Fascinating, thought-provoking history

This is not just a great history of South Africa, but a engagingly written, harrowing and exciting story of a tortured nation traced through generations of women in the author's family. Vivid, poetic and thourough... I look foward to re-reading.

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Wow

As an ex-pat SA in the UK I found the book eloquent, mesmerising, enlightening, reminiscent. One I would listen to again. I just wish any images that I assume came with the book eg family tree could have been downloaded as a PDF to the audio version.

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Disappointing Polemic - A Sadly Wasted Opportunity

Such a great idea for a book - so sadly disappointing. I was truly excited about the concept of this book,but unfortunately the author can only see through a lens of oppression and does women a huge injustice by making them all weak victims and failing to recognise or celebrate the incredible achievements of the remarkable women through South African history, who have proven to be the backbone of South African society across races. She cannot celebrate people of all races and genders as individuals and recognise the good many have done and their extraordinary and moving contributions through South African history; no heroes/heroines in this book - not even the matriarch who single-handed runs and develops one of South Africa’s premier vineyards in trying times. Rather, for the author, as a subscriber to identity politics, it is all about the oppressors (bad,) and the oppressed (good) - often leading to not just inaccurate history (plenty) but also double standards throughout the book (eg. Trekboer cattle-grazing destructive, Khoikhoi cattle grazing in one place good; Huguenots escaping persecution are malevolent colonisers, on the other hand she laments the fact that migrants of different skin colours are not welcomed in foreign lands; she can’t avoid women’s rights under Roman Dutch law, but then tries to undermine that). I am interested in South African history and so, while the author clearly has many talents, because of the polemical nature of this book and associated inaccuracies (too many to mention - she should at least have done some homework on the real story behind Invictus and Mandela),

I would not recommend reading. She is clear that society’s woes are very clearly the result of the scourge of the patriarchy. I dread to say it, but the author feels like a victim of indoctrination (from SOAS, amnesty international?) and also of a self-inflicted guilt for her legacy from which she is desperate to distance herself, ashamed of her Afrikaans past. She can barely give her great grandfather (and what he did for the world was truly great) credit for his achievements in bringing progress in the world and the peace he wrought.

Such a great idea for a book - a sadly wasted opportunity. There are a few moments when she tries to capture the sights and smells of an era and she is very good and makes me think she could be a phenomenal author, if she could shake off her polemical prism.

The narrator has a wonderful reading voice and is perfect in so many ways for this book (with a sort of neutral South African accent), but should really do her homework on how to say certain words, which jar when completely mispronounced, often (eg sparse, de rigeur, cypress, grandees to mention a few).

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1 person found this helpful