The Rabbi's Cat

There are thousands of words that come to mind when reading this book.  Just after the first seven pages my immediate thought was, "This book is the weirdest book I have ever read!"  The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar is a remarkable graphic novel that is packed with so many words, panels and more color than you know what to do with.  This book is considered an easy read, until you try to understand the reason for every meaning of every detail in every panel, quote, color or character detail.  That's when you become so overwhelmed you have to read it multiple times paying attention to one detail at a time until you become accustomed to reading this abnormal novel.

This story is directed toward the fantasizer and the heavy thinker.  Zlabya's character is certainly directed toward the "grass is always green on the other side" believers.  The no named cat relates to the the mischievous and slightly unpredictable readers.  Zlabya's character is probably the most predictable and common character that we can relate with many other stories we have read not only in class, but also your typical romance novels where the woman is completely content with who she is and what she knows but then this charming dapper fellow comes into her life and gives her an experience she has never had then suddenly she wants to be part of his world and blah blah blah we all know what happens after that.  Completely prophesied fairy tale we all know and want to hate but can't help but to love.  Zlabya just floats through life doing what she is accustomed to do and doesn't seek opportunity until it is handed to her.  Note that many people try to succeed through life this way, they always want what they can't have but also they don't realize they want something until it is present to them and some tend to think it will just happen for the sake that they want it.  Wrong, the grass is not always greener on the other side, but sometimes it takes falling on your face on the "greener" side to realize that.

The cat, however, is almost the complete opposite personality wise that is his character still has just as much predictability as Zlabya.  The cat has many personality revelations throughout the book.  He definitely starts off selfish and arrogant because he knows more than his mistress but gets to keep her all to himself.  When the cat is able to talk he questions others intelligence in comparison to his own and seems to mock and criticize is doing so.  As the book goes on the cat becomes more selfless when he sacrifices his ability to speak so the Rabbi will pass his dictation.  But then he gets all selfish again when Zlabya gets married.  I know what your thinking, "how on earth is this predictable?"  Well that's simple, you know how in every really bad teen movie there's always the one mean girl(s)/guy(s) who decide being mean is not all it's cracked up to be?  That's the cat!  Stay with me on this one.  The cat starts off on top of the world, he's better than anyone.  Then Jules takes his mistress away and he's not too happy about that so he begins to hate him for it.  Then he realizes everything is okay with this change and moves on with his life.

I personally loved this book.  The storyline was interesting and predictable but by reading into the detail you realize why it was done the way it was.  There is so much to get out of this book that I'm sure even after reading it for the hundredth time you'd find a new discovery about a certain detail you didn't think of before.  I will forever be a Disney girl and whenever I come across something that has a remote possibility of relating it to a fairy tale...especially one where everyone live happily ever after...I'm almost guaranteed to love it.

Nervous Conditions

Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga, is a great book that follows the life of a girl named Tambu.  This book presents the great differences between Shona life and colonial life.  Tambu loves her life on the farm but when she receives the opportunity to enter the colonial life, she gets a new perspective on the everyday things we, in America, take for granted.  One of the greatest issues of this book is gender.  In America everyone both men and women have every opportunity to go to school and get an education.  However, this presents the exact opposite in Rhodesian culture.

In this culture men have every opportunity to gain an education, whereas women are not encouraged to gain an education.  Tambu's father was not excited at all about her going to school because this meant that whatever money she would make would end up going to her future husbands family rather than his own.  Why go to school to improve family riches if the riches go to another family?

