The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Source of book: Borrowed from my son (who is a serious tinkerer too).

This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. The club has usually read along with the “One Book, One Bakersfield” project sponsored by our local library. Some years, this has been a bit boring - one theory is that books have been selected partly on the basis of which authors were willing to come out and speak at an event. This one, however, was not. I was unable to attend the event, but did read the book and discuss it at our club meeting. 

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this book. I was familiar with the rough outline of the story, but was worried it might fall into either the “isn’t Africa backward” genre or the “see, everyone can succeed if they just try” category. But this book didn’t go either of those directions. Rather, despite the use of a ghost writer (more or less), it really did tell a fascinating story - William Kamkwamba’s story. 

Kamkwamba came to fame after he built his own windmill generator – at age 14 - to bring electricity to his home. But that isn’t all that there is to the story. In fact, in some ways, it is just an incident in the broader arc. 

William starts the story with his earliest memories. He grew up in Malawi, the son of subsistence farmers. His parents had an interesting courtship story, which he tells in the first chapter. From there, they worked hard to survive and build a decent life. 

Disaster struck, however, in the form of a terrible drought and famine. This section of the book was horrifying and difficult to read. The descriptions of hunger and hopelessness, of people dying in the road, of children who starved to death and never returned to school, are the things of nightmares. It is almost surprising that William even survived it. 

There are certainly some things to understand about how the drought played out. First, it is a reminder of how fragile human existence can be. We forget that in modern first-world nations. We have the infrastructure to transport food, and the wealth to purchase it. For those who have neither, starvation is a real risk. Second, there is a contrast between the first drought (the bad one) and the second - and the difference was in the response of the government. In the first, a corrupt system denied the famine existed, sold food to other countries so the leaders could pocket the proceeds, and brutally punished those who complained. A change in leadership made a difference for the second drought. By proactively directing resources to the most vulnerable areas, a famine was avoided. It seems weird to have to say this, but humans are at their strongest when they look out for the weakest. A society or nation is only as strong as its most vulnerable point. Malawi lost tremendous ground during the first drought because of its failure to ensure that the victims of the famine survived. It literally took years - a decade even - for the communities affected to bounce back. And the promising lives lost were gone forever. 

The toll wasn’t just from deaths. The financial cost was enormous, as families sold everything they had, including seed corn, to avoid starvation. The resources of the whole community were devastated and took years to rebuild. 

Likewise, the cost to the children was incalculable. In the case of William, his chance at an education was lost for years. Honestly, had he not been “discovered” by someone with a global platform, he likely would never have finished his education. This was true for thousands of others who were not fortunate enough to get publicity. They just quietly were relegated to subsistence farming, with no chance at social mobility. 

This was another distressing reality brought to light in the book. Without the public infrastructure to provide a free public education, most children do not finish school. The entire country then suffers from a lack of educated leaders and innovators, and cannot advance. The cycle then feeds on itself. 

I was struck by some similarities to the effects of educational segregation here in the United States, as described in White Rage by Carol Anderson. (I read that concurrently with this book.) The United States lags other first world countries in education, in significant part because of its obsession with maintaining racial hierarchies and refusal to fund and support minority students. (Take a look at, say, Alabama, if you want to see true third-world education and poverty.) The US continues to shoot itself in the foot, too. As higher education costs have soared, many (most?) of my parents’ generation - who got free or very affordable college themselves - keep blaming my kids’ generation for student debt. The refusal to actually invest in education (and cull the exploding numbers of administrators) will increasingly lead to an under-educated population. And the US will fall further and further behind. (Also, keeping educated immigrants out - as in Stephen Miller’s push to severely cut back H-2B visas - will further cause educated and innovative immigrants to look elsewhere.) Hatred and xenophobia and racism hurt everyone. 

If I were to give my immediate impressions of the book, I would start with the compelling story of William’s life. Even if he had never come to unexpected fame, his story would be a good one. He is clearly an intelligent young man, with an ability to find solutions on a shoestring. How many more Williams are there in Malawi? In Africa? In America? How many of them will never have the chance to get an education, to survive childhood, or have access to the resources to make a better world? It is something worth considering. William Kawkwamba is above average, but not a once-in-a-lifetime genius. He’s someone who should, in all justice, have the chance to use his talents. And there are millions like him. We as a society and as a human race should be focused on ensuring that all of us have that chance. 

I rather enjoyed reading this one, and also the discussion we had regarding it. It is my understanding that there is a kids version too, which leaves out some of the more disturbing stuff, like William’s mom nearly dying of malaria and the dead bodies in the road. We have the full version, and I think it is fine for most kids, honestly. Kids don’t need to be protected from death and illness - they sure wouldn’t have been able to avoid it in an earlier era. I could see it making a good starting point for discussing a bunch of issues - from the importance of investment in the public sector, to the mechanics of making a generator. 

