Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Star discussion here for We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.

I have just finished reading this - I really liked the author's writing style, it's very arresting - clever, witty, observant, fresh. I will check back in to the thread when more people have finished reading for a bit more of a discussion!

I'm listening to this in the car during commutes. I'm about 1/2 way through, and have started the part where the main character has gone to America. I just love what she had to say about the cold.

The depiction of a childhood in a war zone was sad and disturbing.

I’m almost done.. although I liked the life in Zimbabwe, I found the writing pick up splendidly when she arrives in the States..
will wait for others to finish before I pen down more of my thoughts.

I finished the book, but I have to say that I had to keep reminding myself that this was from a child's POV. I had a very hard time making progress and wanted to stop reading. It wasn't until about halfway into the book that it finally drew me in somewhat enough to keep reading. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad book, but it is not one of my favorite books either. I loved diving into the mind of a displaced child, the confusion, the fears, the expectations, past experiences, etc. That was a great perspective. But I think that also made it a so-so book for me because of the language/expressions used in conversations and when pondering.

I'm a little over half way through and I'm really enjoying Darling's point of view. It reminds me of Alain Mabanckou's book Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty that I read recently.

Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty is a great book! I ordered We Need New Names at the library a good while back, but just as I was going to pick it up, the library closed due to Covid. It opened again yesterday, though, so I'm hoping to get started on the book next week.

I have a question regarding this book.

Around the 46-48% of the book the author talks about how a group of extremists come to a white family's house and capture them.

After that section the author talks about "burying bodies", and "crosses" and how everyone wept. "Many people from Paradise wept". And she mentions "GodKnows is dead".

This doesn't make any sense. Can someone please explain? Are the blacks rioting against the whites? How come blacks have died here? Sholdn't it have been the opposite?

There were portions that were too rushed. I wanted to understand a bit more about life in Zimbabwe but did not get that insight. I should say I was disappointed 😳 maybe they could have had more narratives to bring more culture food and other aspects ...

Maria wrote: "Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty is a great book! I ordered We Need New Names at the library a good while back, but just as I was going to pick it up, the library closed due to Covid. It opened again yester..."

I purchased a used copy months ago and have yet to start it. Still trying to catch up on my January reading. Maybe we can start reading around the same time.

Anchit wrote: "I have a question regarding this book.

Around the 46-48% of the book the author talks about how a group of extremists come to a white family's house and capture them.

After that section the aut..."
This Atlantic article describes the reign of Robert Mugabe, who I'm pretty sure is the president referred to in the book.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

Look into the history of Robert Mugabe, he was the leader during the time period of the book. There was a lot of unrest, and there was a lot of violence against the white landowners, who tried to keep their lands after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

I appreciated this book, even if I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I might. I think the title is excellent, since it gets at the heart of the change woven throughout the book.

First and foremost, there is the identity crisis of the immigrant. What do you keep from your old culture, and what do you change to assimilate? This is mostly seen through the eyes of the teenage narrator Darling, but it extends to her Zimbabwean aunt and her Ghanaian uncle, and especially to Tshaka Zulu, the elderly Zimbabwean her aunt takes care of, who tragically faces an identity crisis in his dementia.

A subportion of the immigrant identity crisis is devoted to those who stay beyond their legal visas because they appreciate the opportunities of their new country, even as they know they are shackled to that country and can never return home to see friends and family because they may never have their opportunity again.

Second is the identity crisis of age, which affects every character. What do you keep from your childhood, and what do you put away? What happens when you aren't allowed a childhood, such as Darling's friend Chipo? I loved how Bulawayo humanized each of the kids in Darling's gang -- especially the hardened leader who reacted so well to her father. It was interesting to see even in passing what decisions they made as they grew older.

Finally, there is the identity crisis of country. Bulawayo doesn't focus as much attention on the US as she does on her native land. Here, she castigates Mugabe's terrible Operation Murambatsvina that left Paradise in ruins, and the controversial 2008 election that left the country in turmoil. In one awful vignette, Darling's gang watches as a white couple learns that the Rhodesia they knew as children has moved on. But after Darling leaves, she learns from a friend that it's the ones left behind that have to pick up the pieces and find a way to move forward -- to determine who they want to be as a country.

I'm halfway through the book now. I think the child's point of view works very well, and is convincing. In the first chapters (and to some extent, all the way) there are some very striking contrasts between the innocence of childhood and the severity of the world these children live in.

The realities these children have to deal with are very different from what my own childhood was like, but it's still possible to relate to how they think and feel. In particular, Darling's attitude toward her father when he returned reminded me of my own discomfort at visiting my great grandmother, when she was too old and senile to remember me anymore.

One of the interesting things about the child's view is that as an adult, you can read the adult view of things between the lines. When I got to the clotheshanger episode, I had to put down the book twice before I could finally make it through the chapter, and when they were discovered by an adult towards the end, I knew exactly how that woman was feeling even though she didn't say a word.