Book Review: Cry, the Beloved Country

Author: Alan Paton

Title: Cry, the Beloved Country

Description: An old priest from rural South Africa goes to Johannesburg to find his sister and his son, with whom he has lost touch. Transplanted from their rural lives, they have succumbed to bad company, temptation, and poverty. While the sister agrees to return to their small village to raise her son, the priest’s son, Absalom, has suffered a different and heartbreaking fate. Meanwhile, a rich white landowner finds that his son has been murdered in a burglary gone bad.

Review source: This was a book group selection.

Plot: I pretty well described the plot above, but the plot is barely important compared to the characters and the writing.

Characters: Stephen Kumalo and uJarvis, Absalom and Arthur, are white and black, young and old, poor and rich. They are both richly drawn characters and representations of South African people.

Writing style: This book is literally beautiful. It’s just poetry.

Audience: everyone.

Wrap-up: One good thing about the book group is that it gets me to read some classics that I should have read by now, but just haven’t, somehow. This book surpassed its reputation and all of my expectations; it was lovely, and it broke my heart. 5/5*

Book Review: The Prince

Author: Niccolo Machiavelli

Title: The Prince

Description:  Courtier Machiavelli describes how to get and hold power, using many examples.

Source: Part of the Penguin treasure-trove.

Writing style: Since this book was written in Italian, a good portion of the writing style will be that of the translator, in this case, Tim Parks. Parks has a lively, engaging style and made this book really interesting. I also enjoyed his introduction which justifies the translation style he used.

Audience: primarily written for despots, would be enjoyed by others who like reading well-written prose.

Major ideas: Be clever, not stupid, and you’ll have a good chance to hold on to power. This may involve being cruel or harsh at times, but if you’re not prepared to do this, you are probably not well-suited to power.

Wrap-up: I enjoyed this book a lot; short chapters made it easy to read in small bits (I probably wouldn’t want to try to get through it in a single sitting or two). 4/5*

Review: Woman in White

Author: Wilkie Collins

Title: The Woman in White

Description (source): Who is the mysterious woman in white who appears to the drawing instructor late one night? From whom is she fleeing? How is she connected with the woman the drawing instructor loves but cannot marry? And above all, what is up with the mysterious Count Fosco?

Review source: This was a free kindle book because it’s in the public domain.

Plot: The book was a little difficult to get started in, but once the woman in white appears, only a few pages in, things start to move quickly. There are some fairly unbelievable coincidences, but that’s what makes fiction fun.

Characters: The book is narrated by Walter Hartright, a drawing instructor. He and the “good guys” (his students Laura and Marion) are pretty tame, but I loved the villains, especially Count Fosco, who keeps mice and songbirds.

Writing style: Collins has been compared with Dickens, so definitely 19^th-century diction—we would call it wordy, maybe, if it were published today. I did find myself getting impatient with it a few times, but mostly the plot really kept the down arrow pushing (modern equivalent of pages turning).

Audience: People who aren’t afraid of the classics. Collins shares with Poe the title of being one of the first authors of detective fiction, and while this isn’t exactly within the mystery genre (more like gothic), there is an element of detection in it.

Wrap-up: This was a long book, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and couldn’t stand to put it down for long. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you haven’t yet discovered Wilkie Collins. 4.5/5*