Cry, the Beloved Country

This is an outstanding work of literature, and a very accessible one. It is the story of two fathers, one black and one white, brought together by the tragic fate of their sons in pre-apartheid South Africa. Author Alan Paton does an amazing job balancing commentary on the whole of South African

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society with the stories of individual characters. Through dramatic first-person narratives spoken by whole racial or socioeconomic communities, we understand the forces shaping South African society. By looking through the eyes of the main characters, we see how those forces shape the lives of individual people. Much of the novel's drama comes from how each character responds to social expectations.

Even though this novel is replete with symbolism and social commentary, it remains easy to read. In fact, the homespun prose is so accessible that it's easy to let the underlying layers of meaning fly by. The characters are real people with faults and feelings, so it's easy to feel emotionally connected to the novel. Both of the main characters will bring tears to your eyes.

Highly recommended for all.

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A beautiful, classic story of two men, one black, one white, who share a country, a tragedy, and a hope. I first read this in high school, when I surely was not equipped to understand or appreciate it. Yet I did remember something of the "feel" of the book...the almost serene poignancy of the

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story, and Stephen Kumalo's profound love of the land despite the inability of his people to prosper on it under existing conditions. I don't recall whether any attempt was made to place this novel in historical context when I read it first. It would have been quite obvious then, twenty years after the book's publication, that the commonalities discovered by the two bereaved men in this novel were not holding sway over race relations in South Africa. The action takes place two years before the Nationalist Party came to power there, leading to the system of fully institutionalized racism known as apartheid. It is not, therefore, as many of the reviews here would have it, a novel "about apartheid". It is, to some extent, about the injustice of the treatment of native Africans by the whites in control, and it certainly illuminates social issues of its particular time and place. But it is mostly about the human heart, and I think it works best on a non-political level, as an exploration of human dignity. The language is lovely, and moving, often in the style of oral story-telling, with repeated phrases, like the refrain of a song or poem.

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Could it be I've already read one of my "2008 Top 10"? This book had a profound effect on me, which I doubt I can adequately describe in this review. Cry, the Beloved Country is an incredibly moving story of Stephen Kumalo, a Zulu preacher who living in a remote South African farming community.

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Most young people leave the community at adulthood and travel to Johannesburg in search of a better livelihood. Many lose touch with their families. Stephen is himself a victim of this phenomenon, as his brother, sister, and son have each left in turn. Upon learning that his sister has taken ill, Stephen travels to Johannesburg in search of all three. Aided by a local pastor, Msimangu, Kumalo locates his brother, now a local politician. He rescues his sister and her son from prostitution, and he traces his son's trail, gradually revealing the hardships he has fallen into.

Paton uses the plot to decry the racial tensions created by colonial rule, which encroached on native people and restricted their education, land rights, and employment. This could be "just another story about race," except that the writing is brilliant. Paton was inspired by the work of John Steinbeck, and his prose has a similar style. The language can be highly descriptive, as in this opening paragraph, which vividly describes the natural landscape:
There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles ... About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld. ...The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see teh soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground his holy ... "

Or, the language can be sparse, particularly in sections of dialogue. Somehow the spare words convey intense emotion with surprising impact. Although I was completely transfixed by this book, I often had to set it aside to absorb the emotional impact of Stephen's search. And yet, in the midst of sadness, a profound act by one individual brings hope to Stephen and his village. The book ends in a most bittersweet way, that cannot easily be forgotten. Highly recommended.

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Cry, the Beloved Country is listed on the LibraryThing recommendations for All Quiet on the Western Front, which I just read and absolutely loved. After reading Alan Paton's novel, I can certainly see the similarities between the two. Both are honest, raw looks at a tragic situation, and both focus

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on the fundamentals of human nature. Cry, the Beloved Country is set in 1946 South Africa; Paton uses the story of a minister and his son as a catalyst to a larger look at South African racial issues.