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats

Things Fall Apart is one of those classics that you know you should read, but somehow never did. It is considered the archetypal modern African novel - it was the first truly popular work to break through the monopoly of white voices talking about Africa - and give Africans themselves a voice. Since the arrival of European colonialism, novels about Africa tended to be rather in the vein of H. Rider Haggard: native Africans were “uncivilized savages,” needing to be governed by the (occasionally) benevolent white saviors. In this book, Achebe pushes back against that paternalism and condescension to portray traditional African culture as a fully realized, civilized social system. True, it had its flaws - and Achebe doesn’t sugar coat them - but so do ALL cultures, our own as much as any. (And seriously, we still have a hell of a lot of “white savior complex” in our beliefs.) 

The book follows the life of Okonkwo, a leader in his tribe. Okonkwo’s life and style are a reaction against his own father, who was a lazy no-goodnik sort, who got into debt, neglected his family, and showed cowardice. In contrast, Okonkwo is determined to be hard working and wealthy. And he does achieve wealth and status as a result of his hard work. In that sense, he is admirable. However, he has a dark side as well. He feels his father was “feminine” rather than “masculine.” Weak rather than strong. And Okonkwo views strength and masculinity as connected with violence and anger. He hates his father’s idleness - but also his father’s gentleness. A passage from early in the book is illustrative:

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. 

In this, of course, is the seed of Okonkwo’s eventual destruction. (That shouldn’t be a spoiler - I mean, the book is called Things Fall Apart because things...fall apart.) His fear of appearing weak starts a sequence of bad luck or karma or whatever you want to call it. A young boy, who has been taken as payment for a murder committed by another tribe is given to Okonkwo to care for. Later, when the oracle decides that the boy should die, Okonkwo is warned by the eldest man in the tribe to avoid having anything to do with the killing. Unfortunately, Okonkwo fears being seen as weak (that is, womanly), and ends up striking the death blow. 

From there, things start to go to pieces. Okonkwo loses the respect of his eldest son, who was attached to the victim. His favorite daughter becomes gravely ill. And finally, at the funeral for the eldest man, his gun explodes during the salute, and kills the deceased’s son. By the law of the tribe, he is exiled for seven years to appease the gods. 

While Okonkwo is away, the white missionaries arrive, and proceed to set up British rule, a church, and attempt to dismantle elements of the tribal culture. The clash eventually becomes bloody, and things really go to hell from there. 

The novel is fairly short, and moves at a fast pace. Achebe does a great job of portraying the culture of a particular part of Nigeria in a way that explains things enough for an outsider to follow, while never getting bogged down in explanation. As I noted above, Achebe doesn’t use a soft focus, but strives for neutrality and accuracy. Thus, the culture is, like Okonkwo himself, complicated and nuanced. Like any culture, its best parts are admirable and serve to regulate human behavior in a way that benefits everyone. At its worst, though, it is misogynistic and obsessed with avenging insults. The missionaries are right in rescuing abandoned twins. (A practice that makes sense from a Darwinian point of view - in a situation of scarcity.) But they are all too often interested in imposing their culture rather than finding common ground. Even there, there is a contrast between the first missionary, who did a lot of listening, and the second, who was determined to win even if it took violence to “subdue the natives.” 

Similarly, though, in a clash of cultures, flexibility is needed on both sides. Okonkwo is as rigid as the British, and makes things worse rather than better. Since he cannot bend, he is broken. When he asserts his (toxic) masculinity, he alienates his family and his neighbors. As over 100 years of time has proven, the Europeans haven’t fared that much better in the long run. Colonialism has left immense damage, contributing to two world wars, enormous expenditures, and a legacy of failed states left behind and abandoned. 

I want to mention one more thing in the book that I thought was a really fantastic conversation. It takes place between Mr. Brown (the original, decent missionary) and Akunna, a leader in the tribe. Mr. Brown is trying to convert Akunna to monotheism, yet it turns out that they aren’t as far apart as Mr. Brown thinks. Akunna explains that he does indeed believe in a one god who is greater than all. However, just as Mr. Brown is a messenger from his religion, or the bureaucrats represent the queen, the lesser gods are the messengers and representatives of the high god Chukwa. In each case, the work is done through delegation. I was struck by how much this resembled the story of the centurion in the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Mr. Brown tries to argue with Akunna. But Jesus marveled at the centurion’s faith. It is a totally different response to a similar situation. I suspect Jesus would have been a heck of a lot different than the European missionaries. I also suspect that said missionaries never noticed the warning in this story: many are going to come from cultures all over the world and take their place at the great feast. But those who are so sure they alone have the truth are going to be tossed outside. 

In this way, Things Fall Apart is an excellent example of the beauty of stories that show a different point of view. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (one of my favorites) points out, our white, Euro-American view of Africa has been and continues to be dominated by one single story: a white European story. Achebe and his literary heirs have contributed a chorus of other voices, new stories, from new (and old) perspectives. It is a beautiful thing. 