The high school I graduated from encouraged students to succeed, however, it was aimed toward white males in particular for success.  I had stood out against the norm by being a woman who was able to find success in this school even though it was not directed toward my success in particular.  In terms of family, my family was supportive in whatever I did.  However, it did seem like no matter how well I did I could always have done better.  Every time I had a test my mom always wanted to know how I did, but sometimes after telling her she would ask "How come you didn't do better, you know this stuff better than the grade you got."  I feel this relationship I had with my mother is similar to Tambu's relationship with her father.  Not in the direct sense that our situations are the same but the fact that neither of us were doing exactly what our parents wanted us to do.  We were going to do what made us happy even if our parents may not have been.  Tambu's parents always told her she would only fail and she proved them wrong  and I proved mine wrong by showing them that I was happy with how I was doing and they should accept me for me.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

In "Decolonization of the Mind" written by Ngugi, he discusses the powers of colonization.  Africans were given two names: their African name which was used in the safety of their home and their British colonial name which was used everywhere else.  However, in the eyes of an African this name was not who they were but simply what they were called.  Whereas in America, our name is our identity.

This relates to "Wedding at the Cross" because Miriamu took pride in her African name whereas her husband did not.  He was completely brainwashed within colonization.  He completely abandoned his African name and instead of just being called his British colonial name, he became it.  Miriamu had decided not to marry him after all since he was not the man she fell in love with.  Dodge W. Livingstone had conformed to "the dark side" and she had had it with him and moved on.

I can really relate to this story because I have been in a somewhat similar situation.  My high school boyfriend had so many things that he wanted to change about me it was ridiculous.  However, being the naive stupid young girl I was I did whatever I could to change to please him no matter how unhappy it made me.  The problem was I was so scared of losing him that I was willing to lose myself to keep him.  The details a pretty pointless but long story short after two and a half years I finally was so fed up I ended it no matter what the consequences.  I was so blinded by love and false happiness that I didn't even realize I was losing sight of who I was because I wasn't good enough for him.  Luckily I wised up and ended the agonizing colonization he was putting me through to make me his perfect girl instead of loving me for me.

Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer is a very out spoken white women in her writings about the horrors of the Apartheid.  She writes in a way that makes the reader think about what it is like to be anything else other than an upper middle class white man.  She tends to not give her characters names in order to have them represent a general whole.


The most shocking story was "Six Feet of the Country."  This story gave me so much insight about the Apartheid , the entire system was just so corrupt that not even the people who created it could even control it anymore.  And if you had no power you looked to anyone who did because surly they could make a change...not always the case.  Though if you had power and you couldn't make a change, those who thought you could viewed you wouldn't rather than you couldn't.  The entire system is just too corrupt to make a difference.  The part in this story that stood out most to me was when they were trying to get Petrus's brother's body back.  Petrus and his father wanted it back to give their lost loved one a proper burial, where as the baas wanted it back for pride that he was able to take control of a situation in which the system had screwed him over.  It appalled me that he did not care one bit about this young boy who had died on his land, his only priority was to handle a situation his way to make him look superior and in control.


Anther story that got to me was "Amnesty."  I hated how this woman waited for so long for her husbands return from prison and all he ever did was criticized her.  He had called her ignorant for not going out and learning certain processes (needing the permit to visit him in prison) when she was not given much if any opportunity to even realize she needed to learn these things.  He had given her children and he was never around for them.  He had told her numerous times things would be different and they never were.  Personally I would not have put up with it, no matter how much I loved him.  Sometimes you do need to put yourself first and in this certain situation that is the case.  I feel she is undermining herself by putting up with such verbal abuse.  Understanding she may not have a chase to just up and leave him, though, I do see a reflection in the end of how she views her life.  She does seems content with who she is, as it should be, and it seems to me that she has seen the cards dealt to her and even though she can't do much about it she will make the most of it.


Apartheid is a horrible history that hit South Africa like a ton of bricks.  The way black South Africans were looked at was a monstrosity.  I can't even imagine how horrible it could have been.  It does however remind me of a Disney movie I had seen when I was younger.  It was called "The Color of Friendship" and had two settings, one in America and the other in South Africa in the year 1977.  Mahree Bok is a white South African girl who goes to America for a student exchange program to stay with Piper Dellums and her family.  Mahree does not expect her host family to be black, nor does her host family expect a non-black South African.  Things were very hard for the girls at first because they did not understand one another.  Throughout this entire week this movie has been buzzing in my brain.  When Mahree first goes to America she thinks of herself superior to her host family, but after learning how different it is America versus her home in South Africa she gets a completely different view of her host family and was able to accept them for who they were.

