Cry, the Beloved Country (Bloom's Guides)

Cry, the Beloved Country (Bloom's Guides)

By: Alan Paton  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Publisher: Chelsea House Publications

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Free at last, Free at last... - Alan Paton raised the issue of emancipation, from fear, as the last line in this seminal work. Paton was a member of Africa's "white tribe," the dominant one at the time, and this was his cri de coeur. He wrote it just before the Afrikaner sub-tribe would become ascendant, in 1948, and construct a formalize system, Apartheid, to maintain Blacks "in their place." The system had much more in common, than not, with segregation, particularly in the American South, as well as what has evolved in Israel today. In the latter case, the parallels with the "Bantustans" are particularly strong.

In general, Paton's characters are not subtle or nuanced. They serve more as prototypes for certain sub-sets of the South African population. Stephen Kumalo is a black preacher, from a rural setting, with simplistic good faith, fearful of "mammon", which resides in "Jo'burg." The action commences when he receives a letter from a fellow "man of the cloth," a priest called Msimangu, who resides there. The priest asks Kumalo to come, and address the needs of Kumalo's sister, Gertrude. It is revealed that she has sunk into the underworld of prostitution and drugs. The central dramatic theme, however, involves Kumalo's son, Absalom. In a botched robbery, he has murdered a white liberal activist, Arthur Jarvis. As Arthur's father, a conservative who was previously somewhat estranged from his son, examines his legacy, he chooses reconciliation, by accepting the mantle of his son's work. Paton's own outlook was deeply religious, so this work is replete with biblical analogies, as is evident by the name of Kumalo's son. The denouement seems inevitable, and it seems to forsake hope, an ending I projected on all of South Africa.

I first read this book more than 40 years ago. Any book that inspires a journey deserves 5-stars, and this was the motive force behind three visits to South Africa in the early 80's. Each time I had a camper (a combie, as they say there), and freely traveled throughout the country, during the very height of the Apartheid system. It is a country of stunning natural beauty; in fact, the tourism slogan of the time proclaimed: "The whole world in one country." Indeed, I thought that applied, certainly not in the sense intended, on a global economic scale. The country had a minority of largely white individuals who believed they had a claim on the country's resources that far exceeded the rights of the majority of largely non-whites.

Like Paton, I was pessimistic for the future prospects of South Africa. The one country, also on the African continent, that it seemed most to resemble, in terms of the percent and claims of a white minority vis-à-vis the larger, native population, was Algeria. The end of white rule in Algeria occurred at the end of seven bloody years of war. So, I felt that past would be prologue, as the expression has it. Fortunately the wisdom of a few individuals in leadership positions, particularly Nelson Mandela, averted a repeat of that tragedy.

Paton, who died in 1988, did not live to see the largely peaceful end of the Apartheid system in 1994. Black majority rule is now the political system. The problems of economic distribution largely remain however. Two other South Africans have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, both whites, Doris Lessing and J.M. Coetzee. Paton did not, but it is on his proverbial shoulders upon which they stood.

South Africa is an intensely beautiful country, whose dramas have been more visceral than most. This is the classic book that spelled out the South African dilemma.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Lovely Beyond Any Singing of It - Stephen Kumalo, a black Anglican priest from a rural Natal village, travels to Johannesburg to search for his for his son Absalom, with whom he has lost touch, and his younger sister Gertrude, who has fallen ill. Upon arrival, Kumalo discovers that Gertrude has become an alcoholic prostitute involved in the clandestine liquor trade. The news about Absalom is even worse; the young man has fallen into a life of crime and has been arrested for the murder of a white man during a burglary.

"Cry, the Beloved Country" is sometimes described as an indictment of apartheid-era South Africa, but in fact it was written in 1946, two years before the election of Daniel Malan's Nationalist government which introduced the apartheid system. The word "apartheid" has now passed into English as a synonym for racist discrimination, but it was originally an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness", and was used to describe the Nationalists' grand scheme for "separate development" of the various races of South Africa. As the book makes clear, however, racial discrimination and injustice already existed under the pre-1948 United Party government of Jan Smuts; indeed, some of what were later to become the most hated features of apartheid, such as the pass laws, were already in force. It is this injustice which is the theme of Alan Paton's novel.

South Africa was originally an agrarian society, and remained one long after the start of European colonisation in the seventeenth century; for many years the Afrikaners were known to the English as "Boers", a word which literally means "Farmers". By the twentieth century, however, the discovery of the country's mineral wealth led to a South African industrial revolution, and South African industry was dependent on cheap black labour. (It was this dependency which meant that the idea of "separate development" was doomed to failure from the start, as the last thing white employers wanted was to be deprived of this labour source).

Paton describes how an unequal distribution of agricultural land between black and white landowners made it impossible for many blacks to continue farming the land and forced many young black men, of whom Absalom Kumalo is one, to move to the cities, especially Johannesburg, to work in white-owned mines and factories for low wages. This weakened the traditional tribal way of life of South African blacks, especially as the pass laws meant that these men could not bring their wives and families with them. Under these conditions, drunkenness, prostitution and crime flourished in the black townships, and growing white fears of black crime led to the introduction of yet more repressive measures of social control. The title is taken from a passage in which Paton articulates his fears for the future of his country:-

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much".

