Book review - Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – an African Childhood, by Alexandra Fuller,  Random House, NY 2001. 

Although published first, I read this book after I read Cocktails under the Tree of Forgetfulness, a biography of her mother,  by the same author (reviewed in June 2012).  Accordingly the thrust of the story was already known to me. Nonetheless, this autobiography was entertaining and revealing in its own right.

The author, called Bobo as a child, was born in England, but grew up in Africa – in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.  Her family was quite self contained. Her parents had the bad luck to end up on every out-of- the- way run- down farm or plantation out there.  Bobo’s mother, Nicola, was an alcoholic whose problems were compounded by mental instability.  Depression at least partially attributed to the fact that she lost three babies resulted in Nicola often neglected her daughters - omissions that taught them self reliance. Throughout, Bobo and her older sister Vanessa coped.

Life was not easy on the Zimbabwe farm tucked up against the border of Mozambique during Zimbabwe’s civil war.  “Terrorists” as the African insurgents were called posed an ever present threat.  Bobo’s parents always had automatic weapons at their sides, even while they slept.   The house was full of dogs, who accompanied Bobo and her mother on their daily horse rides.  Bobo’s early memories are of this house, the servants, the problems, the travels and the adventures.  Independence came. The whites lost the war, so the situation for them changed dramatically; not just politically, but economically and socially.  For example, Bobo’s whites only school was inundated by African children.  Furthermore the racial superiority practiced by white settlers was no longer tolerated. Children like Bobo handled these changes better than adults.

Yet, the Fullers stayed on.  They adapted and survived. They moved successively to an abandoned ranch, then on to a tobacco plantation in Malawi and finally to a farm in Zambia. 

Bobo’s memoir is replete with candid anecdotes of daily life and familial interactions; often told via dialogue.  The author has a keen memory of how they spoke. She vividly constructs a picture of what her life was like.  Given the oddness of her upbringing and her eccentric parents, it is a bit amazing that she turned out normal.  But apparently, she did.

For those who want a glimpse of another time and place, this is an interesting memoir.

Review - Crossing the Heart of Africa

A review of Crossing the Heart of Africa, by Julian Smith, Harper Collins, NY, 2010

In this combination historical exposition and travelogue author Julian Smith recounts the life and trans-African journey of Ewart Grogan in 1899 while retracing the man’s footsteps a hundred or so years later.  Grogan was a British adventurer who fell in love with Gertrude, a New Zealand beauty. However, her stepfather believed that Grogan was unsuitable. In order to prove his mettle, Grogan proposed to walk the length of Africa along the Cape to Cairo corridor proposed by  Cecil Rhodes.  

Author Smith had obviously combed Grogan’s chronicles and books of the era. He summarized and used this information to excellent effect in this book.  Grogan was indeed a interesting character. A man of indomitable will, he persevered on this journey through amazing difficulty – tropical diseases, hostile natives, hunger, thirst, ferocious animals, lost supplies, isolation; all of which combined to wear him down. But Grogan like predecessors Livingstone and Stanley had an iron constitution and some spark in his inner core that would not bow to defeat.  Although not of the first generation of explorers, nonetheless Grogan was the first to map the Ruzizi valley and the eastern shore of Lake Kivu.  He plugged ahead and eventually succeeded.  Of course, Gertrude waited for him. They married and settled in Kenya where he became a stalwart of the community.

Smith’s journey was a bit less arduous. He took public transportation from Beria, Mozambique  through Malawi, on into Tanzania, by boat up Lake Tanganyika, onward through Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.  He then flew to Juba, Sudan where he finished his travels.  As true with any budget traveler in Africa, Smith found buses and boats crowded, facilities poor, food execrable and his patience tried. He was beset by erstwhile companions who sought to play him for what he might be worth, but he was also offered hospitality by strangers in the best African tradition.  Apart from the gee-whiz factor of someone experiencing this for the first time, there was nothing remarkable in Smith’s observations. However, Smith too soldiered on motivated by his own true love, Laura.

While the juxtaposition of the parallel journeys and the parallel loves made for a nice hook upon which to hang the book, I found the ruminations of Smith’s relationship and courtship of Laura to be extraneous and a distraction from the history of Grogan’s trials and the modern day travelogue.    

I found two errors in the narrative that a good editor should have caught.  Early on Grogan’s route was described from Cape Horn to Cairo.  Of course, Cape Horn is in South America. The Cape of Good Hope is the African landmark.  Secondly, Smith noted that Grogan’s travelling partner Sharpe gave up the trip in western Uganda and headed for Kampala where he could  “get a train to the coast.”  The railroad did not reach Kampala until 1931, some thirty years later.  

Although this book has shortcomings, it is worthwhile and provides the service of recounting Ewart Grogan’s riveting tale of exploration.

A Kenyan Memoir

In the House of the Interpreter – a memoir by Ngugi wa Thiongo, Pantheon Book, NY, 2012

This is the second installment of a memoir by the noted Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiongo.  In the first book Dreams in a Time of War (reviewed on this site in May 2010) Ngugi recounted his childhood in Limuru as first WWII then the Mau Mau insurgency swept down upon his family.  In the House of the Interpreter picks up where that memoir left off. Now we find Ngugi on his way to the renown Alliance High School.  At the time the only, and perhaps still today, the most prestigious secondary school for Africans.   He explains the origins of Alliance in the 1920s as a vocational school organized by a consortium of missionary organizations designed to educate and create an elite group of African males.

By the 1950s when Ngugi enrolled, Alliance was indeed doing that. A knowledgeable reader will recognize names,  which Ngugi drops often, as those of men who went on to prominence in Kenyan society.  But to his credit Ngugi does not remark upon what these boys became, rather he elucidates what they were then – how they impressed or not – their colleagues and teachers.

For village boys like Ngugi, Alliance was another world. He was unfamiliar with European accoutrements such as eating utensils, flush toilets, hot showers, and a bed of his own.  Nonetheless, he and his fellows quickly adjusted.  Under the strict tutelage of headmaster Cary Francis, the school ran like clock work. Academics were foremost and the day was devoted to learning.  Not unsurprisingly,  Ngugi excelled. He was always near the top of his class.  The odd title of the book comes from the fact that for Kenyan youngsters (a handful of girls were enrolled), Alliance High School was the place where western knowledge – science, literature, manners and mores were interpreted for them.

Yet Alliance was more than a school, especially for the Kikuyu kids, it was a refuge from the Mau Mau nastiness going on around them in the late 1950s.  An Alliance uniform drew great respect from most Africans and indeed recognition from Europeans. It provided a sort of cloak of immunity from the harassment that was a regular part of life.  For example, on his first visit home, Ngugi found that his family home, indeed his whole village had been razed by colonial authorities.  Soon passes and passbooks were needed for all movement. Ngugi feared he would be denied these because his brother was a Mau Mau fighter.  Culminating this reign of terror,  in spite of his Alliance association Ngugi was on one occasion arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned.

Such incidents give heft to the memoir as Ngugi recalls his formative and coming of age years.  Alliance truly opened the door to a bigger world for him and for all of his cohorts.  His description of it all is a worthy read.