Achebe

Achebe reaches out to his readers in a way to inform them on ideas they may or may not know a whole lot about.  He either directly tells his readers exactly what he means or he makes them guess by the way in which he says it.  I particularly liked "Girls at War" and "The Madman" for different reasons.

I liked "Girls at War" because it gave insight on how we would act in terms of crisis.  Would you do everything you could do to survive, such as Gladys does in terms of becoming a prostitute?  Or would you think yourself to be superior because it's not affecting you directly so there is no reason for your assistance, such as Nwankwo and his Ministry of Justice title and "it's not up to me" attitude?  This story brought the term "virtue" to mind while reading this story and how one could seek it even in war.  Nwankwo had the upper hand with his status and yet did nothing to help those below him, that is anyone besides Gladys.  Whereas, Gladys was a virtuous person even though she had so little, she did what it took for her survival but also did what she could to help others.  Naturally, in terms of crisis this is not an easy decision to make, how much of yourself can you truly give away?  Though Nwankwo certainly could have given more.  This story looked at virtue ironically, Nwankwo had everything in the beginning though his survival was in vane.  However, Gladys died virtuous in the attempt to save another's life.  Could Nwankwo have done something to help Gladys from losing her life?  Would he have done something differently if it were his life in danger?  Then again, is virtue worth your own life?

"The Madman," however, was very much different to "Girls at War."  This story confused me quite a bit when I first read it.  I wasn't aware that Nwibe and the Madman were different characters at first.  It did, however, spark my interest due to the insanity of it.  The whole point of the story is to show that even when you yourself, or in this case Nwibe, are not crazy, if people tell you your whole life that you are you will soon believe it.  This story took me back into those good old high school days where most people considered me depressed because I always wore black.  I was not actually depressed, I just liked black, it was slimming and a dominant color in my closet.  I was told so many times that I dressed so doom and gloom that I seemed depressed and I started to believe them.  I was actually (and still am) a generally happy person but with how many times I was told I looked depressed, I ended up believing I was depressed.  A similar thing happened to Nwibe, only difference being context.

Both of these texts were very enjoyable and kept me thinking throughout the story.  I personally love stories that make me think and can relate to it through past events, I feel I find a much better understanding of a story if I can relate to it versus just reading it to read it.  As previously stated, Achebe gives his readers insight on ideas they may not be aware of such as racism.  We may be aware that racism still exists but we sure are not aware of the amount.  By reading Achebe, I feel we escape ourselves and begin to understand the worlds outside our bubbles.

The Stranglehold of English Lit.

Felix Mnthali goes on a tyrant about literature being taught in African culture.  He does not see how African students can be taught African literature by English writers.  He brings up Jane Austin as one of these authors.  I have never read any of her books.  I have, however, heard a great deal about "Pride and Prejudice" and have seen parts of the movie, not that it's a good comparison since the book is ALWAYS better, but I guess it's a start.  The plot is indeed a poor girl meeting a rich guy, they fall in love, blah blah blah same story line as any English speaking love story.  As sick as these stories make me I do love them, however, I do not see how it is useful to African cultures in terms of education about their culture.

Mnthali rants in such a way that it makes the reader think anyone who disagrees is simply mad.  Mnthali asks, "How could questions be asked at Makeree and Ibadan, Dakar and Ford Hare' - with Jane Austin at the centre?"  How do these stories relate to their situations?  How are they relevant to their culture?  In the time span this poem was written, I agree with Mnthali, however, in today's day in age, with the way language is being transformed and everyone is learning a little bit from everyone.  English has become the universal language of the world so even if there is not a want for it, people who do not speak English are seeking the need to learn.  The trick is to not let your culture suffer due to the change.  Jane Austin: Einstein of Literature.