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The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo
Having fought in Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa, Mavala Shikongo returns to her teaching position at an all-boys Catholic primary school deep in the country's grasslands and instantly captures the hearts of virtually all of her male co-workers.
309 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
22 people are currently reading
549 people want to read
About the author
Peter Orner
40 books294 followersPeter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of three novels: Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown, 2006), and his most recent, Love and Shame and Love (Little, Brown, 2011) which was recently called epic by Daniel Handler, "...epic like Gilgamesh, epic like a guitar solo." (Orner has since bought Gilgamesh and is enjoying it.) Love and Shame and Love is illustrated throughout by his brother Eric Orner, a comic artist and illustrator whose long time independent/alt weekly strip The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green was made into a feature film in 2008. Eric Orner's work is featured this year in Best American Cartoons edited by Alison Bechdel.
A film version of one of Orner's stories, The Raft, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, won the Bard Fiction Prize. The novel is being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and German. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in Namibia where Orner lived and worked in the early 1990's.
Esther Stories was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award.
Orner is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (co-editor Annie Holmes, 2010), both published by McSweeney's/ Voice of Witness, an imprint devoted to using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Harper's Magazine wrote, "Hope Deferred might be the most important publication out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years."
Orner has published fiction in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Southern Review, and various other publications. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and the Pushcart Prize Annual. Orner has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations.
Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (Visiting Professor, 2011), University of Montana (William Kittredge Visting Writer, 2009), the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College (2009) Washington University (Visiting Hurst Professor, 2008), Bard College (Bard Fiction Prize Fellowship, 2007), Miami University (Visting Professor, 2002), Charles University in Prague (Visting Law Faculty, 2000). Orner is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State where he is an associate professor. He would like to divide his time between a lot of places, especially San Francisco and Chicago.
A film version of one of Orner's stories, The Raft, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, won the Bard Fiction Prize. The novel is being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and German. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in Namibia where Orner lived and worked in the early 1990's.
Esther Stories was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award.
Orner is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (co-editor Annie Holmes, 2010), both published by McSweeney's/ Voice of Witness, an imprint devoted to using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Harper's Magazine wrote, "Hope Deferred might be the most important publication out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years."
Orner has published fiction in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Southern Review, and various other publications. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and the Pushcart Prize Annual. Orner has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations.
Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (Visiting Professor, 2011), University of Montana (William Kittredge Visting Writer, 2009), the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College (2009) Washington University (Visiting Hurst Professor, 2008), Bard College (Bard Fiction Prize Fellowship, 2007), Miami University (Visting Professor, 2002), Charles University in Prague (Visting Law Faculty, 2000). Orner is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State where he is an associate professor. He would like to divide his time between a lot of places, especially San Francisco and Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
April 26, 2021
Sometimes a book is like a journey. When you come back from reading it, you aren’t the same. I love that kind of book. This is that kind of book. I was utterly charmed by it.
I believe Andrew Sean Greer makes a good point in his blurb inside the front cover: “Here, in his first novel, is a story never heard before, told in language no one else could write.”
It’s the story of Larry Kaplanski from “O-hi-o,” and the time he spends as a volunteer teacher at a Catholic church turned boys’ boarding school in the southwest African country of Namibia. It is a harsh, remote, desert area, but the people have compensated for that with their warmth, humor and sense of hope.
“Not yet morning and Obadiah sits in the paling darkness in his blue chair and caresses his new Grundig radio. The batteries are spent and the generator’s been off for hours, but still he imagines what it might tell him or what song it might play.”
The format is a series of vignettes that give glimpses into the community Kaplanski has become a part of. Slowly the reader feels part of the community too through the uncovering of details--the routine and the exotic, the heartbreaking and the joyful, the funny and the profound.
“Empires keel. And still the goats come in from the veld on wobbly legs, and still they don’t know they’re starving.”
I believe Andrew Sean Greer makes a good point in his blurb inside the front cover: “Here, in his first novel, is a story never heard before, told in language no one else could write.”
