Cry The Beloved Country

Perfect

One of my favourite books. This is the best African literature book.

No book mark

From the language to the imagery describing the events...this book enthralled and absorbed totally.

This book is a modern classic. There is no other way you can describe the book.Alan Paton's writing is deceptively simple. It rolls gently along, telling the tale of the good Father, Stephen Kumalo, as he travels to Johannesburg to get his son. No spoilers!It's a beautiful gentle tale, and while you read about Father Kumalo you also read about South Africa.There is no plot, no dramatic ending, just the rolling of the tide. It's beautiful, poignant, with piercing insight.Read it. It is relevant to us humans today.

Written in the 1940s, this is a tale of a changing South Africa - where apartheid exists and where the Black and White populations are poles apart, but where some Blacks are challenging the status quo, some violently. And where some Whites see their country's failings and are trying to do better, while others hang on to power, albeit increasingly fearfully.A poor country parson travels to Johannesberg to fech home his ailing sister. While there he tries to find his son, who moved to the city but has lost touch. What he finds is far worse than he could have expected...This novel really works because the characters are all so plausible. Such a story could easily 'take the side' of one race or the other: the 'Natives', oppressed, longsuffering - or violent, immoral. The Whites - cruel, racist - or victims . In actual fact, we see the flaws - and good side; and difficulties - of each. There are no easy answers, though it finishes on a hopeful note.Beautifully written.

Ah yes, Cry, the Beloved Country. Fodder for high school reading lists for time immemorial... or at least since it was written. I won't blather on at great length about this one as it has been acclaimed and written about almost unto inanity but it is worth a few words.The very high level overview of the story: A native South African priest from a struggling rural village braves the white-dominated big city in search of his lost family. I suspect that much of the reason that the book has made its way into so many schools is that it exposes one to the issues of apartheid and bigotry of the region which, let's face it, as Americans we're not particularly well aware of. This is one of those forgotten but important bits of history that aren't really at the forefront of the American consciousness. It's well worth a perusal as a history lesson if nothing else.From a reading and enjoyment standpoint the book does suffer a bit. I staggered through the first 70 pages over the course of several days and completely failed to hit my stride. The book is heavy in conversations so the use of the South African dialect can at times be unbalancing and distracting and characters are well developed but often hard to tell apart. At least some of this stems from my inability to engage with the book early on but I would argue that lack of engagement comes too from confusion of one character with another.On balance, a great work but one that must be approached in a more scholarly manner. Certainly not one to be taken on the train with all manner of conversations going on around you as distraction. Sit a savor or save for a lazy Saturday afternoon and blow through in one long and savory trip.

Story written in '46 a couple years before official apartheid, and relays the struggles facing South Africans.

I can't express how much I loved this book. The writing was poetic and beautiful mixed with an amazing storyline and description of familial relationships. It was a great look into pre-apartheid South Africa. Definitely worth the read!

A novel written in 1946. A symphony of love and hate around race and across races in South Africa. A brilliant novel.

During the 19th century aggressive and competitive colonial expansion by the British and the Dutch Afrikaaners from the Cape Colony into the interior had substantially dispossessed the indigenous native populations of their territory, with a subsequent consolidation of power through a series of legislative provisions following the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.The discovery of diamonds and gold led to the rapid development of mining industries set up to harvest the vast natural resources the country had to offer, and the creation of enormous wealth in the hands of those with the enterprise, capital and know-how to extract those resources.These entrepreneurs relied on unskilled labour to extract the minerals. Young men and women abandoned their rural communities and headed for the towns in search of a new life away from the poverty and hardship of subsistence farming at the mercy of drought and the failure of the traditional way of life to adapt to modern methods of cultivation.The streets of Johannesburg were not however paved with gold, any more than the streets of London and other major cities had been in the course of our own Industrial Revolution a century earlier. The wages of the native unskilled workers were low, and conditions were harsh. Inevitably this saw the proliferation of squalid housing, lack of hygiene, and a simmering bitterness and resentment at the lack of social justice. In this context the incidence of violent crime increases, bringing with it fear and suspicion in the minds of those whose property and wellbeing comes under attack.This is the brave new world into which an elderly Zulu parson from the little village of Ndotsheni in the province of Natal ventures. His only son, brother and younger sister have abandoned their community for the bright lights of Johannesburg and have not been heard of since. In response to a letter of concern from a fellow priest he sets out on a mission to find what has happened to them. He is to discover that his sister Gertrude has resorted to prostitution, and his son Absalom has shot dead a white man in the course of armed robbery, and is to face trial for murder, a capital offence.Kumalo is terrifyingly out of his depth, an innocent abroad, with very little money and dependant on the goodwill and assistance of others. But he fights exhaustion and the traumatic impact of events and shows dogged persistence, courage and determination in facing up to realities. His simple Christian humility and capacity to offer forgiveness is inspirational throughout. But whilst he encounters practical help and compassion from a number of people, ultimately he has to endure failure: his son is convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged. His sister returns with him to their village, but then absconds leaving behind her child. His brother John meanwhile is attracting the attention of the authorities as a troublemaker, and seems destined to be targeted and dealt with harshly.The central tragedy of the story is in the fact that the victim of the fatal armed robbery Arthur Jarvis had analysed and was actively developing and expounding a political philosophy which recognised the plight of the exploited natives and was advocating measures to address the imbalances and injustices. His great hero was Abraham Lincoln. Hope is born out of the tragedy as Jarvis’ father seeks to put some of his deceased son’s ideas into practice, and brings to Kumalo’s village some of the practical outside help it badly needs, including a renovated church, and expert agricultural knowhow.In the South Africa of 1948 as the National Party came to power bringing with them the policy of apartheid these views would have not been welcome, and were indeed regarded as subversive.The great strength of the book is the author’s rejection of Dickensian sentimentality or resort to caricature. It would have been easy enough to have introduced villainous white mine foremen brutally abusing their vulnerable black workers, or biased judges presiding over a kangaroo court and meting out manifestly unjust verdicts followed by harsh sentences to unrepresented defendants. In fact the trial and judgment are models of due process and reasoned conclusions; and Absalom is represented by a skilled lawyer who takes the case “for God”.The umfundisi is befriended by the victim’s grandson, oblivious as yet to the idea of racial prejudice. The author’s hope is that the next generation can and must do better. Nelson Mandela’s leadership averted a bloody civil war, but the townships of Johannesburg still remain, and the example of Zimbabwe shows that it isn’t only the white man that is capable of oppression and meting out injustice.

EXCELENTE DESCRPCION DE sUDAFRICA , Alan Paton gran escritor y político. Las emociones del Reverend uno se las puede hacer suyas, un diez sobre diez