Great African Reads discussion

Welcome to our second tour stop of 2016--the Republic of Sudan! We are reading Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. From the Wikipedia page for the book:

"Season of Migration to the North (Arabic: موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال‎ Mawsim al-Hiǧra ilā ash-Shamāl) is a classic post-colonial Sudanese novel by the novelist Tayeb Salih. Originally published in Arabic in 1966, it has since been translated into more than twenty languages.[1] The English translation was published in 1969 as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. The novel is a counternarrative to Heart of Darkness. It was described by Edward Said as one of the ten great novels in Arabic literature."

Picked this up from the library the other day! I'm looking forward to it.

I will be joining as soon as I finish Nervous Conditions, but I'm really savouring this - such a great book!

I just finished it with many thoughts churning in my head.

Jean wrote: "I just finished it with many thoughts churning in my head."

Feel free to start sharing thoughts and asking questions! But since it's early in our tour stop, try to hide any spoilers.

I think I' ll wait until later.

Jean wrote: "I think I' ll wait until later."

okay; but don't forget all your thoughts! do you keep notes when you're reading?

Not usually but I think I need to begin note taking.

Jean, I feel the same way, and it's been a year since I read it! It's been haunting me ever since - I think that's an appropriate choice of word given what happens... And that last part of it has been echoing in my head. Wanted to re-read it as part of the group, but at the moment, deep into something else - I hope to at some point this year though.

My copy has just arrived. ;)

Thanks to the group for he needed push for me to finally read this book! I'd been meaning to but had not gotten around to it, and it's so short there's no reason not to. Looking forward to discussing it with you all.

I've read it (very short) and I didn't like it at all haha!

Zanna wrote: "I've read it (very short) and I didn't like it at all haha!"

I have to agree with you. :)

Marieke wrote: "Jean wrote: "I think I' ll wait until later."

okay; but don't forget all your thoughts! do you keep notes when you're reading?"

Sometimes I take notes.

But a lot of my reading is at night when lying down so not much notes.

But starting to keep small post-it notes so can mark a page if reading a print book.

I haven't found my note-taking groove. Sometimes I scribble down thoughts or quotes, sometimes I mark a page to go back to, sometimes I take a few moments to write down my reaction after I've been reading. The one thing I've tried to be consistent about in the last year is to write a "review" as soon as I've finished a book so that I can at the very least jog my memory in the future about whether and why I did or did not like a book. That's why my reviews are quite brief...they are all off the cuff! I don't have time or energy to do anything more in depth than that lol.

I don't take notes, but I fold down corners for things I want to remember -- much like using Post-It notes. Bottom corners for quotations I want to write down and top corners for things to come back to. Not ideal but does the trick!

I thought I would share my note-taking!
I sometimes write no notes at all, other times I write loads, it really depends on the book. Doris Lessing and Ursula Le Guin usually stimulate my to write pages. When I read Orientalism I filled a small school exercise book with notes - I keep the exercise book with my copy of the text!

I do most of my reading while commuting and I have a tiny book 15cm by 10cm and very thin, that I use to make notes in out and about. Usually I write very small! At the moment I am not making many notes:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

At home I read books that are too awkward to carry around, or ebooks on a mini-tablet. If I take notes, I write them in the back of my current to-do list notebook which lives on my desk, which is next to my bed (my bed is my desk chair - London living!)
This is my third double page of notes on The Wretched of the Earth
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

Reviewed it, though I may edit
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I did decide to go back and take notes on this book and ended up with quite a few notes. Notes, I must add, that lowered my rating of the book. I didn't physically lower the rating but in my mind I definitely did.

Marieke, is there a way to add the book to the 'this topic is about' thing? (Hoping to see people's ratings more easily...)

Zanna wrote: "Reviewed it, though I may edit
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Actually this is why I haven't read this book before. It does not sound appealing.

Liralen wrote: "Marieke, is there a way to add the book to the 'this topic is about' thing? (Hoping to see people's ratings more easily...)"

Of course! i just did it. So sorry about that; i just forgot when i set up the thread.

and since i came here to catch up after getting dinner set up in the crock pot, OF COURSE the baby wakes up from his nap. lol.

