Cry, the Beloved Country

A beautiful, deeply sad book that tells the story of South Africa before Apartheid had a name, but when most of that system was functionally in place, through a few peoples' connected stories.[return][return]The writing is a powerful example of how to love a place while despising crucial things about it.[return][return]The book does have some weaknesses which I think reflect the author's position of privilege relative to half of the characters. White saviourism creeps in a little in book 3; there aren't really any fully realised female characters; and I think he lets off Anglo South Africa too easily by caricaturing Afrikaners as the sole drivers of Apartheid. It's a mark of Paton's skill as a writer that all of these elements are much less of a drag than in other books like this I've read (notably Snow Falling on Cedars, which is all-but-ruined by the equivalent flaws). It may be the best account a white South African could have written of that moment in time, and now I really want to read a black South African's counterpart.

Written in 1948, I found "Cry, the beloved country" surprisingly relevant to today's South Africa. Having lived in this country for over two years now, I have become somewhat acquainted with some aspects of the society in this country. It is undeniable, in my opinion, that fear and division are common in contemporary South Africa. So, I was taken aback when I read this 70-year-old book, which describes the same fear and division that I sense today.

From the point of view of style, the book is beautifully written. It is poetic, almost lyrical. Paton is a talented writer, he always knows how to pick the right words.

Here is the opening of one chapter:

"Have no doubt it is fear in the land. For what can men do when so many have grown lawless? Who can enjoy the lovely land, who can enjoy the seventy years, and the sun that pours down on the earth, when there is fear in the heart? Who can walk quietly in the shadow of the jacarandas, when their beauty is grown to danger? [...] There are voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices. But what do they help if one seeks for counsel, for one cries this, and one cries that, and another cries something that is neither this nor that."

"Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness. Some say it is true that crime is bad, but would this not be worse? Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear? And others say, can such fear be endured?"