Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Alan Paton’s 1948 novel Cry the Beloved Country tells the story of South African umfundisi (pastor) Stephen Kumalo as he journeys from the country village of Ndotsheni to Johannesburg in search of his family. Stephen goes to find his sister Gertrude and search for his son Absalom who like many Zulu men went to Johannesburg and stopped writing, severing his connection to his family and rural home. What Stephen finds in the great city is a completely different world from his village in Ndotsheni, and eventually finds his on trial with penalty of execution for murdering Arthur Jarvis, a prominent Johannesburg advocate of racial justice and a white man.
I picked Cry the Beloved Country from DC’s Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library after my girlfriend bought us tickets to see the 1949 musical/opera adaptation of the book, Lost in the Stars. And I’m so glad I did. Paton’s book was incredibly moving and the language was so clear and lyrical it was almost asking to be adapted in song. The text is often written in simple words but the way they’re combined reads almost biblically. In fact Paton’s text is rich with illusions to the bible including his son’s name Absalom the son of King David who rebelled against his father in the bible just as Stephen’s son moved to the city and challenged his ideals of family and tribal structure and justice. Paton creates beautiful moments of contemplation and meditation for his umfundisi Stephen who wrestles with the guilt of his son and injustice of the judicial system, decay of his traditional tribal structure, and racism and structural biases built into the soil of South Africa in the prelude to apartheid. This is one of my favorites:
“Have no doubt it is fear in the land. For what can men do when so many have grown lawless? Who can enjoy the lovely land, who can enjoy the seventy years, and the sun that pours down on the earth, when there is fear in the heart? Who can walk quietly in the shadow of the jacarandas, when their beauty is grown to danger? Who can lie peacefully abed, while the darkness holds some secret? What lovers can lie sweetly under the stars, when menace grows with the measure of their seclusion?”
Overall, Cry the Beloved Country is one of the most beautiful and soothing reads I’ve picked up in a while. It’s heart-wrenching and definitely pulled some tears out of me, but it made me to stop and think after ever other paragraph and left me wanting to read the Bible and consider my relationship with religion. Ideally should be read on the top of a hill waiting for the sun to rise, just as Stephen sits in the book’s final scene. Really wonderful.
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