This book is extremely different than that of anything I have ever read before and to be honest I do not think that I really like it. It is not that the writing is of poor quality or anything like that, but I find myself getting bored as I read. The book is very repetitive and I find myself wanting to hear the voice of the daughter rather than the voice of the mother throughout the entire piece. I guess this is where my confusion begins...Because this is a coming of age story, I feel that the daughter who is in America should have a more dominant role in the book. I feel that because of the letter format that the book is written in and because the stories that are incorporated into the work are all about the mother I am starting to view it as the mother's coming of age more than ZenZeLe's. Although I do understand that the mother (and narrator of the book) is trying to teach her daughter about her roots, life, love, and many other things through her experiences, I am not sure that it is clearly a coming of age story for ZenZeLe. I may be missing something, but this is just the way that I have viewed the book so far.
One thing I did pick up and take note of as I read was that the mother hits on the image of "roots," "seeds," and "growth" a few times. She is constantly trying to instill African roots in her daughter and remind her that she does have a past and native roots that she must remember and not forget about while she is away from her country. The last time I noticed this was on page 104 about half way down. I know I read about the seeds and roots a few chapters earlier and am I curious to see if this image comes up again. (I have a strong feeling that it will because I am finding this book to be kind of repetitive like I said before.)
Although I am not very interested in this book so far, there have been a few times that I have been absorbed into the novel. I am not going to give up on the book or lose complete interest in it just yet, but I will say that this is not a book I would read on my own or just pick up to read on a 'lazy day.'
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1 comment:
3/21/08
Hi Mary – Well, sometimes it's good to read a book for class that you clearly would not have otherwise picked up or continued to read. I don't see posts here past chapter 9, so I'm hoping you did not give up on the book entirely. This is certainly a different style of book than, for instance, The Kite Runner, but I hope as you continued to read you recognized the beauty in the language and imagery. You started to pick up, I see, on some dominant imagery about roots and growth—that is significant to the novel in many ways. It is the mother's coming of age story in many ways, but it's also important to recognize the interconnectedness of the mother's and daughter's lives, and to realize that the daughter's coming of age will not be possible without an understanding of where she comes from.
Overall, I enjoyed reading your posts to date (see separate comments on other posts) and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the rest of our readings.
Prof Durso
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