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A review by kate_in_a_book
Nowhere People by Paulo Scott
4.0
The book opens with Paulo, a Brazilian law student and activist, driving along a highway in torrential rain and spotting a poor indigenous girl at the side of the road. Stopping to give 14-year-old Maína a lift sets in motion events that reverberate through two decades of relationships, politics and activism.
Paulo is like many idealistic young socialists – rich, oblivious to the reality of poverty and the true effect of his actions, but genuinely well intentioned. Maína is a Guarani Indian and lives with her family in a tent at the side of the road. She collects discarded newspapers and magazines from which to learn Portuguese. She is quiet but not shy, and she and Paulo learn to communicate in words, though not in understanding.
The prose is dense – most paragraphs go on for two or three pages – but it’s so well written that I found it thoroughly absorbing, full of amazing life-filled characters who I really felt I had come to know. However, it does suffer from that family saga trait of skipping forwards in time, jumping to a new setting or character every 50 or so pages, which would leave me feeling a little lost. It wasn’t always clear exactly how much time had passed, at least at first, but cultural and political references give clues.
Read my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2017/05/05/fresh-from-the-experience-of-an-invisibility-hitherto-unknown/
Paulo is like many idealistic young socialists – rich, oblivious to the reality of poverty and the true effect of his actions, but genuinely well intentioned. Maína is a Guarani Indian and lives with her family in a tent at the side of the road. She collects discarded newspapers and magazines from which to learn Portuguese. She is quiet but not shy, and she and Paulo learn to communicate in words, though not in understanding.
The prose is dense – most paragraphs go on for two or three pages – but it’s so well written that I found it thoroughly absorbing, full of amazing life-filled characters who I really felt I had come to know. However, it does suffer from that family saga trait of skipping forwards in time, jumping to a new setting or character every 50 or so pages, which would leave me feeling a little lost. It wasn’t always clear exactly how much time had passed, at least at first, but cultural and political references give clues.
Read my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2017/05/05/fresh-from-the-experience-of-an-invisibility-hitherto-unknown/