It’s the story of Larry Kaplanski from “O-hi-o,” and the time he spends as a volunteer teacher at a Catholic church turned boys’ boarding school in the southwest African country of Namibia. It is a harsh, remote, desert area, but the people have compensated for that with their warmth, humor and sense of hope.
“Not yet morning and Obadiah sits in the paling darkness in his blue chair and caresses his new Grundig radio. The batteries are spent and the generator’s been off for hours, but still he imagines what it might tell him or what song it might play.”
The format is a series of vignettes that give glimpses into the community Kaplanski has become a part of. Slowly the reader feels part of the community too through the uncovering of details--the routine and the exotic, the heartbreaking and the joyful, the funny and the profound.
“Empires keel. And still the goats come in from the veld on wobbly legs, and still they don’t know they’re starving.”
September 24, 2007
Spectacular, magnificent, stunning--all the big-time adjectives you can think up, this book deserves them. It’s a beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking novel—one of those books that, as I was reading it I was thinking yes, yes, this is why I read, this is what I’ve been looking for.
I felt weak with joy and sadness and longing reading this book, and I still feel those things right now, just thinking of Obadiah and Auntie and Tomo and Theofilus. Oh, Theofilus!
Lowell’s not messing around with those exclamation points—read this book.
I felt weak with joy and sadness and longing reading this book, and I still feel those things right now, just thinking of Obadiah and Auntie and Tomo and Theofilus. Oh, Theofilus!
Lowell’s not messing around with those exclamation points—read this book.
March 23, 2021
Back in 2016, I planned a trip for a month to Africa in 2017. I wanted to see the animals up close and personal but knew I'd need to include some cities and towns, as my husband is not a country boy. I first tried to re-create the trip I'd planned in 2004 that was canceled by an unexpected surgery. That trip had focused on South Africa and the trip organizer I'd settled on was no longer in existence. So starting fresh, my explorations and conversations with travel experts led me to a 2-prong trip -- South Africa and Namibia. After three days in Windhoek, we joined a group for a tour around Namibia - 10 people and 2 guides in two 4-wheel drive vehicles for 14 days. We were referred to Longitude Books (no longer in existence) for recommendations on advance reading. This book was one of two fiction book recommended for Namibia. I bought it and a number of the other recommended books, but never got to read it before the trip and it languished on a book shelf in my home office for the last four years. It is the open selection for April on the 21st Century Group here on GR and I will be moderation the discussion, so off the shelf it came. I finished it this morning. It is an excellent book. I'm sort of glad I did not read it in advance, as I found it brought back many excellent memories of my time in Namibia.
So, you ask, what exactly was the book about?
Broadly speaking, the book is about Namibia. More specifically it is about the day-to-day life at a now-government run (formerly Catholic) grade school, primarily, but importantly not only, through the eyes of a young American volunteer, male, teacher. This is not a typical novel. It is a collection of events, happenings, and stories over the course of a year or so. Through the stories bits of Namibian history are related, as well as some background about the characters and the school. The focus is mostly on the teachers.
The young American is from Cincinnati Ohio. His family are Jewish and originally from Poland. His name is Kaplanski, but he is anointed Kaplansk by the Head Teacher Obadiah. He is given a room in the single's teachers residence (all men) between teachers Pohamba and Vilho. Mavala, sister of the Principal's wife and war veteran, is also a teacher. She lives in the Principal's house. Until, a short time after Kaplansk arrives, she leaves. A month or so later Mavala returns, with a child, and resumes teaching. All the single teachers are in love with Mavala, but it is Kaplansk she choses. They spend the hot afternoon rest periods together at the graves of the original owners of the farm the school is situated on.
This is not a plot heavy novel. It is everyday life at a school in the Namib. The chapters are short. The writing is crisp. The sense of place is high. A quite wonderful book.
So, you ask, what exactly was the book about?
Broadly speaking, the book is about Namibia. More specifically it is about the day-to-day life at a now-government run (formerly Catholic) grade school, primarily, but importantly not only, through the eyes of a young American volunteer, male, teacher. This is not a typical novel. It is a collection of events, happenings, and stories over the course of a year or so. Through the stories bits of Namibian history are related, as well as some background about the characters and the school. The focus is mostly on the teachers.
