The Faculty Book Club chose this book for our April book, so I took it with me to Mexico over Spring Break. What a downer! Apparently Oprah and Anderson Cooper had raved about this book and how it would open one's eyes to the reality of what so many people in Africa are dealing with. The books has won multiple awards. So I went in expecting to be enlightened and inspired. Instead, I found it unrelentingly depressing. There are three short stories and two longer novellas - each one centering on a child living in a different country. The first one deals with an impoverished street family. The oldest, a 12-year-old-girl, is supporting the family through prostitution. She's giving the secrets of the trade to her 10-year-old sister to get her ready. The narrator brother is destined to go off to school - he is their future and their hope. But he can't stand the guilt - so runs away. HOPELESS. Then there is the story about an uncle who "saves" his niece and nephew from their parents who are dying of AIDS -- only to sell them into slavery. HOPELESS. Follow that story up with the one about a young man running away from marauding revolutionaries in the Islamic north to the Christian area in the south (his mother was Islamic; his father was Christian). He is on a bus -- and the very long story deals with the people on the bus talking about the politics, religion, and other philosophies -- and his fear that he'll be discovered and killed. Which is what happens at the end. HOPELESS. Or how about the one where a Rwandan family is destroyed when the father is forced by tribal revolutionaries to murder his wife -- and the reader knows that his children are also facing imminent death. HOPELESS. Why am I telling you the end of these stories? To save you from the depression that enveloped me after trudging through this collection. The thing is, you come out of this book without any idea of what will ever solve the problems all those people are facing. The conflicts based on colonially-imposed borders and the inequality (politically and economically) between factions is not going away. The disease, poverty, and overall lack of hope for a decent future seem unrelenting. I was not enriched by reading this book. Nor was I disturbed in a good way -- one that might have encouraged me to take action to improve the situations. The stories were poisons that infected me - and I just needed a good Disney movie or two to clear them out.
1 out of 4 stars.
2 comments:
Dear Ms. Fritz,
Yeah I guess that sounds depressing, but it's the sad reality of what's facing a lot of poor Africans today. I've heard about a lot of that stuff (not in books like this though) and totally feel overwhelmed when thinking about the problems. However, this summer I'm training to run the Chicago Marathon for team World Vision, an organization that helps the poor all over the world. Many people from my church are running too, and all the money we raise in donations goes to a few villages in an area of Mozambique. I know I'm doing something to help. I think if people read books like this and then are provided with an opportunity to do something, it might be less depressing then just reading the book without an outlet. I'd have to test that theory by reading the book, however. I don't suppose the RB library has it?
Megan Welch
Yes, we do. That's where I got it. I admire you for doing something concrete. So often I just get overwhelmed with the seeming futility.
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