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Source of book: I own this.

My wife found a signed copy of this book, and it was recommended to me by a few friends as well. I had intended it to be a second selection for Black History Month, but I wasn’t able to fit it in. However, I did put it on my nightstand, and eventually reached that stratum. 

I have kind of mixed feelings about the book, and mixed feelings about having mixed feelings. Let me start with the things I was disappointed in, and then look at the things I loved.

The first probably stems from the fact that I am (1) not a genre fiction person and (2) generally prefer characterization to action. Children of Blood and Bone is YA fantasy by genre, and shares many of the same characteristics of other books I have read within said genre. In particular, fantasy books often tend to be action driven - and full of tension, danger, and violence. Which, if that is your thing, that’s fine. It just isn’t mine. (On a related note, I am not into action or superhero movies.)

This also ties into an observation I have made about a few YA or children’s genre fiction books: the feel is a lot like a combination of a video game and a movie. If you look past the specifics of the world the author builds or the details of the action, you can see the way the movie would be shot, frame for frame - or find it super easy to imagine the video game. Two of the worst offenders in this sense are Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson in their Peter and the Starcatchers series - which, despite some fun moments, seem very much like book adaptations of a movie. I would likewise mention Brandon Mull’s Five Kingdoms series, which works as an audiobook for travel - the action keeps one awake - but reminds me so much of the NES games I watched my friends play as a child.

Children of Blood and Bone is not as fluffy as those others, but I did feel like it was built around a near-constant sequence of dangerous or violent set-pieces. In practice, a plot driven book like this doesn’t give the characters time or room to develop. Outside of the group of main characters, the other sentient beings have to be sorted (really fast, usually) into “enemies that will kill me if I don’t escape or kill them,” or “people who might assist me in my quest.” Or, perhaps, as in the rudimentary RPG games I preferred to those requiring hand-eye coordination: “good, evil, or neutral.” The plot twists therefore consist in new and dangerous circumstances plus a potential change of a character from evil to good and back.

This constant peril and action means that the book mostly lacks ordinary human interactions. (There is an exception in a couple of chapters two-thirds of the way through - which is a nice, if temporary relief.) I will concede that this is a natural result of the needs of the plot. Fleeing for one’s life doesn’t leave much room for social niceties. But it also is really draining for someone like me, who finds the constant tension, danger, and violence to be exhausting. It’s just a personality thing. And likewise, please do not expect me to be good at improvising a plan while fleeing for my life. That is most certainly NOT my particular skill set. Because of the dark plot, there really wasn’t any humor in the book, which I missed. Again, that’s my personality.

One more thing that kind of bothered me is the way the book ended. As in, the big climax took place, and we had...wait for it...two pages of epilogue to wrap it up. That’s it. Actually, that isn’t it. There was literally two sentences after the final big reveal. And both of those sentences give the main character’s reaction, but don’t actually explain much of anything.

Okay, okay, I’m sure there will be a sequel. (Actually a trilogy is planned. Will it be five books by the time it is done?) But still, I thought, “wait, what??!” at the end, when I flipped the page, and there was...nothing more in the book. It was very abrupt, and I had lots of questions afterward.

Alright, enough of the bad stuff. There was a lot to like in this book too. Adeyemi is Nigerian American (and all of 25 years old, so some of the flaws may just be the result of youth and stuff). She says she was inspired to write the book by the ongoing police brutality against African Americans - particularly the unarmed, the innocent, or young children. To this end, Adeyemi combined West African mythology, Yoruba language and culture, and metaphorical representations of current and past injustices.

The fictional world is divided into two classes of people. The Maji are those who can (or at least used to be able to) use magic. The Kosidan are the non-magical people, who have become the ruling class, and brutally oppress the Maji, who have lost their magical abilities. While all of the characters have dark skin, the Kosidan are described as being slightly lighter. In contrast, the Maji have grey hair, which is an easy tell as to their identity. In the aftermath of a cataclysmic war, the Maji have been enslaved, killed, and brutalized by the Kosidan, who are determined that magic itself must be exterminated.

It isn’t difficult to see parallels to the slave trade, Jim Crow, police brutality, and other realities of the American past and present. Adeyemi does a good job of keeping the analogies from becoming preachy allegories, which I appreciated.

I also thought that the world building was good. Personally, I could have enjoyed a little more time on background and a bit less on battles, but I recognize that I am not the target audience for YA fantasy. Adeyemi did give enough information to make sense of her world, which felt consistent, and not like a rip-off of other worlds. I would be happy to explore the world further. (Side note here: Adeyemi cited Harry Potter as an influence. I also found that series - the first two books at least - to be a bit heavy on action and light on description and characterization.) So I do give credit for a compelling world. The connection of magic to the gods, to objects, and to people was particularly interesting.

