Customer Reviews

African Women: Three Generations

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Very riveting book. The pain of oppression that these women endured was very hard to read yet hard to put down. My one complaint about this book is the simply unbelievable amount of mispelled words and grammatical errors. I have never read a book with so many errors. Other than that, I really enjoyed the book.

...........for this book for 8 years. I read it 8 years ago, but I borrowed it at someone's house. Since then, I have been searching for my own copy that I can read over and over. This is by far, one of the best books that I have EVER read. I alsmost felt the characters as they jumped from the pages at you.

Mark Mathabane writes that the oppression of women is widespread in South Africa. This is largely because apartheid over the years emasculated and degraded black men and stripped them of their manhood by depriving them of the means to provide for their families and loved ones. Many of these men found convenient targets for their rage, frustrations, and bitterness in those under their immediate and absolute control, their wives and children. This abuse of women and children was made easy because apartheid, for its own devious ends, encouraged and rewarded tribalism among blacks. Husbands and fathers continued to cling to customs and traditions that had long outlived their usefulness, mainly out of a sense of desperation. Under tribalism men have power, authority, and respect, while in the modern world ruled by the white man they were powerless, got no respect, were called "boys," and were treated as less than dirt. African Women is a harrowing, poignant, heroic, and inspiring saga of three women who, in their individual ways, refused to buckle under to tradition, custom, and oppression. They fought against daunting odds to preserve their individuality and independence, their dignity and pride, their hearts and souls. They worked and raised children in a culture and society where black women had hardly any rights, were daily discriminated against by apartheid, and were regarded as the property of their husbands or fathers by custom. Any attempts to liberate themselves were condemned and harshly dealt with.

Couldn't put this book down! It read like an African Waiting to Exhale only the characters were real. This really showed how over 3 generations more things remained the same than not. These women were very, very strong women who overcame a great deal

this book is awsome. i actually felt what the women were feeling. growing up in america, this book allowed me to count my blessings!

This book is terrible.

Every character sounds exactly the same: men, women, 90-year-olds, ten-year-olds. They all speak with exactly the same voice, same personality, same attitudes, same vocabulary same maturity. And since it's written in first-person, but the narration jumps between three women (grandmother, mother, daughter) I constantly had to flip to the beginning of the chapters to remind myself who was speaking (the chapter's are named after the person currently narrating). This is not only because Mathabane lacks the ability to write with any depth, but because each woman's story is virtually identical. Chapter after chapter after excruciating chapter you will find yourself reading the same story over and over and over again with almost no variation whatsoever.

The characters are all two-dimensional and comically absurd and unrealistic. The only two characters with their own personalities, though these two were also identical twins of eachother, were Aunt Matinana and Elizabeth. These two were hilariously evil. They were like diabolical villians out of a James Bond movie. They were supposed to be serious characters, but I couldn't help but expect one of them at any moment to put her pinky to her mouth and demand, "ONE MILLION DOLLARS." Comedy gold.

Mathabane's prose is lazy and immature, constantly using American slang and goofy clichés not only in dialog, but throughout the narration. As if this wasn't out-of-place as it was in a novel about South African women, these clichés were also often used incorectly such as:

"There was no possibility of reconciliation between my parents. Too much water had already flowed under the bridge." (page 194)

Of course, if it's water under the bridge reconciliation has already taken place. That's the whole point of the "water under the bridge" idiom. It refers to things that no longer matter because they happened and are now in the past and insignificant -- like water under the bridge.

And speaking of dialog, I can only describe it as something like frozen dialog concentrate. I kept wondering if I could just add water and stir to get an entire realistic conversation.

To add insult to injury, the editing is atrocious. The book is filled with absurd mistakes such as the following story about white oppression:

"And recently, in one factory in Natal, black female employees had to submit to monthly injections of Depo Provera -- a crude form of birth control with dangerous side effects -- every three months or lose their jobs" (page 11)

When I began reading this the first thought that went through my mind was, "Monthly? Depo Provera is only given on a tri-monthly basis..." Then I reached the end of the paragraph and realized that they were apparently being given the shot monthly every three months, whatever that's supposed to mean. This kind of sloppy writing and non-existent editing is pervasive throughout.

It's really a shame that this book is so bad as it's incredibly important for these peoples' stories to be heard. People around the world should understand what apartheid was and, particularly, how bad women had it and continue to suffer in South Africa. But this is not the book to accomplish this task.

Possibly recommended for junior-high school level reading as it reads like it was written with a pre-teen audience in mind (though this was not deliberate). In fact, much of the dialog sounds like it was plaigerized directly from little girls playing house or having tea parties with dolls.