Reviews

A really interesting exploration of the time in the run up to the Rwandan genocide, and the particular ways in which discrimination and political intrigue are reflected within different settings (in this case, a prestigious religious girls' boarding school). I would have liked a bit more character development.

liralen's review

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3.0

It's the late 1970s in Rwanda, and the students at Our Lady of the Nile -- an elite girls' boarding school -- know to watch their step. The country is under majority rule, but unrest is everywhere; the minority ethnic group make easy scapegoats. Genocide is not yet here, and it will not be here for some time, not really. But everyone knows that it's only a matter of time.

It's an odd book, perhaps. Fascinating, though. For much of the book very little actually happens; instead it is all scene-setting and petty arguments. We watch Gloriosa, the undisputed queen bee of the school, wield her influence with cruelty and aplomb. We see the bumbling white people stumble through these girls' lives, some with better intentions than others.

In a way, this sloooow scene-setting and explosive climax is terribly (in both the 'very' sense and the 'it is a terrible thing' sense) fitting for the reality of the genocide: throughout the book, the reader knows what is coming for the girls in the long run. The girls know, if not exactly what to expect, that something is coming. People don't wake up one morning and decide spontaneously to commit genocide, and neither do the characters in this story go from ordinary, unworried schoolgirls to people caught up in warfare overnight.

I do wish that the story had relied more on fleshed-out scenes. A lot of the action was told through dialogue, after the fact, adding to the distanced feel of the story. There are also very few characters who we get to know well...one character dies at the end, but it is not as emotional a moment as it might be if she had been given more time to develop. Another is saved, and while we know her better, this is not a particularly emotional moment either. Was this intentional? I am not sure.

Other things:

-There's a certain derision for many (not all) of the white people in the book. "The Tutsi have already acted in white men's B movies, or in their craziness, you should say, and we suffered for it." (81) Then there's the unnamed 'white woman' who lives with gorillas, who inspires white people to care for gorillas more, it seems, than for Rwandans -- and who does not trust Rwandans to come near the gorillas (105). It's understood among the students that the white-person food the lycée mandates is really...not very good...and of course the white people in charge can't see that most of their students are always going to prefer the things they grew up with to (very unappetizing-sounding) foreign food. And then the witch doctor, who tells Virginia Don't tell those whites who want to know everything but who understand nothing. (149)

-And, of course, we mustn't forget Monsieur de Fontenaille, who doesn't seem to care whether the Tutsis live or die so long as he can live out his fantasies: "Even if the Tutsi were to disappear, I am the custodian of their legend. (161) I'm not even going to try to understand him. Or the detestable Father Herménéglide...

-The story is told almost entirely in the third person, except for a few lapses into first-person plural -- i.e., we. As though the narrator is someone at the lycée. Never quite figured out what to make of that.

-We see Virginia go home over the holidays and work with her mother in the fields. Her mother imagines all that might be done with Virginia's dowry...a brick house with a sheet-metal roof; mattresses; folding chairs instead of mats; a thermos to keep the tea warm (135). I don't want to put too much emphasis on the Hutu-this and Tutsi-that, but I don't think it's accidental that Virginia, a minority student, is far poorer than most of her classmates. And...I'm not sure if it's sadder that to her mother, those dreams (sheet-metal, folding chairs) seem like an incredible luxury, or that it seems unlikely that her daughter will rise as far as she hopes.

-Gloriosa. Cripes. She's...she's certainly something. Fearless. Shameless. An instigator. Definitely someone who might have benefitted from a little more depth...although I suppose that wasn't really the point here. Frightening to think how much havoc one person can wreak, though, given a lack of regard for others, and some manipulation, and power.

hannicogood's review

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4.0

The book starts off as vignettes of different students. By the time the narrative weaves together, you start to realize how tragic the story is. It’s an interesting look at a microcosm of events that led up to the genocide in 1994.

jnikolova's review

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3.0

Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.

*** 3.5 stars ***

This book is just what I needed to remind me why I decided to follow the reading around the world challenge. It's such a good profile of the situation in Rwanda for the time period and even much after (as the book is set before the 1994 Tutsi genocide), that I couldn't help but feel carried away into the world of the book.

Our Lady of the Nile delves deeply into the psychology of the regular Rwandans, depicting their beliefs, the struggles in society, the aftermath of the Belgian colonial era, the political issues and their effect on the "small" people.

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the narrative, the rather uneducated girls who still believe in witch doctors, or so-called poisoners, and who are trying to keep their own culture, all the while feeling like they need to also be different, more white, more Belgian. The book shows the discrepancy between the "own" and the "other", between what people want and what they think they should want.

Ever since seeing Hotel Rwanda, I have been having a hard time coping with the senseless violence and this conflict between Hutu and Tutsi, which was completely fabricated and artificial, and was created by the Belgians in order to divide and conquer. I have a really hard time grasping the idea that people would be as easily manipulated as to actually believe in this "racial" separation and even shed blood over it. And yet, they obviously are. So I keep reading information about it, trying to make myself understand. While Our Lady of the Nile didn't solve it for me, it definitely showed a different side of the problem, as lived in a school for girls.

I really enjoyed the setting of the book, the intricate descriptions of the Rwandan society, their beliefs, the feelings of the young girls, even the taste of the Rwandan food. It was a breath of air from far, far away.

What I didn't like as much was the actual method of narration that the author used. Rather than the reader being a participant in the events, they were just stories that someone tells. This made the book a bit repetitive, because it just followed the flow of: This is (name), she meets (name), and she starts telling her a story. It could work in a different type of a book, but in this case, it just seemed very distracting, because it took away from the flow of the book.

Even despite that, I think Our Lady of the Nile was a pretty nice book.

spetty88's review

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

black_girl_reading's review

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5.0

Scholastique Mukasonga’s Our Lady of the Nile is a story of the rising crescendo of anti-Tutsi sentiment that foretold the Rwandan genocide, set against the bucolic backdrop of an elite French Christian private girls school located near the purported source of the Nile in the Rwandan mountains. Told almost in a series of vignettes, the book highlighted how the French contributed to what was to come, and how an uncertain peace was undermined by a simmering anger fuelled by years of inequity and propaganda. It examined how these girls were shaped so much by patriarchal pressures, from priests who idealized them, to teachers who sexualized them, to an entire education predicated on cultivating the ability to find a powerful and wealthy spouse upon graduation, and finally to the threat of sexual assault as a tactic of annihilation. Perhaps most of all, this book named how growing intolerance can mutate into profound violence, and seemingly catch so many unawares despite all of the warning signs. This book was a quiet power that escalated convincingly and brutally, and having found it by chance, I can’t say enough how I want everyone to find it on purpose.

burrowsi1's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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