My favorite facet of the book, however, was the nuanced moral ambiguity. While the Kosidan are currently in power, and thus have the wherewithal to be the villains and oppressors, the history doesn’t leave the Maji innocent. There seems to have been plenty of brutality, violence, and hate on all sides, and both groups have a colorable claim to a right to defend themselves against the other group. Adeyemi has all three main characters (who take turns narrating the story) wrestle with the question of whether bringing magic back will be a good or bad thing. On the one hand, the Maji are correct that without some power to hit back against their oppressors, they will never be respected or treated with dignity. On the other, would they actually be less evil than the Kosidan if they gained power? Or would they be just as brutal and murderous? Human history suggests a rather pessimistic view of the possibilities.

Likewise, the idea of cooperation and equality is raised, but in practice has proven to be difficult to establish, let alone maintain. The idealists rarely win. On the one hand, I give great credit to the author for her treatment of these moral and practical problems. On the other, so I really have to wait for the rest of the trilogy for some sort of resolution? Will I have to read two (or more) additional books and wade through much more violence and brutality? Will she pull a George Martin and kill off everyone decent who isn’t already dead? And, I suppose most importantly to me, will the main characters be able to find enough moral clarity to actually follow through on a plan?

My concluding thoughts would be as follows: Children of Blood and Bone raises interesting moral questions, creates an interesting world, and has a fast paced plot. I think it is better written than average, but still remains in the category of genre fiction, rather than literary fiction. Your mileage, of course, will vary, as tastes and personalities differ. If you like fantasy, have a tolerance for brutality and violence, but want a book that isn’t just escapist fun, there is a lot to like in it. It is, however, pretty brutal. If you lean more toward character-driven, slower paced literature, you might, like me, find it emotionally tiring to read for extended periods, despite the parts I enjoyed.

***

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

This is my first experience of Zadie Smith. She is a British novelist, born to a Jamaican mother and a white father. From the first page, her British background was obvious. (It took me a minute to remember that “estates” are what we Americans call “apartment complexes.”) Although I certainly have read a lot of British literature over the years, I haven’t really read modern ones. (Unless Waugh counts as “modern”) Although I did read Black Swan Green a few years back, that one was rural. Certainly, I haven’t read any modern British literature with an urban setting. One of those weird gaps, I guess. 

 Zadie Smith

Anyway, Swing Time is set mostly in London and Africa, with a few episodes in New York and other big cities. While the novel is not autobiographical, the unnamed narrator is very similar to the author in biographical details. The black mother, white father, a love for tap dancing, and a complex set of half-siblings are the most obvious. The narrator’s childhood friend, Tracey, is also a bit of Ms. Smith. Although the colors of her parents are switched, she looks a lot like the narrator. Except she is actually talented at dancing, while the narrator is mediocre. While the narrator’s mom is literate and socially ambitious, her father is a plodder, content to work for the postal service. Tracey’s dad is not in the picture (and it is implied that when he does show up, he sexually abuses her.) Her mom is what we would call “white trash” here in the United States: vulgar, overweight, uneducated, tacky - and looks down on the narrator’s parents as much as they look down on her.

The book is written in such a way that you have to piece the timeline together as you go. It keeps switching between the narrator’s childhood and her adult life, and the prologue starts near the end of the story, and isn’t actually explained until near the end. It is a bit disorienting, and you really have to pay attention to narrative details or you miss how things tie together. I think this contributes to the feeling I had that the book was more of a series of episodes than a narrative with an arc and direction. This isn’t meant to be a criticism. If anything, life itself tends to be episodic rather than fit a neat arc. I was reminded a bit of David Copperfield, which also followed a character through his youth in a series of related, yet disconnected episodes. In a way, this very style is an assertion that life isn’t neat, people aren’t simple categories, and events take their own directions, not the ones dictated by artistic considerations.

The basic plot is as follows (spoilers, so skip if you prefer):

The narrator becomes friends with Tracey after they meet at a dance class. They don’t have that much in common, but are the only non-white kids there, and they at least share a love for dance. Later, they drift apart after Tracey gets into a dance-oriented school on scholarship, and the narrator takes a more academic route. They reconnect a few times, but find they have less in common than they thought. Tracey gets some professional dance roles, but never makes it big. Instead, she ends up a lot like her mother, with some kids with different fathers and no real direction to her life.

The narrator, on the other hand, disappoints her mother with mediocre results in school, and a low paying job at the fictional equivalent of MTV Britain. Then, she happens to meet Aimee, an Australian pop megastar (probably patterned after Madonna), who hires the narrator as a personal assistant. She spends the next decade plus at this job, before events cause a shattering break near the end of the book, and the narrator finds herself without a job, having essentially devoted all her time to Aimee. During their time together, Aimee decides to build a girls school in Africa (the place isn’t named, but is probably Gambia.) This turns out to be a bit of a failure because of Aimee’s failure to listen or understand the real needs of the community. As I said, it kind of meanders, just like the narrator tends to drift without a purpose.

