general

Tragic story set in South Africa during a now-ended era. Cry the Beloved Country is worth a careful read for its many-layered messages of loss and faith, of murder and penitence, of guilt and redemption - and through it all is Rev. Kumalo's love for his people (and not just his, but for the inherent goodness in ALL people), his family, his church - and most of all, his country.
It's a classic that has already withstood the test of time - and will doubtless continue to do so.
Don't miss it, and share it with someone else.

Alan Paton certainly had his heart in the right place but couldn't disguise his paternalistic feelings of the plight of the native South African, bringing down what was otherwise a good novel. While Paton recognized the vast injustices being committed in his nation, he failed to recognize the ability of the African to address these concerns. Instead, he created dramatic contrasts between the rural countryside and the City of Gold, Johannesburg, which drew these rural natives into its teeming midst, only to find pain and heartache. In this case it is a father looking for his son, Absalom, only to find that his son has killed a white man. The book resonates with Biblical allusions, taking on the form of a parable, but Paton did not explore the complexities of the situations he created too deeply. He used them more for effect. This is what is most disconcerting about the novel, as it seemed aimed more at a liberal white reader, forcing him to identify with one of his own in the victim he created in Arthur Jarvis.

While Paton struggled admirably to get into the mind of Stephen Kumalo, the berieved father of the son who was an accomplice in the murder of Jarvis, Kumalo is forced to turn to a benevolent white lawyer to represent his son in court. This relationship reinforced Paton view that utimately it was the white man who would save the black man by attacking his own system of government. While this served as an indictment, of sorts, against the apartheid system, it had a hollow ring to it, not taking into account the vast number of protests and other forms of non-violent demonstrations Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans held in defiance of apartheid laws. Instead, Paton reduced apartheid South African to the most simplistic of terms, unable, it seemed, the understand, or at least come to terms with, the number of gradients in the system.

Still, it is a moving novel, especially when Paton deals with what he understands most, the anguish of the conscientious white man in reconciling himself with a corrupt system of government. This is seen mostly through James Jarvis, whose son was murdered by Stephen Kumalo's son. One gets the sense that Paton put a lot of himself into Jarvis.

I sloughed through this book with much difficulty - as an avid reader, I read the book not as much for the story it told, but for the way it was told. The novel was often repetitive - several passages were copied word for word (the first paragraph of Book One and the first paragraph of Book Two, for an example). Dialogue was repeated multiple times, and descriptions and phrases were reused. Paton's attempt at creativity with his use of dashes to begin dialogue was distracting at its best points. The base story of South Africa and Kumalo was engaging, but the story as it was written was difficult to process and dull. The only parts of the novel I actually enjoyed were Paton's passionate tangents in which he would leave his characters for a moment and discuss the actual problems and solutions.

If this novel had been a movie I had rented, I would have turned it off within the first ten minutes and returned it to the store.