it’s still march? dang, this month is long and nonproductive, although i have managed to patch up some of that dissolving quilt, and i’ve watched most of the 2nd season of Lost and went to see some Kenyan modern dance. i wish i’d known ahead of time that that long piece was about HIV/AIDS.
Crimes of Conscience - Nadine Gordimer
When I came to Kenya, I had decided that I would read lots of African fiction, and that i would not read any written by white (African or otherwise) authors.
But then I settled down to just trying to live here, in the extremely sheltered world of Nairobi, and it was hard enough for me that I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t at the end of a day immerse myself in a reality harder and brighter and deadlier and even more confusing, just on the edge of a logic my brain could understand, than the day itself had been. And I couldn’t.
Now I’m settled into my comfortable apartment, with my comfortable amenities, away from the war and destruction, let alone the life of just trying to get by on your 1 acre of land. I’m starting to get a feel for Nairobians, which is different from America for sure, but also quite different from the other 30 million Kenyans.
So then I found myself coming out of the Library with this book of short stories by a white South African who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature at some point. And I read them. And loved them. And am not sure how I feel about being able to live with and relate to White Africans’ literature more easily than the Black Africans’ lit.

Strong Poison - Dorothy L. Sayers
So I didn’t really explain my experience of reading the last Wimsey book - Unnatural Death - it was actually a somewhat upsetting experience as it happened, although in the end I came out okay. So in that book, Wimsey is younger and, as I said, more emotionally guarded, which was somewhat jarring for some reason. And the main characters surrounding the murder are various generations of spinster women who may or may not be in long and short term lesbian relationships. The choices and relationship of the elder generation (the woman whose death is being investigated) seem to be largely respected by the other characters in the book, but the younger generation is portrayed as, well, heartless and cruel or thoughtless and silly. I guess that was somewhat upsetting for two reasons: 1) Here i sit in Kenya, where homosexuality is sternly told that it doesn’t exist and if it does it certainly is illegal, which is upsetting in a similar way that Kenyans’ casual bigotry towards the “Asians” who have lived here for 4 generations turns my stomach; 2) The evil lesbian characters just weren’t as good of characters as one normally encounters in these books. I do appreciate a well rounded character, and these were not quite.
Ultimately, though, as I was saying, I came out okay, I think because I realized that this Wimsey was a different person than in the later books. My whole “Buffy” theory.
So, getting to this book, then, Strong Poison happens between Unnatural Death and the other two I’d read here - Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Nights. It’s kind of a hinge book, in that Wimsey realizes he wants to change, that he needs to change, and that it is not easy to do so when everything around you has settled snuggly around the shape of your current self. To quote Sayers quoting someone else “Oh I am changing, changing, fearfully changing!”
Which makes me want to be shaken out of my own snug condition, but then that never seems to happen to me because of torrid love affairs, it happens because i do something like showing up for the bar exam on the wrong day. Anyways. It was a good read.

Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller
It’s nice to sit down and accidentally read a whole book without intending to do so, while it gets dark around you and you realize maybe you are hungry and should eat but then you forget again and just keep reading to the end.
So here we are with another book, taking place in Africa, written by a White African. It’s maybe a tad bit self-conscious in its language, but that’s okay because the story is so breathless.

American Gods - Neil Galman
Yeah, well, I re-read books. And I had somehow used my two book-limit at the library to check out Nadine Gordimer and Ken Saro-Wiwa at the same time, so that left me with really, trust me, nothing to read before sleeping. And I do like this book. It is fun and I like the characters enough that I just roll along with the bits that I think maybe are supposed to be profound and just enjoy them.
I still can’t think of a way to describe this book, though. Easier to just not get started.