Eksil

Read this in English. Usually, writing in translations tends to suffer, as it's hard to translate authorial voice. But here it actually worked well: I loved the spare, present tense writing style. It reminded me a bit of Hilary Mantel or Michael Ondaatje: sharp, quick cuts, short scenes.

Unfortunately, the writing style was about the only thing I liked about this book. The plot is one-note: a year or two in the life of a bored, disaffected white expat teen, Sam, in Tanzania in the early 1980s.

The expat crowd (both colonial and post-colonial) can certainly be an interesting microcosm to explore, but usually I expect a bit more about the actual surrounding context to come into play. Here, we follow our protagonist around as she smokes, drinks, does some drugs, has sex, laments being neither here nor there (neither English nor Tanzanian) and fights with her semi-evil dad. Every so often, we get a short paragraph on Life in Tanzania; and these always ring very lecturey, such as “Here in Tanzania...” where you insert any African stereotype you can think of, such as “only poor people ride bicycles” or “white dudes hit on local prostitutes” or “people beat thieves to death via mob justice”. It's incredibly superficial, not at all nuanced, and usually left me rolling my eyes a bit. (I should mention I am a white expat in Tanzania.)

Good drama is usually defined by the protagonist encountering a conflict, resolving it one way or another, and then changing. Unfortunately, the narrative arc of this book is completely flat: Sam of page 1 is identical to Sam of page 100 to Sam of page N. Also, how many pages do I have to read of essentially the exact same action items: Sam smokes. Sam doesn't want to go to England. Sam gets in trouble at school. Sam has problems with boy X. Sam is horny. Sam swims. Seriously, this is EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. The same scenes get recycled endlessly.

The few plot pieces - which include a rape - feel more like they're in there for shock value. What are we supposed to learn about Sam? The other characters? The place? Post-colonialism? We don't learn much. Or, it seems, the book's only message is, “The world is a cruel, brutal place.” Literally all the characters (including Sam) are one-dimensionally hedonistic and amoral. It's... really boring. And that philosophy of simplistic, reductionist cynicism is... also really tedious. This book could have been half the length, and the point would have been made.

Apparently, this is book 1 of a trilogy about “Africa” (which I suppose means Tanzania). I'm still curious about the second book, as it apparently follows people OTHER than the bored and boring white expat crowd. I hope I can learn something about Tanzania next time. Though I'm a little worried I'll just get some poverty porn about people being cruel and evil in this brutal, unforgiving world we live in. Sigh.