Cry, The Beloved Country

"A beautiful novel, rich, firm and moving... its writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling and its understanding so compassionate, that to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience it treats." - New York Times

I bought this book on 4th September 2005, and it has, for some reason or the other, stayed unread until now. I know that I promised to write a review once I finished reading the book, but for many reasons, I now find that thought mildly presumptuous. This is not a book I am equipped, either intellectually or emotionally, to review. In some measure, I can write about it, try and pay some tribute to what this book has meant to me, for even though no comparisons can be made, Cry, The Beloved Country was as cathartic an experience as Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Cry, The Beloved Country is a spiritual book, in that it believes in faith as therapeutic, in that it believes in forgiveness as cleansing and in that it believes in love as the only way to redemption. It strips words like 'brotherhood' and 'compassion' of their years of bloody hypocrisy, so that you see them for the beautiful words they once were, and the wonderful ideas that they stood for. It is unafraid to speak, to apportion blame, to give credit where it is due, to look at tragedy full in the face without flinching, yet without losing hope.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Without losing hope. The loss of hope is worse even than the loss of faith. But to hope without knowing how or where or when that hope may be realised; to hope wihout reservation, with the certainty of the dawn, the sunrise, the tides; to hope that the limits of human reason and understanding, hide a secret that will ultimately emancipate; that is the secret goodness of this book, the key to its effectiveness, the reason for its relevance in a world where the human life itself has become irrelevant.

Yes, it is the dawn that has come. The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying. The sun tips with light the mountains of Angeli and East Griqualand.The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotshemi is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.

Update

Out of all the things I swore to do here, I have only managed number 5. I think that says a lot about who I have become.

But 10 abdomen crunches is a good thing. In other news, I have read another Georgette Heyer, written a little something about Heyer and also written another poem. So my life in the past few days hasn't been altogether in vain.

Also, at the moment, I am sitting in office in a sari (for Ethnic Day) that took me an hour to wear in the morning and that I would change out of in a second, if I just had some regular clothes to change into! But it looks nice. *sigh* It feels nice to make lists, even if I don't do anything with them, so here's a to-read list:

1. Cry, The Beloved Country- Alan Paton (yes, still.)
2. A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess
3. No Onions, Nor Garlic- Srividya Natarajan
4. The Great Roxhythe- Georgette Heyer
5. The Argumentative Indian- Amartya Sen

I think that's a nicely rounded off list, what?

Georgette Heyer or Why I Go Straight to the Dessert

"But that Cousin Joseph, ignoring the claims of George, and Laurence, and her beloved Julian, should have named Waldo Hawkridge as his heir was so intolerable that had she been of a nervous disposition she must have succumbed to Spasms when she had first heard the incredible news."

-The Nonesuch, Georgette Heyer

It's really very difficult to think of a reason for the pleasant, anticipatory flutterings I feel when I first embark on a Heyer. Heyer is many things, warm, funny, romantic, witty, tolerant, sophisticated, but none of these qualities has ever blinded me to the fact that her books are like dessert. Sweet, desirable, sinful, tempting and addictive. Too much of them is not wholesome, they cannot substitute for an actual meal, and they definitely do not have the moral stature that is attributed so often to, say, Cabbage.

However, cabbages are cabbages, and we are not here to speak of cabbages, worthy though they might be. We are here to speak of Ms. Heyer, to whose faults, as we have already established, I am not blind. Yet I cannot stop myself from reading her books. I am drawn to her books, pulled into them, and when they are over, I feel a sad sense of loss, as though I have lost something incredibly dear, an age, or an era, or an atmosphere, if you like, that was not simple or good, no, not at all, but glamorous and amorous and bare bosomed and wigged and booted and heeled and clocked and fobbed and patched and gowned and breeched.

Then maybe it's just a language thing, you say. The obsession of reading about such curious things as quizzing glasses and duels and mantuas and bonnets and spangled gowns and yellow pantaloons. Maybe I am simply grateful to her for teaching me the difference between a trot, a canter and a gallop; between a quadrille, a country dance and a waltz; between flippant, frivolous and frippery. I could go on and on, but it is not that only.

It is more than just a fancy I have taken to the Fancy. It is the freedom of the Duke who escapes his relations, and the revenge of the Duke who is reformed by his page, and the redemption of the selfish Marquis who discovered relatives he never knew he had, and the fun-loving young Viscount who finds love in his unsophisticated wife, long, long after he marries her. And the heroines! Best of all are the women, young,old, reserved, saucy, dignified, tomboys, whatever they might be, they're always funny, and always, in their inimitable Heyer ways, they are women- shrewish or maternal, innocent or worldly wise. And in all this are the strains of a warm, warm love, like an inviting fireplace or a perfect joke or all things light and sweet and lovely. Like mousse and souffle and cheesecake and icecream.

Or just a piece of fruitcake, warm from the oven.

Brand New blog

The trouble with blog surfing is that it makes me aware of how much is going on that I have no part in whatsoever. People are travelling, reading, writing, playing music, studying music, watching films, becoming junkies, creating new metaphors I wish I had thought of.

I know that this condition is not permanent, that I am now merely in a state of limbo, that I will soon (but reluctantly) break through this cocoon of inactivity and throw myself (with more enthusiasm than purpose) into a fuller life that involves reading, writing, studying, working and working out.

It may be that this is merely a friday morning feel-good-about-myself thing. So, to remind myself that I felt this good, and that feeling good does not necessarily make my existence a cliche, here's a list of things that I will do this week:

1. Read Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country.
2. Write a review once I read it.
3. Re-read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
4. Start with the Math Review section in THE TERRIBLE BOOK. (I was good at math. I can do this.)
5. Do ten abdomen crunches everyday.

Five things is do-able. Wish me luck.