The Fear (Peter Godwin)

Another great book by Peter Godwin. This time he tells us about the awful events surrounding the last "elections" and the subsequent GNU (Government of National Unity).

When I first started reading it I thought there was too much information about torture, it was almost "listed". But then I understood that he would be betraying those people who testified if he didn't mention them in the book... and there was no other way of escaping "sensationalism" other than these "listings". 

Apart from this, which never ceases to shock and sicken the reader from beginning to end (human cruelty really has no limits) he does not disappoint, his usual descriptions of Zimbabwe still make you feel nostalgic and in a sense hopeful even in these (more than) hard times. If you are going to read this: PREPARE YOUR STOMACHS and your hearts. I think this was the most difficult book I ever read!

Leaf Storm (Gabriel García Marquez)

Leaf Storm is probably the least popular of all García Marquez’s novels. A man hangs himself and nobody in the village wants him to be buried as punishment for something he didn’t do in the past. The story is narrated by three characters and is constructed with the memories and fears of each one of them. They are a Colonel, his only daughter and his only grandson. Three points of view of the same event, of the same people and of the same place. Despite the bad criticism, it is worth reading the origins of Macondo and watch it grow into the Macondo of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

                                                         

Living to tell the tale (Vivir para contarla)

Living to tell the tale is perhaps Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece.


In this book he tells his own life story in much the same magical way he tells all his other stories. In To live to tell it Gabo describes his family and his life until his early years as a writer; his childhood in his grandfather’s house and the ghosts that inhabited it, his schooldays, his ever growing family, his first writing job. Many of the characters and instances can be recognised in later stories, making it sometimes difficult to differentiate reality from fantasy.


Simply Brilliant!

                                                       

Mukiwa - A white boy in Africa (Peter Godwin)

This is a beautiful story about growing up in Africa and the magic that exists there. In this book Peter Godwin tells his family’s story and the story of Zimbabwe/Rhodesia. Many of us who grew up in Zimbabwe do not have a “historical conscience”, certain things simply were not discussed as we were growing up, and our parents simply assumed that we knew what had happened before. It was great reading the book, reminiscing and putting the pieces together (not necessarily agreeing in all points).

The book can also be enjoyed by non Zimbabweans, the vocabulary and instances that might not be understood by a person who is not from Africa are all explained and the story is told in a funny easy to read way. Although there is war and death, it is a hopeful book.

Of Love and Other Demons (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

On 26 October 1949 Gabriel Garcia Marquez is sent, by his newspaper to Santa Clara Convent, where several tombs were being emptied to try to get a story. Out of one of the tombs came this massive copper coloured hair measuring twenty two meters and belonging to a young girl. The tombstone simply read a name Sierva María de Todos los Angeles, no surname, no clue as to whom she may have been. This reminded the writer of a story he heard as a child, told by his grandmother, of a young Marquise aged twelve who had been bitten by a dog and performed miracles. And that is the story of this book.

Sierva María was the daughter of a decadent Marquis and his non-noble second wife. The girl is raised by the slaves much like one, with hardly any supervision from either of her parents. One day she is bitten by a dog and fear that she may have caught rabies arise, changing the attitude of her father towards her.

Seeing as no doctor can possibly help her, her father asks the Church for help. In their opinion she doesn’t have rabies, but is possessed… and from there starts an impossible love story.

                                             

The old man who read love stories (Luis Sepulveda)

A man and his wife are forced to leave the mountains where they had been raised and move to the jungle. The jungle can be a terrible place to live in if you don’t know it, but it can be paradise if you learn how to make the most of what it has to offer. The old man who read love stories learnt how to do that from the Shuar Indians who at one stage let him live as one of their own. When the protagonist becomes an old man, all he wants to do is read love stories. These are supplied to him by the itinerant dentist who visits the village twice a year. His easy and lonely life changes when a gold digger is found dead on the margin of the river and he assures the authorities that the man was not killed by the Shuar, but by a jaguar. The fear that this animal may strike again forces a group of men, including him, to go on a hunt. After some misadventures and a few deaths, he discovers that the animal is avenging his dying mate. The old man then is forced into a game of cat and mouse and is victorious, he kills the animal with a fire arm, he is sickened by his own actions, by gold digger’s (that started it all in the first place by injuring the jaguar’s mate) and by white men in general and decides to go back to his love stories which used such sweet words, that sometimes he was able to almost forget human barbarity. - This book was dedicated to a man who fought and died to preserve the Amazon jungle: Chico Mendes.

                                   

When a Crocodile eats the Sun (Peter Godwin)

Peter Godwin continues his family’s history and Zimbabwe’s history in this tragic book. This time he describes the country in another transition, that of apparent normality (1996) to complete chaos (2004). Whereas in Mukiwa there was a feeling of hope, in this book it is just sadness and destruction. I sometimes had to force myself to continue reading and could not hold back the tears. It is not that I did not know what was going on in Zimbabwe, although I left in 2000, it is the feeling of helplessness, futility and powerlessness.

It is beautifully written and I would strongly recommend it to those who are interested in 20th century history, Africa or simply non-fiction.

Of Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage is a semi-autobiographical book. It loosely tells Somerset Maugham’s own life trajectory.

The book tells the story of Philip from the moment he becomes an orphan to the time he decides to settle down and get married. It is a rather long book but the reader suffers not a moment of boredom. Philip has a club foot, is raised by a selfish uncle who has no time or patience for children and a loving but awkward aunt. He suffers terrible trials, loses his faith in god, discovers he has no talent to do something he really passionately wants to do, becomes penniless, falls in love with the most horrid woman in literature, and yet whenever something good happens he turns his back on it.

Although our hero has many faults and suffers mostly due to his own bad choices and thoughtless wishes, you can’t help but worry about him and want him to do well. It is a beautiful book that once you start reading just cannot be put down.

There is also a film staring Leslie Howard (Ashley from Gone with the Wind) as Philip and Bette Davies as the awful Mildred. 

A scene from "Of Human Bondage"

You can download the e-book free from Project Gutenberg or the audio from the LibriVox website (read by volunteers) or have a look on amazon.

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Midnight's Children

I have only recently read Salman Rushdie for the first time and absolutely loved it. When you read /watch /see something you enjoy that much you have a tendency to tell all your friends about it. When your friends don't share your enthusiasm you are forced to tell people who do want to know even if you don't know them.

Midnight's Children is the story of Saleem Sinai and his family and simultaneously a History of India. Saleem Sinai is born on the stroke of midnight on the 15th August 1947, precisely at the moment India becomes independent from Britain and from there his story and the history of India are one.

To people who grew up in a world where magic does exist, "magical realism" doesn't really exist in the sense that we have no difficulty believing all the things described in the novel, we don't need a label, we believe.

If you like "magical realism", history, travel, religion etc., I highly recommend you read this book! And although I don't usually read books just because they have won a prize, there must be a reason why this book won not only the Booker Prize but the Booker of Bookers and the Best of Bookers.

Enjoy!