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A review by anetq
Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila
4.0
This book is a bit like watching a week long poetry slam, in strobe lights, in a Congolese mining town nightclub surrounded by women selling themselves ("baby-chicks" or "single mamas" depending on age group), miners (diggers), underage miner boys (slim-jims), the for-profit tourists and the second rate tourists. Everybody trying to get rich or get by depending on where you are in the social strata (getting out is just a dream).
As someone who likes being told a good story, this was hard to get through: Strobe lights make me kind of dizzy, and there wasn't much of a coherent story line to follow. But the truly kaleidoscopic view of the craziness that is a Congolese mining town, living through what we might call "colonianism 2.0" - the form experiment makes sense as a mirror image of what life is like: There is little coherence, story line or sense to be made. Everybody is being exploited and trying to exploit others - and if you upset the power balances, or just happen to be out of luck (or unwilling to play by the rules) there is hell to pay. But it will all go down to a soundtrack of great music from most of the southern hemisphere at Tram 83!
I'll give it 4 stars for the use of form to convey content, the musicality, and the picture it paints of modern mining colonialism (and the DRC Congo!) - but I can't say it was a pleasure to read. An experience, but not easy.
As someone who likes being told a good story, this was hard to get through: Strobe lights make me kind of dizzy, and there wasn't much of a coherent story line to follow. But the truly kaleidoscopic view of the craziness that is a Congolese mining town, living through what we might call "colonianism 2.0" - the form experiment makes sense as a mirror image of what life is like: There is little coherence, story line or sense to be made. Everybody is being exploited and trying to exploit others - and if you upset the power balances, or just happen to be out of luck (or unwilling to play by the rules) there is hell to pay. But it will all go down to a soundtrack of great music from most of the southern hemisphere at Tram 83!
I'll give it 4 stars for the use of form to convey content, the musicality, and the picture it paints of modern mining colonialism (and the DRC Congo!) - but I can't say it was a pleasure to read. An experience, but not easy.