The strong point of the book, on the other hand, was the well-drawn characters. The narrator is at the center, obviously. It is odd that her name is never given, even by the other characters. But perhaps not knowing makes it easier to imagine oneself in that place. The narrator’s parents were recognizable people - I’ve met a few like them. I suspect there might be a bit of Smith’s parents in them. They certainly explain how the narrator came to be who she is. The psychological interplay of the characters is quite true to life.

I also thought that Tracey and her family were intriguing. There are a lot of people like them in my part of the world too. I thought the author was perceptive about a couple of things. First, she gives a rather positive picture of a loving (if not always put together) single mother. Tracey’s home is challenging, but her mother is actually a better mother on balance than the narrator’s distant ice-queen mother. Poverty and occasionally questionable decision-making do not overwhelm what is essentially a happy home. In my work in juvenile dependency proceedings, I see the dynamic that Tracey and her mom face. Poverty leaves one with a low margin for error, and thus there is social worker involvement, and more judgment than assistance.

The other thing, though, that the author also gets right is a kind of defensive superiority complex - a defense mechanism against feelings of inadequacy. We all fight our insecurities in our own way, and Tracey’s mom does it by lording what she feels is her superiority over others. It is the flip side of the coin of the narrator’s mom, who goes full on Tiger Mom on the narrator.

There are a few great lines in the book that I want to mention. One is a description by the narrator of her time at the TV station. She doesn’t fit in culturally, both because of her race and because of her background. She is into the old dance musicals, not her own era of music.

In the great piles of glossy magazines, also freebies, left around the office, we now read that Britannia was cool -- or some version of it that struck even me as intensely uncool -- and after a while began to understand that it must be on precisely this optimistic wave that the company surfed. Optimism infused with nostalgia: the boys in our office looked like rebooted Mods -- with Kinks haircuts from thirty years earlier -- and the girls were Julie Christie bottle-blondes in short skirts with smudgy black eyes. Everybody rode a Vespa to work, everybody’s cubicle seemed to feature a picture of Michael Caine in Alfie or The Italian Job. It was nostalgia for an era and a culture that had meant nothing to me in the first place, and perhaps because of this I was, in the eyes of my colleagues, cool, by virtue of not being like them.

The narrator’s taste, throughout, is always toward an older period.

            But elegance attracted me. I liked the way it hid pain.

Another great line comes from Fern, one of the guys who makes Aimee’s Africa project work as well as it does. He is a sympathetic character, as one of the genuinely good-intentioned people in the book. He is also more perceptive than most of the others.

“No one is more ingenious than the poor, wherever you find them. When you are poor every stage has to be thought through. Wealth is the opposite. With wealth you get to be thoughtless.”

This one is so true. Aimee’s biggest problem is her wealth, which allows her to both dictate her life, and assume that everyone else can do so too. In her view, differences in outcomes “were never structural or economic but always essentially differences of personality.” This attitude, too, permeates a lot of middle to upper class whites I know. It is darkly amusing when they complain that poor people can’t budget - when they themselves have far greater incomes and piles of debt. The margin for error is just greater for them…

There is another perceptive observation, this one by the narrator, about her experience in Africa, while visiting the site of a slaving prison.  

All paths lead back there, my mother had always told me, but now that I was here, in this storied corner of the continent, I experienced it not as an exceptional place but as an example of a general rule. Power had preyed on weakness here: all kinds of power -- local, racial, tribal, national, global, economic -- on all kinds of weakness, stopping at nothing, not even at the smallest girl child. But power does that everywhere. The world is saturated in blood. Every tribe has their blood-soaked legacy: here was mine.

Sad, but undeniably true. And true in our time, where children are sacrificed to power and tribalism.

One final quote is on the topic of the narrator’s mother. After a lifetime of trying to make her daughter into the sort of world-conquering superwoman that she envisioned, she is obviously disappointed.

I wondered if some similarly chilly epigraph existed for me: She was not the best daughter, but she was a perfectly adequate dinner date.

It’s the little bon mots like that which add sparkle to this book. Overall, I found that it was hard to put this book down. Good writing, human characters, and a tendency to bestow grace on even the most flawed people in the story.

Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

Time somehow got away from us, and it has been nearly two years since we listened to an Alexander McCall Smith book. How did that even happen? Anyway, it’s nice to be back.

As I noted before, we have listened to these all out of order, due to what was in stock at our library. However, having time to plan ahead, the last couple have been chosen to fill in the gaps. I still haven’t read or listened to the first one, but my kids have, so we haven’t gone back to do that one. 

Morality For Beautiful Girls is the third book, and comes directly after The Tears of the Giraffe, which we listened to most recently. Mma. Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are engaged, and they have essentially adopted a couple of orphans. However, not all is well.

First, the detective agency is having difficulty making a profit. This leads Mma. Ramotswe to consider laying off her assistant, Mma. Makutsi. This is problematic in part because Mma. Makutsi not only relies on her income for her own support: she is supporting a dying brother as well as her family back in the village.

