Was her husband a Masai or a Samburu? Is the use of these two terms interchangeably by the author a marketing ploy?
The book is written in first person and as such is completely from the author’s viewpoint. How do you think this has impacted the objectivity of her description of events?
I’ll search the web for some more discussion questions today but I do have a big one... just how frigging dumb is this woman?
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteI just finished this book and I feel well kinda deflated by the whole thing. I went online last night and read a few reviews etc before I started the last few chapters and I feel the same way most readers did. Disbelieving, angry even. I don't think she was exploitative of the experience, just stupid and unthinking from the outset. Her actions and the resulting hepatitis, malaria, pregnancy and other problems weren't really unexpected and even kind of served her right I felt. I also didn't understand her saying she would not be willing to leave without her daughter when she left the child with other people all the time in Kenya. Weird. Also on the whole samburu vs masai thing, it seems to boil down to gerentocracy vs patriachial society. Both systems lead to men being in a perpetual state of adolescence for most of their lives, so Lketinga's behaviours weren't surprising at all to me. Inevitably there must be an underlying current of tension between the generations and the sexes as a result, which no Western person could possibly hope to be able to cope with seems to me to be glaringly obvious. I think that the first person narrative, which let us not forget has been translated from the original language, is simple and effective. It is only natural that she seems to try to justify things throughout the story, when to any objective person she is irrational. Plus she began the first book (there are two sequels since) seven years after the events so I think that colours her recollections too. I am astounded at the things she went through and was particularly effected by the scenes of the encephalitic baby, the stillbirth and the rescue of the two children from drowning in the river. I was not shocked however - these things just confirmed my understanding of their lives over there being purely survival-based. Why any sane person would live there by choice defies all logic.
I don't think she was exploitative of the experience, just stupid and unthinking from the outset.
DeleteI agree. It wasn't like reading, say, Eat Pray Love, where it was so obviously disingenuous: she just wrote the kind of turgid rubbish she knew would sell and I don't believe for a second that any of it was genuine.
I think the frustrating thing for me in reading it was the number of times people warned her and the life-altering decisions she made constantly without considering the implications. Marrying someone in a country where married woman have no rights. Failing to find out anything about the culture before moving there. Practically stalking the poor boy. And she'd describe situations of extreme stress and then follow it up with "but we're in love!!!" It was like talking to someone with Stockholm's syndrome.
As for the Masai/Samburu issue, I believe that she and the publisher have been quoted as saying they didn't believe people would know who the Samburu were so they used the Masai for marketing reasons.
I thought the book itself was very readable if not an example of great literature. I could have done without the endless descriptions of her car breaking down though.
I too was astounded by the situations Corinne ended up in. I'm sure hepatitis vaccinations existed in the 1980's?!! What I thought was missing from the story was clarity on what exactly drew her to Africa and this man in particular. The book launched into this 'love at first sight' scene and I felt she didn't dissect her feelings enough to enable the reader to empathise.
ReplyDeleteShe was obviously a switched on businesswoman in her home of Switzerland, and achieved a larger degree of success than most by aged 27. I can understand that perhaps her early success left her wanting for much more out of life, but boy did she really take it to the extreme.
As for the overbearing, controlling jealousy she endured from her husband, I really felt her exasperation. The first person narrative brought her feelings to life well I thought. Even though the story was set in remote Africa, such a situation does happen in civilised, metropolitan Western societies. Corrine obviously had the added elements of being an outcast in an unfamiliar society without a solid friend/family network.
She was a strong lady, yet a naive one. I was impressed that she so easily gave up life's comforts, and curious to hear her feelings of disgust/no longer belonging, when she returned home to Switzerland for visits. Did anyone else think that she was extremely selfish? She seemed to take a lot from the priests and her Massai's family but never seem to adequately repay them?
I totally agree with the point about the endless descriptions of the car breakdowns!!
I'm glad I read it and I'd love to see how the film brought it to life.
Pauline's comment raised a question I had meant to ask about the book from the beginning - to what extent do you think the author is influenced by the whole "Noble Savage" myth? In particular, her talking about her fantasy of them cooking with each other in some little hut somewhere and her constant insistence that she was living some sort of romantic bohemian dream when all the evidence around her said she was living in grinding poverty instead.
ReplyDeleteOoooh that is so interesting to contemplate!
ReplyDeleteSo from what I gather, 'Noble Savage' is a belief that people belonging to 'undeveloped' (is that still a PC term?) cultures have innate natural simplicity and virtue uncorrupted by civilization.
She did appear to subscribe to this belief. She definitely have a warped view of how she wanted her life in Africa to be. But this warped view was her own doing! As she did zero research and just formed her own 'fantasy' based on very little knowledge. I don't think she knew what she wanted, really. She knew that she wanted to get out of her relationship with her Swiss boyfriend, and perhaps that she wanted to move away from Switzerland, but that's where the thinking stopped I feel!