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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
I give five stars to a lot of books, but this one really touched me on a deep level. Beautiful exploration of the African immigrant experience told from a young girl's perspective on identity, war, violence, diaspora, and assimilation into a new country. Such an honest, painful, and lovely story that goes straight to the heart.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
"We Need New Names" works in two halves: Darling's childhood in Zimbabwe and teen years after moving to America to live with her aunt. Bulawayo had some fun ideas. I liked the depictions of Darling's adventures and games with her childhood friends, the Western journalists and NGO staff as a source of humor, and the universal experience of kids being bored in church.
The second half of the book--Darling's life in Michigan--seemed to lag. I feel like other novelists have explored the immigration experience, and the feeling of belonging to two cultures and no culture in more interesting ways. As a greedy reader, I longed to know more about Darling's childhood friends--how was Chipa handling motherhood, did Bastard ever harnass his innate charisma and leadership skills--and couldn't seem to care about Darling's quiet cousin or generic high school classmates. Even the more interesting storylines and anecdotes from this half-- the man at the nursing home, Darling's fractured relationship with her mother--were undeveloped, and never reached the same emotional poignancy as the group of children illicitly climbing trees to pick guavas.
Thanks to this book, I'm now eager to pick up other novels or short stories about Zimbabwe's political history, economic issues, and immigration to/from other countries. I kept finding myself being frustrated at the child narrator when Bulawayo was delivering exposition about the worthless old currency, anti-colonial movements, and the Zimbabwean voting system (Note: not a critique of the book--the child narrator worked well! I just have too many gaps in my knowledge about history!). Can anyone offer recommendations?
The second half of the book--Darling's life in Michigan--seemed to lag. I feel like other novelists have explored the immigration experience, and the feeling of belonging to two cultures and no culture in more interesting ways. As a greedy reader, I longed to know more about Darling's childhood friends--how was Chipa handling motherhood, did Bastard ever harnass his innate charisma and leadership skills--and couldn't seem to care about Darling's quiet cousin or generic high school classmates. Even the more interesting storylines and anecdotes from this half-- the man at the nursing home, Darling's fractured relationship with her mother--were undeveloped, and never reached the same emotional poignancy as the group of children illicitly climbing trees to pick guavas.
Thanks to this book, I'm now eager to pick up other novels or short stories about Zimbabwe's political history, economic issues, and immigration to/from other countries. I kept finding myself being frustrated at the child narrator when Bulawayo was delivering exposition about the worthless old currency, anti-colonial movements, and the Zimbabwean voting system (Note: not a critique of the book--the child narrator worked well! I just have too many gaps in my knowledge about history!). Can anyone offer recommendations?
4.5 stars. A childhood in a disrupted African town with a gaggle of friends who are street savy to a US urban existence with an aunt who has become americanized, what a contrast.
This is a unique book. The style of writing is fresh, relevant, saucy, and the result is that this book hits you with a whallop, perhaps even makes you look at things with a new perspective. That's what a good book can do.
This is a unique book. The style of writing is fresh, relevant, saucy, and the result is that this book hits you with a whallop, perhaps even makes you look at things with a new perspective. That's what a good book can do.
"We need new names", the debut of Niovolet Bulawayo, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and for the Guardian First Book award. I think I should stay away from books that have won prizes or have been shortlisted. I have bad experiences with those.I absolutely loathed "the shock of the fall" by Nathan Filer and all the cows in "Idiopathy" of Sam Bryers couldn't entertain me either. And still, this book inspired me, I was drawn to it in the bookstore and so I decided to give it a go. Yet again, I just don't see what the jury saw, I guess.
I don't know. I honestly don't know. The book did grow on me as I was reading it. The first part being a descriptive couple of chapters on Darling's childhood in Zimbabwe-at-war. Although thumbs up for the way Bulawayo manages to capture both the children's innocence and the war's cruelties at the same time, I just wasn't sucked into the story. The many African names, the jumping from one subject to another,…. it was just too much. It was hard to relate to, and I also had the impression Bulawayo wanted to touch upon so many different issues in one book, it was just too much. AIDS, war cruelties, teen pregnancies, poverty, rape, racism… all of that in 100 pages. I appreciate this must have been the hard reality of people in that country at the time, but to get a point across to your readers, I think it might be better to pick 2 items and work with these more profoundly, than to mention all of them and let them float somewhere.
