Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

[m_oonmoon]

This book hits so close to home. If you had told me that Glory is about my home country I would have believed you. The parallels between my country and Zimbabwe's experiences of neocolonialism and corruption is truly uncanny. The anger I felt while reading some sections of this book was so palpable. I couldn't even comfort myself by thinking that this is purely fictional because I've seen these things happen in real life. I admit I've never paid attention to Zimbabwe's politics (although I did vaguely recall the 2019 internet shutdown trending. Unless that was another country's protests resulting in a similar internet shutdown in which case the world is a bitter place where horrible people rule and exchange ideas on how to maximize the misery of others). However, the scenes remained familiar to me. My country's previous president also used to invoke hatred for the west to cover up his human rights abuses and incompetence. I am also a staunch hater of the west just like Glory's dictators but refusing to be puppeteer-ed by the west isn't enough. It should be accompanied by a genuine empathy and radical love. Otherwise, every single one of us who were once colonized and are now shackled by neocolonialism will forever be stuck with people who claim lip service to lofty ideologies that they only use as rhetoric to gain support and fatten their own pockets. My country's current president is the breed of animal who has no ideologies and is clearly only there to maintain his family's power and wealth. I could draw so many more similarities. Religion numbing citizen's anger by teaching resilience, by creating another world where everything is so good that it would make your suffering in this world somehow worth it, by teaching forgiveness to a fault. Regionalism. Police violence. People with one foot out of the country.

The ending was truly uplifting and I only wish that my own country can finally band together to demand for the things that are rightfully ours. I say that but I am complicit by virtue of my passivity. Nevertheless, I truly wish that I can live to see and participate on that day. I initially thought that the choice to present the characters as animals ala Orwell's Animal Farm was perhaps a little unnecessary. Now I think that it works quite well because it blunts the violence in the novel. I mean, if I wanted to read about the brutality of dictators, I would just read the news. Nevertheless, I do agree with some of the reviews that the novel is a tad long for what it's trying to say. I don't mind long novels at all but this one could benefit from a little bit of trimming. Another stylistic choice is the constant repetition of words and phrases to drive a point home. Now this is one style of writing that I absolutely detest. I understand that repetition can be lyrical but as someone with an attention span of a toddler, it's not my favorite. It was annoying at first and it required some getting used to but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. It was actually quite lovely at times.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I appreciate the weight of its themes. However, much like Orwell's Animal Farm (or even 1984), I won't be coming back to this. That is, I'm glad I read it and it will certainly stick with me but I don't think I can list it as a favorite.