As will be clear from this passage, Paton's prose style is a highly poetic one, much influenced by Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Biblical influences can also be seen in the names he gives to his characters; Absalom is named after the son of King David, who rebelled against his father, and Kumalo's own forename may be derived from Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Another influence may have been Paton's American contemporary John Steinbeck, who also combined a crusading social conscience with a lyrical prose style. Paton's opening passage, dealing with soil erosion in Natal, is reminiscent, in its tone as will as in its subject matter, with the equivalent opening passage in Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" dealing with soil erosion in the American Mid-West.

The Biblical influences in the novel are far from accidental; Paton was a devout Christian and saw Christian principles as being the only hope for his country. One of the most important characters in the novel is Arthur Jarvis, the man murdered by Absalom. Although Arthur does not appear directly, we learn a lot about him. He was an engineer by profession, a committed Christian and a liberal activist for racial justice, and can be seen as a mouthpiece for Paton's own views. After Arthur's death Kumalo befriends his father James Jarvis, a wealthy and hitherto conservative white landowner, and James decides to take up his son's work on behalf of South Africa's black population. The two older men realise that they both stand in need of forgiveness, Kumalo for the murder committed by his son, Jarvis for the wrongs committed by his people against their black neighbours.

"Cry, The Beloved Country" is a novel which combines beauty of language with elevated moral ideals, with well-drawn characters and a positive message about the need to combat injustice. Its status as a modern classic is well deserved. To adapt a phrase of Paton's, it is a book lovely beyond any singing of it.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A Heartbreaking, Must Read Story - This book gives us an inside look at South African apartheid in the 1940's. We live this story through the eyes of a poor Zulu pastor who decides to travel from his small village to Johannesburg in hopes to save his son from mounting troubles. The migration of gold mine workers to the cities has increased the crime rate due to the separation of families. Exploitation of these laborers has caused a political unrest in Johannesburg.

Stephen Kumalo, our Zulu pastor, has to question his own parenting and lifestyle when he sees the poor decision making of his own son. Stephen meets a varied barrage of people, some who help and some who choose silence as the easiest way to stay out of trouble, when searching for his son.

"Cry, the Beloved Country" is a must read book. The story gave me insight on this foreign culture and the hardships experienced by not only the exploited workers of the South African gold mines, but the destroyed families of said workers. This book is mandatory criterion for schools in South Africa and it is worthy of this praise.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Beautiful soft and descriptive writing but chilling and thought provoking story - I have heard about this 1948 novel all my life and was aware of its theme. This is the first time I've read it though and I must say the impact was indeed startling. The writing is beautiful, soft and descriptive. And yet it deals with the horrors and inconsistencies that existed in South Africa at that time. The book is nothing short of a plea for justice and at the same time tries to be fair to both the white and black citizens of this troubled land.

The story is that of an aging Zulu pastor who travels to the city of Johannesburg to look for his sister and his son. Life there is difficult for black people who are forced to live in shantytowns and who labor for low wages in the gold mines. What the pastor discovers is horrible. His sister has had to sell her body to men and his son has accidentally murdered a white man who was working towards bringing a sense of fairness to the country.

Easily I got caught up in this very poignant story. There is a sense of poetry in the words. I felt I was hearing the voice of South Africa and it truly gave me the chills. And what was indeed the most chilling of all is that this book was written before Apartheid came and tore the country apart.

The author was born in South Africa, the son a third-generation English mother and a Scot Presbyterian father. At one time he worked as a teacher and later the principal of a reformatory for young African offenders and these experiences certainly did influence whole sections of the book. Mostly though, the book just picked me up and placed me right in the middle of a country that has not yet been able to deal satisfactorily with its problems.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A Timeless Classic - I picked this book up from my bookcase, where apparently, I had bought it sometime ago when it was recommended to me by someone. I was in between books and thought for Christmas, I needed a classic to read and this book is way better than I ever expected. It is a classic for the ages and the language is absolutely beautiful, heart-wrenching and lyrical. What makes this book even more beautiful is that I can relate to it even today, though I know little of South Africa and its history. Unfortunately, I see a lot of similarities between South Africa and our own history.

The back of the book simply states that this book is about a man and his son in the depths of South Africa. Do not be misled by that simplest of blurbs. This book is about a lot more than a complicated father-son relationship. It is about the deep love the natives have for their country, the deep divide between the minority (the whites that have come to power) and the natives, and the unsettling of the tribes now that the land can no longer provide for them. It is a complicated book about a lot of issues that comes to head when the minister's son killed a white man. It gets even more interesting when the white man's father (Jarvis) finds in his heart the ability to listen to what his son was trying to do all those years. It turned out that Jarvis' son was a social worker in the highest sense of the word. He was trying to reconcile the divide between the natives and the uprooting of their tribal customs and trying to bring about the differences. The minister, Stephen Kumalo, went to Johannesburg to look for his son, but only was he too late to save his son.

Paton touched upon so much in this tiny book and handles all the difficult subjects well. One could feel the anguish of Kumalo when he finds his son and hears his sentence of death. One could feel the pain of a man who is called to attend to his son because his son was murdered and that he knew his son's murderer's father. Interwoven throughout the men's pain and grief, are stories of a land that is now rendered apart by two different races.

One cannot just pick this book up and read it without being affected. This book is one of those that will haunt you long after the last page has been turned. It is a book about love, hatred, indifference and greed but also of hope and promises. It is rich in details and it is one of my absolute favorite books to recommend for others to read. It really is a must-read for all serious readers because it will touch upon your heart.

12/28/09

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