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The Old Drift
**Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020** 'The great African novel of the twenty-first century' Tade Thompson, author of Rosewater On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles his fate with those of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. So begins a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. 'Extraordinary, ambitious, evocative, dazzling' Salman Rushdie 'Brilliant . . . heartbreaking' Sunday Times 'Charming, heartbreaking and breathtaking' Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
568 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 25, 2019
1788 people are currently reading
32218 people want to read
About the author
Namwali Serpell
24 books734 followersNAMWALI SERPELL is a Zambian writer who teaches at UC Berkeley. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award in 2011 and was selected for the Africa 39 in 2014. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing.
THE OLD DRIFT is her first novel. The chapter entitled "The Falls" is derived from The Autobiography of An Old Drifter, by the historical figure, Percy M. Clark (1874-1937).
THE OLD DRIFT is her first novel. The chapter entitled "The Falls" is derived from The Autobiography of An Old Drifter, by the historical figure, Percy M. Clark (1874-1937).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,319 reviews
June 4, 2019
The book is full of juxtapositions.
British colonialism vs African revolutionaries, 3rd world poverty vs high tech drones, beautiful powerful writing vs meaningless ramblings.
I really enjoyed some of the true historic events the author weaved into the story. I travelled to Zambia about 5 years ago and read up about its history but nowhere was it stated that Zambia had its own space program in the 1960’s. A revolutionary, Edward Nkolose headed up the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy.
The below link is an interview BBC had with Edward Nkolose. I am still not sure if it was deliberately done to get the world’s attention on Zambia or if they truly believed in the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Do3...
The story itself is a multi-generational tale starting with 3 women, all so vastly different.
Silliba originates from Italy and was born with massive amount of hair. Hair that covers her whole body. No matter how many times she cuts it, the next day its back.
Agnes is a young English rose, an upcoming tennis star but when she slowly goes blind her dreams of glory fades with her.
Martha is the only native Zambian of the 3 women. During her time training to be an Afronaut with the Zambia space program she meets her sweetheart. When he leaves her pregnant and destitute, she starts crying, never to stop for many decades.
The story follows these 3 women, their daughters and grandchildren and how their lives run parallel, crosses over and finally collides.
There are a lot of characters to keep track of, all with African names that gets stuck in your throat when you try to pronounce it. There are also a lot of genres mashed into the tale. From historical fiction and sci fi to magical realism.
The tone has a playful seriousness to it and the boundaries the author pushes is admirable, but the experimental writing made the book hard work at times.
I don’t regret reading this book as it most definitely was a unique experience, but it is not something to go into lightly.
Netgalley ARC: Expected publish date 21 March 2019
April 6, 2019
Historical fiction (based on The Autobiography of an Old Drifter by Percy M. Clark 1874-1937). Surrealism involving a woman with massive amounts of hair, a woman who cries nonstop, and a blind tennis player. An ancient Greek chorus in the form of mosquitoes. And science fiction in the form of miniature drones. Zambian author Serpell includes all of this in her richly written, multigenerational novel.
The bulk of the story feels as if it is being observed from the vantage point of the Old Drift overlooking the Zambezi River near the Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia (1904-1963), later renamed Zambia when it achieved independence in 1964. There are three families that Serpell introduces us to—one white, one black and one brown. There are three chapters devoted to the grandmothers, three to the children and three to the grandchildren. Each of the grandmothers had a flaw—one had excessive amounts of hair that grows abundantly. Is this an ode to African hair? Hair certainly is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Another of the grandmothers is blind—even in regards to race. The third develops the inability to stop crying.
Through her many characters, Serpell details British colonialism to African revolutionaries, the building of the Kariba dam by Italian engineers, the dire AIDS epidemic in Africa and so much more.
And that is the problem—Serpell includes a LOT. Some of her writing is positively lyrical, but there are stretches that feel more ‘workmanlike’. With no less than nine main characters, I found it hard to engage emotionally with any of them. On the other hand, I learned a great deal about the country and its people.
The bulk of the story feels as if it is being observed from the vantage point of the Old Drift overlooking the Zambezi River near the Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia (1904-1963), later renamed Zambia when it achieved independence in 1964. There are three families that Serpell introduces us to—one white, one black and one brown. There are three chapters devoted to the grandmothers, three to the children and three to the grandchildren. Each of the grandmothers had a flaw—one had excessive amounts of hair that grows abundantly. Is this an ode to African hair? Hair certainly is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Another of the grandmothers is blind—even in regards to race. The third develops the inability to stop crying.
Through her many characters, Serpell details British colonialism to African revolutionaries, the building of the Kariba dam by Italian engineers, the dire AIDS epidemic in Africa and so much more.
And that is the problem—Serpell includes a LOT. Some of her writing is positively lyrical, but there are stretches that feel more ‘workmanlike’. With no less than nine main characters, I found it hard to engage emotionally with any of them. On the other hand, I learned a great deal about the country and its people.
January 17, 2026
Damn-busting 3.4 stars
A saga surveying 3 generations of intertwining families as they migrate or marry the indigenous and assimilate into Zambia. Highly affecting (almost to shock and awe with its denouement) and brimming with vibrant characters, with little romanticizing or sentimentalities.
If you trust my reviews, you should believe me when I HOLLER that it exceeds all the hype. I cannot imagine 10 fiction or nonfiction books will be published this year that are better.
A saga surveying 3 generations of intertwining families as they migrate or marry the indigenous and assimilate into Zambia. Highly affecting (almost to shock and awe with its denouement) and brimming with vibrant characters, with little romanticizing or sentimentalities.
If you trust my reviews, you should believe me when I HOLLER that it exceeds all the hype. I cannot imagine 10 fiction or nonfiction books will be published this year that are better.
April 28, 2020
Sentence by sentence Serpell is an excellent prose stylist, and I enjoyed reading this novel very much. The scenes are evocative. The dialogue frequently dazzled me with its sharpness and its ability to cut straight to the bone and tell me how to think about a given character.
For me, though, I missed a through-line. I missed a unifying theme. I have no idea what the book's about.
The novel is almost perversely disinterested in giving meaning to the lives of its characters. It's not interested in allowing them to perceive the beauty, or the ugliness, or the cosmic 'all' around them. They have spurts of feeling toward one another that fade out or grow ugly over time. Their loves and triumphs are narrow and animal, and only occasionally tragic. The author tosses her characters into a drifting river of story, but they never get anywhere--they all seem to get stuck along the banks at some point.
I don't think this book is too long. But I do think it has too many characters. Time after time I grew interested in a character only to have that character get written out of the story. Now and then a character would come back, but only hundreds of pages later, in a flurry of narrative summary that didn't satisfy me.
I just read another intergenerational book that delighted me--Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters. It was also episodic and it also spanned a very long time frame. But in that book's case, the humanity and the agency of the characters moved me very much. Not so here. In The Old Drift, both the events and also the characters' reactions to events seemed passive and almost chaotically random.
For me, though, I missed a through-line. I missed a unifying theme. I have no idea what the book's about.
The novel is almost perversely disinterested in giving meaning to the lives of its characters. It's not interested in allowing them to perceive the beauty, or the ugliness, or the cosmic 'all' around them. They have spurts of feeling toward one another that fade out or grow ugly over time. Their loves and triumphs are narrow and animal, and only occasionally tragic. The author tosses her characters into a drifting river of story, but they never get anywhere--they all seem to get stuck along the banks at some point.
I don't think this book is too long. But I do think it has too many characters. Time after time I grew interested in a character only to have that character get written out of the story. Now and then a character would come back, but only hundreds of pages later, in a flurry of narrative summary that didn't satisfy me.
I just read another intergenerational book that delighted me--Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters. It was also episodic and it also spanned a very long time frame. But in that book's case, the humanity and the agency of the characters moved me very much. Not so here. In The Old Drift, both the events and also the characters' reactions to events seemed passive and almost chaotically random.
April 8, 2019
As a debut novel The Old Drift is quite extraordinary. It’s aim seems high and, to my eye, it meets what are its likely goals. This is a tale of Zambia, a combination of historical fiction, with smatterings of historical moments, mythical episodes and characters bordering on, but not quite, fantasy, and elements of science fiction as the story ends in the near future. It opens in colonial times and Stanley Livingstone is introduced early on as Victoria Falls becomes a major feature during the subjugation of the people and natural world of the country.
There are three families that will be followed over a century. Their members vary in color and initial nationality but Zambia becomes the center for each of their families. The novel progresses in a semi-linear fashion, moving between families and generations as we see connections made at unexpected levels. And breaking up these chapters at intervals is a chorus, an unusual group of native commentators who know the land and people well. The chorus is a swarm, a cloud of mosquitoes given voice....and they are eloquent about their role, their place in man’s world.
The novel covers major events through these extended families lives.The early part of this novel was a solid 5 for me. I had a little difficulty as the youngest generation continued with their patois and jargon. At the same time the sci fi elements were interesting and fit with much that we see in the world today. This is a novel where all of the pieces come together with a reader’s patience.
Probably a 4.5* rating for me.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
There are three families that will be followed over a century. Their members vary in color and initial nationality but Zambia becomes the center for each of their families. The novel progresses in a semi-linear fashion, moving between families and generations as we see connections made at unexpected levels. And breaking up these chapters at intervals is a chorus, an unusual group of native commentators who know the land and people well. The chorus is a swarm, a cloud of mosquitoes given voice....and they are eloquent about their role, their place in man’s world.
The novel covers major events through these extended families lives.The early part of this novel was a solid 5 for me. I had a little difficulty as the youngest generation continued with their patois and jargon. At the same time the sci fi elements were interesting and fit with much that we see in the world today. This is a novel where all of the pieces come together with a reader’s patience.
Probably a 4.5* rating for me.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
September 28, 2020
“...’history’ was the word the English used for the record of every time a white man encountered something he had never seen and promptly claimed it as his own, often renaming it for good measure. History, in short, was the annals of the bully on the playground.” This book is part family saga/part history of a country, with a smattering of fantasy and science fiction mixed in. It begins in 1903, when the adventurer Percy M. Clark arrives at the settlement known as The Old Drift and follows the development of The Old Drift into Zambia, ending in 2019. Zambia’s history of colonialism, revolution and AIDS is told through the lives of a huge cast of characters. I really could have used a family tree because the story skips from family to family and from generation to generation.
