Lackluster storytelling dampens the effect of the strong reporting.
A narrative account of war in the Congo from Belgian journalist Joris (Mali Blues: Traveling to an African Beat, 1998).
“This book,” writes Joris, “is based on real characters, situations, and places, without ever coinciding with them completely.” “Assani,” the main character, is modeled after a soldier Joris met in 1998 in Lubumbashi, an African mining town. Assani is a cowherd whose forebears came from Rwanda; his family followed the good grazing to land that eventually became the Congo. There, Assani and his extended family would have been happy to live in peace, raising cattle and traveling down to the lowlands only for educational opportunities and to trade. But Assani is not allowed to go about his life as his deceased father and many uncles did. Instead, while traveling to school, he is identified as a former Rwandan and a Tutsi, the perceived enemy of his country’s despotic ruler, Mobutu. He does not choose war as much as war chooses him, particularly as travel between school and home becomes increasingly dangerous. The author explores Assani’s early life and shows us what kind of man he has become—smart, but traumatized, a general in the victorious army who has returned to the capital to try to right his savaged country while salvaging something of a life for himself. The episodes Joris illustrates are striking. At a school, a Hutu professor introduces the class to anti-Semitic literature, then goes on to declare that the “Tutsis were exactly like the Jews,” prompting Hutu students to begin chanting, “The only good Tutsi is a dead Tutsi!” But despite the inherent drama of the stories, too much is relayed in various third-person voices. “He was a Munyamulenge. She recognized the accent,” we are told, but the accent is never described. The result is flat, the impact diminished.
Lackluster storytelling dampens the effect of the strong reporting.Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1868-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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