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Magic Lessons

11/30/2020

Title: Magic Lessons
Author: Alice Hoffman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
This long awaited prequel Practical Magic is a journey into the world of magic and mayhem and a time when anyone seen as practising the ‘Unnamed Arts’ feared for their lives. What I loved about this novel is the ease with which the author takes the reader
back into the late 1600s bringing a place and time so instantly to life that you are part of it. Emotional, gut wrenching and brilliantly

imaginative this is where we learn of the origin of Owen’s family curse - that any man who loves an Owens woman will die. Maria is a foundling abandoned in a snowy England field who is taken in by the solitary Hannah Owens, a woman who recognises that Maria has ‘the gift’, as she herself has. She teaches the child what she herself knows and finds a talented and responsible student. Abandoned by the man she loves Maria invokes the curse that will haunt the Owen’s women for centuries. This is an enchanting book (no pun intended) captivating in its realism and invoking all that spells, familiars (meet Cadin the crow) and healing remedies conjure up. Hoffman’s inspirational writing is a joy and you’ll recognise many of the remedies and sayings that our own mothers invoked when we were children. And they weren’t witches! From a dark England to the island of Curacao and finally on to Salem, Massachusetts and the horrific tortures of the ‘witches of Salem’ the book is an adventure in itself leaving you breathless as Hoffman blends history and magic seamlessly. And learn this last lesson: ‘Know that love is the only answer.’ A wonderful holiday read.

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This Mournable Body

11/8/2020

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Author: Tsitsi Dangaembga
Publisher: Jacana
Reviewer: Beryl Eicheberger
As a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright, and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga is a powerhouse in her field and an articulate commentator on the social issues of Zimbabwe. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988) was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world as the first to be written in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe. The sequel, ‘The Book of Not ‘ was published in 2006, and now her 2018 novel, ‘This

Mournable Body’, which brings to a close the Tambudzai trilogy, is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker prize. Outspoken and fearless, Dangarembga is also an activist, arrested in August 2020 for anti-corruption protests and now currently out on bail.
I had not read the previous two novels in the trilogy, so I had no pre conceptions about the writing or the story. The novel is set in the 90s after Zimbabwean independence and when the economy is crumbling and the fractured minds and bodies are still all too apparent. This is a soulful yet sad testament to a woman’s life in an African patriarchal country, where colonisation has left its indelible stamp. Gritty and harsh, it chronicles a suffering city and its peoples.
That Dangaremmbga is influenced by what is happening around her is apparent. She says ‘If I hadn't engaged with the bleakness of life in contemporary Zimbabwe in This Mournable Body, I might not have been moved to demonstrate and speak out.”
She has given African women a strong and provocative voice, exposing their plight and asking difficult questions. Her writing conjures up the dusty, unkempt streets of Harare, a city that has gone from Sunshine City to Shadow City, “The decay of the city mirrors the decay of the human beings in the novel. I'm fascinated by how we manifest the inner in the outer. ” She says.
And this is exactly as it reads…a parallel disintegration of a city and its inhabitants and a destruction of the very soul of a country.
When the book opens Tambudzai Sigauke (Tambu) is a bleak, disillusioned and desperately unhappy woman, approaching middle age, estranged from her family, jobless, childless and seemingly hopeless. Written in the second person it is as if Tambu is an observer on a life that the Zimbabwean system has sabotaged. As an African woman who has been Western educated, she finds she is disadvantaged with her intelligence undermined and she is dangerously close to unravelling.
Tambu moves from the hostel (where she is an overage resident) to rent a room on the estate of a wealthy widow. The widow’s niece Christine is an ex-combatant who knows her village family and brings a gift from her mother that remains accusingly in Tambu’s room as she is unable to acknowledge it. When she finally finds a new job teaching it is only to lose it when she badly beats the mild mannered student Elizabeth. It is Tambu’s breaking point as she hears the ‘hyena’ calling and she lands in a psychiatric ward. .
Her aunt and cousin Nyasha support her during this time and she is offered a temporary home with Nyasha and her German husband Leon and their two children. This is the beginning of her recovery and, on an outing one day, she runs into her school friend (and nemesis) Tracey Stevenson who hires her to help her launch an opportunistic eco-tourism business venture.
It is in this final part of the book, aptly named ‘Arriving ‘that Tambu starts to find herself again, not without a disastrous homecoming, but with a profound sense of hope and newly recovered self -respect. One of the things that struck me was that throughout the story, Tambu remains true to herself, decent , upright and mostly restrained, even in her most dire circumstances.
This is a novel that is full of images and Dangarembga writes with the skill of the observant artist, as she rolls back the lives of the ordinary Zimbabwean, their struggles and the manipulation of the wealthy. What comes across so compellingly is the status of women, or should I say their non-status, to be used and abused as the men in the story wish. And it is this that makes so many of the female cast raw, ambitious and outspoken. This is an African book written as only an African woman can as she dissects and plays the characters one against the other. They bristle and speak in a way that might be strange to many ears, but the rawness depicts their anger and their resolution and ultimately successes.
With a depth and breadth that is breath- taking the reader feels as if they are caught in the cross hairs of a quivering rifle. There is almost a contemptuous tone as the apathetic Tambu views herself. Never sentimental, always thought provoking, at times the reader is angry with Tambu then sorry for her and finally rooting for her as she struggles to rebuild a life she spent her youth working for. Evocative and devastating ‘This Mournable Body‘ is a stark reminder of where we are and Dangarembga has once again lived up to her reputation. A brilliant addition to African literature.

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Magic Lessons

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