I'll be back later...so happy to see a discussion developing here :D

There were some things I liked about the book - the spontaneous night of revelry in the desert was an interesting scene. How did other folks interpret that?

I've just finished it and am not quite sure what to think, to be honest. Found it really interesting up until...midway? The colonialism themes are thought-provoking, but I get stuck on the way women are portrayed, even given the context of time and place. (view spoiler)[Forgive me the crassness, but I found Mustafa Sa'eed's magical penis of sexual prowess terribly confusing. What's with all these women committing suicide over him? (hide spoiler)]

Liralen wrote: "I've just finished it and am not quite sure what to think, to be honest. Found it really interesting up until...midway? The colonialism themes are thought-provoking, but I get stuck on the way wome..."

EXACTLY.

Liralen wrote: "I've just finished it and am not quite sure what to think, to be honest. Found it really interesting up until...midway? The colonialism themes are thought-provoking, but I get stuck on the way wome..."

(view spoiler)[there's no excuse for the women committing suicide over him - I can't get anything out of that - if it's symbolic, he should bloody well make it more symbolic, because I don't want to read about women killing themselves over some arrogant douchecanoe (hide spoiler)]

Ooh I've just thought - anyone wanting an antidote to this book - I HIGHLY recommend Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Hah! Yes. If it's symbolic of colonialism, okay, but the other symbols of colonialism aren't so thinly fleshed out: so why the women? Also, while all the men who've ever met Sa'eed seem to hold him in the highest esteem, the women just adore him (view spoiler)[or are possibly deranged (hide spoiler)]. That letter from Mrs Robinson -- 'I am keeping myself busy writing a book about our life -- about Ricky, Moozie and me. They were both great men, each in his own way... The book will actually be about Ricky and Moozie because I did nothing of note' (148).

I'd have to think this through more, but feels a little like it's mixing symbols? If women are seen as the colonised, but so are Sa'eed's marks in general, and you have women who are his marks...

Oh god that letter, I think I blocked it out...

Consider Hosna. (view spoiler)[she acts like someone who knows her body was hers alone, but Salih makes it seem like she just feels she belongs to Sa'eed so no-one else can touch her. Sa'eed can respond to colonialism, become it, extend it, subvert it, get away with it all, but Hosna is trapped and punished by the story (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[Are we to assume that Sa'eed did indeed die? There's not really anything to indicate that he didn't, but he does seem the sort to survive anyway and pop up somewhere else.

Re: Hosna -- the narrator refers to her as 'the only woman I have ever loved'. What are we to make of that? Seems odd considering that he barely knew her (and already had a wife and daughter, though that doesn't preclude loving someone else). Is her situation meant to be even more tragic because somebody loved her in a 'purer' way than either of the men she was married to?

I could find a mountain of symbolism in the narrator's dismissal of the suggestion to marry her, but how much of it would be accurate I'm less certain... (hide spoiler)]

Oh do speculate :-)

I found this essay about Mustafa Sa'eed's interracial relationships
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_1803...
I totally agree that the white women fail to divest from colonial thinking. Sa'eed primes and stokes and stirs up colonial thinking. It's a sting operation.

Marieke wrote: "I haven't found my note-taking groove. Sometimes I scribble down thoughts or quotes, sometimes I mark a page to go back to, sometimes I take a few moments to write down my reaction after I've been ..."

Congrats on doing comments as soon as you finish reading.
That is my goal for this year and I falling behind.

Zanna wrote: "I totally agree that the white women fail to divest from colonial thinking. Sa'eed primes and stokes and stirs up colonial thinking. It's a sting operation. "

Yes, as symbols of colonialism they are quite something. Ann Hammond's creepy eroticisation (is there an actual word for this?) of Sa'eed...although if the women are representatives of colonialism, I'm not sure how to interpret the suicides.

exactly

Zanna wrote: "Oh do speculate :-)"

Haha, okay, let's see how badly I can botch this: (view spoiler)[The narrator and Sa'eed have both been educated by a colonial power, though they're never going to be seen as more than symbols—model minorities, if you will—by that colonial power. Sa'eed takes that and twists it, using it to his advantage as best he can. The narrator takes things more at face value; he does the 'expected' and goes back to Sudan, taking a government position that sounds important but ultimately offers him very little chance to effect positive change.

