This and We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies were the two books that jumped out at me when I made my first visit to the library. I’d read We Need New Names before and I remembered liking it, but not being 100% over the moon head over heels for it, so I went with Bodies that day. I was legitimately surprised when Names was there when I returned. I think I’m overestimating the amount of usage the Vallejo Public Library gets. In fact, when I returned Names yesterday, I found a book on the shelf that I’d requested and failed to pick up a couple months ago.
Interesting that this and Bodies are both stories about returning home/what home means in some way. Basic plot summary: A nation of animals overthrows its dictator (well, there is a coup. Not really from the people per se, more of a differing branch of the military coup). We follow the aftermath of the coup some. We hear some general scuttlebutt about the coup. There is a goat who returns home after the coup and we see her reaction to returning home. That’s the best I can do without delving into my issues/what I like about the book.
Issue the first: the narrator(s). Sometimes the perspective of the narrator is of the people of the revolution, sometimes we see inner workings of the upper echelons of power, when we follow Destiny (the returning goat), narrator is more of a traditional third person. I don’t have issue with narrator switching when we get to the Destiny section. But I had trouble rectifying the general perspective of the people of the revolution and also knowing what was going on in the upper echelons of power. Let me explain: The people’s narrator was a cool thing, actually. Bulawayo grouped all the rumor and scuttlebutt surrounding a revolution into one third person plural narrator, “We heard …” and “Those that know say, …” So there would be this speculation about what was happening and then the reader would immediately be informed what was happening. The transition was essentially seamless and it felt to me like the same narrator, even though the people’s narrator didn’t feel like they should know what the Horse and his team were up to.
Destiny didn’t show up until a third of the way through the book, which ties into my second issue. Should this have been two books? One a story of the revolution and one a story of coming home. I suppose this relates to my first issue as well. Presumably, if this had been two books, my issue with the narrators would be mended as well. I expected this to be a personal story about coming home after a coup to find a nation that isn’t nearly as changed as expected. That stuff is in here, but I can’t say that this is what the book is about necessarily. I didn’t measure, but I think we spend less time with Destiny than separate from her.
The main characters being animals is fine. I did get confused a couple times when bugs were mentioned because I’d consider them animals, but they seem to be a lesser life form in this world. And humans still exist in this world. And there seem to be white animals and black animals. I don’t know that the Animal Farm reference was worth it, but that is purely personal taste.
We never really learn what life was like under the Old Horse (previous dictator). Either back up in time and show us or start with the coup already happened. We start with the planning of the coup–well, we start with a speech form the Old Horse where we see he’s going a little senile and quickly move into planning the coup–but the coup doesn’t mean as much when we don’t know what it stems from.
I know I sound like I didn’t like this, but I did. Despite some structural issues, in my opinion, it was still a good book. There’s a ton of insight into what it means to live in this situation that I have no experience with. I moved pretty slowly at first, but once Destiny shows up things moved faster.
And then there’s the section about how Destiny got her name. This book needs to exist just for this section. This is what I expected from this book when I picked it up, the personal story of tyranny and revolt. So compelling. Does it work better here because the rest of the book has been generalized though? Would it feel like such a tragedy if there were a dozen lesser personal tragedies surrounding it? I don’t think so. So, strangely, disregard all my other notes. Everything I’ve griped about ends up making this section better and this section is one of the most tragically beautiful ever put to paper.
The Heart of Literature 