The plot, while interesting, is not really the main feature of Cry, the Beloved Country. Rather, it is Paton's message that comes through. He tackles the complex relationship between the "white man" and the "native," and the abrupt changes to societal structures occurring in South Africa. Interspersed in the novel are chapters containing anecdotes on life in Johannesburg. These segments paint a picture of a country divided, and of a society on the brink of upheaval. Paton includes many political views in his novel, and one of the central turning points in the plot involves a rich white farmer adopting his son's progressive take on race. These views, though articulated in 1946, are nevertheless relevant today - and thus so is Paton's novel.

Cry, the Beloved Country is not an easy book. Emotionally, it takes its toll, and it demands your intellectual attention. Some sections drag, and several paragraphs require multiple readings. This is not a book for a day at the beach, but a book to read carefully, to discuss, and to reread.

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Ah yes, Cry, the Beloved Country. Fodder for high school reading lists for time immemorial... or at least since it was written. I won't blather on at great length about this one as it has been acclaimed and written about almost unto inanity but it is worth a few words.

The very high level overview

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of the story: A native South African priest from a struggling rural village braves the white-dominated big city in search of his lost family. I suspect that much of the reason that the book has made its way into so many schools is that it exposes one to the issues of apartheid and bigotry of the region which, let's face it, as Americans we're not particularly well aware of. This is one of those forgotten but important bits of history that aren't really at the forefront of the American consciousness. It's well worth a perusal as a history lesson if nothing else.

From a reading and enjoyment standpoint the book does suffer a bit. I staggered through the first 70 pages over the course of several days and completely failed to hit my stride. The book is heavy in conversations so the use of the South African dialect can at times be unbalancing and distracting and characters are well developed but often hard to tell apart. At least some of this stems from my inability to engage with the book early on but I would argue that lack of engagement comes too from confusion of one character with another.

On balance, a great work but one that must be approached in a more scholarly manner. Certainly not one to be taken on the train with all manner of conversations going on around you as distraction. Sit a savor or save for a lazy Saturday afternoon and blow through in one long and savory trip.

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This book is highly recommended by me! It's beautifully written, passionate, and stirring. =) There are several spoilers in my review. If you don't need to be convinced by my essay to read the book, then read the book first and then come back and read my essay.

"Cry, the beloved country, for the

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unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."

Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country is just as passionate and socially relevant today as it was when first published in 1948. A Zulu pastor, Stephen Kumalo, searches for his lost son in a South Africa turbulently divided by racial injustice. Ultimately, the story portrays Kumalo’s spiritual journey from naiveté to a deeper understanding of his world, from confused anger to abiding peace, from a wavering faith to complete trust in the actions of God.

The opening pages are integral to the rest of the story as they describe the beauty of natural South Africa. With rich green hills and thick matted grass, it is almost a picture of Eden. Indeed, Paton writes, “Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator” (33). Yet, the “hills break down…They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For they grow red and bare.” In relation to Kumalo, this latter description embodies his spiritual state at the beginning of the novel. His church is located in the desolate valley, not in the vast and wonderful hills. He enters the pages a broken and suffering old man. Though his character does change by the end of the book, it is not a radical transformation. In fact, he leaves the book, just as he entered, broken and suffering. Change does not happen overnight – it is a gradual process. It will take many years to renew the valley into the image of the glorious hills that surround it. It will also take Kumalo many years to change. Cry, the Beloved Country shows only the first small steps that he must take.

For a broken man, it is difficult to begin this journey. At the opening of the story, Kumalo receives a letter, urging him to come to the faraway city of Johannesburg. His sister, Gertrude, who had journeyed there once and never returned, has been found, but is very sick. Kumalo, however, is afraid to go to the city to bring her back. Absalom, his son, had traveled to the city to search for Gertrude and never returned. Saving uselessly the money that his son would have used to go to college, Kumalo has built up a wall of lies around himself, thinking they will ease his suffering. Futilely, he tries to convince himself that his son will return, though he knows in his heart he never will. This deception only breeds anger that finally spills out in this scene.