Second, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has lapsed into clinical depression, and isn’t bothering to eat or come into work, leaving the repair shop in the hands of the lazy and incompetent apprentices. What is to be done?

And then there are the two cases. A wealthy and powerful government official seeks the aid of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency to gather evidence that his brother’s wife is trying to poison her husband. This plot takes Mma. Ramotswe to a distant cattle ranch - and into a hive of unhealthy family dynamics. Meanwhile, Mma. Makutsi is left to mind the agency (and manage the repair shop until Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni recovers.) She is handed a large retainer, and an intriguing task: can she determine which of the finalists for a beauty contest is likely to bring honor, and not disgrace, to the contest?

As usual, McCall Smith handles the complex moral issues at stake with humor and subtlety. I particularly appreciated in this case the focus on Mma. Makutsi, who is more perceptive than she appears at first glance. She fully understands the patriarchal dynamics at play in the contest, and the way that women are punished for sexual behavior that men get away with every day - particularly in a “traditional” culture.

Also interesting in this book is the dynamic between the wealthy and their hired help. I don’t want to spoil the way one case ends, but I will note that there is often a tendency for the wealthy to take advantage of their economic power and treat their underlings as subhuman - and indeed to try to control their lives.

McCall Smith also shows, once again, a keen understanding of family grievances. Having spent the last 18 years assisting families in settling their ancestors’ estates, I certainly have seen many of these in play. Some days, one feels less like a lawyer and more like a therapist.

I also appreciated that McCall Smith addressed mental illness. I was raised in a belief tradition that had (and still has) a tendency to make all psychological issues into “moral” or “spiritual” issues. Thus, many I know have been shamed and condemned, rather than treated with compassion - and modern medical understanding. I think this is improving in our culture as a whole, but for my religious tradition, it has rather gone backwards in the last few decades, which is sad. I hope for better things with the next generation.

This is my 5th (and the kids’ 6th) of the Mma. Ramotswe series. There are quite a few, and I hope to keep them in our regular rotation.

***

Here are the other Alexander McCall Smith books we have listened to previously (in the order we experienced them):

The Kalahari Typing School For Men (#4 in the series)

Blue Shoes And Happiness (#7 in the series)

The Full Cupboard of Life (#5 in the series)

The Tears of the Giraffe (#2 in the series)

The Sunday Philosophy Club (from another series - read without the kids)

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This post is dedicated to the memory of my cousin-in-law Jennifer, who encouraged me to read this book. She succumbed to breast cancer back in October, leaving an aching void in the hearts of many, from her students and former students at Santa Monica High, where she taught English, to her many friends and relatives who loved good books, Disney, cats, and making the world a better place. 

Yaa Gyasi, like one of the characters in this book, was born in Ghana, and immigrated to Alabama. She writes, therefore, as a person who straddles two cultures, and two contrasting experiences of being black in a world still shaped by colonialism and white supremacy.

The book is essentially historical fiction, and covers a couple hundred years, from the days of the African slave trade, through what is roughly the present. The story follows two branches of an African family who take very different journeys over the course of seven generations. Effia is a beautiful young woman, who is married off to an Englishman involved in the slave trade. Her half-sister, Esi, is captured and sold as a slave in America.

On Effia’s branch, the story parallels Ghana’s history, with the various warring tribal kingdoms eventually conquered by the English, independence sought, and eventually gained. Esi’s story is that of African Americans in the United States. Slavery, Convict Leasing, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the inner city Heroin epidemic, and so on to the present, where white supremacy remains strong, if less open.

A representative of each generation gets a chapter in the book, and that chapter focuses on a pivotal moment in that character’s life. Enough background information is given to connect the stories together, but this is more of a close focus rather than landscape view. The book alternates between branches, so the parallels - and differences - of the corresponding stories are easy to spot. Gyasi doesn’t overdo the parallelism, but it can be seen both in the individuals and in the history that accompanies them.

Homegoing is not an easy book to read. Gyasi does not shy away from the horrors of slavery, the slave trade, warfare, mental illness, drug addiction, or injustice. She also does not excuse Africans for their role in the slave trade, or progressive whites who remain uncomfortable with people of color encroaching on their own families.

There are a few episodes that I want to specifically mention. The first is one set in America at the time of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. We tend to forget this one, because it runs counter to the narrative that neo-Confederates of all stripes (and that in practical terms includes anyone trying to keep monuments to Confederate leaders in places of honor, or those who claim the Civil War wasn’t primarily about slavery) want you to believe. No, the South wasn’t content to preserve their slavery-built-and-maintained way of life. They wanted the North to use its police power to seek, capture, and return the enslaved who managed to escape to freedom.

In this particular story, one of the characters happens to be a free-born black married to an escaped slave. However, she is arrested and sent to the South and slavery for her and her unborn child. Yes, this happened. It happened a lot. And therefore, a free black in the North could never rest easy, because his or her freedom was fragile, and could be terminated at any time. We forget this part of our history to our own shame.

