Book Review: AFTERLIVES by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Had to put it down after 30 pages. I just couldn't get into it. Will give it a few years and hopefully write a better review afterwards.
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(Edited six weeks later)

A friend inspired me to give Gurnah another chance. That's the wonderful thing about being in a book club! :) Am grateful I did, because things got interesting at page 40.

Part mystery, part romance, part family history, I was drawn (for the first time in my literary journey!) into the early part of the 20th century. Germany has colonized East Africa, and African men are recruited into the Schutztruppe (German colonial troops), called askari.

Parts of the book felt like those mandatory canon lists assigned to high school classes, but to be fair, some parts soared and felt like movies writ in words. The most absorbing parts had to be the descriptions of military action. The ending felt absolutely rushed. I was left with the thought: "That's it?!?!"

Then again, perhaps this is the author's deliberate choice, to MAKE the reader think about what they just read.

The first thing I noticed was that Gurnah didn't italicize the Swahili (?) words, nor German. This is a political choice, and an admirable one, too. Thank goodness for Google Translate!

Had I not known that this was his latest novel (published in 2020), I would have thought it was a first novel based on the language: I thought it rather sparse and dry, and not very compelling. Then again, this very efficient style allowed Gurnah to tell the story of two generations in the span of under 300 pages. (I am also aware that my personal preference tends towards those with literary embellishments, so this speaks more about me as a reader rather than Gurnah as an author.)

I also thought it was very crude, in the sense that Gurnah doesn't seek to romanticize nor sanitize anything. Dirty deeds and foul thoughts abound, which makes the protagonists all the more admirable for not sinking to the level of their surroundings.

Unsolicited advice: DO NOT read Gurnah's bibliography in the Nobel Prize website, as it reveals the entire story already! Talk about spoilers! Haha.

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