"Cry the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton was given to me as one of 9 books I received from a relative, David's Aunt Joan. It was one of the books that she said was one of her most "beloved."
I am going to try and write something, as my daughter runs around yelling for things. She's getting over a 24-hour bug of sorts and has not been pleasant, poor thing. I am afraid I won't do this review justice, but I keep forgetting to do it, and I finished the book 2 weeks ago.
The book tells the story of several people whose lives are intertwined by a murder in racially stunted South Africa. The murder is not really even the core of the book, so I don't want you to think it's what the novel is about. I wish I knew more of the history of South Africa and Apartheid. Separate but Equal does not really make sense to me.
The story is about a Zulu Pastor, Stephen Kumalo, a very humble, God-fearing, obedient, good natured man, going to the big city of Johannesburg to locate his sister and her son, and most importantly, his grown son, who has lost contact with Kumalo and his wife in their very small, very poor, very tight-knit community that is dying a slow death due to the over-tilling and over-planting of their drought-stricken land.
"And some cry for the cutting up of South Africa without delay into separate areas, where white can live without black and black without white..."
The writing style often reminded my of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and how Steinbeck would throw in small paragraphs of life of the people around the city or the area affected by the strife affecting our main characters. No one we know; just people in coffee houses, and picket lines and meetings. I liked that in Steinbecks' work and found out later that Paton was a fan of "Grapes of Wrath". There is a lot of the oppression and the racial divide that is present in South Africa in the book. A lot of ideas and no quick solutions. Nothing that will happen within a generation. So many oppressed, so few trying to help. One of those trying to help the natives, a white man named Arthur Jarvis, is killed in his home by Pastor Kumalo's son.
"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. "
The book delves into Pastor Kumalo's shame. His hurt. His not understanding the people and the city of Johannesburg and how they can be so hurtful, thieving, lying. He is so sad. His small-town ideals and faith are slowly stripped away as he deals with the incarceration of his son and the finding of his sister (who ended up in prostitution). But it also shows him hope; the Pastor Msimangu and his devotion & generosity towards Kumalo. Father Vincent, Mrs. Lithebe - all shining places in dark Johannesburg.
The second part of the book deals with Mr. Jarvis, Arthus Jarvis' father. A man of wealth who never even shook the hand of a black man until his son's funeral, where the great outpouring of love, respect and support for his son Arthur got him curious. Who was this son who left their small town (coincidentally, the same town as Kumalo and Kumalo's son!) and came to Johannesburg to be a pioneer for change for the natives? Who was this person he raised , who is now being lauded for his strength and courage? He reads his son's letters and manuscripts and sees the work that his son is trying to accomplish - to educate, to empower, to aid the black man.
"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find we are turned to hating."
Both Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Kumalo go back to their town. Kumalo to his church, wife and poor tribe, Jarvis to his estate. But you see a transformation in Jarvis. His son he hardly knew changed him. Jarvis sends milk to the church, sends aid to the village in the form of a farming teaching aid, he helps build dams. He understands that he alone cannot change things but someone, somewhere, somehow has to start. The man whose son is killed helps the father of the man who committed the murder. It's a bittersweet story. We end with Kumalo in the mountain, watching the sunrise on the death day of his son, and although those rays signify the death of his child, it also signifies the rebirth of his tribe; not in his life-time, but it's a start.
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