I also want to mention an interesting story set in the time of the Great Migration, when millions of blacks left the Jim Crow South looking for better opportunity in the Northeast. (Black Boy (American Hunger) has a semi-autobiographical tale of moving north at this time.) In this story, a character is abandoned by her husband in New York, after he learns he can “pass” as white. He marries a white woman and starts a second family. Recently, DNA testing has become fairly sophisticated and affordable, and a number of friends have taken a test to show where their ancestors (probably) came from. This has led to, shall we say, some interesting revelations. I have seen a few high-profile stories that seem to involve this very thing. A light colored African American “passes” for white, and his or her descendants are shocked - shocked - to find out they have slaves in their ancestry. (Also amusing is a friend’s family who, after years of denial, was forced to admit that there was both French and German in there. This was hilarious because at least one family member cared deeply about this, and was horrified at the result. Who knew?)

In addition to the historical issues, Gyasi also takes an uncomfortable look at the role of religion. After all, it was Christianity that justified the slave trade and slavery itself using its scriptures. The contrast of the traditional African beliefs with the white man’s religion is interesting. Gyasi doesn’t make much of a value judgment. She just presents the uncomfortable truth about both. There is good and bad in each, really, and it isn’t the religion that determines whether a person does good or evil. We just use our religion to justify our behavior, good or evil. Thus, what we whites would call superstition contributes to an unlucky white traveler being burned to death. And Christian “values” are used to support Segregation, and justify beatings and torture of slaves. This is, unfortunately, the truth of history.

There is one religious issue, however, that I think really does need to mentioned. There is an issue with how we Christians tend to talk about forgiveness. I do not blame the teachings of Christ for this, as I believe they have been twisted beyond recognition. But I do believe this is a problem that pervades how we practice our religion. One character notes that the whites talked a lot about forgiveness. “Forgiveness, they shouted, all the while committing their wrongs.” This is how it has been. We talk about grace and forgiveness, and try to shut up the victims of oppression, whether they be of prejudice and police brutality, or of sexual predation by powerful men. (Hello, there, Roy Moore…) I think Gyasi has an interesting take on this. Forgiveness is supposed to take place in the future. After the bad acts have ceased. By talking about forgivness, the focus is taken off of the present - and the evil being done - and redirected to the future, when all will (allegedly) be well. I may have to write about this in a separate post, but the discomfort of American White Evangelicals right now when people like me point out that they have harmed others by voting for the openly white supremacist candidate and for social darwinist policies is due to the fact that they do not want to acknowledge that they have harmed others, repent (in the sense it is used in scripture of changing direction - doing the opposite of the harmful behavior), and ask forgiveness from those they have hurt.

I am glad I read this book, and recommend it highly. As the history teacher character demonstrates at one point, the study of history is difficult because all we have are the stories. And not all of the stories. Because history is generally told by the victors, and the victims have their stories silenced. Gyasi tells some of these other stories in this book - the stories that have been largely silenced or marginalized by the colonialist/white supremacist victors. One of the most influential moments in my own thinking was when I listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk entitled The Danger of a Single Story. It was then that I really understood that it was only relatively recently that these other stories were told. I grew up reading books like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - but that came out in 1976! My parents didn’t read books like that because they didn’t exist. I am thankful that they made sure we did. This is why I encourage my children to read stories from a variety of perspectives - particularly the ones that have been silenced in the past. While this book is a bit too intense for little kids, I think it would be appropriate for teens, who are on the cusp of going out into a world where hate and a white supremacist narrative are newly re-emboldened by their return to political power. And, as the founder of my religion understood, stories are the most powerful way to communicate truth. 

King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard

Source of book: I own this, but we listened to the Audiobook version.

This was our final audiobook for our summer camping trip. We failed to finish it during the trip because we ran out of road before we ran out of disks. I essentially overestimated travel times, which could mean one of a few things. Perhaps because we had a lot of two-lane roads, my speed towing the trailer was closer to the estimated speeds for Google Maps. Or perhaps I am getting faster with towing experience. Or maybe I padded the times for narrower roads than we actually ended up on. Anyway, we had about 3 hours worth left, which we have listened to at home on the evenings my wife is at work. 

 From the first edition. This is one of the best scenes.

Anyway, I first read this story back in my teens, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that while the real life explorer Hiram Bingham was a real life version of Indiana Jones, it was the novels of H. Rider Haggard which contributed most to the atmosphere - and plot points - of the movies. The ideas for the booby traps, stone doors with hidden mechanisms, exotic locations, thousand year old humans, and more come straight out of Haggard’s books. The rapid aging scene from The Last Crusade is stolen, nearly beat for beat, from She, as the most obvious example.

Re-experiencing this book was both fun and disappointing.

