A review by gschwabauer
The Heart of Redness, by Zakes Mda
2.0
A strange book. I read it in less than 24 hours for an English course, and it was surprisingly engaging. A lot of the past/present parallels were cleverly constructed, and the wry overtones gave the narration personality.
I wish we could have spent a lot less time on Camagu's creepy obsession with women, and definitely less time romanticizing his obsession with the final woman. The characters feel very human, but it's hard to like any of them. Most of them seem deeply selfish, Believers and Unbelievers alike. Deserves a 3.5 for quality, but it gets two subjective stars from me just because I probably would not have finished it without being required to do so.
I wish we could have spent a lot less time on Camagu's creepy obsession with women, and definitely less time romanticizing his obsession with the final woman. The characters feel very human, but it's hard to like any of them. Most of them seem deeply selfish, Believers and Unbelievers alike. Deserves a 3.5 for quality, but it gets two subjective stars from me just because I probably would not have finished it without being required to do so.