The second part, I could relate to much better and I actually enjoyed reading it. Little Darling has moved to America, to live with her aunt in "DestroyedMichygen" (Detroit, Michigan). We follow Darling as she grows up as a teen and tries to find her way in this new society where everything is present in abundance. I think I appreciated this part more because I myself moved to the USA as a teenager and can relate very well to the impressions she has of the country as a foreigner (even though my culture shock doesn't even come close to hers), and to the feeling she had of not belonging anywhere at all any more, like, where is your home? ("there are times though, that no matter how much food I eat, I find the food does nothing to me, like I am hungry for my country…") ("Because we are not in our country, we could not use our own language and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, our tongues trashed madly in our mouths like drunken man. Because we were not using our languages we said things we did not mean (!!) and what we really wanted to say remained folded inside, trapped…"
Some of Darling's impressions of the USA just had me smiling (even though at times highly exaggerated and too generalising):
* "… I also have my list of American words that I keep under the tongue like talismans (in order to fit in), ready to use: pretty good, pain in the ass, for real, awesome, totally, skinny, dude, freaking, like, psyched, allowance, yikes,…"
* "… I smile back. It's not exactly a smile-smile, just the brief baring of teeth. That's what you do in AMerica: you smile at people you don't know and you smile at people you don't even like and you smile at people for no reason…"
*"… and besides, I've been getting all A's in everything, even maths and science, the subject I hate, because school is so easy in America even donkeys would pass".
* " In America, the fatness is not the fatness I was used to at home.Over there, fatness was of bigness, just ordinary fatness you could understand because it meant the person ate well; fatness you could even envy. It was fatness that did not interfere with the body; a neck was still a neck, a stomach a stomach, an arm an arm. But this American fatness takes it to a whole other level: the body is turned into something else , the neck becomes a thigh, the stomach becomes an anthill, an arm a thing, a buttock I don't even know what."
* "when I saw that she (Angelina Jolie) got that pretty girl from Ethiopia, I wished she had come to my county too when I was little. I could be Darling Jolie-Pitt right now and living in a mansion and flying around in jets and everything"
This second part saved the book for me, otherwise I would have left it unread to the end.
I do praise Bulawayo's writing style. She has a very distinctive and descriptive use of language that I do appreciate. We'll hear more from her, I am sure, but I hope her next books will be more in-depth and less all-round. Because the topics she raises are worth reading about.
I don't know. I honestly don't know. The book did grow on me as I was reading it. The first part being a descriptive couple of chapters on Darling's childhood in Zimbabwe-at-war. Although thumbs up for the way Bulawayo manages to capture both the children's innocence and the war's cruelties at the same time, I just wasn't sucked into the story. The many African names, the jumping from one subject to another,…. it was just too much. It was hard to relate to, and I also had the impression Bulawayo wanted to touch upon so many different issues in one book, it was just too much. AIDS, war cruelties, teen pregnancies, poverty, rape, racism… all of that in 100 pages. I appreciate this must have been the hard reality of people in that country at the time, but to get a point across to your readers, I think it might be better to pick 2 items and work with these more profoundly, than to mention all of them and let them float somewhere.
The second part, I could relate to much better and I actually enjoyed reading it. Little Darling has moved to America, to live with her aunt in "DestroyedMichygen" (Detroit, Michigan). We follow Darling as she grows up as a teen and tries to find her way in this new society where everything is present in abundance. I think I appreciated this part more because I myself moved to the USA as a teenager and can relate very well to the impressions she has of the country as a foreigner (even though my culture shock doesn't even come close to hers), and to the feeling she had of not belonging anywhere at all any more, like, where is your home? ("there are times though, that no matter how much food I eat, I find the food does nothing to me, like I am hungry for my country…") ("Because we are not in our country, we could not use our own language and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, our tongues trashed madly in our mouths like drunken man. Because we were not using our languages we said things we did not mean (!!) and what we really wanted to say remained folded inside, trapped…"
Some of Darling's impressions of the USA just had me smiling (even though at times highly exaggerated and too generalising):
* "… I also have my list of American words that I keep under the tongue like talismans (in order to fit in), ready to use: pretty good, pain in the ass, for real, awesome, totally, skinny, dude, freaking, like, psyched, allowance, yikes,…"
* "… I smile back. It's not exactly a smile-smile, just the brief baring of teeth. That's what you do in AMerica: you smile at people you don't know and you smile at people you don't even like and you smile at people for no reason…"
*"… and besides, I've been getting all A's in everything, even maths and science, the subject I hate, because school is so easy in America even donkeys would pass".
* " In America, the fatness is not the fatness I was used to at home.Over there, fatness was of bigness, just ordinary fatness you could understand because it meant the person ate well; fatness you could even envy. It was fatness that did not interfere with the body; a neck was still a neck, a stomach a stomach, an arm an arm. But this American fatness takes it to a whole other level: the body is turned into something else , the neck becomes a thigh, the stomach becomes an anthill, an arm a thing, a buttock I don't even know what."
* "when I saw that she (Angelina Jolie) got that pretty girl from Ethiopia, I wished she had come to my county too when I was little. I could be Darling Jolie-Pitt right now and living in a mansion and flying around in jets and everything"
This second part saved the book for me, otherwise I would have left it unread to the end.
I do praise Bulawayo's writing style. She has a very distinctive and descriptive use of language that I do appreciate. We'll hear more from her, I am sure, but I hope her next books will be more in-depth and less all-round. Because the topics she raises are worth reading about.
What the hell do I give this book? 2 stars for the the disjointedness, the vagueness, the cramming of way too much stuff in such a brief book? 5 stars for a couple of amazing chapters that reminded me what a truly powerful tool writing can be? 4 stars for the unique voice, interesting story, intimate window into another person's soul, a foreign but familiar culture and experience? 3 for the lack of subtlety while sharing valuable insights? 1 for all the dog killing? I have no idea. Let's go with 2.5. I'd read more by this author. The potential here is staggering, but it hasn't been effectively harnessed.
