Harris, Joanne "A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String"

Harris, Joanne "A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String" - 2012

I'm not a fan of short stories. And this book didn't change my mind. In the introduction we are told that some of the stories link together. And they do but only very few and the link is quite small (except for the Faith and Hope stories).

The only stories I liked were those of the old ladies who stood up to the "carers" in the nursing home who cared for nothing but themselves (Faith and Hope Fly South, Faith and Hope Get Even) and the stories about Africa were not too bad, either (River Song, Road Song). I wouldn't have minded a whole book about those characters but like this, it lacked something.

This has been the first book for a long time that I was inclined to abandon. I just always hoped the stories would get better. They did not.

From the back cover:

"Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you’ll find another story.

Come to the house where it is Christmas all year round; meet the ghost who lives on a Twitter timeline; be spooked by a newborn baby created with sugar, spice and lashings of cake.

Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris’s exceptional talent as a teller of tales, a spinner of yarns. Sensuous, mischievous, uproarious and wry, here are tales that combine the everyday with the unexpected; wild fantasy with bittersweet reality."

Conrad, Joseph "Heart of Darkness"

Conrad, Joseph "Heart of Darkness" - 1902

I found this book when reading Jane Smiley's "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel". It sounded interesting and I found it in the library the next time I went.

The author, a Polish novelist who wrote in English, wrote this story about an English captain who goes to Africa for an assignment. His ship is destroyed before he arrives and he is forced to travel into the dark continent. He conveys his thoughts about his experiences, his encounter with the inhabitants, both native and colonists.

Even though this is a novella, only 110 pages, so not very long, there is a lot of information crammed into the story, there is no way you can skip even one sentence and you will have lost the plot. He has a special kind of writing style, probably due to the fact that English is not his mother tongue and he still keeps the flow of his native language, as we probably all do somehow.

In any case, he gives us an interesting insight into colonisation, the impact it had on the people in Africa and also on the Europeans who went there. It is a highly interesting study about a part of history that still influences our lives today.

My favourite quote:
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to ..."

From the back cover:

"In a novella which remains highly controversial to this day, Conrad explores the relations between Africa and Europe. On the surface, this is a horrifying tale of colonial exploitation. The narrator, Marlowe journeys on business deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men. This short but complex and often ambiguous story, which has been the basis of several films and plays, continues to provoke interpretation and discussion.
Heart of Darkness grew out of a journey Joseph Conrad took up the Congo River; the verisimilitude that the great novelist thereby brought to his most famous tale everywhere enhances its dense and shattering power.

Apparently a sailor’s yarn, it is in fact a grim parody of the adventure story, in which the narrator, Marlow, travels deep into the heart of the Congo where he encounters the crazed idealist Kurtz and discovers that the relative values of the civilized and the primitive are not what they seem. Heart of Darkness is a model of economic storytelling, an indictment of the inner and outer turmoil caused by the European imperial misadventure, and a piercing account of the fragility of the human soul."

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible"

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible" - 1998

One of my favourite books ever. This story is told in diary form by the wife and four daughters of a preacher. He takes them to Africa where all five of them have different experiences and see the country with different perspectives. The father is quite abusive, not what you would expect a religious man to be (though one of my friends says she knows a guy exactly like him and that's why she doesn't like the novel).

This book doesn't just tell the story of a family and different women but also the history of the Belgian Congo and the differences of the cultures.

We discussed this in our book club in December 2001.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2021.

Book Description:

"The Poisonwood Bible tells the story of an American family in the Congo during a time of tremendous political and social upheaval. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. This tale of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction, over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa, is set against one of history's most dramatic political parables. The Poisonwood Bible dances between the darkly comic human failings and inspiring poetic justices of our times. In a compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, Barbara Kingsolver has written a novel of overwhelming power and passion."

I have read several other Kingsolver novels in the meantime and liked all of them, you can find my reviews here. Although this one is still my favourite next to "The Lacuna".

Barbara Kingsolver was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for "The Poisonwood Bible" in 1999.