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A review by drdreuh
Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
adventurous
sad
slow-paced
3.75
Evocative and challenging. Owuor's prose is lyrical, and Dust required all of my attention. It starts slow and confusing and is written somewhat upside down. The most critical plot points are not revealed until the end, and then as reflection. I would have loved to have read them in real time, much earlier. Although I love reading real paper books, I also wish I had a copy of Dust as an e-book so that I could search for the instances of key characters who pop in and out and then in again, and are actually pivotal to the story.
The setting, Northern Kenya - partly in the 60s - 70s and partly in the aughts - was new to me. Although I live in East Africa, I know embarrassingly little about the Mau Mau rebellion. The depiction of Kenya as a place of brutality did not align with what I thought I knew.
The characters are complex. Interwoven Kiswahili, Luo and other languages is nice. One word time markers (Now. Later. etc.) is an interesting and effective device, and help to keep a sort of rhythm. There are aspects of the storytelling that I know I do not get, which probably somewhat diminished my experience of Dust - important things that come up again and again, like "water songs". In so much of the book, Owuor makes obscure reference to really, really big things, some of which I get (the White Christian saviors) and a lot of which I do not (a lot of the particular forms of brutality in the Mau Mau era). In this way, though, Owuor sort of opens a door on a crack. You choose whether or not to explore deeper. There is a lot of fleeing in Dust, not all of which makes sense to me.
I suppose I have mixed feelings about Dust overall, but Owuor's vivid imagery is worth the effort of pushing through.
Lines I loved:
"Memories are solitary ghosts."
"... as long as there was enough to move the day, beyond a grumble, people didn't really care to know why their lives had become harder."
"To name something is to bring it to life."
"'Tribe Unknown' was a lucky thing to be."
"Tears are rain. They water soil. Restore life."
"A story repeated often enough became fact."
"... birds chirp, a raucous choir in need of a sane conductor."
The setting, Northern Kenya - partly in the 60s - 70s and partly in the aughts - was new to me. Although I live in East Africa, I know embarrassingly little about the Mau Mau rebellion. The depiction of Kenya as a place of brutality did not align with what I thought I knew.
The characters are complex. Interwoven Kiswahili, Luo and other languages is nice. One word time markers (Now. Later. etc.) is an interesting and effective device, and help to keep a sort of rhythm. There are aspects of the storytelling that I know I do not get, which probably somewhat diminished my experience of Dust - important things that come up again and again, like "water songs". In so much of the book, Owuor makes obscure reference to really, really big things, some of which I get (the White Christian saviors) and a lot of which I do not (a lot of the particular forms of brutality in the Mau Mau era). In this way, though, Owuor sort of opens a door on a crack. You choose whether or not to explore deeper. There is a lot of fleeing in Dust, not all of which makes sense to me.
I suppose I have mixed feelings about Dust overall, but Owuor's vivid imagery is worth the effort of pushing through.
Lines I loved:
"Memories are solitary ghosts."
"... as long as there was enough to move the day, beyond a grumble, people didn't really care to know why their lives had become harder."
"To name something is to bring it to life."
"'Tribe Unknown' was a lucky thing to be."
"Tears are rain. They water soil. Restore life."
"A story repeated often enough became fact."
"... birds chirp, a raucous choir in need of a sane conductor."