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nghia 's review for:
The Barefoot Woman
by Scholastique Mukasonga
This short memoir-slash-tribute to Mukasonga's mother -- and all Tutsi mothers -- isn't about the 1994 genocide -- it takes place decades before that happened -- but it is still suffused with the genocide and the politics that inexorably led to it.
Calling it a memoir is somewhat misleading because there's nothing remotely like a narrative, merely scattered anecdotes, and it is as much about the daily life of Rwandan village women as it is about the author's mother. It is closer to an ethnographic piece than a memoir. If it were any longer than it is, it would probably outstay its welcome.
I get the impression this is a kinda of sequel, or at least companion-piece to Mukasonga's other book [b:Cockroaches|28503823|Cockroaches|Scholastique Mukasonga|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469411865l/28503823._SX50_.jpg|48656164], which I haven't read. In The Barefoot Woman there is actually very little violence. The few glimpses we get of the genocide are just that, glimpses, as in the codicil to her elder brother getting married:
So while there's a sense of overarching dread, much of the book is slice-of-life. There is crushing poverty and hardship but it is also occasionally quite funny, such as when the entire village schemes to trick a long-time bachelor and long-time bachelorette into getting married. Or when a neighbor is struck with a terrible new disease:
The book just has a tremendous depiction of place, which more than makes up for its lack of any narrative or depth of characterisation. You realize that on this earth there are places that aren't just carbon copies of 21st American culture but we're all still human beings.
Neither my father nor my mother ever considered going into exile. I think they’d made up their minds to die in Rwanda. They would wait there to be killed, they would let themselves be murdered, but the children had to survive.
Calling it a memoir is somewhat misleading because there's nothing remotely like a narrative, merely scattered anecdotes, and it is as much about the daily life of Rwandan village women as it is about the author's mother. It is closer to an ethnographic piece than a memoir. If it were any longer than it is, it would probably outstay its welcome.
I get the impression this is a kinda of sequel, or at least companion-piece to Mukasonga's other book [b:Cockroaches|28503823|Cockroaches|Scholastique Mukasonga|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469411865l/28503823._SX50_.jpg|48656164], which I haven't read. In The Barefoot Woman there is actually very little violence. The few glimpses we get of the genocide are just that, glimpses, as in the codicil to her elder brother getting married:
And so the cow was given as dowry to Jeanne’s family, and she became Antoine’s wife. They had nine children, seven of them boys, to my mother’s delight. She was sure at least a few of them would survive to carry on the family name. She was wrong.
So while there's a sense of overarching dread, much of the book is slice-of-life. There is crushing poverty and hardship but it is also occasionally quite funny, such as when the entire village schemes to trick a long-time bachelor and long-time bachelorette into getting married. Or when a neighbor is struck with a terrible new disease:
Fortunata was suffering from lovesickness. Lovesickness! We’d never heard of any such thing! How did Fortunata ever come down with that? Love had to be one of those sicknesses white people get. But what could we do against a white people’s disease? Some accused Speciosa of bringing it home from Kigali, and when she came back to Gitagata she was immediately quarantined. They had to make perfectly sure the lovesickness wouldn’t spread. As we understood it, teenage girls were the most vulnerable. Mothers kept them under strict surveillance, wouldn’t let them go out. Children, especially little girls, were forbidden to walk past Fortunata’s house. A new path to the school was cleared so they could avoid the cursed place, by way of a long detour. Lovesickness was all anyone talked about.
The book just has a tremendous depiction of place, which more than makes up for its lack of any narrative or depth of characterisation. You realize that on this earth there are places that aren't just carbon copies of 21st American culture but we're all still human beings.
And of course her beauty was subjected to painstaking scrutiny: did she walk with the grace of a cow, as the songs say? Did her eyes have the incomparable charm of a heifer’s?
To the indignation of all Gitagata, the Ngoboka family ate fish, which, as everyone knows, can bring death to cows.