Rating: 
Summary: Don't Let's Read this Book - Ever
Review: A topic which held such promise was a bitter disappointment. The story struggled along, largely because it was very difficult to follow her chronology or lack thereof. So much was left out regarding the war and social struggle of the time in an effort to spotlight her family, that it left me wanting to know more about the country and times in order to understand what her family was going through. Fuller bounces around from one time in her life to another without any consistency. Overall, this book was just very boring and there was nothing to grab onto as a reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Destined to be a minor classic
Review: This is a wonderful book that deserves to be put on HS & JHS reading lists. Wonderfully realistic & believable coming of age volume, which only incidentally takes place in declining-white southern Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: An innocent's prespective on africa
Review: Alexandra provides an almost third person perspective on Africa in that it comes from the innocent eyes of a child and teenager. Alexandra's life is actually very typical for a white person growing up there with its trials, and tribulations levied against the wonderful joys of Africa. The book shines in the nuisances of life there as she tells her story of growing up in Zimbabwe only to be forced to move to Malawi and then Zambia. Over the last 7 or so years, I have spent about 2 years total in these countries. While to an outsider the travails of life there may seem horrendously difficult, they are actually quite typical. Life is hard there, even for the expats. Owning some 1000 books on Africa, I would say this book is excellent and a worthwhile read, but stop short of giving it the classic billing that others have. She gives an excellent list of recommended reading in the back of her book. Read some of my other reviews for some more ideas.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant portrayal of demise
Review: Fuller has captured the sadness of ordinary people caught in the mayhem caused by shortsighted politicians - of whatever hue. Her book is refreshingly honest (being PC doesn't mean being truthful), self-critical and above all entertaining, indeed downright funny as well as being poignant in its evocation of people ill-adapted to a changing world. A brilliant book which I cannot recommend more highly.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing but hypnotic book
Review: A fascinating book concerning a part of African history and its effects on one family. There are some terrible things that happen within this family, but somehow you want to keep reading, maybe to find out what happens in the end. What a remarkable young woman to write such a powerful book. It's tough to put this book down once you've started reading.
Rating:
Summary: A book to be remembered
Review: Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight is Alexandra Fuller's witty and wistful account of growing up as the daughter of white immigrants in Africa in the 1970's. This book is a brutally honest look at Fuller's family and their adjustment to a society where they are in the distinct minority. Some members of Fuller's family (mostly her mother) don't come off looking too well and are quite obviously racist. Fuller, however, isn't and came to view Africa as her true "home", a place of magic and mystery, as well as of the mundane and ordinary. This is an enlightening glimpse into growing up in a vastly different culture than our own.Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Brutally Honest...
Review: ... to the point that I worried about how Ms. Fullers vivid portrayal of her family might now adversely affect them all.
Something I would hate to have happen because, despite laying bare the painful, troubled chaos of their life in Africa, Ms. Fuller did so with the same unconditional, non-judgmental love with which she was raised.(Depending on who you are, you may be surprised by my interpretaion.)
This is also far more than just a story about a family's relationship with one another. It is a story about thier struggle to survive in a land where they are no longer wanted, yet feel they belong. It is a story about an outdated way of life, about change, resistance to change, and the chaos that comes with change.
I loved this book on so many, many different levels.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely excellent - not to be missed!
Review: I picked this book up because one of my favorite pop culture magazines had named it the best non-fiction book of the year at some point. Still, I must admit that I did not expect it to be quite so good. I was absolutely absorbed in this book and practically lived in it for the few days it took me to finish it - and I certainly drew them out as long as I could because I did not want it to end! Alexandra Fuller recounts her experiences growing up in various African countries, part of the white colonialist presence in Rhodesia and other countries. Her family endures more than its share of hardships, and Ms. Fuller conveys them honestly, touchingly and in great detail. She does not shy away from some of the less flattering aspects of her parents' participation in a colonialist culture, nor does she pretend that they were free from any sort of prejudice toward the Africans with whom they lived. Yet Ms. Fuller does explain much of it - why her parents chose Africa and Rhodesia, Malawi and so forth, why she viewed the natives as she did, what she and her sister feared, and so on and so forth. While this frankness is refreshing, what makes this book so excellent is Ms. Fuller's writing, which is simply brilliant. She describes the lush landscapes, the danger of mines, the violence, the poverty and so on with such intense and vivid details that the book truly comes to life. Her experiences growing up in Africa may have been in some ways similar to those of other colonialists, yet she makes her story unique through her insights, her sympathy and empathy, and through the changes that she describes - those of the countries in which she lives, herself, her mother, father, sister and others. That Ms. Fuller's possess an incredible gift for writing is obvious, as is her command of language, with every word and phrase clearly chosen with great care. I could not recommend this book more highly. I really believe that it is one of the best that I have ever read and certainly one of the best in the past several years. Already I have begun lending it out, and those who have read it have shared my fascination. Simply put, it is not to mbe missed!
Rating:
Summary: "But we have hippo in the garden."
Review: "I am African by accident, not by birth," Alexendra Fuller writes in this childhood memoir; "so while soul, heart, and the bent of my mind are African, my skin blaringly begs to differ and is resolutely white" (p. 305). Fuller was born in Derbyshire, England in 1969, and moved to Rhodesia with her parents and older sister in 1972, while she was still learning "toddler English" (p. 10). She then moved to Wyoming in 1994, where she now lives with her river-guide husband, Charlie, and their two children. Fuller's memoir is as much the story of how she came to terms with her family's troubled history, as her love story for Africa (p. 308). As a memoir, Fuller writes of a childhood that was passionate, troubled, wonderful, oppressive, chaotic, and beautiful. Her complicated mother, Nicola, gave birth to five children; only two survived. Fuller describes her mother as intelligent, but a racist, glamorous, but a hard drinker, and just as capable of discussing Shakespeare as killing a spitting cobra with a gun. She describes her father, Tim, as a heavy-drinking racist, yet taciturn and capable, and as a man who loved Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Fuller's beautiful sister, Vanessa, is best described as the very cool, older sibling we all wish we had to accompany us through childhood. As for her three siblings that didn't survive, well Fuller is quick to note that it doesn't take an African to explain why you don't leave a child in an unmarked grave. "The child will come back to haunt you and wrap itself around you until your own breathing stops under the damp weight of its tiny, ghostly persistence" (p. 211). Hers was no ordinary childhood. And Africa was no ordinary playground. Fuller writes as if she has African dust in her blood. Her memoir follows her family's moves from Rhodesia to Zambia to Malawi and back to Zambia. Despite the country's hostile, desolate environment, Fuller's love for Africa is always evident, from its snakes, scorpions, biting ticks and leopards, to its "hot, sweet, smoky, salty" smells--"It is like black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass," she writes (p. 130)--to its sounds--"The grasshoppers and crickets sing and whine. Drying grass crackles. Dogs pant" (p. 131). A friend encouraged me to read this book, but it was really the book's quirky title and cover photo that nudged me into traveling with Fuller back to the Africa she discovered as a child. What I experienced on that journey was unforgettable. I highly recommend this book. G. Merritt
Rating: 
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.
|