The book is broken into segments captioned The Grandmothers, The Mothers, The Children and The Dam. The segments are separated by the narration of an all-seeing swarm of collective consciousness. “We are the thin singers, the bare ruined choir, a chorus of gossipy mites. Uncanny the singing that comes from certain husks. Neither gods nor ghosts nor spirits nor sprites, we’re the effect of an elementary principle: with enough time, the swarm will evolve a conscience. Thus we’ve woven a worldly wily web, contrived a hive mind, if you will. Spindle bodies strung in a net of space-time. Interested. Hmming along.”
Although I took notes, I spent a lot of time trying to remember who was related to whom and the circumstances under which the characters had met before. Despite that struggle, I really liked the original characters, vivid descriptions and history. There’s a woman, totally covered in long hair, who is married to a man with an assumed identity, a blind English woman married to an African engineer, a young girl who is turned into an astronaut and revolutionary by her charismatic teacher and an AIDS researcher who’s looking for a genetic mutation.
Then the book got to The Children segment and went off the rails a little. There the book lost me and began to feel too long. I didn’t understand either the motivation of the characters or the purpose behind the introduction of the futuristic elements at the end of the book. Even worse, I didn’t like these characters. However, I did enjoy a large part of the book and would like to read more by this author.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
The book is broken into segments captioned The Grandmothers, The Mothers, The Children and The Dam. The segments are separated by the narration of an all-seeing swarm of collective consciousness. “We are the thin singers, the bare ruined choir, a chorus of gossipy mites. Uncanny the singing that comes from certain husks. Neither gods nor ghosts nor spirits nor sprites, we’re the effect of an elementary principle: with enough time, the swarm will evolve a conscience. Thus we’ve woven a worldly wily web, contrived a hive mind, if you will. Spindle bodies strung in a net of space-time. Interested. Hmming along.”
Although I took notes, I spent a lot of time trying to remember who was related to whom and the circumstances under which the characters had met before. Despite that struggle, I really liked the original characters, vivid descriptions and history. There’s a woman, totally covered in long hair, who is married to a man with an assumed identity, a blind English woman married to an African engineer, a young girl who is turned into an astronaut and revolutionary by her charismatic teacher and an AIDS researcher who’s looking for a genetic mutation.
Then the book got to The Children segment and went off the rails a little. There the book lost me and began to feel too long. I didn’t understand either the motivation of the characters or the purpose behind the introduction of the futuristic elements at the end of the book. Even worse, I didn’t like these characters. However, I did enjoy a large part of the book and would like to read more by this author.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
January 3, 2020
The Old Drift is an epic novel bursting with the lives of three interwoven families in three generations. The novel hops and races around at dazzling pace - covering Zambian politics, history, AIDS, sexuality and oh yes - it is set partially in the future. I grew to care for the characters - especially the women. So much here - it is a goldmine of a novel.
May 26, 2019
One of the most phenomenal works of fiction I’ve read - or at least listened to, and I had to do so twice, partly to pick up on so many threads I missed, and partly for the enjoyment of Serpell’s use of language and original storytelling. This is a masterpiece, a tale that feels both ancient and futuristic.
August 29, 2020
When the publisher's blurb says it's the great Zambian novel you didn't know you were waiting for, it's spot on. It is a generation-spanning novel that mainly takes place in Zambia, a landlocked Central African country nestled beneath the Congo and east of Zimbabwe. It traces the history of Zambian society from Colonial times in the late 1800's as the British and Italians explored a new frontier, built dams, and escaped their own crowded cities to a new uncharted world, through Independence, to the events in 2020. It does this by exploring families that connected time and time again over a century plus. Mainly it follows the women's sides of the generational history, but not exclusively.
It is a tale of sweeping generations, not one of a single quest or battle or even the story of a single life. Just as the reader gets comfortable with the story of one character, there is a time jump and the story continues with another character, seemingly unrelated and unconnected, but eventually connected in some manner.
And what incredible characters are found in these pages. There's the Girl whose hair grows all over her body and spins and spins and spins. There's the woman possessed by a crying disease. The tennis-playing English girl who loses her sight and shockingly has an interracial romance. There are the Zambian cosmonauts aching to step foot on the moon. There's the abandoned women with children. There's the stewardess on the Zambian airline who meets the doctor. There's the chaos in the streets and more. The girl who falls out of a tree. The prostitute who opens a hair salon. There are broken marriages and reunions. There are penniless wanderers and doctors with numerous houses. There's the boy who builds drones and the scientists trying to cure the deadly virus that sweeps through Africa in the eighties.
It's a rich stew of characters and a book so filled with stories that it simply is not a quick read. Although this literary achievement is quite outside my usual reading genres, it is quite a remarkable book.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
It is a tale of sweeping generations, not one of a single quest or battle or even the story of a single life. Just as the reader gets comfortable with the story of one character, there is a time jump and the story continues with another character, seemingly unrelated and unconnected, but eventually connected in some manner.
And what incredible characters are found in these pages. There's the Girl whose hair grows all over her body and spins and spins and spins. There's the woman possessed by a crying disease. The tennis-playing English girl who loses her sight and shockingly has an interracial romance. There are the Zambian cosmonauts aching to step foot on the moon. There's the abandoned women with children. There's the stewardess on the Zambian airline who meets the doctor. There's the chaos in the streets and more. The girl who falls out of a tree. The prostitute who opens a hair salon. There are broken marriages and reunions. There are penniless wanderers and doctors with numerous houses. There's the boy who builds drones and the scientists trying to cure the deadly virus that sweeps through Africa in the eighties.
It's a rich stew of characters and a book so filled with stories that it simply is not a quick read. Although this literary achievement is quite outside my usual reading genres, it is quite a remarkable book.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
April 1, 2019
3.5 stars
The Old Drift is a prodigious undertaking both in scope and time span. Set in Rhodesia/Zambia from 1903 to 2023, The Old Drift starts off as a historical fiction and ends as a futuristic parable. It is a generational tale that is as much about what makes a nation as what makes a family.
In this debut novel Serpell addresses colorism, class differences, gender politics and revolution. She draws the reader's attention to the meek and disenfranchised while questioning the definition of progress. The narration is punctuated by poems told by a chorus of pests that correlate to the different time frames. Starting with colonialism (the mosquito/malaria), merging into capitalism (HIV/AIDS) and eventually ending with consumerism (drones), these pests serve as a metaphor for the human parasite. Cannabilizing the land from within, the colonist displaces the native, the capitalist mines the land of its natural resources and the consumer alters the environment.
Although cleverly written, it took me a while to get into this book due to its many characters and elliptical nature. Not until about the halfway point did I firmly have the connections in place. At first I was frustrated by the organization of the book, my interest level waxing and waning between chapters. But when I reached the end and realized that this "Archimedean spiral" was intentional on Serpell's part, I had to applaud her for carrying out this feat. I am glad that I stuck with this book and can see why The Old Drift is getting so much critical acclaim. The writing was exquisite, the reader is left with razor sharp focus and portentous warning for our times.
Special thanks to First to Read, NetGalley, Crown Publishing and the author Namwalli Serpell for access to this work of fiction.
The Old Drift is a prodigious undertaking both in scope and time span. Set in Rhodesia/Zambia from 1903 to 2023, The Old Drift starts off as a historical fiction and ends as a futuristic parable. It is a generational tale that is as much about what makes a nation as what makes a family.
In this debut novel Serpell addresses colorism, class differences, gender politics and revolution. She draws the reader's attention to the meek and disenfranchised while questioning the definition of progress. The narration is punctuated by poems told by a chorus of pests that correlate to the different time frames. Starting with colonialism (the mosquito/malaria), merging into capitalism (HIV/AIDS) and eventually ending with consumerism (drones), these pests serve as a metaphor for the human parasite. Cannabilizing the land from within, the colonist displaces the native, the capitalist mines the land of its natural resources and the consumer alters the environment.
Although cleverly written, it took me a while to get into this book due to its many characters and elliptical nature. Not until about the halfway point did I firmly have the connections in place. At first I was frustrated by the organization of the book, my interest level waxing and waning between chapters. But when I reached the end and realized that this "Archimedean spiral" was intentional on Serpell's part, I had to applaud her for carrying out this feat. I am glad that I stuck with this book and can see why The Old Drift is getting so much critical acclaim. The writing was exquisite, the reader is left with razor sharp focus and portentous warning for our times.
Special thanks to First to Read, NetGalley, Crown Publishing and the author Namwalli Serpell for access to this work of fiction.
August 12, 2023
Read Around the World: Zambia
This book was absolutely NOT for me. At all.
First, it is told in short story form; each chapter being a different story with a different family, starting with "The Grandmothers". By the time you get to section 2, you have forgotten who belongs to whom and that just continues as the story progresses. And by the time you get to the [VERY unsatisfying] end, you just forget who everyone is and just what the story is all about. And you end the story very very confused and are left with a million questions.
There are parts of this book that are good - Sibilla's story is by far my favorite, but we rarely return to her and that is disappointing. She is very intriguing character and I would have loved to read more about her and her story.
There are many villains in this story and not all of them are the white men that invaded Africa and tried to make it their own [there is a LOT of Colonialism in this book and those are parts that were infuriating to me - the sheer audacity of the white man to try and conquer that untamed land; when I was not bored with the multiple story-lines and the sheer number of people to try and keep track of, I was so angry at how horrible the native people were being treated] and after awhile, you just do not know who you are supposed to like and be rooting for and who is the bad man/woman in the story. And the ending leaves A LOT to be desired. Ugh.
In the end, I didn't like this book - it felt like torture to have to read it every day [one chapter a day was all I could handle and sometimes I had to skip a day because I just didn't care enough to read it and had other things I liked more to read] and with so many characters to try and keep track of, I didn't connect with any of them and lost interest early on in all of them. And I couldn't even be happy that the book ended because the ending was so lame and unsatisfying that I was just more frustrated and bewildered than anything else.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing/Hogarth for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was absolutely NOT for me. At all.
First, it is told in short story form; each chapter being a different story with a different family, starting with "The Grandmothers". By the time you get to section 2, you have forgotten who belongs to whom and that just continues as the story progresses. And by the time you get to the [VERY unsatisfying] end, you just forget who everyone is and just what the story is all about. And you end the story very very confused and are left with a million questions.
