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Summary: Cry, The Beloved Country
Review: Cry, the Beloved Country is an enthralling story of a priest who's efforts are endless in the struggle of his own family, and the struggle outside. The way Paton details the scenes is to me, what made the book what it was. I felt as though I was looking at pictures while reading. He is so thorough in describing the lack of life in the valleys, that you can understand the significance in the title. What struck me most about this book, was Stephen Kumalo's efforts in forgiveness and the reconstruction of his family. His own family life struggle subtly reflected the outer stuggle, the black man's struggle. The last line of the story is most powerful when summarizing... "But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret." That line points out a major theme in this book, and really gives the reader a sense of history, and a sense of what still remains, not as severe, today. I positively enjoyed reading this book. I found it to flow through the three books smoothly and coherently. It wasn't a burden to pick it up and read sixty or seventy pages at a time. My fascination with South Africa may have had an impact on choosing this book, but with that in mind, I knew I could enjoy what Paton hopes every citizen should be aware of. His powerful message would touch anyone who reads it, aware of apartheid or not. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some relaxed pleasure reading that won't boggle your mind or frustrate you in a confused sense.
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Summary: A MASTERPIECE!!!
Review: this is my favourite book of all time! it is poetic, haunting, tragic, hopeful, beautiful--every range of human experience is covered. i can understand one reviwer's complaint that it is slow, i read it in high school and hated it, but iread it again years later and it blew my mind. it's rare that you see a truly original style among all the novels you'll read, i mean REALLY fresh language; case in point: "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of oure fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the waters run through his fingers nor satnd 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 valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."i memorised the first chapter and recite it sometimes, amust read i think, it desrves to be read with patience and care, for its plot AND style. It rewards you every time you pick it up and you find something new to admire with each read.
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Summary: The most acclaimed novel of South African race relations
Review: The story of Kumalo, a Zulu minister who travels to Johanesburg to look for his son, is a highly charged tale of delinquency, race hatred, prostitution, murder and eventual reconciliation in the big city. Some passages resonate with a lyrical, almost magical quality and the prose is deft and extremely supple. However, the plot is bogged down towards the middle of the book by some ill-timed excursions into South African politics and the ending is telegraphed a hundred pages in advance. These sections, I felt, could have been better woven-in into the novel's dramatic fabric. Though it is highly recommended for being the book that whipped up a worldwide whirlwind of awareness of South Africa and the injustices of apartheid, it is a taxing and artistically disappointing work.
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Summary: a moving and lyrical novel
Review: Somehow this was a classic I "missed" in high school and college. I just finished reading it yesterday and still find myself thinking about many of the beautifully rendered scenes. Others have summarized the plot -- I love the labyrinthine (Dante-esque in scope) descent from the country side into the hell of Johannisburg. As we watch the narrator weave his way in and out of the horrible living conditions, we are presented with a modern day Inferno that would have made Dante proud. The dialogue is rich and detailed and the character's well-developed. There are some gut wrenchingly scenes between a father and his son, not to mention between his other siblings as well. Bitter disappointments, difficult circumstances and a trial that makes To Kill a Mockingbird's look fair add to the book's tension. Overall, a lyrical and stirring portrait of unfairness and oppression (but also beauty and purity) in South Africa and one family's trials and tribulations. It makes one wonder how much things have really changed from Paton's day.
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Summary: Simply put.......
Review: What a book!!! I read this book when I was a senior in High School and that was almost 7 years ago! It was summer reading, and I can still remember thinking oh what a drag! But I am so glad that my instructor added this novel to the list! The views on apartheid especially as seen through the eyes of the black and white men both help make us think about what goes on in the world outside of this country and give us a clue as to how we can stop this from happening here. If you need a good book to read, make this one of your top choices!
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Summary: Truly masterful
Review: Somehow, in my slog through high school English, I was deprived of the reading of Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country". Unlike many things, though, this was a true deprivation. I first read this several summers ago; though Paton's novel is specifically relevant to an era that is now receding into the past, his prose remains haunting. So deceptively simple is his language, yet flowing, this is almost a book best savoured aloud (well-worth the reading of to a friend).
