A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson

I may gripe about “Book Recommendation Fatigue”, but I continue to read books that other bloggers are raving about. This is largely due to the fact that I’m in the U.S. this year and actually have access to them. When in Brazil, my book choices are limited to what’s on my own shelves or what’s available through the library at the American school.

This week I read the novel, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. The title is completely misleading since it is not a bird guide at all. The story takes place in Nairobi, Kenya. The men in the story are not native Kenyans, but descendents of immigrants from West India. The female protagonist is from Scotland so the books provides a fascinating mixture of characters while weaving bits of Kenyan and Indian culture into the story.

Mr. Malik is a widower who spends his time writing anonymous political articles for the newspaper, watching birds, and visiting AIDS patients. He is smitten with the woman, Rose Mbikwa, who leads the Tuesday bird watcher’s group. Although the book is about his efforts to win her affections, it is not, strictly speaking, a romance because Rose plays a rather small part in the narrative. In fact, most of the dialogue and action takes place among the members of the male Asadi Club.

I enjoyed the good writing and the simple bird sketches that preceded each chapter. I also appreciated the sensitivity and sense of honor exemplified by the main character, Mr. Malik. Yet I was often jolted out of my literary reverie by references to flatulence, Bill Clinton, and several other modern day topics. For some reason I didn’t mind the references to political corruption in Kenya since they seemed to support the story, rather than detract from it. Overall, it was a pleasant, easy read.

A sample of the prose:

He had loved his wife. Not at first, not when introduced to the shy girl that their families had chosen to be his wife. She was rather on the tall side, he thought, and only a little bit pretty. But soon he came to know this deep and quiet girl, and as she grew into a woman he was impressed by her strengths, which were many, and endeared by her weaknesses, which were few. And beauty seemed to grow within her. It sometimes shone so bright he could hardly look at her. (p. 11)

Short, balding, tender-hearted Mr. Malik is a lovely man who I’m sure you’ll enjoy meeting on the pages of this book.

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

As a young adult I read almost everything written by Elisabeth Elliot. In several of her books she highly recommends the writings of Danish author, Isak Dinesen. Recently I got my hands on Dineson's Out of Africa  and was quickly plunged into life in Kenya in the early decades of the 20th century.

Dinesen and her husband moved to British East Africa in 1914 where they established a coffee plantation. Even after her divorce seven years later, she continued to run the farm. By then Africa had gotten so deep into her blood that she thought she could never leave. The book recounts her struggles, but more than that it describes her deep love for Kenya and its people. When she finally has to leave the continent she writes it was like being in a stupor of unreality: "It was not I who was going away, I did not have it in my power to leave Africa, but it was [as if] the country was slowly and gravely withdrawing from me, like the sea in ebb-tide."

Dinesen's descriptions of animals can take your breath away: In the Reserve I have sometimes come upon the Iguana, the big lizards, as they were sunning themselves upon a flat stone in a river-bed. They are not pretty in shape, but nothing can be imagined more beautiful than their coloring. They shine like a heap of precious stones or like a pane cut out of an old church window. When, as you approach, they swish away, there is a flash of azure, green and purple over the stones, the color seems to be standing behind them in the air, like a comet's luminous tail. Once I shot an iguana. I thought that I should be able to make some pretty things from his skin. A strange thing happened then, that I have never forgotten. As I went up to him, where he was lying upon his stone, and actually while I was walking the few steps, he faded and grew pale, all color died out of him as in one long sigh, and by the time that I touched him he was gray and dull like a lump of concrete. (p.257)

I love beautiful writing and there is no doubt that Dineson is a gifted story-teller. Nevertheless I felt bogged down in the wordy prose at times. Now that I've read the book I'd like to see the 1985 movie again. The love affair with Denys Finch-Hatton was hollywoodized, but it is true that they had an unusual and deep friendship. And I'd like to hear Dineson's lovely words superimposed on scenes of Africa.

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

A Wycliffe missionary couple lost their oldest son in a car accident a few years ago. That same year they returned to work with a Brazilian Indian tribe. The tribe had been indifferent to Christianity for 15 years, but suddenly many began to turn to God. It was astounding to hear the missionary say, “It was the worst year of my life. And the best year of my life.”

Cry, the Beloved Country is a book that comes close to describing this mysterious relationship between suffering and grace in our world. I’ve had the book for years but never cracked it open till I read Amy’s praise of it at “Hope is the Word” (I’m not linking to her post because it gives too many details). Believe me, it’s better to go into this book completely cold to gain its full impact.

If you like formulaic books with all the loose ends tied up neatly in the end, this book is not for you. It doesn’t even come close to being a “happy” book. Initially I was put off by its sad tone and the irregular language (purposely made to imitate Zulu translated into English). But it is one of the most painfully beautiful books I’ve ever read.

Cry, the Beloved Country is the story of an Anglican priest, Stephen Kumalo, who lives in South Africa in the year 1946. He and his wife live in semi-poverty in the village of Ndotsheni. Their tribe is disintegrating as the young people go to the big city to look for jobs. In the story he goes to Johannesburg to discover what has become of his sister, his brother, and his only son. His search brings many unpleasant surprises and yet there are threads of grace running throughout the narrative. The avalanche of grace at the end of the book is countered by the most painful experience in Kumalo’s life. For the second time in a very few months I wept uncontrollably over the ending of a book. But NOT because of the suffering. I was overcome by the MERCY.

In conversation with Kumalo, one of his friends states, “This world is full of trouble, umfundisi (pastor). “Who knows better than I?” responds Kumalo. “Yet you believe?” queries the other. Kumalo looked at him under the light of the lamp. “I believe he said, but I have learned that it is a secret. Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering. There is my wife, and you, my friend, and these people who welcomed me, and the child who is so eager to be with us here – so in my suffering I can believe. (p.260-261)

I appreciated that men of faith were described realistically with faults and temptations. Yet they were also portrayed as men of integrity and not the dolts of popular media.

This is an amazing book that I will not soon forget!

The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley

From page one of The Flame Trees of Thika I knew I’d stumbled across an incredibly observant and eloquent writer. Huxley succeeds in helping the reader taste, smell and see Kenya at the beginning of the 20th century. The following passage is just one example:

[On the shooting of a python:] Robin’s second shot was true. The head collapsed, the huge body writhed and lashed and threshed on the rocks, like some dark cauldron boiling over, like a monstrous worm of corruption spewed up from the caverns of the earth. The Kikuyu flung off their blankets and rushed naked into the stream to save it from falling into the river, but they did not touch it until the slithering coils lay still. Then they dragged it up the bank and stretched it out; and there in the middle, sure enough, was an enormous bulge, like a great bead strung on a cord. (p. 196)

It was a stroke of brilliance to write this book from the point of view of a small child. Obviously the book’s descriptions and insights into human nature are far beyond the powers of a child to communicate, but the child-as-narrator was a powerful tool because the author was able to report the conversation and actions of the adults without judgment. The same was true for her descriptions of the different tribal peoples who worked on or near her father’s coffee plantation.

So why didn’t I love this book? My heart yearned for character development and found none. Although the book was clean, there were implications of several extramarital affairs. I was reminded of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness (reviewed here) who became less and less civilized as he moved toward the heart of the jungle. Here again were people who seemed less restrained by societal mores the farther they moved from their home cultures.

Still, I will always remember Huxley’s description of a sunset as “rose, lemon and the color of flamingo’s wings”. I turned that phrase over in my mind for three whole days! Would-be writers should read this book as a lesson in writing fresh metaphors. With all the distractions we fight against today I’m wondering if ANYONE still pays attention to details like this author.