book:Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller review: When I read that this book had been released, I was instantly interested and pretty quickly went out and bought the thing, placing it higher on my priority list than the many other books I’ve got stacked by my bed and on my book shelf, just waiting to be read. The reason? After having spent a semester in college in zimbabwe, I’m intrigued by all things related to the country, its conflicts and people – white, black, whatever. So, seeing that a new story was out about a white girl raised there just prior to independence, I was instantly drawn in.
unfortunately, though, the things that drew me in also had a way of turning me off once at first. The first 100 or so pages were feeling a little too “look at me – I’m a white girl raised in zimbabwe!" I was cringed a lot and was turned off -- you should really only write this kind of book if you have a real story to tell about your childhood and experience and the country. But, fortunately, a real story eventually emerged: her family suffered a lot of loss – three children died – and her mother essentially went crazy as a result. It was also interesting to hear how gung-ho rhodesian her family – and especially her mom – was/is. I always wonder about those people – what motivated them to stay when they were clearly not born there and really not wanted, and why they went on battling a lot of hardship when they didn’t have to given their family roots, and basically why they felt so whole-heartedly rhodesian. Unfortunately, fuller doesn’t offer a lot of insight into her parents' reasons, but just observing their behavior was interesting enough for me.
Another thing I appreciated about this book was the looseness of the story telling. Fuller’s only 33 or something now, and she left africa to go to college, so it’s not like she’s got decades and decades of seamless memories of the continent to relate, and she doesn’t bother to. her stories are very time-specific and not general and dragging and overly detailed. And many from when she was very little feel very true to her memory – they’re sketchy and rather vague, probably because she didn’t fully know what was going on and she only kind of remembers. But you still get the story from the perspectives of others who were more aware and understanding – knowledge bestowed on the reader in a way that makes it appear that she didn’t really get it at the time but you, and she as an adult, still can. It’s a wonder of her great story telling that she’s able to pull this difficult task off.
One of the most notable scenes was when, as a 13-year-old, she was invited into a black african’s hut for the first time in her life. Her family was living in zambia at the time, and she was home on holiday from her awful, strict all-girls school in harare, zimbabwe. Riding around on a motorbike, she almost ran over a small black child when he came running out of his family’s hut and into her path as she drove by. She stopped to apologize to the mother and father with the few words she knew of the local people’s language. For her efforts, and because she was out in the blazing afternoon sun, the father invited her in for lunch – corn meal and fish stew. Though she could barely swallow it, fuller went in and politely ate, washing her hands in the tub provided after each bite, while the entire family looked on hungrily. This story is filled with aching unknowing and insecurity – all while she was living among these people – and so true to my own experiences. Really, a great moment in the book worthy of hours of reflection.