There are parts of this book that are good - Sibilla's story is by far my favorite, but we rarely return to her and that is disappointing. She is very intriguing character and I would have loved to read more about her and her story.
There are many villains in this story and not all of them are the white men that invaded Africa and tried to make it their own [there is a LOT of Colonialism in this book and those are parts that were infuriating to me - the sheer audacity of the white man to try and conquer that untamed land; when I was not bored with the multiple story-lines and the sheer number of people to try and keep track of, I was so angry at how horrible the native people were being treated] and after awhile, you just do not know who you are supposed to like and be rooting for and who is the bad man/woman in the story. And the ending leaves A LOT to be desired. Ugh.
In the end, I didn't like this book - it felt like torture to have to read it every day [one chapter a day was all I could handle and sometimes I had to skip a day because I just didn't care enough to read it and had other things I liked more to read] and with so many characters to try and keep track of, I didn't connect with any of them and lost interest early on in all of them. And I couldn't even be happy that the book ended because the ending was so lame and unsatisfying that I was just more frustrated and bewildered than anything else.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing/Hogarth for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 13, 2022
A novel based principally in Zambia (with a few excursions). I initially thought this was a historical novel, but the fact that it won the Arthur C Clarke award means I should have realised science fiction was involved as well. It is also multi-generational, covering well over one hundred years. The first narrator is an Englishman, the real life Percy Clarke who set up a souvenir shop at the Victoria Falls in 1903. Three intertwined families are involved. The grandmothers Sibilla, Agnes and Matha; the mothers Sylvia, Isabella and Thandiwe: and finally their children Joseph, Jacob and Naila. There is a mosquito chorus as well. The novel looks at colonialism, Zambian independence, the Zambian space program, the Kariba Dam, the AIDS epidemic and the search for a vaccine, mass surveillance and drones: hairdressing plays a significant role too.
This is ambitious for a debut novel and almost six hundred pages, drifting across genres as well. There is certainly an awareness of colonial history and its consequences:
“This is the story of a nation — not a kingdom or people — so it begins, of course, with a white man.”
There are some actual historical characters as well as Clarke: Edward Nkoloso for example and Serpell did extensive research on him. There are also elements of magic realism and Serpell also shows significant medical and scientific knowledge when she addresses AIDs and the search for a vaccine. Most of the central characters are women, who often have unruly bodies and great ambitions. Circumstances and surroundings provide limitations which provides the joys and sorrows of the novel.
I think there are echoes of Allende and Morrison here and I enjoyed the journey. There were times when the novel was difficult to follow and the genealogy charts were very necessary! There are lots of ideas, a deep vein of humour as well as tragedy, pretty good for a debut novel.
This is ambitious for a debut novel and almost six hundred pages, drifting across genres as well. There is certainly an awareness of colonial history and its consequences:
“This is the story of a nation — not a kingdom or people — so it begins, of course, with a white man.”
There are some actual historical characters as well as Clarke: Edward Nkoloso for example and Serpell did extensive research on him. There are also elements of magic realism and Serpell also shows significant medical and scientific knowledge when she addresses AIDs and the search for a vaccine. Most of the central characters are women, who often have unruly bodies and great ambitions. Circumstances and surroundings provide limitations which provides the joys and sorrows of the novel.
I think there are echoes of Allende and Morrison here and I enjoyed the journey. There were times when the novel was difficult to follow and the genealogy charts were very necessary! There are lots of ideas, a deep vein of humour as well as tragedy, pretty good for a debut novel.
May 26, 2019
I loved this book and it had me up late on more than one night. It is dense but highly engaging. It covers a span of almost two centuries and follows the entwining lives of three families living in Zambia and the region.
I saw Namwali Serpell speak the day after I was up late finishing the book and the questions that were asked and the responses she gave added dimension to my reading. I'll say again that is a long book but I don't think anything was out of place and nothing could be edited out. There are many funny stories such as the that of the Zambian Space Program-based on real events. There is historical truth along with speculative elements and then what might be in 2050. I can't put my finger on all that was said at MOAD but I loved the personal connection I now have after hearing Namwali Serpell talk and read parts of the book.
Namwali Serpell shared that she started writing this in the year 2000. This helps explain the depth of the storytelling and the polish in the writing. The characters are all depicted with the faults and flaws we all possess but not without grace being extended to their existences.
A brilliant book and my number one favorite so far this year.
I saw Namwali Serpell speak the day after I was up late finishing the book and the questions that were asked and the responses she gave added dimension to my reading. I'll say again that is a long book but I don't think anything was out of place and nothing could be edited out. There are many funny stories such as the that of the Zambian Space Program-based on real events. There is historical truth along with speculative elements and then what might be in 2050. I can't put my finger on all that was said at MOAD but I loved the personal connection I now have after hearing Namwali Serpell talk and read parts of the book.
Namwali Serpell shared that she started writing this in the year 2000. This helps explain the depth of the storytelling and the polish in the writing. The characters are all depicted with the faults and flaws we all possess but not without grace being extended to their existences.
A brilliant book and my number one favorite so far this year.
June 9, 2019
Every family is a war but some are more civil than others.
This is a beautifully written epic tale spanning many countries, genres and families. The author spend more than two decades writing this story which spans more than a century, focusing on the lives of three families over three generations, interconnecting in Zambia.
The exquisite writing had me hooked from page one, and I liked the "chorus" sections which is written in the collective voice of a swarm of mosquitoes, which reads like poetry. I loved the Grandmother's section, which has a strong focus on Magical realism and Historical fiction, think Gabriel García Márquez. I have to admit that I got a bit confused with all the characters in the mother's section, which focuses on relationships as well as the AIDS epidemic in Africa. In the children's piece the author moves into Sci-fi, which is not my favorite genre, but worked well here.
This is not an easy read, but very well-written and unique. As the author says - This is the great Zambian novel that you did not know you were waiting for.
June 25, 2019
I think long and hard before I read a looong novel these days - too often there's a perfectly good 300 page book trapped in a 600 page body. Not here! I was an enthused, immersed reader from start to finish. The way the novel is divided into sections and subsections keeps it moving (it's not a ponderous epic) and although the story is told chronologically, it sometimes does a cha-cha with small bits of time - two steps forward, one step back, that reveals quirks and coincidences in a clever way. Characters felt so rounded and real, even when the realism got magical, and I experienced Zambia through all five senses. Writing was terrific - I especially loved the voice of the mosquito chorus in their commentaries after each section. I tend to read books pretty quickly (so many great books, so little time), but this is the first book in a long time I wanted to linger in, despite the length.
Lots to enjoy, lots to think about.
Lots to enjoy, lots to think about.
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April 1, 2021A big-sweep magical realist novel set in Zambia from Rhodesia days to the near post climate change future, following three family lines down three generations till they meet. There is a lot going on here as well as the many characters: colonialism, racism, poverty, misogyny, abuse, the curse of uteruses (I've never seen so many characters have on page periods), technology, surveillance, revolution. Plus a Greek chorus of mosquitoes, unless they're drones, and recurring themes of hair and eyes.
It's beautifully written, and very readable, and it's probably fair to say I was really impressed with it but I didn't love it. Possibly because there was so much going on that I never quite felt I grasped it, possibly because the characters were all extremely human with very real and relatable flaws, and thus fairly hard to like. Still an incredibly impressive debut.
It's beautifully written, and very readable, and it's probably fair to say I was really impressed with it but I didn't love it. Possibly because there was so much going on that I never quite felt I grasped it, possibly because the characters were all extremely human with very real and relatable flaws, and thus fairly hard to like. Still an incredibly impressive debut.
July 3, 2019
I picked this book as I’ve read somewhere it was compared to Cloud Atlas. And I am big fan of that novel, especially for its brilliantly controlled structure and experiments with the language styles. This book is nothing of a kind. On the contrary, I think its structure has just sprouted organically from the writing it contains. It is not a problem per se, but it is not the novel to read for the structure or the style. It is quite readable (well at least until the last bit, more about it later). So i kept turning the pages. Inevitably while reading, I’ve noticed how much acclaim it has received from the authors I respect. Ali Smith puts it “the book i wish I’ve written” (albeit she said it changes every week or month) in the Guardian. Salman Rushdie pens up an ecstatic blurb. Machado calls it a “worth heir of Marquez”. All of this sets up quite high expectations. And this book does not quite match it in my opinion.
But based upon all these luminous feedback, I feel, it might be nominated for some of the prizes.
It is set in Zambia in the period of hundred years from 1904 roughly to the near future 2023. Author follows 3 generations of 3 families. She picks up one character per family and per generation. So in total, the book she has got 9 chapters. Each chapter is broadly a character study when there a single character is given the main exposure supported by a cast of secondary characters. Between those chapters there is a little one page italic monologue by mosquitos. It starts with an introduction written in the first person by the racist colonist Percy Clark who arrived in what would become Zambia in 1904. The problem with this set up is that the whole felt to me quite disjointed. When the character leaves the stage at the end of the chapter, we hardly meet her until the end of the book. And some of those characters, where quite interesting and well constructed, just to be replaced by much interesting solos. The author intrigued me sufficiently with the history of Zambia, but i wish Zambia as a country would play much more role in the novel. I think of “Midnight Children” when I say it. Here, sometimes, the historical events would resurface like dam building, space program or HIV epidemics. But in many other instances I felt it is used more like the colourful backdrop of the novel.
Nevertheless, I generally liked the first part of the book, the generation of grandmothers. There is pace in the story telling and the richness of details. The author makes each of three main characters having some physical disability: one has got the thick hair all over her body, another one is blind and the third one starts crying and cries for 50 years. This is called “magic realism” i understood. I thought initially it would connect to some medical breakthroughs later. But no, it stays in magical realism's realm (no pun intended). Initially it made me sigh, but it kind of worked as she uses these features in her plot and i could see she loved those characters. But i was relieved that it stopped in the second part.
