Fascinating Story of "White African" Family in Zimbabwe

books:

	• Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood Alexandra Fuller Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 181 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Meet the Fullers, and share in their adventurous life.

Book Report Jan 19, 2005

"Don't Let's go to the dogs tonight" written by Alexandra Fuller.
ISBN 0-375-75899-2 Memoir 51395
August 2002

What a great book!

I feel that the Fullers are part of my collection of friends and family, like I spent my summers growing up with them. Bobo (Alexandra), tells a story the same straightforward way my Aunt Katie would. This was so real.

There are 12 neat questions for discussion at the back of the book (I should have read them first).

So, why did the Fullers stay in Africa (in such dangerous surroundings), after such a "run of bad luck"? Why did Bobo miss Africa at all and why was she so glad to get back? How did superstition play a role in their lives?
I would add, how were they influenced by the culture.

I think it is the adventure, and the excitement. Everything else is dull and boring by comparison. At one point, Bobo "drank the wrong water" and (see page 177 - 179), she is so sick, yet it ends with "I make a vow never to leave Africa". I expected her (a child living in an "Not Fit For White Man's Habitation, as marked on the map, part of Africa and being so sick), to say just the opposite. But, she was so glad to be on the mend and appreciative of all the sights and sounds and smells all around her.

On page 149 she says "In Rhodesia, we are born and then the umbilical cord of each child is sewn straight from the mother onto the ground. Pulling away from the ground causes death by suffocation, starvation. That's what the people of this land believe. Deprive us of the land and you are depriving us of air, water, food, and sex."

Notice how this ends with "us" and not with "them". She is the people of "this" land, and you can feel that all through the book. So the draw to keep her is the people, all her relationships, the culture, everything else in the environment, and all her memories. And she has shared those memories so well.

Page 22 - 23 shows "chapters of life", which was a very creative literary device. It was presented with the "off the wall" content which you can see throughout the book makes her life anything but ordinary.

The last Christmas on page 277 - 286 had me laughing out loud on the bus. I had to share with the person next to me who was also laughing out loud.

You can not imagine her wedding from page 287 - 296 which ends "I couldn't be more thoroughly married".

I have been to Africa myself, but Cairo is not the same as the deepest, parasite/predator war torn darkest part that she was raised in. Yet, I feel like I know the Fullers, as I said, like I spent my summers growing up with them, and shared their joys and sorrows.

What a book, full of surprise.

James

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Fascinating Story of "White African" Family in Zimbabwe

"Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight" is a fascinating memoir of Alexandra (Bobo) Fuller's life growing up as a White African living in rural Africa during tumultuous times. Bobo Fuller was born in England in 1969, and her family returned to what was then Rhodesia several years later, where her father worked as the overseer of a farm. Bobo recalls her life in Africa until she left to attend college in Canada. The period when the Fuller family lived in Africa was a time of great upheaval and strife throughout the continent, as one by one the African countries threw off their British reins and began governing themselves. Against this extreme political turmoil, Bobo tells of her own family's struggles to overcome the deaths of three children, her mother's fight with alcohol and depression, and constant health threats from malaria and parasites. Yet through all the challenges, Bobo is resolved in her own love of the African land and its wildness.

The Fuller family lived on a farm in Rhodesia (which became Zimbabwe during their stay there) for eight years. Their farm actually bordered on Mozambique, which was undergoing a civil war of its own. I can't imagine going out horseback riding in a land studded with land mines, but this gave the Fullers very little pause. There are family photographs throughout the book, which did so much to make the book more personal. I especially enjoyed the picture of little Bobo leaving for boarding school at age 8, proudly holding an Uzi for protection on the drive to school.

After Zimbabwe, the family moved to Malawi for two years, and then onto Zambia. In spite of what sounds like terrible conditions, Fuller tells her family's story, which is often tragic, with a great deal of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and look forward to reading her next book "Scribbling the Cat."

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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Book Review

This novel shows Alexandra Fuller's power to realistically and in a child-like way unveil her childhood. She was brought up impoverished in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Africa. The family has moved there because of the beginning of war in the early 1970's. Alexandra's family lived in fear of the war and due to that they slept, feeling protected, with gun under their pillows. The families tragedies occur when three out of the five children die at young ages. All of her troubles as a child lead to her confusions in adolescence. Living during that time we see the struggles that white Africans and black Africans encountered. Fuller shows her life, struggle, and compassion for her country like no other.
I would definitely recommend this book because it shows the essential root and authenticity of life. There is violence, there is corruption, there is racism, but there also is consideration and breakthrough. True evidence of growth emotionally and spiritually. I believe this book will appeal to anyone willing to pick it up. Anyone who is eager to go deep inside the heart of a child and woman in extremely difficult times her life will undoubtedly be able to expeience that with this novel. There are not many books that can open someone's eyes, but if truth is what the reader seeks, then this is the book to lay it out.

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An uncomfortable read

This is a very personal account of a girl growing up in Africa.
Feels a lot like reading someone's diary, with the family's losses, grief, and subsequent functional breakdown exposed for all to see.
It's written truthfully, maybe too much so.
I was very absorbed by this book, but I'm not sure I can say I actually enjoyed it.

Terrifyingly Sweet

It takes awhile to grasp Alexandra's unique dialectal tone and hang on to the unpredictable roller coaster flow of this beautiful little memoir. Once you do, one has to wonder of this woman is a genius; as she disperses crystal clear recollections and -hard to get at first- wry anecdotes of a childhood in an impovershed African homestead riddled with mud, numerous malaria outbreaks, multiple infant fatalties, alcoholism, shrieking madwomen, acrimonius relations with the neighboring villagers, and above all, survival. All set against a backdrop of blistering terra firma and wild animals abound. Not only was she born to tell one of the greatest stories of all time, it seems plausible that Ms. Fuller had been born with a silver pen in her mouth.
Warning: this book is not for those who are of the faint of heart or weak stomached.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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