"We had a son, he said harshly. Zulus have many children, but we had only one son. He went to Johannesburg, and as you said—when people go to Johannesburg, they do not come back….My own son, my own sister, my own brother. They go away and they do not write any more. Perhaps it does not seem to them that we suffer. Perhaps they do not care for it." (39)

Kumalo does finally decide to journey to Johannesburg and, eventually, he is reunited with his sister, brother, and only son. These meetings are far from happy, however. His sister has become a prostitute. His brother is a hardened man (he has lost all faith in Christ and is embittered against the white men, using his powerful voice to speak out against them at political rallies). And, most tragically of all, his son has killed a man and is doomed to die.

Yet, these individual trials form the foundation upon which Kumalo is able to grow spiritually. The man his son killed was Arthur Jarvis, a white man who fought for the rights of the black people in Africa. Living in his isolated valley, Kumalo had little contact with white men. In the city, however, he is able to witness more clearly the struggles between the two races. Through the murder, he is able to meet Jarvis’ father who lives in the green hills. Though the two lived in such close proximity to each other, they never met or talked to each other before. It is as though Kumalo’s sight had been myopic, able to see only his own desolate valley. Yet, it is from the white men that restoration will come to his valley and peace to his soul. At the beginning of the novel, his friend, Msimangu, had told him, “The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief—and again I ask your pardon—that it cannot be mended again (56).” Kumalo does not fully understand this statement until he witness for himself the hostility in the city and the resentment of his brother. Later on, Msimangu clarifies his statement with the words, “I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men….desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it (71).”

Even though Absalom killed Jarvis’ son, the father reaches out (in the memory of Arthur who fought so hard for the rights of the black people) to help restore the valley. His grandson visits Kumalo and learns about the Africans’ plight. Jarvis then sends milk to the starving children and an agricultural demonstrator to teach the Africans how to farm. Slowly, Kumalo is able to see and understand Msimangu’s words as they become a reality. At first, Kumalo could not comprehend why he had to suffer so much. His heart was full of anger and hatred. If his son, however, had not killed Jarvis’ son, restoration would probably never have come to his valley. In the depths of his affliction, Kumalo had told Msimangu, “There is no prayer left in me. I am dumb here inside. I have no words at all” (105). At first, he could not see God’s perfect plan unfolding through these tragedies, but Msimangu encouraged him that “we are not forsaken” (123). As Kumalo looked around him, he suddenly realized that even in his suffering God was there. “Who gives, at this one hour, a friend to make darkness light before me?” he asked himself.

The novel ends with Kumalo waiting on a mountain on the day of his son’s execution. The anger that he felt over his suffering is gone. He now understands what it truly means in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” God used his trials to bring restoration to his valley and peace to his soul. As Kumalo watches the sun rise in the east, he begins to understand more deeply about God’s plans for his own country. Though now it seems that Africa is filled with darkness and hostility,

"The light will come there. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret." (312)

Just as Kumalo could not see the ends of his suffering when he was in the midst of it, so he cannot yet see how Africa will come out of its darkness. Yet he knows that it must. For, as Msimangu had told him, God will never forsake them.

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This was such a beautiful book. The story is set in South Africa in 1948 and follows a black Anglican minister from the country as he travels to Johannesburg in search of his son and sister who he hasn't heard from in some time. This is the first time he has travelled to the city and we see

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Johannesburg through his eyes as he struggles to understand the changes to the native African culture that the city has brought about.

The book is beautifully written, almost like poetry. Repetition of certain phrases give it a very rhythmic feel and Paton has included some Zulu words in the text (with a glossary at the back for explanation) so it feels very African. It's also a very sad story, South Africa as a land and a nation has certainly suffered a great deal in the last century but there's a lot of hope in this book and I came away feeling uplifted (although teary) rather than depressed - the full title of the book is Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation.

Beautiful is simply the best adjective I can think of to describe the book.

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Madam, I have no wish to be cut off from you
I have no wish to hurt you with the meanings
Of the land where you were born
It was with unbelieving ears I heard
My artless songs become the groans and cries of men.
And you, why you may pity me also,
For what do I do when such a voice is speaking,
What can I

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speak but what it wishes spoken?
- Alan Paton, 'Could You Not Write Otherwise?'

This is a book with a very uplifting, though not superficial, message about racial attitudes from a man who knew all about living in a segregated society. It is a South African classic, which I approached with trepidation, fearing that I might actively dislike it. A superfluous fear! I enjoyed Paton’s story immensely, though I did have some problems with his writing and his conclusion. Not calamitous problems, but niggles, which I will get to later.