A few observations on the language. It is very sensory and descriptive. The type of “show not to tell” how they teach to write in schools in the UK and likely in the US as well. It is not too bad. Especially when you have a character who cries buckets non-stop, a blind person which relies on the other senses to perceive the reality or a person with an exotic appearance. But sometimes it is getting little too much: “His teeth were yellowish but she liked his pointy incisors.” The metaphors sometimes are not the most charming: “He led her hands towards his centre”. Or I hardly could imagine Percy Clark, the colonist and the racist, who has just used the N-word saying: “We were expecting” about his wife being pregnant.
In spite of few winces, I kept reading. There were a few stunning episodes. The most memorable and poignant for me was a little tangent story of an American girl who came across an african man left to die on the road after the car accident. It would be wonderful short story. I’ve learned some sad and some encouraging historic facts about Zambia. And it made me google so I am grateful to the author as now I know much more about the region, their struggle for independence in the 60s, their history since then. I enjoyed the company of some of her characters as well.
But the last 1/9 including the end has substantially damaged my overall opinion. She has moved gear towards dystopia which was neither particularly original, nor particularly successful. I understood that she studied Afrofuturism in her academic career. That might be a trigger. But for me personally it took away the spell the book has had on me in spite of its limitations.
I kept 3 stars as it is a debut novel. But for me it was rather 3 for the whole and 1 for the last part.
But based upon all these luminous feedback, I feel, it might be nominated for some of the prizes.
It is set in Zambia in the period of hundred years from 1904 roughly to the near future 2023. Author follows 3 generations of 3 families. She picks up one character per family and per generation. So in total, the book she has got 9 chapters. Each chapter is broadly a character study when there a single character is given the main exposure supported by a cast of secondary characters. Between those chapters there is a little one page italic monologue by mosquitos. It starts with an introduction written in the first person by the racist colonist Percy Clark who arrived in what would become Zambia in 1904. The problem with this set up is that the whole felt to me quite disjointed. When the character leaves the stage at the end of the chapter, we hardly meet her until the end of the book. And some of those characters, where quite interesting and well constructed, just to be replaced by much interesting solos. The author intrigued me sufficiently with the history of Zambia, but i wish Zambia as a country would play much more role in the novel. I think of “Midnight Children” when I say it. Here, sometimes, the historical events would resurface like dam building, space program or HIV epidemics. But in many other instances I felt it is used more like the colourful backdrop of the novel.
Nevertheless, I generally liked the first part of the book, the generation of grandmothers. There is pace in the story telling and the richness of details. The author makes each of three main characters having some physical disability: one has got the thick hair all over her body, another one is blind and the third one starts crying and cries for 50 years. This is called “magic realism” i understood. I thought initially it would connect to some medical breakthroughs later. But no, it stays in magical realism's realm (no pun intended). Initially it made me sigh, but it kind of worked as she uses these features in her plot and i could see she loved those characters. But i was relieved that it stopped in the second part.
A few observations on the language. It is very sensory and descriptive. The type of “show not to tell” how they teach to write in schools in the UK and likely in the US as well. It is not too bad. Especially when you have a character who cries buckets non-stop, a blind person which relies on the other senses to perceive the reality or a person with an exotic appearance. But sometimes it is getting little too much: “His teeth were yellowish but she liked his pointy incisors.” The metaphors sometimes are not the most charming: “He led her hands towards his centre”. Or I hardly could imagine Percy Clark, the colonist and the racist, who has just used the N-word saying: “We were expecting” about his wife being pregnant.
In spite of few winces, I kept reading. There were a few stunning episodes. The most memorable and poignant for me was a little tangent story of an American girl who came across an african man left to die on the road after the car accident. It would be wonderful short story. I’ve learned some sad and some encouraging historic facts about Zambia. And it made me google so I am grateful to the author as now I know much more about the region, their struggle for independence in the 60s, their history since then. I enjoyed the company of some of her characters as well.
But the last 1/9 including the end has substantially damaged my overall opinion. She has moved gear towards dystopia which was neither particularly original, nor particularly successful. I understood that she studied Afrofuturism in her academic career. That might be a trigger. But for me personally it took away the spell the book has had on me in spite of its limitations.
I kept 3 stars as it is a debut novel. But for me it was rather 3 for the whole and 1 for the last part.
February 8, 2025
4,5
"En el prefacio de una antología de la literatura rusa Vladimir Nabokov declaró que no había encontrado una sola página de Dostoievski digna de ser incluida, en los anales de la literatura rusa. Y frente a este comentario, Jorge L. Borges afirmó que Dostoievski no debe ser juzgado por cada página sino por la suma de páginas que componen el libro. (Prólogo a Los Demonios, de F. Dostoievski). A su vez, Nabokov decía sobre la literatura de Borges "Esperaba encontrarme con una catedral, y me encontré con un zaguán".
De la misma manera, en La deriva tal vez no se encuentre alguna página memorable (aunque hay algunas muy buenas), ni muchas frases dignas de citar; en cambio, sí, una rica historia, con muchos personajes, llena de matices, y cruces insospechados. Si tuviera que clasificarlo, diría que se parece más a Dostoievski que a Borges o al mismo Nabokov.
En el inicio era el río Zambeze, fuente de vida, que contiene en su curso las majestuosas Cataratas de Victoria. El río Zambeze, que dividía Rodesia del Norte y del Sur, actualmente Zambia y Zimbabue (ambos tomaron su nombre del río), y que será, junto a mosquitos y otros bichos, un protagonista más de esta historia.
Y continúa la historia con la llegada de los primeros europeos, y entre ellos Mr. Percy Clark a la zona de las Cataratas de Victoria, a un asentamiento bautizado The old drift (La vieja deriva o corriente), lugares que había dado a conocer en Europa ese gran personaje, médico, predicador y explorador, que fuera David Livingstone (1813-1873).
Y de algunos participantes de esa parte, surgirán posteriormente los tres linajes protagonistas de la novela: la italiana, la africana, la británica. Y en cada linaje se presentará primero a Las abuelas, luego a Las madres, y finalmente a Los hijos, con los que la historia llega a octubre de 2023. Una línea matrilineal que está descripta claramente en un árbol genealógico incluido en libro, de tipo convergente, y que me resultó muy útil para consultar ante la la reaparición de personajes de generaciones anteriores. Y con una tendencia al mestizaje, que logra, a lo largo de la novela, el maravilloso efecto de que ya no interese al lector el color de la piel.
La novela transcurre principalmente en Lusaka, la capital de Zambia, y en particular en el barrio Kalingalinga. Cuenta una historia magnífica, por momentos alucinada, con un gran conocimiento histórico y geográfico, con un ritmo muy intenso, y una notable creatividad. Y que a medida que transcurre permite descubrir, algunas relaciones no conocidas entre los tres linajes, hasta que se unen finalmente en la parte de Los hijos.
La redacción es buena y clara, y permite acompañar la trama compleja que van construyendo los personajes y las situaciones históricas. Se pueden encontrar algunos casos de estreotipia, sobre todo en los personajes secundarios, y me parecieron débiles varios de los diálogos, aunque tal vez se decidió respetar el tipo de lenguaje del lugar.
El episodio de los afronautas que se entrenaban para ir a Marte dentro de un barril que rodaba por una pendiente, mencionada en la novela, de acuerdo a lo referido por Juan Forn en Yo recordaré por ustedes, había sido una astuta mascarada del presidente Kaunda y su ejecutor Nkoloso, para esconder a los países europeos la organización de milicias que colaboraban con las luchas de independencia de países vecinos.
Aunque por momentos se me hizo un poco larga, con momentos áridos o agridulces, una novela exuberante y magnífica, y que me parece recomendable para quienes están dispuestos a encarar este tipo de aventura.
Como cierre alusivo, en relación con esto último, vuelvo a Dostoievski y Borges, con otra parte del prólogo citado al comienzo:
"...el descubrimiento de Dostoievski marca una fecha memorable de nuestra vida. Suele corresponder a la adolescencia; la madurez busca y descubre a escritores serenos."
Quisieron las circunstancias que nos hayamos encontrado en este momento de mi vida; si la hubiera leído en mi juventud, me hubiera volado la cabeza.
Namwali Serpell nació en Lusaka, Zambia, en el año 1980. Se formó en la Universidad de Harvard y en la de Yale, e imparte clases en la Universidad de Berkeley, California. Reside en San Francisco.
"En el prefacio de una antología de la literatura rusa Vladimir Nabokov declaró que no había encontrado una sola página de Dostoievski digna de ser incluida, en los anales de la literatura rusa. Y frente a este comentario, Jorge L. Borges afirmó que Dostoievski no debe ser juzgado por cada página sino por la suma de páginas que componen el libro. (Prólogo a Los Demonios, de F. Dostoievski). A su vez, Nabokov decía sobre la literatura de Borges "Esperaba encontrarme con una catedral, y me encontré con un zaguán".
De la misma manera, en La deriva tal vez no se encuentre alguna página memorable (aunque hay algunas muy buenas), ni muchas frases dignas de citar; en cambio, sí, una rica historia, con muchos personajes, llena de matices, y cruces insospechados. Si tuviera que clasificarlo, diría que se parece más a Dostoievski que a Borges o al mismo Nabokov.
En el inicio era el río Zambeze, fuente de vida, que contiene en su curso las majestuosas Cataratas de Victoria. El río Zambeze, que dividía Rodesia del Norte y del Sur, actualmente Zambia y Zimbabue (ambos tomaron su nombre del río), y que será, junto a mosquitos y otros bichos, un protagonista más de esta historia.
Y continúa la historia con la llegada de los primeros europeos, y entre ellos Mr. Percy Clark a la zona de las Cataratas de Victoria, a un asentamiento bautizado The old drift (La vieja deriva o corriente), lugares que había dado a conocer en Europa ese gran personaje, médico, predicador y explorador, que fuera David Livingstone (1813-1873).
Y de algunos participantes de esa parte, surgirán posteriormente los tres linajes protagonistas de la novela: la italiana, la africana, la británica. Y en cada linaje se presentará primero a Las abuelas, luego a Las madres, y finalmente a Los hijos, con los que la historia llega a octubre de 2023. Una línea matrilineal que está descripta claramente en un árbol genealógico incluido en libro, de tipo convergente, y que me resultó muy útil para consultar ante la la reaparición de personajes de generaciones anteriores. Y con una tendencia al mestizaje, que logra, a lo largo de la novela, el maravilloso efecto de que ya no interese al lector el color de la piel.