The young American is from Cincinnati Ohio. His family are Jewish and originally from Poland. His name is Kaplanski, but he is anointed Kaplansk by the Head Teacher Obadiah. He is given a room in the single's teachers residence (all men) between teachers Pohamba and Vilho. Mavala, sister of the Principal's wife and war veteran, is also a teacher. She lives in the Principal's house. Until, a short time after Kaplansk arrives, she leaves. A month or so later Mavala returns, with a child, and resumes teaching. All the single teachers are in love with Mavala, but it is Kaplansk she choses. They spend the hot afternoon rest periods together at the graves of the original owners of the farm the school is situated on.
This is not a plot heavy novel. It is everyday life at a school in the Namib. The chapters are short. The writing is crisp. The sense of place is high. A quite wonderful book.
January 4, 2022
Orner is fairly spare with his words, a la Hemingway or Vonnegut -- a clear picture or description in few words. The short chapters are almost like an impressionistic painting: small dabs that are individual but pull back a bit & you see the cohesive whole.
Each chapter focuses on some small piece whether it's the environment, the other people at the school, an event, but there's not a lot of plot as the days move slowly with a lot of repetition (same routines, same weather, same harshness of the drought,...). While it has a serious tone running throughout (& more so for the last third of the book), some unexpected & delightful humor pops out sometimes.
Mavala Shikongo is the titular character, yet she is the one who seems most removed from the story.
It reminded me in a tiny way of The Plover by Brian Doyle, even though they are different in more ways than they are similar. Maybe it's the humor & humanity that shine through.
I found each little chapter to be a tiny masterpiece. Taken together as a whole, it creates a beautiful book. I loved it.
Each chapter focuses on some small piece whether it's the environment, the other people at the school, an event, but there's not a lot of plot as the days move slowly with a lot of repetition (same routines, same weather, same harshness of the drought,...). While it has a serious tone running throughout (& more so for the last third of the book), some unexpected & delightful humor pops out sometimes.
Mavala Shikongo is the titular character, yet she is the one who seems most removed from the story.
It reminded me in a tiny way of The Plover by Brian Doyle, even though they are different in more ways than they are similar. Maybe it's the humor & humanity that shine through.
I found each little chapter to be a tiny masterpiece. Taken together as a whole, it creates a beautiful book. I loved it.
July 2, 2007
There's a character "so reliably duplicitous he circles back around to trustworthy." Cows eat sand. An endless desert surrounding a school is speckled with "bony trees." Peter Orner does more with a collection of dusty yellow buildings than most writers could with a metropolis. The only slip of grass at the school is referred to as "Ireland" by the principal, the sky, "the color of watered-down milk." Orner's is a fancy and utterly unique voice.
Taken from a review in the Boise Weekly:
[link:http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/C...]
Taken from a review in the Boise Weekly:
[link:http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/C...]
October 10, 2017
A truly unbelievable, courageous adventure in storytelling. Via a wide variety of vignettes, many of which contain stories within them, a young, white American breaks one literary convention after another while flirting with the politically incorrect in a way that makes it beside the point. With the exception of the narrator and the title character’s comings and goings, almost nothing happens in this book, making plot too beside the point. Memoir anyone? Not much of it here, despite the narrator’s similarities to the author, something close to miraculous.
Has any other fiction debut ever qualified as a course on fiction writing? And the book is even about a country American know next to nothing about, other than from early Pynchon, a nice bonus. An extraordinary debut from an author who has been prolific since, but has not yet caught on.
Has any other fiction debut ever qualified as a course on fiction writing? And the book is even about a country American know next to nothing about, other than from early Pynchon, a nice bonus. An extraordinary debut from an author who has been prolific since, but has not yet caught on.