Father Stephen Kumalo is a preacher in deepest rural Natal. He has had a full life, guiding his flock and raising several children with his devoted wife. At the beginning of the novel, Father Kumalo (or “umalusi”, as he is respectfully addressed in Zulu) receives a letter from Father Msimangu, calling his attention to his sister, who has become ill in Johannesburg. Kumalo sets out on a journey to the big city, into which his eldest son, Absalom, has also disappeared. Kumalo’s deracination is expertly handled by Paton, who perfectly captures Kumalo’s alienation in Johannesburg. After eventually meeting Msimangu, he sets out on a journey to find his sister, which leads him into the seedy heart of the city. To his horror, he discovers that his sister has become a prostitute. He manages to save her from her situation, but much worse follows: Absalom is accused of murdering a white man. The rest of the story is concerned with the fallout from this horrible event.

Despite a glaringly convenient coincidence (the white man killed Absalom happens to be the son of a farmer from the same valley as the Kumalos) I found Paton’s story touching and worrying. Despite being published four years before my own father’s birth in 1952, this book contains warnings about South African society that were unfortunately not heeded until much later. In fact, I think that some of them have still not been heeded. An example: the book mentions a miners’ strike which is getting out of hand… if Marikana does not ring a bell, look it up for yourself. I will not get polemical in this review, so I will leave it at that.

Paton’s writing is often described as poetical, and just as often compared to that of the King James Bible. A not quite salubrious comparison, in my opinion. Just as reading too much of the KJ can be taxing, so Paton’s truncated dialogue and limpid prose can become a bit much. I found out short pieces of his writing better than the novel as a whole. Admittedly, it is a short novel, so not much of a problem. What did bother me more was Paton’s somewhat unlikely denouement. It seemed a bit too neat and final, especially considering the events that followed this era in South Africa. Paton’s dislike of capitalism was also a bit too polemical in the novel, too prescriptive rather than descriptive.

That said, I found the novel thought-provoking and rich. I do not think it is the best South African novel of the last century, but who am I to be setting up canons anyway? It made me realise how far South Africans have come since the Apartheid days, but also reminded me how far we still have to go. An exemplary tale.

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I read this because a coworker highly recommended it, but I didn't get around to it for a while because I was busy and because my friends kept saying it was too depressing and they didn't want to be around me while I read it. So I read it while I was out of town, riding planes and staying in

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strange beds, and I found this to be wholly appropriate, for the major force in the book is the ability of strange, even frightening, places to change the familiar, both for the worse (poverty transformed into crime) and for the better (status quo transformed into hope and reform). Truly, although the book includes misery and death, the contact with the characters' feelings was necessary to understand the efforts and rapprochements that are beginning to take place at the end.

I felt that the amount of introspection was appropriate and useful, not over-dramatized, painful but not paralyzing. This is important because about eighty pages in it starts becoming terribly clear that the complexities of class and race implicated in the novel are still fresh today, and the rhetoric parallels current debates about welfare, crime, foreign aid, and "family values." These questions cannot be answered blithely.

The book is written simply, and moves forward at a gripping, cinematic pace. The diction has the "accent" of its South African author and the style is slightly dated (as one might expect from a book sixty years old), but is not excessively disturbing. I recommend this book, and am reminded yet again that we can all be forces for good in the world.

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This book is about the land of South Africa and starts with “There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills…..” It tells the story of South Africa’s tragic history. Alan Paton was a principal of a South African reformatory for young offenders. He began writing the book while on

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a tour of correctional facilities. He began writing in Norway and finished in the United States. It took him only three months to write it. It was his first novel. The title tells us that there is a tragedy. There is a tragedy of what has happened to the beautiful land, there is the tragedy of what has happened to the tribes, the family, the young and the old and the loss of tradition. Stephen Kumalo is a Zulu pastor from the hills. He makes a trip to Johannesbury to find his sister and his son, Absalom. Stephen finds his son in a prison because he has killed a European (white) reformer. The reader also meets the father of the slain reformer. His name is Jarvis. Both men are grieving for their lost sons, both father’s are on a journey to understand why their sons lives ended as a tragedy. The two father’s lives become entwined and their ways of coping with grief offers hope for change. This novel gives a picture of apartheid and ends with faith that there will be dawn of emancipation.