La novela transcurre principalmente en Lusaka, la capital de Zambia, y en particular en el barrio Kalingalinga. Cuenta una historia magnífica, por momentos alucinada, con un gran conocimiento histórico y geográfico, con un ritmo muy intenso, y una notable creatividad. Y que a medida que transcurre permite descubrir, algunas relaciones no conocidas entre los tres linajes, hasta que se unen finalmente en la parte de Los hijos.
La redacción es buena y clara, y permite acompañar la trama compleja que van construyendo los personajes y las situaciones históricas. Se pueden encontrar algunos casos de estreotipia, sobre todo en los personajes secundarios, y me parecieron débiles varios de los diálogos, aunque tal vez se decidió respetar el tipo de lenguaje del lugar.
El episodio de los afronautas que se entrenaban para ir a Marte dentro de un barril que rodaba por una pendiente, mencionada en la novela, de acuerdo a lo referido por Juan Forn en Yo recordaré por ustedes, había sido una astuta mascarada del presidente Kaunda y su ejecutor Nkoloso, para esconder a los países europeos la organización de milicias que colaboraban con las luchas de independencia de países vecinos.
Aunque por momentos se me hizo un poco larga, con momentos áridos o agridulces, una novela exuberante y magnífica, y que me parece recomendable para quienes están dispuestos a encarar este tipo de aventura.
Como cierre alusivo, en relación con esto último, vuelvo a Dostoievski y Borges, con otra parte del prólogo citado al comienzo:
"...el descubrimiento de Dostoievski marca una fecha memorable de nuestra vida. Suele corresponder a la adolescencia; la madurez busca y descubre a escritores serenos."
Quisieron las circunstancias que nos hayamos encontrado en este momento de mi vida; si la hubiera leído en mi juventud, me hubiera volado la cabeza.
Namwali Serpell nació en Lusaka, Zambia, en el año 1980. Se formó en la Universidad de Harvard y en la de Yale, e imparte clases en la Universidad de Berkeley, California. Reside en San Francisco.
Read
May 11, 2019The lyrical, lush prose and remarkable sensory language in this novel placed me firmly in Zambia, which hooked me right out the gate. In the first section, I was fascinated by the character of Sibilla, with her continually growing hair (hypertrichosis) and also by Agnes, who loses her vision. And I think the mosquitoes, who also have a narrative voice in this story, were my favorite characters.
But I have to admit my interest began to wane three characters in -- with Matha -- which is to say that the more I read, the more I learn about my personal reading tastes. Who knew, but I often am not actually a fan of multigenerational tales or ones that host such large casts of characters that I can’t delve deeply enough into their emotional lives. (While I appreciated Homegoing and Barkskins, and even Vanishing Earth, I had similar ‘connection’ issues with these stories as well). Such is the case here, where the stories felt so marginally connected and the characters only partially fleshed-out due to the sheer quantity of 'players,' making the book read as a series of short stories (sadly, also not my go-to).
And so, this is a clear case of “It’s me, not you" because the author’s talent is evident, and others have really devoured this book. I would love to read something from this author in the future – maybe less experimental and more character driven (if this is even something that interests HER!).
If you enjoy VERY literary fiction, history, politics, short stories, and experimental fiction, this may be up your alley. But it will take some work on your part. It’s a complex and physically long book – almost 600 pages – and you will definitely need to review and revisit the family tree at the beginning to keep your bearings.
I received a copy of this book as part of the First Reads program, through the publisher. Many thanks for the opportunity to read a talented, new voice in literary fiction.
But I have to admit my interest began to wane three characters in -- with Matha -- which is to say that the more I read, the more I learn about my personal reading tastes. Who knew, but I often am not actually a fan of multigenerational tales or ones that host such large casts of characters that I can’t delve deeply enough into their emotional lives. (While I appreciated Homegoing and Barkskins, and even Vanishing Earth, I had similar ‘connection’ issues with these stories as well). Such is the case here, where the stories felt so marginally connected and the characters only partially fleshed-out due to the sheer quantity of 'players,' making the book read as a series of short stories (sadly, also not my go-to).
And so, this is a clear case of “It’s me, not you" because the author’s talent is evident, and others have really devoured this book. I would love to read something from this author in the future – maybe less experimental and more character driven (if this is even something that interests HER!).
If you enjoy VERY literary fiction, history, politics, short stories, and experimental fiction, this may be up your alley. But it will take some work on your part. It’s a complex and physically long book – almost 600 pages – and you will definitely need to review and revisit the family tree at the beginning to keep your bearings.
I received a copy of this book as part of the First Reads program, through the publisher. Many thanks for the opportunity to read a talented, new voice in literary fiction.
August 31, 2021
3.5 stars
This is a big, ambitious book, very much itself rather than the latest imitator in a well-established genre, which in a way makes it hard to criticize, because could it be different while still accomplishing what the author was trying to do? And I’m glad to have read it even though I enjoyed some parts much more than others. But it’s definitely not for every reader, and there are a couple elements that concern me.
When I say big book, I mean both in terms of word count—those 566 pages are not kidding, they are large and packed with words—and scope. It consists mostly of 9 novella-length chapters, following three families over three generations. It covers several decades of Zambian history, from the colonial past through the present and an imagined near-future. It contains elements of many genres: the multigenerational family saga, 20th century historical fiction, and the contemporary politically-aware novel are the most prominent, but there are elements of magic realism in the earlier chapters and science fiction in the later ones. It can be a bit difficult to get started—there’s the Greek chorus of mosquitoes that appear between each major chapter, but these sections are mercifully short. And then there’s the first-person segment at the beginning adapted from the autobiography of a real British colonist, which is not representative of the rest of the book either in voice (otherwise it’s in a relatively distant third person) or racism (the book clearly does not endorse this character’s opinions). As some compensation for the length of the book and the chapters, it’s built of much shorter segments, moving freely among characters and through time.
Unfortunately for me, I wound up enjoying the first generation’s chapters much more than the next two. The grandmothers have great stories: there’s Sibilla, an Italian immigrant who begins life as a child servant and whose body is covered with constantly-growing hair; Agnes, a British tennis star who goes blind as a young adult, falls in love with a Zambian college student before realizing his race, and starts a new married life in his newly-independent country; and Matha, a Zambian village girl who is bright and eager for education despite the roadblocks society puts in her way, and whose journey includes membership in the publicity stunt(?) of a Zambian space program as a teenager. I was totally there for this part.
Then we get to the second generation: Sylvia, who has a difficult start in life but never seems interested in anything other than men, and soon becomes a prostitute; Isabella, who feels out of place as a white woman in Zambia and is considered boring even by her own mother; and a dysfunctional couple, Lee and Thandiwe, a doctor with infidelity problems and a flight attendant who decides she’s willing to put up with his crap. And finally, their children: the arrogant Joseph, who attempts to continue his father’s medical research until he doesn’t; Jacob, a poorly-educated mechanical whiz whose poverty leads him to put his skills to perhaps not the best of uses; and Naila, a grungy activist who wants to overthrow capitalism but meanwhile can’t seem to decide between the two men. Parts of these stories engaged me, Serpell is a good writer, but too many other parts boiled down to “boring people having sex.” This book is full of sex, complete with many descriptions of where the semen winds up afterwards; it’s one of those books that likes to include lots of bodily fluids because realism, I guess. As someone else said, I have never seen so much on-page menstruation.
At any rate, the later sections engaged me less: the middle generation, in particular, didn’t seem to have a lot of purpose. Two of these chapters grew from previous short stories, which perhaps explains their inclusion where tangential to the book. The final section certainly has a purpose, but then much of it consists of the three young people sitting around smoking pot and arguing about the world; it’s notable that despite their activism, not only do they never agree on an actual platform among the three of them, but I never had the sense that any of the three had a coherent individual vision either. Maybe that’s deliberate, it being easier to destroy than create. The ending is very sudden, in both its personal and political developments, and seemed like it needed another 50-100 pages to flesh out properly.
That said, there’s also a lot that’s very good, even in the later sections. The settings are vivid and well-developed. The dialogue is realistic, full of character and at times goofy, with characters who have particularly eccentric ways of speaking. The characters feel real, even when they’re unpleasant (perhaps part of why I disliked Joseph and Naila is that I’ve met people like them in real life—though had their storylines been more compelling this might not have been a problem). The author doesn’t shy away from giving characters flaws and complex reactions to events; they do come across three-dimensionally. There’s a lot of interesting racial diversity in the cast, which includes multiple mixed race families (one black and white, the other white and Indian). The broad scope really is fun and means there’s always something new. The vision of the near future is interesting and feels believable, and actually starts to diverge from the real timeline in the mid-2010s, which keeps it from feeling immediately outdated when the book’s 2020 doesn’t look like the real world’s 2020. The author’s scope of research and knowledge seems quite large, from WWII Italian history to AIDS research to drones. And even the mosquitoes are perhaps saved by the fact that they often rhyme.
But there are a couple other aspects I’m side-eyeing. The book draws very heavily from some real-world sources, to the point of repurposing people who actually lived, which I’m not entirely comfortable with. Percy Clark was a real colonist, and it seems vaguely plagiaristic, even if technically legal, to slightly adapt his autobiography and sell it as one’s own fiction; Edward Makuka Nkoloso, the activist and space program founder, was also a real person, which in a way is a fun tidbit because this is such a wacky episode, but he’s turned into a major character in Matha’s section with presumably significant artistic license. Matha Mwamba herself (spelled Mwambwa in real life) was also a real teenage “space cadet,” slated to travel to Mars with two cats, and unlike the other two not even really a public figure—I wonder what she (if she’s still living) and her family would think of this portrayal, and why the author couldn’t just change the names. In all the acknowledgements I see none to the real people portrayed or their families.
Also, the vaccine skepticism doesn’t sit well with me, especially here in 2021. In a workplace survey as to whether we should require COVID-19 vaccination—in a job that involves interacting with vulnerable populations—we actually had a self-described conspiracy theorist cite works of fiction (specifically, zombie movies) as the basis for their resistance. Creators need to be responsible with this shit.
Overall though, this is an impressive book, and while my level of enjoyment varied, I did ultimately find it worth the substantial time required. I would be interested to see what Serpell does next, though after this book I’m left wondering what’s left to do!