August 3, 2011
Sparse but beautiful writing. It took me a moment to get into this book, but once I was won over, I couldn't put it down. How Orner managed to create such complete characterizations with so few words is a mystery to me; yet the people who populate this book feel known to me in a way that I don't even know myself. I quote a NYTimes review that states: "As Orner unspools their quirks through sharp, eccentric dialogue and interior asides, his characters grow distinct without ever becoming Gothic. He hits the right notes and no others.... Orner's thrift only heightens the longing that vibrates throughout the novel." Longing for rain; longing for something new on the horizon of the vast and endlessly arid veld; longing for love or that something that approximates it.
September 9, 2024
An American goes to Africa to teach at a rural all-boys Catholic school. While there, he becomes enamored with the only female instructor.
I've read most of Orner's work, and this one definitely sets itself apart -- not just because of the subject matter but by the tone. It is a quiet, thoughtful novel where each small chapter acts like a short play. There is little in the way of drama, even less so of "action." We come to know the principal characters-- some extensively, others less so. There are wry observations and humor, but again, on the quiet side. An austere, meditative novel.
3.5 stars
I've read most of Orner's work, and this one definitely sets itself apart -- not just because of the subject matter but by the tone. It is a quiet, thoughtful novel where each small chapter acts like a short play. There is little in the way of drama, even less so of "action." We come to know the principal characters-- some extensively, others less so. There are wry observations and humor, but again, on the quiet side. An austere, meditative novel.
3.5 stars
April 4, 2021
Like sitting with someone looking through their photos - vivid evocations of a place and time, the people there. But not just beautiful snaps, all kinds of moments. Orner says at one point "Nothing continued to happen." But he gives us interaction and perspective, love and despair, at an actual human level; prose conveying emotions with all the more pathos for the absence of grand heroic gestures that most of us would never make anyway. Life is happening. So, universal, but also specific. Namibia, the history and legacy of colonialism and war, racism, drought, underlying the actions and reactions and interactions. His insider/outsider status bridges the gap for an American reader, although the fundamental strangeness to each other, the lack of friendship in a setting of intense companionship is one of the core narrative strands. And he is definitely riffing on the classic American abroad looking for themselves trope. But I come back to the sense of a series of photos - this is much more a portrait of others, captured with love and confusion, and room for mystery.
November 12, 2007
Out in the Namibian veld, where three dry rivers meet at Farm Goas, Larry Kaplanski from Cincinnati shows up at the Native School and humbly presents himself as a volunteer. For his welcome, the priest pronounces him a pagan, and the corrupt principal says he would have preferred cash, but since there doesn't seem to be anyone else willing, assigns Larry to teach English and History.
Larry moves into the singles quarters, where the story gives way to his fellow teachers' idiosyncrasies — Obadiah has his afternoon drink in a Datsun marooned in the sand, with both hands on wheel; Pohamba proclaims himself an atheist in the day and screams for God to rescue him in the night; the principal watches a TV with no reception, laughing and changing the channel.
They induct Larry into their slow and thirsty rhythm of life, where camaraderie and story-telling are modes of survival. Larry attempts to answer inane questions about Woodrow Wilson and the Roman namesake of Cincinnati. In return, they divulge the stories and legends of the veld — a barren place which they fertilize with stories of war and drought, told around the coffee-fire in the frigid dawn, under a tree during sweltering morning break, or through thin walls in the lonely middle of the night.
Peter Orner creates a microcosm of life in modern Namibia, her independence barely one year old and her genocide less than a century past. Through stunning, episodic chapters, rarely longer than a few pages, the narrator reveals the different perspectives, settings, and realities of life at Farm Goas. Based on a year Orner spent teaching in Namibia, this original first novel is suffused with affection for his friends there, making whole a story of many fragmented parts.
- McKay McFadden
http://www.boldtype.com/issues/sep200...
Larry moves into the singles quarters, where the story gives way to his fellow teachers' idiosyncrasies — Obadiah has his afternoon drink in a Datsun marooned in the sand, with both hands on wheel; Pohamba proclaims himself an atheist in the day and screams for God to rescue him in the night; the principal watches a TV with no reception, laughing and changing the channel.
