu’s cousin Nyasha, who runs workshops meant to educate women about women’s movements. Nyasha’s husband, Leon, is a white man who manages to both romanticize Zimbabwe and denigrate it in favor of his native Germany when it suits him. The closest thing to a climax that the novel has occurs when an ecotourism company Tambu works for decides to use Tambu’s home village as an example of rustic village life for European tourists. The best parts of the novel come when Dangarembga portrays the imbalance of power between the villagers and the tour company who looks to profit off them. Tambu’s white boss requests that the female villagers go topless during a dance welcoming the tourists to the village, as she believes this would conform with the Europeans’ preconceived notions of Zimbabwean villagers. Tambu’s mother is outraged and humiliated by this development, and it goes to show the way village life is distorted and exploited by the tourism industry.
In the background of all this, the memory of Zimbabwe’s independence struggle looms large. Tambu’s aunt Lucia and Lucia’s friend Christine fought in the war and state multiple times that the country is heading in a direction that deviates from what they fought for. To them, it seems like the country has forgotten why it fought for independence in the first place. If the first two books in the trilogy go into more detail about Christine and Lucia’s lives, then I would definitely consider picking them up. While this novel didn’t completely work for me, I can definitely understand why the jury decided to longlist it.
This Mournable Body is the third novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s loose trilogy that begins with her breakthrough 1988 novel Nervous Conditions. Just as a disclaimer, I have not read either of the previous novels in this trilogy. I went on the advice of other reviews that it wasn’t necessary to do so, and I agree with that assessment, but I can see how my experience with the novel would have been very different if I had read the other two books first. The trilogy follows the life of Tambudzai (aka Tambu), and This Mournable Body opens on Tambu approaching middle age and living in a hostel in Harare with little idea of what her future looks like. From there, the novel follows Tambu as she moves between the homes of others and falls in and out of various jobs as she grows more and more convinced that she has squandered her promising youth.
For me, this book was a little difficult to get into. While it is told chronologically, it doesn’t adhere to a conventional narrative arc. It relays various developments in this period of Tambu’s life, but to me it didn’t feel like there was anything that held the plot together other than the passage of time. I couldn’t figure out why the author decided to start and end the story where she did. The ending left me scratching my head, as the two-year period of the final job Tambu takes is relegated to a space of only a couple of pages.
One thing that often gets talked about in this book is how it is told in the second person. I personally found that I stopped noticing it almost immediately. We spend so much time in Tambu’s head that to me it read the same as a first person or third person narrative would. Other reviewers have had different responses to its efficacy, so it definitely depends on the type of reader. If the purpose of the second person is to put the reader in Tambu’s shoes, then I would say it contributes to making this an uncomfortable reading experience at times. Tambu, while her motives are understandable, is far from the most sympathetic character. In fact, she is outright despicable at times, such as when she participates in the public shaming of another woman and during one particularly violent incident that occurs when she works as a biology teacher. Luckily, I don’t think it was the author’s purpose to make us sympathize with Tambu, but I think instead we are meant to see the flaws of the wider nation through her story. There is a scene where Tambu seeks forgiveness from someone she has hurt, but they refuse to give it to her. This mirrors how the issues that Zimbabwe faces can not be so easily resolved.
My favorite part of the novel was definitely the way it presented various social issues that have been haunting Zimbabwe since, and sometimes before, its independence. The lack of awareness of women’s movements and the treatment of women is much lamented by Tambu’s cousin Nyasha, who runs workshops meant to educate women about women’s movements. Nyasha’s husband, Leon, is a white man who manages to both romanticize Zimbabwe and denigrate it in favor of his native Germany when it suits him. The closest thing to a climax that the novel has occurs when an ecotourism company Tambu works for decides to use Tambu’s home village as an example of rustic village life for European tourists. The best parts of the novel come when Dangarembga portrays the imbalance of power between the villagers and the tour company who looks to profit off them. Tambu’s white boss requests that the female villagers go topless during a dance welcoming the tourists to the village, as she believes this would conform with the Europeans’ preconceived notions of Zimbabwean villagers. Tambu’s mother is outraged and humiliated by this development, and it goes to show the way village life is distorted and exploited by the tourism industry.
In the background of all this, the memory of Zimbabwe’s independence struggle looms large. Tambu’s aunt Lucia and Lucia’s friend Christine fought in the war and state multiple times that the country is heading in a direction that deviates from what they fought for. To them, it seems like the country has forgotten why it fought for independence in the first place. If the first two books in the trilogy go into more detail about Christine and Lucia’s lives, then I would definitely consider picking them up. While this novel didn’t completely work for me, I can definitely understand why the jury decided to longlist it.
My pick for book club, Dangaremba's third story of Tambu. She leaves a hostel and ends up renting a room in a widow's house who is being used and abused by her sons. She has no job as she left hers at an ad agency bcos she couldn't take the white men stealing her ideas and feels completely helpless. The old woman is unravelling and her flatmates are quite toxic or dismissive. Eventually she gets a job as a teacher but she physically assaults her student leading to her being sectioned. After she spends several months in the mental asylum, she goes to live with her cousin Nyasha who she's still too depressed and fragile to feel any empathy for, despite her struggles. She just feels envious of Nyasha's education and educational opps and angry that they haven't made her and her German husband rich. From there she goes back to working for her old schoolmate, colleague and former enemy, Tracey. Though she does a decent job and seems ok on the outside, inside she is falling apart and her mental health continues to decline, while she can't seem to thrive at work. She eventually gets an opportunity to shine but of course it all goes wrong. It's a hard read because Tambu is not very likeable but it's because of her mental state and situation, and the context in Harare where everyone is adopting different methods to survive. Props to the author for using the second person address throughout to great effect and managing to tell a rich story while staying in the head of the protagonist the whole time, but I did feel that some sections tailed off or were left hanging. Overall though, thoughtful, empathetic and definitely a worthwhile read.
I feel like I should have liked this more than I did. :/
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated