This was a powerful book, extremely well-written, that was depressing and pessimistic about human nature. It was such a contrast to the positivity and joy of life coming from the last book I read, Still Life. Maybe this book suffered a bit from the comparison, but still it was a great read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The book tells the story of a white family – settlers in South Africa – that disintegrates over time. There are so many bad people in this book that you can\u2019t help but feel a little sad for the human race. Not much redemption in here, and the narrator\u2019s voice is biting, acidic and mocking. There are a few writing tricks that felt superfluous (character switches in mid-sentence for example), but overall the writing pulls you briskly along through this family\u2019s dark history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could read this book on the micro level, and explore the characters and see what motivates them and root for their downfall, or you could read this on a macro level and see them as merely symbols and instruments of the tale of the history of race and apartheid in the country over the past 30 years. There is a lot to learn here, especially for people like me who have almost no knowledge of this history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I liked this book, but found it a jarring experience. I wish I had read this and the previous book in reverse order, but in the end both books and their styles have a place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a long run of fiction I\u2019m switching over the Four Thousand Weeks, and non-fiction book on time management by Oliver Burkeman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was a powerful book, extremely well-written, that was depressing and pessimistic about human nature. It was such a contrast to the positivity and joy of life coming from the last book I read, Still Life. Maybe this book suffered a bit from the comparison, but still it was a great read. The book tells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-Sr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}