Of Beasts and Beings

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There is virtually no dialogue.

Some scenes cry out for dramatisation but remain trapped behind a gauze of inflated language. The strongest moments are those that probe the relationships within this grim posse, such as the opposing episodes of violence and sexual tenderness between the pregnant woman and her man. Ventilation comes in the form of another narrative running alongside.

Of Beasts and Beings

A white Zimbabwean school teacher, embittered and disillusioned by the state of his country, is preparing to emigrate. As he sells his family home to shady capitalists, resigns from his job and endures an endless power cut, he records his days in a diary. His tone is angry, choppy, blokey. Holding, himself a white Zimbabwean teacher based in Harare, takes a bold and interesting shot at tackling what he refers to as "the placeless redundancy.

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In the teacher's relationship with his lifelong servant, Tobias, white middle-class guilt clashes with his frustration at never having been able to feel at home in the country of his birth. They pan the effluent whiteness into the palm of their hands or it specks the sweaty blackness of their stomachs…. The Zimbabwe section is told through the diary of a teacher about to take the gap and flee the land.

There is a good — possibly a great — book in Ian Holding but this is not it. There were many books written after and about the Congo wars.

Of Beasts and Beings – Book Review | Steve Pound MP

They covered a similar blood-soaked territory and set something of a standard. I really wonder whether Ian Yardley and I have read the same book?

Since reading it I have been looking online for all I can gleam about this brilliant author, expecting to find heaps of praise whcih I did, in volumes … until I stumbled on your online review. Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, but I also hope I am entitled to mine? I thought it was absolutely breath-taking and I am really scratching my head to think why in heavens name it was not included on the Booker longlist.

Of Beasts and Beings by Ian Holding

I found myself transported into every little step and hardship of the incredible journey the troop go on in that hellish environment for safety and for the chance for a baby to be born away from the blood and mayhem, which I found absoultely real and harrowing and certainly worthy of any book to come out of Africa. I honestly feel you have entirely missed the point of this fantastic, powerful and thought-provoking novel which did for me a thousand times more than the average, plain, straight-forward narrative one finds oneself being given by writers these days — IT MADE ME THINK!

I also congratulate Ian Holding on his courage and honesty — this book tackles the fundamental question of what it means to be a white man, bred from stock who used to rule with colonial impunity, living in a country now ruled by a black dictator but of equal impunity.

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Of Beasts and Beings Paperback The Destroyers By Christopher Bollen. Our House By Louise Candlish. Painting the Sand By Kim Hughes.

Born to Run By Bruce Springsteen. Anatomy of a Scandal By Sarah Vaughan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Forgive and Forget By Patricia Scanlan. The Photographer By Craig Robertson.

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