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Summary: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Book Review
Review: This novel shows Alexandra Fuller's power to realistically and in a child-like way unveil her childhood. She was brought up impoverished in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Africa. The family has moved there because of the beginning of war in the early 1970's. Alexandra's family lived in fear of the war and due to that they slept, feeling protected, with gun under their pillows. The families tragedies occur when three out of the five children die at young ages. All of her troubles as a child lead to her confusions in adolescence. Living during that time we see the struggles that white Africans and black Africans encountered. Fuller shows her life, struggle, and compassion for her country like no other.
I would definitely recommend this book because it shows the essential root and authenticity of life. There is violence, there is corruption, there is racism, but there also is consideration and breakthrough. True evidence of growth emotionally and spiritually. I believe this book will appeal to anyone willing to pick it up. Anyone who is eager to go deep inside the heart of a child and woman in extremely difficult times her life will undoubtedly be able to expeience that with this novel. There are not many books that can open someone's eyes, but if truth is what the reader seeks, then this is the book to lay it out.
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Summary: Fascinating Story of "White African" Family in Zimbabwe
Review: "Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight" is a fascinating memoir of Alexandra (Bobo) Fuller's life growing up as a White African living in rural Africa during tumultuous times. Bobo Fuller was born in England in 1969, and her family returned to what was then Rhodesia several years later, where her father worked as the overseer of a farm. Bobo recalls her life in Africa until she left to attend college in Canada. The period when the Fuller family lived in Africa was a time of great upheaval and strife throughout the continent, as one by one the African countries threw off their British reins and began governing themselves. Against this extreme political turmoil, Bobo tells of her own family's struggles to overcome the deaths of three children, her mother's fight with alcohol and depression, and constant health threats from malaria and parasites. Yet through all the challenges, Bobo is resolved in her own love of the African land and its wildness.
The Fuller family lived on a farm in Rhodesia (which became Zimbabwe during their stay there) for eight years. Their farm actually bordered on Mozambique, which was undergoing a civil war of its own. I can't imagine going out horseback riding in a land studded with land mines, but this gave the Fullers very little pause. There are family photographs throughout the book, which did so much to make the book more personal. I especially enjoyed the picture of little Bobo leaving for boarding school at age 8, proudly holding an Uzi for protection on the drive to school.
After Zimbabwe, the family moved to Malawi for two years, and then onto Zambia. In spite of what sounds like terrible conditions, Fuller tells her family's story, which is often tragic, with a great deal of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and look forward to reading her next book "Scribbling the Cat."
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Summary: Bravo
Review: A wonderful insight into the mind of a child and a precise memoir of life itself. Life isn't straightforward and simple, yet we survive, thrive and love, even in the most difficult situations. Ms. Fuller: You said it all and you said it well.
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Summary: Meet the Fullers, and share in their adventurous life.
Review: Book Report Jan 19, 2005
"Don't Let's go to the dogs tonight" written by Alexandra Fuller.
ISBN 0-375-75899-2 Memoir 51395
August 2002
What a great book!
I feel that the Fullers are part of my collection of friends and family, like I spent my summers growing up with them. Bobo (Alexandra), tells a story the same straightforward way my Aunt Katie would. This was so real.
There are 12 neat questions for discussion at the back of the book (I should have read them first).
So, why did the Fullers stay in Africa (in such dangerous surroundings), after such a "run of bad luck"? Why did Bobo miss Africa at all and why was she so glad to get back? How did superstition play a role in their lives?
I would add, how were they influenced by the culture.
I think it is the adventure, and the excitement. Everything else is dull and boring by comparison. At one point, Bobo "drank the wrong water" and (see page 177 - 179), she is so sick, yet it ends with "I make a vow never to leave Africa". I expected her (a child living in an "Not Fit For White Man's Habitation, as marked on the map, part of Africa and being so sick), to say just the opposite. But, she was so glad to be on the mend and appreciative of all the sights and sounds and smells all around her.
On page 149 she says "In Rhodesia, we are born and then the umbilical cord of each child is sewn straight from the mother onto the ground. Pulling away from the ground causes death by suffocation, starvation. That's what the people of this land believe. Deprive us of the land and you are depriving us of air, water, food, and sex."
Notice how this ends with "us" and not with "them". She is the people of "this" land, and you can feel that all through the book. So the draw to keep her is the people, all her relationships, the culture, everything else in the environment, and all her memories. And she has shared those memories so well.
Page 22 - 23 shows "chapters of life", which was a very creative literary device. It was presented with the "off the wall" content which you can see throughout the book makes her life anything but ordinary.
The last Christmas on page 277 - 286 had me laughing out loud on the bus. I had to share with the person next to me who was also laughing out loud.
You can not imagine her wedding from page 287 - 296 which ends "I couldn't be more thoroughly married".
I have been to Africa myself, but Cairo is not the same as the deepest, parasite/predator war torn darkest part that she was raised in. Yet, I feel like I know the Fullers, as I said, like I spent my summers growing up with them, and shared their joys and sorrows.
What a book, full of surprise.