They induct Larry into their slow and thirsty rhythm of life, where camaraderie and story-telling are modes of survival. Larry attempts to answer inane questions about Woodrow Wilson and the Roman namesake of Cincinnati. In return, they divulge the stories and legends of the veld — a barren place which they fertilize with stories of war and drought, told around the coffee-fire in the frigid dawn, under a tree during sweltering morning break, or through thin walls in the lonely middle of the night.
Peter Orner creates a microcosm of life in modern Namibia, her independence barely one year old and her genocide less than a century past. Through stunning, episodic chapters, rarely longer than a few pages, the narrator reveals the different perspectives, settings, and realities of life at Farm Goas. Based on a year Orner spent teaching in Namibia, this original first novel is suffused with affection for his friends there, making whole a story of many fragmented parts.
- McKay McFadden
http://www.boldtype.com/issues/sep200...
December 23, 2008
A quiet, quick, well-written, guiltless pleasure. Orner's narrative is upfront about its outsider's perspective. It's a sensitive man's romance with a woman and a village, but his writing respectably avoids the Memoirs-of-a-Geisha-style saccharine orientalism. I was engrossed, but I can see where the fractured story-telling device was leaned on just a bit too heavily - as much as the brevity lends to the tale's texture, the constant breaks in narrative seem to prevent the writing from delving deeper into his characters' psyches. Still, what do you want? Save it for the plane or an afternoon by the pool.
July 22, 2010
This book is somehow spare, dusty, and surreal. It creates (or describes?) a world that is recognizable yet completely foreign. Through the use of short chapters, with sudden shots of perspective, story, and other verbage, he tells a story about a place where nothing happens on the surface, but too many things happen below ground. I have no idea how true it is to the country of Namibia, or the situation of boys' boarding schools, or the struggles against colonialism, but it has a strong sense of place and person, while also hinting at larger social and political issues as they trickle in to the isolated location.
November 13, 2009
Easily my favorite novel of the last couple of years, and by far the most gorgeously written. Also it's populated by the most entertaining group of weirdos I've come across since Cannery Row or something like that. On top of all this it's pleasingly weird in structure (154 chapters in 300 pages!), and totally hilarious when it wants to be. Oh yeah, and it takes place at a near-defunct missionary school in the middle of the Namib Desert. Read it!!!!
Read
January 22, 2010I'm just not all that into you at the moment, and you are due back at the library. :(
December 26, 2020
Here is what Amazon has to say about this book (hey - it is the end of the year - I needed a break from summarizing)
Though physically isolated in semi-desert beneath a relentless sun, the people of Goas create an alternate, more fertile universe through the stories they tell each other. The book's central character is Mavala , a combat veteran who fought in Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa.
She has recently returned to the school - with a child, but no husband. Mavala is modern, restless, and driven, in sharp contrast to conservative Goas. All the male teachers try not to fall in love with her. Everyone fails - immediately and miserably.
The book is well written, but there wasn't much of a story. Some of the chapters were only a few paragraphs. It jumped a bit and then would come back to Mavala. Then jump some more. Choppy reads like this are hard to hold my attention. I was engrossed in the longer chapters - trying to get deeper into the story. But then a small, choppy chapter would follow and I would lose my flow. It was a good one for this past week because we were so busy getting ready for the holiday, so it worked well enough.
Though physically isolated in semi-desert beneath a relentless sun, the people of Goas create an alternate, more fertile universe through the stories they tell each other. The book's central character is Mavala , a combat veteran who fought in Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa.
She has recently returned to the school - with a child, but no husband. Mavala is modern, restless, and driven, in sharp contrast to conservative Goas. All the male teachers try not to fall in love with her. Everyone fails - immediately and miserably.
The book is well written, but there wasn't much of a story. Some of the chapters were only a few paragraphs. It jumped a bit and then would come back to Mavala. Then jump some more. Choppy reads like this are hard to hold my attention. I was engrossed in the longer chapters - trying to get deeper into the story. But then a small, choppy chapter would follow and I would lose my flow. It was a good one for this past week because we were so busy getting ready for the holiday, so it worked well enough.
