Alone and friendless at the remote tip of a hostile continent,
they erected their fortress state and retreated behind its walls:
there they would keep the flame of Western Christian civilization
burning until finally the world came to its senses.
That was the way they spoke, more or less, the men who
ran the National Party and the security state, and for a long time
he thought they spoke from the heart. But not any more. Their
talk of saving civilization, he now tends to think, has never been
anything but a bluff. Behind a smokescreen of patriotism they are
at this very moment sitting and calculating how long they can
keep the show running (the mines, the factories) before they will
need to pack their bags, shred any incriminating documents, and
fly off to Zürich or Monaco or San Diego, where under the cover
of holding companies with names like Algro Trading or Handfast
Securities they years ago bought themselves villas and apartments
as insurance against the day of reckoning (dies irae, dies illa).
According to his new, revised way of thinking, the men who
ordered the killer squad into Francistown have no mistaken
vision of history,much less a tragic one. Indeed, they most likely
laugh up their sleeves at folk so silly as to have visions of any
kind. As for the fate of Christian civilization in Africa, they
have never given two hoots about it. And these – these! – are
the men under whose dirty thumb he lives!
To be expanded on: his father’s response to the times as compared to
his own; their differences, their (overriding) similarities.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story...
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From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years...
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Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part...
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Amazon cuts off 5200 affiliates in Minnesota(Jun 19 2013) With Minnesota's online sales tax law due to take effect July 1, Amazon has played a familiar card by cutting ties with 5,200 members of its Associates...
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