First the bad: Haggard is a definite product of the 19th Century. He is disgustingly racist and colonialist and some passages are painful in the extreme. When I was young, I was better able to ignore that factor and just enjoy the story. It’s not that I didn’t know it was racist, but that it was easier to assume that the stereotypes were, like slavery, an artifact of the past. Well, not so much, as I have come to realize more and more as I have aged.

On the other hand, one of the challenges of reading older literature is seeing things through the lens of the times. It may not seem shocking now, but Haggard was considered controversial in his time because he actually came close to putting an interracial marriage in this book. He felt he had to kill off the African woman or the book would never have been published, but he presents Foulatta as a suitable mate for Captain Good. In fact, one thing that struck me this time is that she is presented as a clear representation of the Victorian female ideal: the “ministering angel.” Yes, this is sexist. That’s Victorian literature for you. But the very fact that a black woman was written as taking the role that an ideal white woman would have must have been shocking to many at the time.

The other factor that mitigates Haggard’s prejudice in this book is that he does write his African characters as fully realized people. Although they are often viewed as savages, several major characters are presented as noble, intelligent, honorable, and formidable. At one point Ignosi and Sir Henry are able to acknowledge that they have much in common. “We are men, you and I.”

Still, it suffers from the old trope of the white savior and the easily wowed savage.

I think that it has been, on the whole, good to expose my kids to stuff like this and then discuss how stereotypes linger. It helps explain things like why a friend hates her brown eyes and brown skin, for example. Our culture values whiteness as ideal beauty.

In many ways, I am glad that my kids’ first and favorite exposure to African settings was Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma. Ramotswe books, which have a more modern sensibility and tackle racial issues with both tact and unflinching probing. 

I’ll also note in the bad category the indiscriminate slaughter of elephants for their tusks. But again, back then, nobody believed they were endangered. The cautionary tale of the Dodo bird had not yet impacted European or American thought. It would take the extinction of the Carrier Pigeon to do that, unfortunately.

Now, for the good:

King Solomon’s Mines is an outstanding adventure, from back when there really were unexplored places which could hold anything. In the vein of Jules Verne, the unknown was still undiscovered. Space was not yet the final frontier. 

The book is considered the first of the “Lost World” genre, which still fascinates today. (Tomb Raider, among others.) I remember as a young kid watching the Land That Time Forgot movies with my dad, discovering Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, and later Lost Horizon by James Hilton - the origin of “Shangri-La.” (Hilton’s other books are good too.) Even the various Star Trek series mine this idea. There is something endlessly fascinating about the potential discovery of civilizations untouched by modernity.

Haggard dreams up fantastic places, dangerous terrain, lost peoples, ancient roads and mines, and fantastic wealth. The idea of civilizations that have remained largely unchanged for thousands of years must have appealed in the days of colonialism. After all, much as the United States is a young country, Europe itself is a young civilization compared with ancient Egypt, China, and India.

I also remembered why I loved the character of Allan Quatermain so much. He is the man many of us dreamed of being in some way. He is short, not terribly strong. He is, as he puts it, “a natural coward,” always seeking ways to avoid violence if possible, and preferring to use his head rather than his gun. He is also a worrier - I sympathize with that too. In many ways, he turns the “Big Game Hunter” stereotype on its head. He lacks bluster, brawn, and machismo. He has serious chutzpah, though, and plays his hand well.

My kids were mixed about this book. My older daughters thought it was boring. Except that my second daughter liked the battle scenes. (She is a bit macabre, and likes blood and guts.) My sons, on the other hand, liked it a great deal. Since Haggard warns at the beginning that there are “no petticoats” in this book - the white characters are all male, and the main female character, Gagool, is thoroughly evil - it might be natural that the girls weren’t as into the story.

The boys particularly liked the humorous scenes with Captain Good. Basically, Good is interrupted in the middle of his elaborate toilet, so his first appearance to Ignosi’s tribe is half-shaven, with his pants off. Because of the circumstances (Quatermain claims they are from “the stars” in order to avoid a beheading…) Good has to remain like this, to his extreme consternation, for some time. Classic humor at the expense of a dandy.

So, I guess, I’ll give this book a qualified recommendation. It’s a pretty thrilling tale. But it had a lot that was racist and colonialist too. Enjoy, but be prepared to discuss some heavy issues. 

***

Fun additional fact: Haggard got his start with this book, after a bet. His brother bet him a shilling that he couldn’t write a better book than Treasure Island. It took a few tries to get it published, but it became a success, and launched Haggard’s career. No word on who won the bet, however. I think Treasure Island remains higher in the pantheon, but both novels have had far-reaching influence on culture. Between the adventure genre and the pirate genre, much of what we think of when we think of lost civilizations and hidden treasure come from these two authors. 

***

Don’t even start with the movies. There is no way Sharon Stone or Deborah Kerr belong in this tale. Ever. In any way. Sorry. But Idris Elba and Lupita Nyong’o as Ignosi and Gagool? That would rock.