February 20, 2021
Set at a remote all boys Christian school in Goas, Namibia shortly after the country gained independence. A white American man, Larry Kaplanski, volunteers to teach at the school where he falls in love/lust? (as do the other male teachers) w/ Mavala Shikongo, a revolutionary. The book is written in short chapters with a focus on the ordinary, on individual anecdotes; the characters try to "only connect" and to find community. The desert itself is a foil - the sparsity of the landscape is a backdrop for the intimate interactions of the characters. In the end, it is the time spent w/ the other male teachers that matters, that lasts...
I wanted to love this book. Gave it three stars rather than two due to Obadiah. In the end, it doesn't stand alone in memory as something great. Rather, it is something beautifully presented.
I wanted to love this book. Gave it three stars rather than two due to Obadiah. In the end, it doesn't stand alone in memory as something great. Rather, it is something beautifully presented.
May 5, 2017
In Nederlandse vertaling van Esther Ottens: " De terugkeer van Mavala Shikongo".
Prachtig boek, verhaalt belevenissen rondom de hoofdpersoon, een Amerikaan die als vrijwilliger op een dorpsschool in Namibië werkt, redelijk kort na de bevrijding in 1990. Het boek vertelt uit de perspectieven van de verschillende spelers en geeft een gaaf beeld van het alledaagse leven in een door droogte en hitte en leegte geteisterde gemeenschap, waar ook de raciale spanningen nog levendig zijn. Je krijgt een idee van wat er in het land gebeurd is, het Duits kolonialisme, de zuid-Afrikaanse apartheid en de onafhankelijkheidstrijd van de Swapo en tegelijk geeft het een prachtig beeld van de leegte en droogte van dit prachtige land.
Prachtig boek, verhaalt belevenissen rondom de hoofdpersoon, een Amerikaan die als vrijwilliger op een dorpsschool in Namibië werkt, redelijk kort na de bevrijding in 1990. Het boek vertelt uit de perspectieven van de verschillende spelers en geeft een gaaf beeld van het alledaagse leven in een door droogte en hitte en leegte geteisterde gemeenschap, waar ook de raciale spanningen nog levendig zijn. Je krijgt een idee van wat er in het land gebeurd is, het Duits kolonialisme, de zuid-Afrikaanse apartheid en de onafhankelijkheidstrijd van de Swapo en tegelijk geeft het een prachtig beeld van de leegte en droogte van dit prachtige land.
January 19, 2023
So different! But I think that’s what I liked. Oppressive setting, war, poverty, drought and heat and a school filled with fantastic characters that the writing revealed in short bursts.I think because of the heat😉
February 4, 2019
It took a little time to get into it because of the format, but I liked it.
July 30, 2019
Beautiful concept that got sabotaged by tiny tiny chapters.
August 17, 2019
Bizarre, but interesting. The style of writing was fascinating, and there was incredible character development.
January 8, 2020
meh. it lost my interest.
September 7, 2024
3-3.5 *
August 18, 2010
This book gave you a lot history wise (colonialism, civil wars).
The second bit, it was hilarious. The characters were hilarious.
Auntie, who doesn't teach at the school, but some and steals and takes stuff brazenly.
Krieger, the neighboring Swed? German? 'a fluffly-white-haired honking murderous Santa bellowing 'Hallooo! halloo!" nearly running down the kids at play with his vehicle as he drives straight through the school ground.
Pohamba, who seems satisfied to argue about almost anything for argument's sake.
I adored Obadiah. The drunken poet/scholar. Some of the things the male teachers said were all so hilarious.
(Student)"Auntie will be back tomorrow, Teacher. Sister Ursula phoned."
Obadiah uncaps a pen and hands it to the boy.
(Obadiah) "Slay me."
(Student) "Excuse, Teacher?"
(Obadiah) "With this lance- do it."
This book was slightly disjointed, being told from various POV's at time and using a time or location ('Graves' for Kaplanski and Mavala's meetings in the graveyard; 'Siesta' during the teacher's naptime; numerous 'Drought Stories' as there were numerous bouts of drought).
I loved this book. It was the kind of book you could read put down for a while and do something else, and pick up again days later without wondering where you left off.