With Hosna...well, the narrator—with his Western education and broader view of the world—is one of the only characters to object to her being forced to marry, which means he is rejecting the norms of his culture. At the same time, though, he rejects suggestions to marry her (and then, presumably, leave her be), which could be symbolic of a rejection of colonialism, etc.—i.e., although with his background he probably has the clout to make a difference, he's not going to impose his view of what he thinks is right/best.

The narrator more generally, then, can be taken as a symbol of the sort of best-case scenario of colonialism—on paper he's a success, but in practice he's unable to make a difference. (hide spoiler)]

Great analysis! I think it works. I concur with your reading that the narrator is made ineffectual by colonialism... it's as if he can only observe colonial processes in himself, he can't act...

Thanks, Zanna :)

You mentioned that 'spontaneous night of revelry' -- what did you make of that?

A glimpse of a possible life beyond colonialism, a unity of the people in the land. But - without ties? It is a floating world, a dream?

Bedouin people are famously socially liberal... the Bedu women are the only women present... what is their significance here?

I was also interested in the Bedouin man who begged a cigarette from the protagonist. Any thoughts on him?

I was thinking along similar lines -- it seems to be a moment of pure 'good' that's closely tied to local themes, with only minimal nods to outside influences (e.g., the headlights of the cars). But one that can't last.

Not sure what to make of the Bedouin, and I think my (white, Western, limited, contemporary, etc.) perspective is confusing matters there -- I'm inclined to see the cigarettes as a sort of Western corruption of this man, but I don't know if cigarettes are as much as a Western thing as I'm seeing them or if the author views them (as I do) as cancer sticks or...and yet, here the narrator is, talking about how hot and shadeless it is, and then along comes this man entrenched in a very old culture, energetic and flat-out surviving despite the heat (and lack of tobacco).

(Pssst Marieke/Beverly/Jean/Niraj/Rosa/anyone else -- any thoughts?)

Haha it's as if the cigarette is the only thing he needs from outside the desert = )

Liralen wrote: "(Pssst Marieke/Beverly/Jean/Niraj/Rosa/anyone else -- any thoughts?)"

i'm enjoying the discussion! i have read this book twice; once in college and once a few years ago. when i read it a few years ago, it was like reading it for the first time. i remembered basically nothing from college reading. and while everyone's comments are jogging my memory, my memory is not jogged enough for me to contribute without at least a skimming of the book...not sure if i can get around to a reread! i will try though since it's short and April is not quite as clogged with reading plans as March.

very happy to see all this discussion in any case!

Yes its been very stimulating!

Will be joining you shortly.

To me from the beginning of the book, Mustafa comes across as a cold selfish person with a sense of entitlement. My first thought is where is this coming from? Is it because his mother seems distant, or because there is no male figure after his father dies? Is this his genius mentally, or could it possibly be, even as a child, he feels the effects of the colonialism?

Interesting point -- even when he's first talking about his upbringing, he says he was never like other kids. I'm reluctant to attribute that to lack of a male figure (wouldn't bode well for his kids with Hosna!), but you're right that there isn't an explicit explanation for it.

Oh I'm glad to hear your perspective Jean. I thought that his self-description was so extreme, it must have been some predisposition to lacking empathy. Colonial/white ideology is militantly rationalist - all women and all native people are denigrated as 'emotional', so Mustafa's near-psychopathic lack of emotionality could be what gives him so much power to counter-colonise?!?!

Zanna wrote: "Mustafa's near-psychopathic lack of emotionality could be what gives him so much power to counter-colonise?"

Oof. What might that say about others' ability to counter-colonise? And what does it say that despite (because of?) his aloofness, etc., the women all adore him?

Colonizing requires negation of the humanity of the colonised no? The less you feel, the more you can raze. The women are socialised to believe in colonial ideology...