Reading the World discussion

From: https://www.supersummary.com/sleepwal...

Relying heavily on dreamlike imagery, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, and drawing on traditional Mozambican folklore for his metaphors, Couto contrasts the beauty of the landscape with the horrors faced by survivors of the war. The fighting itself is not depicted. Instead, readers are expected to know that in the 1970s, Mozambique fought a war of independence against its colonizer, Portugal—but that slowly, as Portuguese power retreated, the Mozambican side splintered into factions that began fighting against each other. Orderly civil war descended into chaotic and opportunistic banditry and warlordism, and groups of soldiers marauded the countryside. In all, close to a million people were killed and five million were displaced from their homes.

Read this one on Monday... I gave it 4 stars and was quite impressed with it. Hopefully other folks get a chance to get their hands on it and read it.

In the carnage , post fighting, an older man and a young boy break away from a refugee camp and down a road that isn't what it seems. "we don't move, it's the road that does" they say at one point, illustrating the limbo of the carnage of the civil war, and portraying how the changing goal posts from colonialism, to civil war, to factions, are always changing before the people can truly arrive.

They find a destroyed bus containing the notebooks of a man Kindzu on his own semi-mystical quest in search of true identity, family, and fulfilling legacy (of his dead father that comes to him as dreams and trees in this case). His journey is a stand-in for the longing of these things in Mozambique culture/history itself.

It truly reads like a modern African-folklore inspired Odyssey and is fascinating in its instances of women who aren't really from this world, witchdoctors, the spirits in the water and the trees, and an unnerving man named Skellington that you cannot get too close to.

It also has some solid stuff in there about the tension between the Portuguese colonials, Black Africans, and Indian population.

I totally agree Amanda. I also gave it 4 stars. I found the story of the young man and his older companion (uncle) slowly took on a more mythical quality as the road began to move along without their help, and as they became engrossed in reading the found notebooks. Meanwhile the readings from Kindzu's notebooks took on more of a fantasy aspect. One would not think that either of those transitions would speak much to war but I found that it was actually an excellent representation of the loss of context that war causes. The people of Mozambique not only became disconnected from their villages and their traditions but they were literally torn from everything they knew. Their very stories were contorted and no longer reflected a truth but rather expressed fear of all that was now unknown.
I also really appreciated the story within a story and even sometimes a story within a story within a story as various characters spoke of their background. Good one.