The second bit, it was hilarious. The characters were hilarious.
Auntie, who doesn't teach at the school, but some and steals and takes stuff brazenly.
Krieger, the neighboring Swed? German? 'a fluffly-white-haired honking murderous Santa bellowing 'Hallooo! halloo!" nearly running down the kids at play with his vehicle as he drives straight through the school ground.
Pohamba, who seems satisfied to argue about almost anything for argument's sake.
I adored Obadiah. The drunken poet/scholar. Some of the things the male teachers said were all so hilarious.
(Student)"Auntie will be back tomorrow, Teacher. Sister Ursula phoned."
Obadiah uncaps a pen and hands it to the boy.
(Obadiah) "Slay me."
(Student) "Excuse, Teacher?"
(Obadiah) "With this lance- do it."
This book was slightly disjointed, being told from various POV's at time and using a time or location ('Graves' for Kaplanski and Mavala's meetings in the graveyard; 'Siesta' during the teacher's naptime; numerous 'Drought Stories' as there were numerous bouts of drought).
I loved this book. It was the kind of book you could read put down for a while and do something else, and pick up again days later without wondering where you left off.
May 8, 2008
lowell and elizabeth have written perfect reviews
i'm not sure this is legal, but...
here's lowell's--
Easily my favorite novel of the last couple of years, and by far the most gorgeously written. Also it's populated by the most entertaining group of weirdos I've come across since Cannery Row or something like that. On top of all this it's pleasingly weird in structure (154 chapters in 300 pages!), and totally hilarious when it wants to be. Oh yeah, and it takes place at a near-defunct missionary school in the middle of the Namib Desert. Read it!!!!
and here's elizabeth's--
Spectacular, magnificent, stunning--all the big-time adjectives you can think up, this book deserves them. It’s a beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking novel—one of those books that, as I was reading it I was thinking yes, yes, this is why I read, this is what I’ve been looking for.
I felt weak with joy and sadness and longing reading this book, and I still feel those things right now, just thinking of Obadiah and Auntie and Tomo and Theofilus. Oh, Theofilus!
Lowell’s not messing around with those exclamation points—read this book.
i'm not sure this is legal, but...
here's lowell's--
Easily my favorite novel of the last couple of years, and by far the most gorgeously written. Also it's populated by the most entertaining group of weirdos I've come across since Cannery Row or something like that. On top of all this it's pleasingly weird in structure (154 chapters in 300 pages!), and totally hilarious when it wants to be. Oh yeah, and it takes place at a near-defunct missionary school in the middle of the Namib Desert. Read it!!!!
and here's elizabeth's--
Spectacular, magnificent, stunning--all the big-time adjectives you can think up, this book deserves them. It’s a beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking novel—one of those books that, as I was reading it I was thinking yes, yes, this is why I read, this is what I’ve been looking for.
I felt weak with joy and sadness and longing reading this book, and I still feel those things right now, just thinking of Obadiah and Auntie and Tomo and Theofilus. Oh, Theofilus!
Lowell’s not messing around with those exclamation points—read this book.
February 6, 2013
Il mal d'Africa, che spesso colpisce chi - specie fra gli appartenenti alla civiltà pomposamente definita più evoluta - si imbatte nel grande continente nero, rischia nella letteratura di tramutarsi da un lato nel più classico del pietismo e dall'altro in una serie di esotici stereotipi.
Non è affatto il caso di questo diario fatto di frammenti di vita minuscoli di un professore americano, volontario in una scuola rurale ai margini del deserto della Namibia.
Non c'è una storia in questi micro-racconti o, meglio, ce ne sono tantissime. Si passa, sempre con uno sguardo ironico ma denso di lieve lirismo, con disinvoltura dalla superstizione tribale al dramma del colonialismo, dalla povertà estrema agli sgangherati progetti di futuro, dai dialetti alla presenza opprimente del veld, dai racconti sull'indipendenza all'amore per una misteriosa rivoluzionaria.
La vera forza del romanzo è applicare quel tratto minimalista tanto naturale in un contesto metropolitano ad un'ambientazione completamente differente.