This is a big, ambitious book, very much itself rather than the latest imitator in a well-established genre, which in a way makes it hard to criticize, because could it be different while still accomplishing what the author was trying to do? And I’m glad to have read it even though I enjoyed some parts much more than others. But it’s definitely not for every reader, and there are a couple elements that concern me.
When I say big book, I mean both in terms of word count—those 566 pages are not kidding, they are large and packed with words—and scope. It consists mostly of 9 novella-length chapters, following three families over three generations. It covers several decades of Zambian history, from the colonial past through the present and an imagined near-future. It contains elements of many genres: the multigenerational family saga, 20th century historical fiction, and the contemporary politically-aware novel are the most prominent, but there are elements of magic realism in the earlier chapters and science fiction in the later ones. It can be a bit difficult to get started—there’s the Greek chorus of mosquitoes that appear between each major chapter, but these sections are mercifully short. And then there’s the first-person segment at the beginning adapted from the autobiography of a real British colonist, which is not representative of the rest of the book either in voice (otherwise it’s in a relatively distant third person) or racism (the book clearly does not endorse this character’s opinions). As some compensation for the length of the book and the chapters, it’s built of much shorter segments, moving freely among characters and through time.
Unfortunately for me, I wound up enjoying the first generation’s chapters much more than the next two. The grandmothers have great stories: there’s Sibilla, an Italian immigrant who begins life as a child servant and whose body is covered with constantly-growing hair; Agnes, a British tennis star who goes blind as a young adult, falls in love with a Zambian college student before realizing his race, and starts a new married life in his newly-independent country; and Matha, a Zambian village girl who is bright and eager for education despite the roadblocks society puts in her way, and whose journey includes membership in the publicity stunt(?) of a Zambian space program as a teenager. I was totally there for this part.
Then we get to the second generation: Sylvia, who has a difficult start in life but never seems interested in anything other than men, and soon becomes a prostitute; Isabella, who feels out of place as a white woman in Zambia and is considered boring even by her own mother; and a dysfunctional couple, Lee and Thandiwe, a doctor with infidelity problems and a flight attendant who decides she’s willing to put up with his crap. And finally, their children: the arrogant Joseph, who attempts to continue his father’s medical research until he doesn’t; Jacob, a poorly-educated mechanical whiz whose poverty leads him to put his skills to perhaps not the best of uses; and Naila, a grungy activist who wants to overthrow capitalism but meanwhile can’t seem to decide between the two men. Parts of these stories engaged me, Serpell is a good writer, but too many other parts boiled down to “boring people having sex.” This book is full of sex, complete with many descriptions of where the semen winds up afterwards; it’s one of those books that likes to include lots of bodily fluids because realism, I guess. As someone else said, I have never seen so much on-page menstruation.
At any rate, the later sections engaged me less: the middle generation, in particular, didn’t seem to have a lot of purpose. Two of these chapters grew from previous short stories, which perhaps explains their inclusion where tangential to the book. The final section certainly has a purpose, but then much of it consists of the three young people sitting around smoking pot and arguing about the world; it’s notable that despite their activism, not only do they never agree on an actual platform among the three of them, but I never had the sense that any of the three had a coherent individual vision either. Maybe that’s deliberate, it being easier to destroy than create. The ending is very sudden, in both its personal and political developments, and seemed like it needed another 50-100 pages to flesh out properly.
That said, there’s also a lot that’s very good, even in the later sections. The settings are vivid and well-developed. The dialogue is realistic, full of character and at times goofy, with characters who have particularly eccentric ways of speaking. The characters feel real, even when they’re unpleasant (perhaps part of why I disliked Joseph and Naila is that I’ve met people like them in real life—though had their storylines been more compelling this might not have been a problem). The author doesn’t shy away from giving characters flaws and complex reactions to events; they do come across three-dimensionally. There’s a lot of interesting racial diversity in the cast, which includes multiple mixed race families (one black and white, the other white and Indian). The broad scope really is fun and means there’s always something new. The vision of the near future is interesting and feels believable, and actually starts to diverge from the real timeline in the mid-2010s, which keeps it from feeling immediately outdated when the book’s 2020 doesn’t look like the real world’s 2020. The author’s scope of research and knowledge seems quite large, from WWII Italian history to AIDS research to drones. And even the mosquitoes are perhaps saved by the fact that they often rhyme.
But there are a couple other aspects I’m side-eyeing. The book draws very heavily from some real-world sources, to the point of repurposing people who actually lived, which I’m not entirely comfortable with. Percy Clark was a real colonist, and it seems vaguely plagiaristic, even if technically legal, to slightly adapt his autobiography and sell it as one’s own fiction; Edward Makuka Nkoloso, the activist and space program founder, was also a real person, which in a way is a fun tidbit because this is such a wacky episode, but he’s turned into a major character in Matha’s section with presumably significant artistic license. Matha Mwamba herself (spelled Mwambwa in real life) was also a real teenage “space cadet,” slated to travel to Mars with two cats, and unlike the other two not even really a public figure—I wonder what she (if she’s still living) and her family would think of this portrayal, and why the author couldn’t just change the names. In all the acknowledgements I see none to the real people portrayed or their families.
Also, the vaccine skepticism doesn’t sit well with me, especially here in 2021. In a workplace survey as to whether we should require COVID-19 vaccination—in a job that involves interacting with vulnerable populations—we actually had a self-described conspiracy theorist cite works of fiction (specifically, zombie movies) as the basis for their resistance. Creators need to be responsible with this shit.
Overall though, this is an impressive book, and while my level of enjoyment varied, I did ultimately find it worth the substantial time required. I would be interested to see what Serpell does next, though after this book I’m left wondering what’s left to do!
September 3, 2021
Romanzo poderoso e sorprendente, che soffre, a mio modesto parere, di un difetto strutturale: l'autrice l'ha voluto riempire di troppe cose, compromettendone così l’equilibrio.
Ma si tratta, come è ovvio, dell'equilibrio che ho percepito io, che pensavo tenesse insieme tutto, non è detto sia quello cui mirava Namwali Serpell.
Tre generazioni di tre famiglie, nonne, madri e nipoti, danzano tra queste pagine, ma dopo il primo giro, affascinante e bizzarro, Serpell si concentrerà su alcuni temi (il vaccino contro l’HIV, neo-colonialismo, sviluppo tecnologico e discariche di e-waste, subbugli rivoluzionari), arricchendoli di elementi futuristici, anche cyberpunk (ma ormai il cyberpunk è la realtà digitale e interconnessa) e tentando sul finale della terza parte la chiusura del cerchio, quasi rinnegando o forse ricucendo la frammentarietà iniziale; ha voluto trasformare quel promettente e stupefacente caleidoscopio di storie in un mostro narrativo che assomiglia tanto ai giga-romanzi di Richard Powers.
L’autrice stessa nei ringraziamenti a fine libro accenna alla lunga gestazione del romanzo, frutto forse, suppongo io, di un collage di scritti diversi. E questo si riflette sullo stile: Namwali Serpell ha una bella penna, ma in non tutte le pagine sembra aver trovato la propria voce.
Sulla lunga vicenda di Matha, la prima possibile astronauta zambiana, scrive Serpell di aver messo a frutto le ricerche per un pezzo uscito sul New Yorker nel 2017 e dopo i tre capitoli iniziali (il prologo più i primi due), questo sembra quasi scritto da un'altra persona.
E allora, per tornare alla frammentarietà: il secondo capitolo è interamente ambientato ad Alba, prima, durante e dopo i 23 giorni (che restano tuttavia solo sullo sfondo) e protagonista è Sibilla, affetta da una soprannaturale proliferazione pilifera che le ricopre ogni angolo del corpo, un racconto coraggioso e bellissimo; nel capitolo successivo siamo in Inghilterra, un paio di decenni dopo, in compagnia di una giovane campionessa di tennis che d’un tratto perde la vista e sul campo da gioco di casa, mentre tenta di riconoscere la bontà del colpo dal suono della pallina sulle corde, incontra uno studente rhodesiano; anche questo pezzo è un gioiellino. Ecco poi il quarto capitolo di cui accennavo, con astro-Matha, gli afronauti e il progetto rivoluzionario di Nkoloso (personaggio storico), noiosetto e con meno brio, ma comunque interessante.
Qui si chiude la prima parte (le nonne), poi il romanzo vira verso il gigantismo powersiano, cambiando registro con la seconda parte (le figlie) e, un po’ meno, con la terza (i nipoti).
E dunque cos'è che ho letto in oltre ottocento pagine? un romanzo mosaico fatto di tessere diverse, schegge esplose di una narrazione frammentaria e dilatata o una sola lunga storia, formata da decine di rivoli, che poi convergono verso ciò di cui sin dall’inizio voleva parlarci l’autrice? a me sembra nessuna delle due cose, ma una via di mezzo in cui da qualche parte l'autrice ha perso il controllo.
Di qui i dubbi sulle stelle: 3 sono poche ma 4 troppe. Non so, forse premio il coraggio.
Ma si tratta, come è ovvio, dell'equilibrio che ho percepito io, che pensavo tenesse insieme tutto, non è detto sia quello cui mirava Namwali Serpell.
Tre generazioni di tre famiglie, nonne, madri e nipoti, danzano tra queste pagine, ma dopo il primo giro, affascinante e bizzarro, Serpell si concentrerà su alcuni temi (il vaccino contro l’HIV, neo-colonialismo, sviluppo tecnologico e discariche di e-waste, subbugli rivoluzionari), arricchendoli di elementi futuristici, anche cyberpunk (ma ormai il cyberpunk è la realtà digitale e interconnessa) e tentando sul finale della terza parte la chiusura del cerchio, quasi rinnegando o forse ricucendo la frammentarietà iniziale; ha voluto trasformare quel promettente e stupefacente caleidoscopio di storie in un mostro narrativo che assomiglia tanto ai giga-romanzi di Richard Powers.
L’autrice stessa nei ringraziamenti a fine libro accenna alla lunga gestazione del romanzo, frutto forse, suppongo io, di un collage di scritti diversi. E questo si riflette sullo stile: Namwali Serpell ha una bella penna, ma in non tutte le pagine sembra aver trovato la propria voce.