James
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Summary: A very different childhood
Review: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller is an extraordinary memoir of growing up white in war ravaged Africa. Alexandra, called Bobo by her family, was born in 1969 in England. Her parents moved the family to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1972. Always suffering from "bad, bad luck", which included losing three children, the family moves from farm to farm within Rhodesia and Malawi.Fuller's writing style is rich, lyrical and many times, funny. I could picture the land, feel the heat and smell the smoking fish that embodies the Africa she describes. I found myself laughing even as I was shaking my head in disbelief at some of the choices her parents made. Bobo's mother, Nicola Fuller, is racist, resilient, strong and mad as a hatter. In other words, she's the most memorable character in the book. Of course, to Fuller all of this stress and strife was, while not exactly normal, expected. She was a child, after all, and it's all she'd ever known. As I was reading, I couldn't help but think that American kids really have no idea how hard their life could be. Overall a captivating read. It left me reminiscing about my childhood and reflecting on how simple and uncomplicated (read boring) it was.
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Summary: couldn't put this book down
Review: I found that I couldn't put this book down. The author has fantastic insight into her own dysfunctional family. This is a touching survivor's story. A wonderful book, even more so because it's autobiographical. For anyone who loves reading about life in Africa and overcoming adversity in life, this is the book for you. Has a bit of "Nightmares Echo" and "Living Lolita in Tehran" in it. All excellent reads. Highly rated.
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Summary: The Poisonwood Bible?
Review: I've been stuck in an Africa rut lately, especially after reading The Poisonwood Bible for a second time this summer. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight was refreshing. It offered me a completely different point of view because everything else included in my "Africa rut" has consisted of characters learning how to coexist with the native habitants. I suppose the main difference here is that in this book the characters have always lived in Africa whereas in all the others, the characters are coming to Africa later in their lives.
Fuller only came to realize that she and her family were considered rich when she was fourteen. She says, "And this is how I am almost fourteen years old before I am formally invited into the home of a black African to share food." Although she lived in Africa, she never actually interacted with anyone except white Africans. Not as much because she looked down on the black Africans, but because she didn't understand her situation.
This book offers a very interesting point of view, if that's what you're looking for. I enjoyed it thoroughly, just to be taken away from my life in NYC for a short period of time; and also to come out my my "Africa rut" with a book very much unlike the others.
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Summary: Terrifyingly Sweet
Review: It takes awhile to grasp Alexandra's unique dialectal tone and hang on to the unpredictable roller coaster flow of this beautiful little memoir. Once you do, one has to wonder of this woman is a genius; as she disperses crystal clear recollections and -hard to get at first- wry anecdotes of a childhood in an impovershed African homestead riddled with mud, numerous malaria outbreaks, multiple infant fatalties, alcoholism, shrieking madwomen, acrimonius relations with the neighboring villagers, and above all, survival. All set against a backdrop of blistering terra firma and wild animals abound. Not only was she born to tell one of the greatest stories of all time, it seems plausible that Ms. Fuller had been born with a silver pen in her mouth.
Warning: this book is not for those who are of the faint of heart or weak stomached.
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Summary: A different perspective
Review: It was interesting to read a book about life in Africa, from the perspective of a white woman brought up in a family who clung fiercely to the notion of white supremacy with every last bit of their strength. I disagree with a previous reviewer, however, who seemed to excuse the racism of the Fuller parents by implying that the historic and political situation they were in "made" them that way. Racism is racism, no matter what the circumstance.
Despite the attitudes of the Fuller parents, their daughter Bobo has documented a well-written account of their life in various African countries, and provides vivid details about the smells, sights, and emotions that the continent evokes for her. Her writing really gives the reader a sense of both the incredible harshness and danger(poisonous snakes, itchy vegetation, scary militaristic governments, etc) of Africa, but also its gentleness and great beauty. Although I think Alexandra Fuller writes very well, and I appreciate her honest writing about her parents' behavior and attitudes, I couldn't warm to the family. Despite their numerous trajedies and troubles, I found it difficult to feel sympathetic. In contrast, when I read "The Flame Trees of Thika", another memoir of an African childhood by another white woman, Elspeth Huxley, I rooted for her colonial, turn-of-the-century, white-is-right parents, Robin and Tilly, through all their successes and setbacks. They held the same attitude of racial superiority as the Fullers, yet there is something intrinsically more likeable about how they handled themselves on a continent where they were the minority race, political upheaval or no. After reading Fuller's memoir, it was a relief to pick up "Nervous Conditions" by black female Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga, and read about three-dimensional black Africans. Her book is set in 1960s Rhodesia, for those interested (A. Fuller recommends it herself in the Afterword section of her memoir). Despite my personal reaction to this book, I recommend it to anyone interested in African writing, because I think that Alexandra Fuller's perspective is just as important and valid as that of any other African writer.
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Summary: Thought-provoking, meaningful reading
Review: My heart and mind are still wrapped up in this book. Usually, upon finishing one book, I immediately jump into another one, but I can't quite seem to do that with this book. This book is so full of life, it's hard to put down. Alexandra writes about her childhood in Africa so well...It's right out there, she doesn't mince words and she tells it exactly like it is. We see everything through Alexandra's eyes. We experience poverty in Africa, racism in Africa, life in Africa. That is exactly what this book is...an experience and one that is not to be missed!
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