Though apartheid has now blessedly slipped the scene, leaving South Africa with its aftermath to struggle through, Paton's story of the Reverend Kumalo's search for redemption is enduring. Perhaps most significant though, is the very simple idea at the core...reconciliation...of father with lost son, lost daughter...of murderer with the victim's kin...and...in Paton's time, and still so in our own...of each of us with our fellow humans.
This is a book that moves me deeply every time I read it, and loses nothing in a rereading. Of the thousands of books I have read, encompassing a myriad of styles, of academic fields...this is still the one book that I recommend without hesitation, without prejudice, to any and to every. This is a truly beautiful work.
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Summary: My all-time favorite
Review: Of the (literally) thousands of books I have read in my life, this is still my favorite. I first read it as a freshman in high school (in 1960, when apartheid was still the law of South Africa), and the sheer beauty of the language took away my breath. The words were so powerful that I memorized many portions of the text, just so I would be able to repeat the words aloud whenever I wished. When JFK was assassinated in 1963, I gave a presentation to my senior English class, and began it with the section of this book that starts: "There is not much talking now, a silence falls on them all...." The class was mesmerized at Mr. Paton's eerily appropriate words, and tears were shed. I've always encouraged my own children to read and they are almost as voracious with books as their dad. Needless to say, this is one of the books I highly recommend to them, because of the excellent writing, and I highly recommend it to you for the same reason.
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Summary: Wonderful read.
Review: This novel wraps you up in the fall and redemption of a man reflected in the landscape of South Africa. An absolutely wonderful book.
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Summary: One of the best books around!
Review: This is one of the best books of fiction I've ever read in my life, in that it is almost biographical. It is a simple book written in a deceptively simple style that can spawn many imitators but no equals. It easily reminds me of Hemingway's "Old Man And The Sea", but only in its style of language. It is full of poetry, easy language, complex syntax, human emotion and vivid imagery. For me, reading it was really like rowing down a river in an African canoe. It is set in racist, white-monopolised South Africa of the 1940's, at the dawn of Apartheid. It all revolves around Stephen Kumalo, an old Zulu parson living in the country, and his subsequent search for his son [and sister] somewhere at street corners in Johannesburg. He finally finds his son but it is too late, the latter being in police custody -- charged with the murder of a white man, and a "good" white man at that, who devoted a great deal of his time to arguing for blacks[!] Finely entwined with old man Kumalo's seemingly endless search are the little and big occurrences of everyday life, only that they are this time set in racist South Africa, with its crude realities of that by-gone day. It all smells of chaos and derangement in the black townships of the city. For an old man from the country like Kumalo, life in urban Johannesburg is too fast and he is confronted with city experiences and everyday-struggles he never had before. He is mugged, deceived, sees sex and money at work and has further encounters with other strange, tricky and sinful city situations for the first time in his old country life! Mr. Paton's epical story of an old black man's search for his young son gone astray in the city -- and also in search of answers to other societal questions that still persist -- remained an unsolved puzzle to me, after I read his wonderful book the first time. "Cry, the Beloved Country" is one of the few books of fiction I've read that so powerfully combine feeling and a deep understanding of conflicts that permeate across divided society. An excellent book!
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Summary: I wondered what Hell was like, and well, this BOOk is HELL
Review: Holy Mary, mother of God. Please forgive my clueless teacher for forcing her students to step into hell by reading this boooook. Every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every word HURT. I've never felt so tortured and mentally abused till I got my hands on this novel. The style of how it was written flustered me. Reading, ahem, trying to read this book was like being awake for 47 hours and hungry for sleep, but not allowed to sleep. Torture I tell you. My question is, WHY. Why was this book even published? Okay, so it informs us about the Zulu people and black and white rejoicing after a series of conflicts, blah blah blah. While the topic was a keeper, the way Paton wrote this sorry excuse of a novel was Horrible. I felt like I was reading a novel from my six year old brother, if he were alive. I'm sorry, but I'm just getting eye and back pains just writing this review. I just had to experience hell again by writing this review. But go ahead, force yourself to read this. I guarantee a safe return, just burn the book afterwards.
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