Sulla lunga vicenda di Matha, la prima possibile astronauta zambiana, scrive Serpell di aver messo a frutto le ricerche per un pezzo uscito sul New Yorker nel 2017 e dopo i tre capitoli iniziali (il prologo più i primi due), questo sembra quasi scritto da un'altra persona.
E allora, per tornare alla frammentarietà: il secondo capitolo è interamente ambientato ad Alba, prima, durante e dopo i 23 giorni (che restano tuttavia solo sullo sfondo) e protagonista è Sibilla, affetta da una soprannaturale proliferazione pilifera che le ricopre ogni angolo del corpo, un racconto coraggioso e bellissimo; nel capitolo successivo siamo in Inghilterra, un paio di decenni dopo, in compagnia di una giovane campionessa di tennis che d’un tratto perde la vista e sul campo da gioco di casa, mentre tenta di riconoscere la bontà del colpo dal suono della pallina sulle corde, incontra uno studente rhodesiano; anche questo pezzo è un gioiellino. Ecco poi il quarto capitolo di cui accennavo, con astro-Matha, gli afronauti e il progetto rivoluzionario di Nkoloso (personaggio storico), noiosetto e con meno brio, ma comunque interessante.
Qui si chiude la prima parte (le nonne), poi il romanzo vira verso il gigantismo powersiano, cambiando registro con la seconda parte (le figlie) e, un po’ meno, con la terza (i nipoti).
E dunque cos'è che ho letto in oltre ottocento pagine? un romanzo mosaico fatto di tessere diverse, schegge esplose di una narrazione frammentaria e dilatata o una sola lunga storia, formata da decine di rivoli, che poi convergono verso ciò di cui sin dall’inizio voleva parlarci l’autrice? a me sembra nessuna delle due cose, ma una via di mezzo in cui da qualche parte l'autrice ha perso il controllo.
Di qui i dubbi sulle stelle: 3 sono poche ma 4 troppe. Non so, forse premio il coraggio.
May 14, 2021
4.5 stars rounded up.
Zambia is a fascinating country; I was lucky that I got the chance of visiting it back in 2017 for work and would jump at the opportunity to do it again. When I found out about this book, it was instantly a must-read, and being a Clarke Award winner is a bonus.
This is a magnificent family saga spanning for at least three generations, from the so-called discovery of Victoria Falls to 2023. The author put A LOT of things here: colonialism, racism/colorism, mixed marriages, forces of nature, poverty, AIDS epidemic, scientific discovery, and surrealism. It's a genre bender at its best. First chapters reminded me and my buddies a lot of Allende and Marquez. Each chapter is a different POV ; it was fascinating to see how their lives intertwined up to the modern day. Credit to Bonnie, she provided this guide if you're confused of who's who: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-th...
I also very much enjoyed how the author inserted the history from the Rhodesian days. Some of it could make you go 'wait, did that really happen' and yes most of them are, including the Zambian Space project. There's a quite long list of references at the end of the novel if you want to dig more.
I'd recommend you also read the first few reviews of this book as they already covered what I wanted to say. What I'd like to add is that you need to phase yourself when you read it, since it could really dense and hard to skim. The somewhat experimental writing might caught some off guard too. I spent almost a month on it and it's one of those long read that I truly savored.
PS: The current buddy read in SFFBC is still ongoing if you want to join us!
Zambia is a fascinating country; I was lucky that I got the chance of visiting it back in 2017 for work and would jump at the opportunity to do it again. When I found out about this book, it was instantly a must-read, and being a Clarke Award winner is a bonus.
This is a magnificent family saga spanning for at least three generations, from the so-called discovery of Victoria Falls to 2023. The author put A LOT of things here: colonialism, racism/colorism, mixed marriages, forces of nature, poverty, AIDS epidemic, scientific discovery, and surrealism. It's a genre bender at its best. First chapters reminded me and my buddies a lot of Allende and Marquez. Each chapter is a different POV ; it was fascinating to see how their lives intertwined up to the modern day. Credit to Bonnie, she provided this guide if you're confused of who's who: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-th...
I also very much enjoyed how the author inserted the history from the Rhodesian days. Some of it could make you go 'wait, did that really happen' and yes most of them are, including the Zambian Space project. There's a quite long list of references at the end of the novel if you want to dig more.
I'd recommend you also read the first few reviews of this book as they already covered what I wanted to say. What I'd like to add is that you need to phase yourself when you read it, since it could really dense and hard to skim. The somewhat experimental writing might caught some off guard too. I spent almost a month on it and it's one of those long read that I truly savored.
PS: The current buddy read in SFFBC is still ongoing if you want to join us!
April 17, 2019
A woman covered, head to toe, in long flowing hair. A young tennis prodigy who succumbs to blindness. A woman unable to stop crying. Intriguing, yes? Truly memorable characters and the matriarchs of the three families - one white, one black and one mixed race - that are at the core of Namwali Serpell’s ambitious, sprawling, multigenerational novel that traces the history of Zambia. Serpell is a gifted storyteller, in fact this is very much like a novel of linked stories, looking at each family and their descendants separately before they all gradually begin to merge later in the novel. The writing is impressive, bold and energetic; the author inventive and fearless in her subtle mixing of genres. This is an excellent, often exhilarating debut novel; however, it is not without flaws, most, unfortunately, towards the end of the novel. While ambition is to be admired, the large scope makes for a big book, a long read, one that I imagine could try some readers’ patience – it did mine to some extent as I felt as if I had been reading it forever and was ready for the author to wrap it all up. Still, Serpell is such an exciting new voice, her talent undenible, that it is easy to overlook and dismiss most of the flaws and missteps. Definitely an author to watch!
May 27, 2019
I started this review yesterday and found myself going the wrong way, revealing too much information, and mentioning quibbles rather than lauding the author for her effort and accomplishment. This was one of the books I most anticipated when I first looked the offerings to come for 2019. I was not disappointed, though the novel was somewhat different than I expected. Serpell has attempted to write the great Zambian novel, from British colonial origins, to present, and even extending as speculative fiction into the near future! Those aspirations bring to mind Dos Passos with his U.S.A trilogy and comparisons can be made. Like Dos Passos, Serpell may or may not have succeeded in capturing the history of Zambia but it is one enjoyable attempt.
She structures her novel into three sections of three chapters each. The first section introduces three character with different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds with the next two sections concerned with second and third generations and their eventual interactions. The main sections are sandwiched between two smaller chapters introduce and conclude and are interspliced with a chorus and to explain more would be a spoiler, but it is unique and poetic. Serpell is a master of ellipsis and that is the dominant technique used in this novel, and if you get lost for a bit, you can be assured that Serpell will clarify at a later point.
Characters are a strength of this novel whether a woman completely covered with hair or a memorable recreation of Edward Makuka Nkoloso. The novel blends genre, moving from historical to speculative, and is an interesting experiment. My complaint with the novel would be that I wished the last two chapters were a bit longer and I guess that is a positive comment given the novel exceeds six hundred pages.
She structures her novel into three sections of three chapters each. The first section introduces three character with different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds with the next two sections concerned with second and third generations and their eventual interactions. The main sections are sandwiched between two smaller chapters introduce and conclude and are interspliced with a chorus and to explain more would be a spoiler, but it is unique and poetic. Serpell is a master of ellipsis and that is the dominant technique used in this novel, and if you get lost for a bit, you can be assured that Serpell will clarify at a later point.
Characters are a strength of this novel whether a woman completely covered with hair or a memorable recreation of Edward Makuka Nkoloso. The novel blends genre, moving from historical to speculative, and is an interesting experiment. My complaint with the novel would be that I wished the last two chapters were a bit longer and I guess that is a positive comment given the novel exceeds six hundred pages.
May 3, 2019
3.5 stars
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The Old Drift brings together the story of a Zambian family, beginning deep in the family tree, before any relation had been established between them all. The story weaves through multiple generations, with each chapter focusing on a single member of the family. The story is wide-ranging, and shows the many facets of Zambian life, and explores what it means to be a Zambian.
Before I dive into the reasons why I didn't enjoy this book so much, I will start with the positive. Serpell's writing style is gorgeous, and I would say is the main reason I bothered to finish this book. Her beautiful descriptions of the landscape helped me place myself in Zambia, and truly understand what it was like to live there at different periods in history. I also enjoyed the historical tidbits dropped throughout the novel about how Zambia advanced from a European colony to the independent nation it is today. However, that's where the good ends for me.
As mentioned, this book is driven by its characters. Each chapter focuses on a new family member, and tells their story. I found it hard to connect and care about a lot of the characters in this book, making it quite a slog at some points. The chapters themselves could also be quite confusing, since they might jump behind or ahead of the timeline at which the previous chapter stopped. It made for a lot of thinking to figure out where in the narrative I was, which shouldn't really be necessary.
Also, some chapters just seemed too long, and like they went down tangents that didn't seem too relevant to the greater story line, at least to me. Sometimes those tangents included focusing on a new, minor character, which I thought was really unnecessary and confusing. With so many characters, across such a long book, I found it hard to keep track of all the narratives, and even forgot some of them when I got towards the end of the book. And the end of the book was when all these stories were most important, as we finally get to see some interaction between these characters, and the merging of the family. I just thought this took way too long to finally get to, and made the reading process confusing and slightly too hard to be enjoyable.
Generally, I just thought this book was too long. I think the historical context and the varied backgrounds of different characters could have been communicated in a much shorter novel. The narrative got more interesting right at the end, when it kind of entered some sort of futuristic setting, but why couldn't that have happened 100-200 pages earlier? I don't think a book has to be of epic length to have a great impact, and so I was just let down with this. I hope others can find more enjoyment than I did, though I am curious to keep up with Serpell's work and see what she brings out in the future.
Thank you to Hogarth for providing me with an advanced copy. :)
-
The Old Drift brings together the story of a Zambian family, beginning deep in the family tree, before any relation had been established between them all. The story weaves through multiple generations, with each chapter focusing on a single member of the family. The story is wide-ranging, and shows the many facets of Zambian life, and explores what it means to be a Zambian.
Before I dive into the reasons why I didn't enjoy this book so much, I will start with the positive. Serpell's writing style is gorgeous, and I would say is the main reason I bothered to finish this book. Her beautiful descriptions of the landscape helped me place myself in Zambia, and truly understand what it was like to live there at different periods in history. I also enjoyed the historical tidbits dropped throughout the novel about how Zambia advanced from a European colony to the independent nation it is today. However, that's where the good ends for me.