3 ½ stars
The writing was something else!
The first 50% that deals with Darling and her friends (Bastard, Godknows, Bornfree etc) was amazing. I absolutely loved it and I think if you have a connection with Zimbabwe or Africa you will probably, like me, have a deeper connection to the story. I saw a lot of hidden meaning in what these kids saw, told and played.
They run wild every day in their shanty town, stealing guavas from the rich houses, playing games like Find Bin Laden with no idea what that means and making a general nuisance of themselves everywhere. The neglectful adults are too busy searching for work in the mines and the borders to spare time for the children.
And because the voice of Darling is so strong and matter of fact, the neglect and abuse some of these kids experienced creeped up on you with no warning. I also think there was a gentle poking of fun at western help for Zimbabwe. I am not saying the help is unappreciated I am only saying that sometimes Western countries do not always understand what really is needed in struggling 3rd world countries.
I want to address something that seems to have come up in a lot of negative reviews. And that is the perception that the author deliberately wanted to portray Americans as ignorant and stupid. I think that the author did a sterling job balancing both sides. Showing the unrealistic expectations of Darling (representing all immigrants) of the land of plenty that America is, and the American people’s ignorance about what really matters to an immigrant, why their yardstick for prosperity is not the same as that of a child of Africa.
The storyline once Darling has emigrated to America was still good, and at times very funny, yet some of the magic was left behind on African soil. Interspersed throughout the 2nd half of the book were chapters that speak in the collective voice of immigrants and these sections were gutpunchingly powerful
At Birger King we worshiped the Whopper. At KFC we mauled bucket chicken. We ate for our past hunger, for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives who were still stuck back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up their hungry faces and chapped lips…
If only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours…
…..And the jobs we worked, Jesus – Jesus, the jobs we worked. Low-paying jobs. Backbreaking jobs, Jobs that gnawed at the bones of our dignity, devoured the meat, tongued the marrow. We took scalding irons and ironed our pride flat.
The author dropped the ball a bit during the last 15% of the book but as this is her debut novel I can’t wait to see how her writing matures because she has undeniable talent.
The writing was something else!
The first 50% that deals with Darling and her friends (Bastard, Godknows, Bornfree etc) was amazing. I absolutely loved it and I think if you have a connection with Zimbabwe or Africa you will probably, like me, have a deeper connection to the story. I saw a lot of hidden meaning in what these kids saw, told and played.
They run wild every day in their shanty town, stealing guavas from the rich houses, playing games like Find Bin Laden with no idea what that means and making a general nuisance of themselves everywhere. The neglectful adults are too busy searching for work in the mines and the borders to spare time for the children.
And because the voice of Darling is so strong and matter of fact, the neglect and abuse some of these kids experienced creeped up on you with no warning. I also think there was a gentle poking of fun at western help for Zimbabwe. I am not saying the help is unappreciated I am only saying that sometimes Western countries do not always understand what really is needed in struggling 3rd world countries.
I want to address something that seems to have come up in a lot of negative reviews. And that is the perception that the author deliberately wanted to portray Americans as ignorant and stupid. I think that the author did a sterling job balancing both sides. Showing the unrealistic expectations of Darling (representing all immigrants) of the land of plenty that America is, and the American people’s ignorance about what really matters to an immigrant, why their yardstick for prosperity is not the same as that of a child of Africa.
The storyline once Darling has emigrated to America was still good, and at times very funny, yet some of the magic was left behind on African soil. Interspersed throughout the 2nd half of the book were chapters that speak in the collective voice of immigrants and these sections were gutpunchingly powerful
At Birger King we worshiped the Whopper. At KFC we mauled bucket chicken. We ate for our past hunger, for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives who were still stuck back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up their hungry faces and chapped lips…
If only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours…
…..And the jobs we worked, Jesus – Jesus, the jobs we worked. Low-paying jobs. Backbreaking jobs, Jobs that gnawed at the bones of our dignity, devoured the meat, tongued the marrow. We took scalding irons and ironed our pride flat.
The author dropped the ball a bit during the last 15% of the book but as this is her debut novel I can’t wait to see how her writing matures because she has undeniable talent.
An amazing debut novel, which I could barely put down. A must read.
Full of life, emotion, memories, doubts, struggles. Darling guides us through Paradise and then through the bittersweet purgatory that being away from home represents.
Full of life, emotion, memories, doubts, struggles. Darling guides us through Paradise and then through the bittersweet purgatory that being away from home represents.
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
I didn’t really love the characters, but the writing style was interesting, and reading the first half inspired me to learn a little bit about the history of Zimbabwe and surrounding countries—though I know the general points about apartheid in South Africa I hadn’t realized that British colonialism was very much ongoing in other parts of the continent so recently—which tbh is enough to make me glad I read this even if I didn’t love it on the whole.