21st Century Literature discussion

Here's for discussing the first half of the novel, from the coup that brings down The Old Horse through the "#freefairncredible" election of Tuvy, approximately ending with the chapter entitled "Lozikeyi Votes".

I'll try and post some conversation starters tomorrow, but wanted to get this thread up in case people are champing at the bit to get this discussion going!

GOT ME! When I read "Tuvy then went on to hire a lecturer in English from the University of Jidada to teach New Dispensation to say the phrase "New Dispensation." " I thought it was going to be a uni course. Two sentences later I realized she had always been talking about the bird. Sneaky author!

Soundtrack for p285: Here's Brenda Fassie: https://youtu.be/JB-OGtSEc64

I welcomed the introduction of Simiso and Destiny. Without them, the narrative had an arch, ironical tone illuminating the bone-in corruption of the rulers. By moving the focus to Lozeykei, part of that focus now includes Jidada's citizens, that sweep their compounds for want of anything better to do.

I agree, Mark. I was enjoying the broad satire of the ruling government, but bringing it down to the human level gives it a much greater depth.

Your humble moderator will post more this weekend, work has sucked up all my time, but please keep posting thoughts in the meantime.

Also, my preferred soundtrack for this one is Dorothy Masuka, a fantastic singer who was born in Bulawayo.

I also enjoyed the appearance of Destiny, although from that point I didn’t feel the use of animal characters worked so well. The change to a more personal view and narrower setting is welcome though.

I enjoy the way social media and the different opinions being expressed on line are worked into the narrative. It contrasts well with the more traditional feel of life in Lozeyeki.

There's so much going on in this book that it's hard to pick single things out.

The satire of the ruling animals is very broad, but the level of open corruption being satirized is so over-the-top, it's hard to see how it could be done without such exaggeration. One passage I highlighted was Sweet Mother reflecting on how she became Dr. Sweet Mother by calling the University and asking for biggest degree they had.

"it was as easy as ordering from a KFC drive-through, or perhaps even easier being that it was cheaper than KFC; it in fact cost her nothing and the degree actually came with a zero-calorie Diet Coke and a purple straw. "

Was the tone off-putting to anyone? I found it to be laugh out loud funny in many places,

Bulawayo also switches between the voices of several different characters in the first part of the book. Did people think that the voices were sufficiently differentiated? Did you see differing motivations, or was everyone just planning how to get or hold on to power?

Like Pamela, I also thought the on-line sections were well done, allowing us to see outside the elites to some level of popular opinion. I also appreciated the clueless leaders attempts to control online opinion. And who wouldn't appreciate "the Tweeting Baboon of the United States".

Anyone have thoughts on how well Bulawayo balanced the specific and the general? Could this book have been written about any corrupt, post-colonial government?

Whitney wrote: "Anyone have thoughts on how well Bulawayo balanced the specific and the general? Could this book have been written about any corrupt, post-colonial government?”

For me, this question of balance, or possibly of integrating the two aspects, was the weakness of the book. It felt like it fell too distinctly into two parts, the general in the first part (which is where I felt the anthropomorphism and satire worked really well) and the specific in the second when the focus fell on Destiny and Simiso and their particular stories.

So in the first part it could have been any corrupt post-colonial government where independence has come relatively recently through an armed struggle - because the War of Liberation is the justification in many people’s eyes for the dictator’s behaviour - but the events of the second half are clearly referring to specific Jidadan/Zimbabwean history.

The reader could still understand the principles of violent suppression of dissent, the nepotism of public appointments, the broken economy etc without knowing any great detail of this history, but I feel Bulawayo wants us to know this is exactly what happened at that time and in that place. And for me, that moved me away from the satire and the animals.