As mentioned, this book is driven by its characters. Each chapter focuses on a new family member, and tells their story. I found it hard to connect and care about a lot of the characters in this book, making it quite a slog at some points. The chapters themselves could also be quite confusing, since they might jump behind or ahead of the timeline at which the previous chapter stopped. It made for a lot of thinking to figure out where in the narrative I was, which shouldn't really be necessary.
Also, some chapters just seemed too long, and like they went down tangents that didn't seem too relevant to the greater story line, at least to me. Sometimes those tangents included focusing on a new, minor character, which I thought was really unnecessary and confusing. With so many characters, across such a long book, I found it hard to keep track of all the narratives, and even forgot some of them when I got towards the end of the book. And the end of the book was when all these stories were most important, as we finally get to see some interaction between these characters, and the merging of the family. I just thought this took way too long to finally get to, and made the reading process confusing and slightly too hard to be enjoyable.
Generally, I just thought this book was too long. I think the historical context and the varied backgrounds of different characters could have been communicated in a much shorter novel. The narrative got more interesting right at the end, when it kind of entered some sort of futuristic setting, but why couldn't that have happened 100-200 pages earlier? I don't think a book has to be of epic length to have a great impact, and so I was just let down with this. I hope others can find more enjoyment than I did, though I am curious to keep up with Serpell's work and see what she brings out in the future.
Thank you to Hogarth for providing me with an advanced copy. :)
April 9, 2020
'The Old Drift' charts the history of Zambia from when it was nothing more than an idea in the mind of various intrepid colonialists its future as a state which has long left behind the trappings of modernity, yet still feels entrapped in the inequities created by colonialism. Serpell's Marquezesque narrative style coupled with her poetic depiction of Zambia, from its arboreal splendours to the all encompassing metropolises which seem to spring from the air, lend an epic feel to the story, as Serpell grapples with problems as far ranging us the outbreak of AIDS, the fall out following colonialism and the use of tech as a weapon of opression.
The novel is populated by a uniquely global set of characters, from the fratricide which caused a two characters to elope form Italy to Zambia, to the blind Englishwoman who falls in live with the visiting Zambian student or the Indian shopkeeper who seeks his fortune in wig-making, the characters are brought together for a wide variety of reasons. There is, however, an air of cynicism in Serpell's depictions of almost of the relationships depicted in the novel, with the initial pangs of love being replaced by indifference or, at times, hatred. Indeed Serpell's view of most of the characters in the story is laced with cynicism, whether it be outwardly progressive Europeans who harbour the same prejudices as the people they criticise for being racist, to the political revolutionaries who end up parroting the colonialists they sought to overthrow or of the corruption which is endemic is both pre and post colonial Zambia. Perhaps this is Serpell's way of saying that maintaining any sense of empathy is difficult in a country which is as systematically unfair and impoverished as Zambia.
Yet, despite all of this, there is still considerably beauty interspersed with the brutality;
"The shadowy black forest writhed its branches before them. The lunar rainbow, pale and shimmering, gave the whole scene a touch of faery. I was awed beyond words, as if standing in the presence of a Power quite ineffable"
Although this mellifluous description of Zambia takes part early in the novel via the eye of a colonialist who is ready to plunder and poison the beauty which he discovers, brief glimpses of Zambia's magnificence appear throughout the novel, as it becomes increasingly clear that the ugliness is a product of the corruption which has spread through the country following its colonisation, a ugliness which may have been washed away by an event which takes place at the end of the story, perhaps giving Zambians a real chance to start afresh.
The novel is populated by a uniquely global set of characters, from the fratricide which caused a two characters to elope form Italy to Zambia, to the blind Englishwoman who falls in live with the visiting Zambian student or the Indian shopkeeper who seeks his fortune in wig-making, the characters are brought together for a wide variety of reasons. There is, however, an air of cynicism in Serpell's depictions of almost of the relationships depicted in the novel, with the initial pangs of love being replaced by indifference or, at times, hatred. Indeed Serpell's view of most of the characters in the story is laced with cynicism, whether it be outwardly progressive Europeans who harbour the same prejudices as the people they criticise for being racist, to the political revolutionaries who end up parroting the colonialists they sought to overthrow or of the corruption which is endemic is both pre and post colonial Zambia. Perhaps this is Serpell's way of saying that maintaining any sense of empathy is difficult in a country which is as systematically unfair and impoverished as Zambia.
Yet, despite all of this, there is still considerably beauty interspersed with the brutality;
"The shadowy black forest writhed its branches before them. The lunar rainbow, pale and shimmering, gave the whole scene a touch of faery. I was awed beyond words, as if standing in the presence of a Power quite ineffable"
Although this mellifluous description of Zambia takes part early in the novel via the eye of a colonialist who is ready to plunder and poison the beauty which he discovers, brief glimpses of Zambia's magnificence appear throughout the novel, as it becomes increasingly clear that the ugliness is a product of the corruption which has spread through the country following its colonisation, a ugliness which may have been washed away by an event which takes place at the end of the story, perhaps giving Zambians a real chance to start afresh.
April 3, 2019
Epic in style, scope and material, The Old Drift presents Zambia, and by extension, the effects of colonization versus native population and personality. Each of the characters rings true, and some are actually based on actual people, but Namwali Serpell has done a masterwork for her debut novel. The writing is lush, the imagery sensual with much attention given to sensory effect and strong characterization that delineates the large cast. Highly recommended despite its huge size.
August 24, 2022
[abbandonato a pag. 247
La prima storia mi ha annoiata dall’inizio alla fine, ma ho provato ad andare avanti, nella speranza che le cose cambiassero.
La seconda storia mi ha effettivamente presa di più, ma sul più bello l’autrice la tronca.
Ho iniziato la terza storia, ma non ce l’ho più fatta.
E in tutta onestà non la definirei nemmeno una saga familiare se dopo quasi un terzo del libro tutte le storie e tutti i personaggi sono ancora scollegati tra loro.]
La prima storia mi ha annoiata dall’inizio alla fine, ma ho provato ad andare avanti, nella speranza che le cose cambiassero.
La seconda storia mi ha effettivamente presa di più, ma sul più bello l’autrice la tronca.
Ho iniziato la terza storia, ma non ce l’ho più fatta.
E in tutta onestà non la definirei nemmeno una saga familiare se dopo quasi un terzo del libro tutte le storie e tutti i personaggi sono ancora scollegati tra loro.]
October 15, 2021
“I set out for the drift five miles above the Falls, the port of entry into North-western Rhodesia. The Zambesi is at its deepest and narrowest here for hundreds of miles, so it’s the handiest spot for ‘drifting’ a body across. At first it was called Sekute’s Drift after a chief of the Leya. Then it was Clarke’s Drift, after the first white settler, whom I soon met. No one knows when it became The Old Drift.”
Multigenerational family saga that takes place from 1903 to 2023 in Zambia. It starts out as historical fiction in colonial times, covers Zambian independence in 1964, and ends in science fiction, including surveillance by mini-drones and devices implanted into human hands.
It is divided into three parts – The Grandmothers, The Mothers, and The Children. These parts are focused on the relationships, marriages, and offspring, describing the nitty gritty details of life, down to the ever-present droning mosquitos. These mosquitos even serve as narrators of interludes, which I assume is meant to be a form of Greek Chorus. There is a great section in the middle about the (real) Zambian space program.
It contains some very nicely written segments but comes across as a conglomeration of individual pieces. If I were asked to suggest an improvement for this debut, it would be to tighten it up. There are many digressions into areas that I ultimately found did not contribute much. The numerous characters and family relationships can be difficult to keep straight. It is lengthy (and feels lengthy while reading it). I can appreciate the creativity, but I am ultimately glad to be finished.
Multigenerational family saga that takes place from 1903 to 2023 in Zambia. It starts out as historical fiction in colonial times, covers Zambian independence in 1964, and ends in science fiction, including surveillance by mini-drones and devices implanted into human hands.
It is divided into three parts – The Grandmothers, The Mothers, and The Children. These parts are focused on the relationships, marriages, and offspring, describing the nitty gritty details of life, down to the ever-present droning mosquitos. These mosquitos even serve as narrators of interludes, which I assume is meant to be a form of Greek Chorus. There is a great section in the middle about the (real) Zambian space program.
It contains some very nicely written segments but comes across as a conglomeration of individual pieces. If I were asked to suggest an improvement for this debut, it would be to tighten it up. There are many digressions into areas that I ultimately found did not contribute much. The numerous characters and family relationships can be difficult to keep straight. It is lengthy (and feels lengthy while reading it). I can appreciate the creativity, but I am ultimately glad to be finished.
May 13, 2019
About multiple generations of three families whose lives intersect intimately eventually through colonial times into Zambian independence, and eventually into the future of technological warfare, this book did a lot of things. There was the generational component, as mentioned above, and this included Black Zambians, coloured Zambians, and European immigrants. The book had elements of magical realism. It had contemporary reflections on neocolonialism and medical experimentation on Black bodies. And it looked into the future of what dictatorial politics in a warming climate means for everyday people. All great material. But! I think it was too much material for one book, even an enormous one, which for me, meant that things didn’t go deep enough, and I didn’t feel enough for any of the storylines. I had a hard time keeping track of everyone, which I don’t think was helped by the book just casually disregarding characters, some of whom showed up again, but many of whom kind of just died or only got mentioned in passing later - the book was so youth-centric, once characters got old they kind of just faded away. I really didn’t take to anyone, and I had a hard time feeling any actual relationships of kin in a meaningful way. The intro to the first generation of characters was protracted, but unnecessarily I think - like the magical realism pieces - why? And then to have these characters just peter out. I think that the contemporary pieces around HIV/AIDS, and even some of the speculative components of the near future were stronger, that was the best for me. But I had lost my drive at that point, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, see why we had to start with older generations. They felt like separate stories, and I was lost expecting one thing and getting another. Start with the now I think, and provide a bit of family background, but don’t start before the logical beginning, especially at the cost of rushing the end. This was too many books in one for me. Thanks Net Galley for the arc, opinions are my own.
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