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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is quite brilliant. It works both as a novel and a collection of related short stories, since each chapter stands alone.
It begins with Darling as a 10-year-old child, living in a marginal neighborhood in a big African city. The country isn’t named, but it’s been through a big political and economic crisis, and many folks have been thrown out of their homes and have found their way into one of these tin-roof dirt-floor houses. Darling is part of a gang of children who are mostly left on their own, while their parents scrape together a living.
It's not easy to write from a child’s point of view, but Bulawayo pulls it off beautifully. We get to know Darling’s friends – Bastard, Godknows, Sbho, Stina, Chipo (who is pregnant, even though she’s an 11-year-old girl). They talk about the world and the way it works, and they play games like Countries, and FindBenLaden. They steal guavas from a nearby rich neighborhood, where, at one point, they encounter a mob targeting all the white settlers (who are mostly children or grandchildren of settlers, at this point). They deal with the NGO folks, who want to take their pictures before they give their scanty gifts.
And then Darling manages to get to the States to live with her aunt Fostalina in Detroit. She’s overstays her visa, and so becomes an illegal alien, and this means she can never go back to visit her family and friends. After all the fantasies about America, the reality is a shock. The novel does a great job of exploring the challenges of trying to belong, when a person is caught between two very different places and cultures.
One chapter, titled “How They Left”, is particularly poignant. Moving away from Darling’s individual viewpoint, it addresses the collective. Let me quote:
< Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same. >
This is what it’s like when Darling gets to Michigan.
< If it wasn’t for that the houses here have heat in them, I think we’d all be killed by now. Killed by this snow and the cold it comes with; it’s not the normal cold that you could just complain about and then move on to other things. No. This cold is not like that. It’s the cold to stop life, to cut you open and blaze your bones. Nobody told me of this cold when I was coming here. Had it been that somebody had taken me aside and explained the cold and its story properly, I just don’t know what I would have done, if I would really have gotten in that plane to come. >
The chapter “How They Lived” goes back to speaking in the collective.
< When we die, our children will not know how to wail, how to mourn us the right way. They will not go mad with grief, they will not pin black cloth on their arms, they will not spill beer and tobacco on the earth, they will not sing until their voices are hoarse. They will not put our plates and cups on our graves; they will not send us away with mphafa trees, things we need to enter the castle of our ancestors. Because we will not be proper, the spirits will not come running to meet us, and so we will wait and wait and wait – forever waiting in the air like flags of unsung countries. >
Loved this book. It follows the narrator Darling from her home in Zimbabwe to America where the ‘land of opportunity’ is described from the immigrant perspective. Lots of ideas about the nature of identity, how Africa is viewed as a homogenous place by many and nature of prejudices - race / gender / class. Some spot on descriptions and turns of phrase.
#recommendedreads #bookstagram #libbyapp #audiobook #justread #weneednewnames #africa #zimbabwe #novioletbulawayo
#recommendedreads #bookstagram #libbyapp #audiobook #justread #weneednewnames #africa #zimbabwe #novioletbulawayo
This is a beautiful book written in 2 sections and 2 voices. The initial story is set in Zimbabwe among children raising each other after their homes are displaced by progress. The second half has the main character Darling immigrating to Detroit to live with her Aunt and Uncle. The voices are Darling’s and a collective voice. Each voice tells a different part of the story. The first half really grabbed me and terrified me at the same time. These children are always in danger, but are unaware of their danger. The second half as Darling becomes Americanized makes me miss the first 1/2 and the gang of children. It is an important fictional account of the immigrant experience.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Around the World Reading Challenge: ZIMBABWE
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Unfortunately I just did not much enjoy this one. The pacing here was atrocious, with inexplicable and unexplained time jumps happening between chapters and leaving out critical information. I didn't particularly care for the protagonist, partially because I just don't tend to really connect with middle grade/YA much these days, but she also just didn't really seem to have any personality, which I think is somewhat the fault of the pacing, because we just don't spend enough consecutive time with the character IMO to get a feel for her at all. The anti fat bias throughout was gross to read, and honestly this whole thing just felt like a bit of a slog. Any of the commentary the author wanted to make on colonialism and America etc. was also just explicitly stated in these random interlude chapters with all the subtlety of a brick to the head. I found this to be very underwhelming.
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Unfortunately I just did not much enjoy this one. The pacing here was atrocious, with inexplicable and unexplained time jumps happening between chapters and leaving out critical information. I didn't particularly care for the protagonist, partially because I just don't tend to really connect with middle grade/YA much these days, but she also just didn't really seem to have any personality, which I think is somewhat the fault of the pacing, because we just don't spend enough consecutive time with the character IMO to get a feel for her at all. The anti fat bias throughout was gross to read, and honestly this whole thing just felt like a bit of a slog. Any of the commentary the author wanted to make on colonialism and America etc. was also just explicitly stated in these random interlude chapters with all the subtlety of a brick to the head. I found this to be very underwhelming.
I love names! So, this was an awesome read...
I think this is the crux of the story: She has sacrificed her identity so her children can grow up American but it means that she is forever in limbo, always an alien. Even in death, her ancestors will not welcome her. She says “the spirits will not come running to meet us, and so we will wait and wait and wait- forever waiting in the air like flags of unsung countries.” We only hear Darling’s full name once (Darling Nonkululeko Nkala) and by then she no longer holds that identity anymore. Nkululeko means “freedom” and Darling is not free!
Check my full review here; https://plainjaynne.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/whats-in-a-name/
I think this is the crux of the story: She has sacrificed her identity so her children can grow up American but it means that she is forever in limbo, always an alien. Even in death, her ancestors will not welcome her. She says “the spirits will not come running to meet us, and so we will wait and wait and wait- forever waiting in the air like flags of unsung countries.” We only hear Darling’s full name once (Darling Nonkululeko Nkala) and by then she no longer holds that identity anymore. Nkululeko means “freedom” and Darling is not free!
Check my full review here; https://plainjaynne.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/whats-in-a-name/
I really tried to like this book but couldn't get into the rhythm and the plot was very choppy to me.
So good! I think I am in love with the way that Bulawayo writes.
