Book 4 of 10 African novels! The author, Ondjaki, is quite prolific, and I’d never heard of him before specifically seeking out African authors! In my search for African authors and novels, I’ve found it’s pretty easy to find novels about the immigrant (Africa-to-US) experience, but harder to find accessible (and English!) novels by Africans who still live in and write about their home country. So I was glad to find this little novel, which is unlike any other Africa-related books on my list. This […]
There’s magic just beyond…
Well, this was just fun. I saw the movie years ago, before I knew who Neil Gaiman was, and I went in with no expectations. I remember being surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie, and that’s about it. A few years later, I picked up the book after finishing Gaiman’s American Gods, without realizing that this was the book the movie was based on. And now after reading the book, I want to watch the movie again. The story has all the elements […]
Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It
Like the Alice Munro collection I read earlier in the year, this is not a book I would have found satisfying in my twenties, when I wanted cohesion and conclusiveness, a beginning, middle, end, and some adventure, too, preferably with a happy ending. These stoires are a little more sad, a little more abrupt, have a little too much reality in them. Maybe that’s why I have started reading more short stories–I already know the tropes, I want to see how they appear to someone else. This […]
The Joys of Motherhood
Oof. This book. This is the third of my ten African books this year, and my favorite so far. The chapters are short and poignant but flow together to paint a larger, brighter picture of traditional African society and one woman’s place in it. The characters live hard, determined lives. There’s a drastic distance between rural village and urban (Lagos, in this case.) It reminded me a bit of Things Fall Apart, since the story is told plainly, almost in the style of a folk […]
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can…
I had mixed feelings about this book while reading it, but now that I’ve finished it I realize that I enjoyed it quite a bit! The first half slogged for me. It was not a page-turner, although I was interested theoretically in the protagonist and his situation, I found it quite easy to put the book down for a day or two and return for a chapter here or there. It wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t hooked. The second half, though, pulled it all together, […]
The Nobel Committee Made a Good Choice
All you Cannonballers know that Alice Munro recently won the Nobel Prize for literature. I hadn’t read any Munro yet (!) so what better time than a Cannonball? I’m not sure what I can say that hasn’t already been said about Munro’s talent. It’s very hard to summarize this collection of stories and, indeed, Munro’s overall style. She tells stories that don’t really have a beginning, middle, end; there’s no climax. But they are remarkably real, and that’s what keeps you reading. They are stories […]