Customer Reviews

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I wanted to skim this book. I couldn't stop reading. Finished the whole book before even trying to put it down.

What a great read. Staccato. Short chapters, short sentences, half sentences. An English teacher's nightmare!! Staccato, like in music. Great.

Presented Namibia exactly like I have always imagined it. Dry, desolate, capturing. The people, the same. This woman, Mavala. Just as staccato as the book itself.

Read it, you will love it.

I picked up this book based solely on the setting of Namibia. I was simply looking to read some contemporary African fiction.

I loved the book. Cleverly written. Orner did a terrific job capturing the sense of place. I could feel the heat and dust as I read. He was able to tell a great tale, very well researched, with good humour. While touching throghout, I found myself laughing at many scenes.

Nice job! Go get it and enjoy it.

It was no surprise to find the author is a poet. This book contains many stunning turns of phrases. There were sentences I re-read first in disbelief then with gradual understanding and finally with a great joy of true edifying comprehension.
That he can be so articulate of landscape, eloquent on character and damn funny at the same time is a wonder.
Half way through this book I realized, with great relief, that I was reading a truly unique writer with a voice so strong and idiosyncratic that that burdensome word 'art' started popping into my head. As the final pages unfurled it was obvious that THE SECOND COMING OF MAVALA SHIKONGO is indeed worthy of such classification. Bravo to Mr. Orner.

I had high hopes for The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo as I loved Orner's first book, Esther Stories. This novel did not disappoint. It's a love story, but set in the remote veld of Namibia, it is also offers astute political commentary and a glimpse at history that few Americans will learn about in school. Orner's prose is elegant and funny, his descriptions of conflict and boredom, landscapes both internal and external, beauty in the everyday, are luminous.

"She's back."

In The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, author Peter Orner takes us to Namibia in the early 1990s, just after the country has won independence. He paints an oppressive landscape of isolation at an all-boys' Catholic boarding school where "the sand, trees, bushes, even the cows, were all the color of plaster." Though surrounded by desert, poverty and relentless sun, the people of Goas weave a vivid tapestry of life through their stories, songs and relationships.

This story is told by Larry Kaplanski, a volunteer from Cincinnati, Ohio, who's not sure why he's really come all this way to teach history and English in the middle of nowhere and among this band of misfits and characters. It's not until Mavala Shikongo enters his world with her little mustard-colored suitcase, sitting upon the only green patch of grass--called Ireland--that the days takes on new life and richness.

Mavala, the only single woman teacher to bless the boarding school "so far in the veld even the baboons feel sorry for us," is modern, restless and driven. She's a combat veteran who fought Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa. Her high energy and even higher-heeled stilettos are juxtaposed against the long languid days and people of a dry and dusty desert. She comes; she leaves and then comes back again--this time with a child, but no husband. Mavala remains an enigma throughout and all the men of the school are mesmerized by her mystery and are just a little in love with her.

This novel explores the thoughts and history of Goas through the stories of its people. It's full of spirit, tenderness and passion as we learn about values, love and the endurance of fellowship.

As we embark on "the tar road" in chapter one, we don't know what to expect but soon find ourselves captivated by the novel's journey and where it takes us. This is an extraordinary first novel by Orner who uses the sparest of exquisitely chosen words to invoke heart and soul into his landscape of characters.

Armchair Interview says: Peter Orner's heroes and heroines are insightful, funny and colorful and invite us into a surprisingly rich and beautiful world.

How fascinating to read a new novel, set in far-away Namibia with a cast of characters that are about as unfamiliar to westerners as is the small village school that they inhabit. They are indeed a world apart from your traditional boys school faculty. Eccentric, opionated, but strangely sophisticated, though their days are spent away from 'civilization.' They do get their news, albeit a few days old. Does it matter? One doesn't instantly fall in step with their lifestyle. There is even a slight resistance to it, but Orner has sensed this natural anxiety on the part of his readers. His protagonist, an American from Ohio, is a remarkably forbearing creature. He's in a milieu that would baffle anyone, but Orner brings him and it alive. He does help us along with bits of Namibian history and folklore - its colonialism under the Germans and British; its heroes; and the strange victims of war and poverty that stray into the school compound. Nevertheless, the book could have been a withering critique. The dreadful drought and heat strain resources; yet, as at the school, the daily routine is still maintained. And Orner makes us realize how normal the bizarre is with precise vignettes of everyone and everything. Living in the veld in Namibia may not be your cup of tea, but one feels fortunate to have this inside view. And, more importantly, it is to Orner's great credit that we finish reading the book and immediately want to return to it for a closer, more leisurely look. His storytelling is beguiling.

The first recorded attempt to escape Goas occurred in 1930 when a farmer failed to trade the land for a lusher parcel. He established a precedent for the next sixty years: a great urge to leave, matched only by total practical impossibility.

Upon his death, he bequeathed the farm to the Roman Catholic Church. The diocese, not knowing what to do with an unprofitable farm, established a school.

Into this desolation enters Larry Kaplansk. (Kaplansk had an "i" on the end until Principal Tuyeni removed it on the day that Larry arrived.) He comes to teach English and History.

Mavala Shikongo immediately catches the eyes of the male staff at Goas but her past as a revolutionary soldier and rumors of a bright hope for her future create a distance. She is gone as quickly as she came in three short weeks.

When Mavala comes again, things are different. This time she has a young son in tow and she plans to settle at the school.

Kaplansk and Mavala begin secret rendezvous in a nearby cemetery. Upon the graves they build a relationship of mutual personal destruction. Their passion for one another launches them down a spiral of despair.

But Mavala may be more than Kaplansk's condemnation. She may be his savior and his only escape from Goas.

Set in the early 1990s, soon after Namibia won independence from South Africa, the novel is mostly narrated by Kaplansk but sometimes tells the story from other character's perspectives. Peter Orner's debut novel is presented in episodic chapters, often just a few paragraphs long.

It may give a first impression as just another artsy piece of literary clap-trap but Orner knows exactly what he's doing. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo proves to be written with force, style and wit.

This book is unfocused and none of the characters are very interesting. I couldn't finish it

This is one of the better literary works I've read in a couple of years. Mind you, I'm not to the end yet. Short sentences and short chapters, somehow this writing style calls to me.

Modern in it's structure, lyrical to the ear, authentic voice, set in Namibia. Tension builds as we wait to see whether the visiting US white-boy teacher gets together with the veteran guerilla-fighting black kindergarten teacher. Color is not the story, but living in privation and what it teaches one is. A compelling novel--I just love it.