Book II depressed me...a lot. It doesn't seem like anything good actually happened. Nothing. It left me feeling sad and also pretty angry at the South Africa judicial system.
There were a few points in it that did distract me from the over all dark mood of Book II. The beginning of Book II is almost exactly the same as the beginning of Book I; except it focused on a rich white guy instead of a poor black priest. This made the degree of separation between Jarvis and Kumalo a little less of an ocean and more of a rather sizable lake. These two men lived in the same area and witnessed the same destruction of their land. I'm not sure if Paton meant it to make the two men seem closer by doing that, but I was better able to see the relation between the two because of this, so I'm going to assume he did.
After Jarvis reads his son's works and looks through his son's study, I think he begins to become more open- minded. One quote that really punched me in the face was when Jarvis's son writes "The truth is that our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions." Slightly amazing, no? His son doesn't put the blame totally on any group of people, but does say that the natives should not be taking the brunt of the blame.
Then the rest of Book II is just constant sadness. Kumalo's son is found guilty and most likely going to die, but on the single bright point Kumalo gets Msimangu's money. 33 pounds compared to Kumalo's son's death was not enough to make me happy. I get that that is not the point of the book, but it would've been nice.
The book is quite sad-- it is true. Much of literature does not have a happy ending. Though there can be some positive elements, it is usually tragic-- or realistic, as some might say. Yes, it would be wonderful for everything to work out for the people in the book and they could all go skipping off into a beautiful sunset that Paton would describe with excellence. And that might make us happy. But would it be realistic?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you, but I go skipping into a beautiful sunset every day.
ReplyDeleteI think it was more that I wanted Kumalo to have a happy ending because he deserved it, but like you said, it would definitely lose some of the realistic tragedy.