E' Namibia, ma potrebbe essere New York. Perché, in fondo, è vita.
Non è affatto il caso di questo diario fatto di frammenti di vita minuscoli di un professore americano, volontario in una scuola rurale ai margini del deserto della Namibia.
Non c'è una storia in questi micro-racconti o, meglio, ce ne sono tantissime. Si passa, sempre con uno sguardo ironico ma denso di lieve lirismo, con disinvoltura dalla superstizione tribale al dramma del colonialismo, dalla povertà estrema agli sgangherati progetti di futuro, dai dialetti alla presenza opprimente del veld, dai racconti sull'indipendenza all'amore per una misteriosa rivoluzionaria.
La vera forza del romanzo è applicare quel tratto minimalista tanto naturale in un contesto metropolitano ad un'ambientazione completamente differente.
E' Namibia, ma potrebbe essere New York. Perché, in fondo, è vita.
June 7, 2007
This book, which my partner got from the library, was surprisingly a good read about nothing. Specifically, it's a kind of Lost in Translation without the mean streak that follows a Jewish volunteer teacher all the way to Namibia where he does nothing much. Subveting both the heroic foreigner and inspirational teacher tropes, this is much closer in spirit to the new movie Chalk, where many of the teachers are just trying to kill time. The students barely register, except two who appear out of nowhere and vanish, child refugees who would otherwise be invisible. There's a nice bored love affair, conducted atop gravestones of the first settlers for maximal symbolism, and some hilarious dialogue. I particularly enjoyed the "Senior Teacher" a curmudgeonly history buff who saves the day by acting as guest speaker for the protagonists barely existing English class. now there's a role model for me.
August 31, 2011
This was an unusual one. The author writes in very short chapters, but he evokes the steamy, languid and yearning atmosphere of an ragtag group of people working and residing at a remote Catholic boys' school in the desert of Namibia during a time of drought.
The main narrator is an American man from Ohio who finds himself among an odd group of native Africans of varying backgrounds, ages and situations. Some are married, some are single, some are childless. None seem to have very much money or prospects, but they do have unique voices with which they gradually reveal themselves to the reader.
The novel is a stark portrait of these people to be studied and savored, like the language employed by the author. His does not paint with old, tired similes that we have heard a million times. He creates new comparisons that are just as evocative and all the more engaging for their newness.
The main narrator is an American man from Ohio who finds himself among an odd group of native Africans of varying backgrounds, ages and situations. Some are married, some are single, some are childless. None seem to have very much money or prospects, but they do have unique voices with which they gradually reveal themselves to the reader.
The novel is a stark portrait of these people to be studied and savored, like the language employed by the author. His does not paint with old, tired similes that we have heard a million times. He creates new comparisons that are just as evocative and all the more engaging for their newness.
September 22, 2011
Peter Orner’s The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo was one of those books I thought about while I was at work and looked forward to reading when I got home. It wasn’t that I was eager to find out what was going to happen to Kaplansk and Mavala – “what’s going to happen” isn’t really what’s at stake in the novel. Mavala Shikongo is built around tension rather than conflict, as are a lot of great poems. So if I wasn’t caught up in a riveting plot, what was it that made me want to keep reading? The beauty of the language had a lot to do with it, as did the tragicomic characters. But ultimately, the power of the language and characters rests largely on the novel’s unusual structure. The short chapters compel the reader (not to mention the writer) to attend to each individual word. The story, image, and idea in each chapter are distilled to brilliant clarity. This concision, combined with the variety of points of view, results in a novel that feels simultaneously universal and intimate.
May 1, 2008
Orner's novel comprises character sketches at an isolated boys' school in the Namibian veld. It's not about plot. The very short chapters--sometimes just a paragraph and at most a couple of pages--are an unusual choice for a novel; they don't really stand alone, but they don't really form a cohesive whole either. Orner does a good job of depicting the various characters through stories they tell each other and the observance of their everyday life--variously touching and humorous. However, those little chapters and characterizations started to wear on me after a while, and I felt I'd had enough long before the end.
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