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This truly is a classic. It has beautiful, lyric writing combined with strong characters and an interesting plot. Although apartheid in South Africa is no more, this book still has lessons for today.

Cry, The Beloved Country is set in 1940s (pre-apartheid, but only just) South Africa. It follows an elderly black priest as he goes to Johannesburg to try and track down his sister and his son, both of whom disappeared to the city some years before. He does manage to find them, but both of them

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have fallen victim to the temptations the city has to offer. He also locates his own brother, who is now an up-and-coming political player within the community. What the priest finds sometimes makes him despair, but sometimes he manages to find hope in God.

A lot of the story is told in dialogue, and the priest's search is interspersed with conversations and discussion between unnamed people which throws light on the political context at the time.

At the same time, though, the prose style is rolling and oracular, like a fable or the words of a prophet. Phrases are repeated, through the text: "doubt not that it was fear..." or "which is not a thing that is lightly done" (this phrase usually appears after some physical contact or show of friendship between a white character and a black one), or within a paragraph: "Look at the wonder-share of Tweede Vlei. For it was twenty shillings, and then forty shillings, and then sixty shillings, and then - believe it or not - eighty shillings. And many a man wept because he sold at twelve o'clock instead of two o'clock, or because he bought at two o'clock instead of twelve o'clock".

The effect is to give the work a timeless quality, as if the story is an exemplar of what was happening over and over again. The overriding image is of a broken society, the fundamental question how such a country can be rebuilt without hate.

As well as timeless, though, the book does feel a bit dated. I think this is because it is too scrupulous in its arguments - it appeals more to the intellect than the emotions, and almost all of the characters are more noble than you would expect anyone to be in similar circumstances. It's probably meant to be a parable about what can be achieved if people can act with understanding and compassion. But even the (white) prison warder treats the priest and his family gently and sympathetically. Maybe this is because the message seems to be directed largely at a white audience, and Paton thought a tougher line would alienate them. It doesn't detract from the message of the book, but it does mean that the same book couldn't be written now.

Recommended for: readers who like poetic writing, and/or are interested in the history of South Africa (especially the views of liberal white South Africans at this period).

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This is the big daddy of all liberal South African protest novels, the first really high-profile international bestseller to draw attention to the damage done by the racism embedded in the South African system, even before the fiction of "apartheid" was created.

It's a simple, very

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classically-constructed novel, a tragedy built around a father's quest for his missing son, full of symbolic landscape description and stately, formal conversations, peppered with interpolated sociological observations that come at us from a Marxist-Anglican viewpoint, all of it very much more 1848 than 1948. But somehow that doesn't seem to matter: Paton gets away with it because of his obvious love for the country and the people who live in it and his passionate concern to undo the mess that it is in.

Paton sees the racism that poisons South African life in a straightforward Marxist way, as an ideology that has grown up to justify the need the capitalist system has to keep black people in poverty so that there will always be a pool of unskilled labour prepared to work at low wages to keep the mines and farms going. By taking away the best land and forcing people into inadequate "reserves", the old agricultural economy of the tribal system has been broken down, taking with it the social control and restraints on behaviour of traditional society. Young men have to leave their families to go and work in the cities — the system doesn't allow them to establish stable family homes in the cities, or to build careers or businesses once they are there, so those who are too enterprising or too undisciplined to cope with tedious work in mines and factories are more than likely to end up in crime.

For the moment, political opposition doesn't seem to offer a way out — in the absence of any real political responsibilities open to them, black leaders are vulnerable to being corrupted by the system. Well-meaning white liberals can make a difference on a small local scale, but in the end they are only giving back a part of what their community took away in the first place. The only real pillar of hope for Paton seems to be the (Anglican-) Christian church, which gives black people a new kind of community structure to replace what they have lost in the breakdown of tribal bonds. But he's clearly not expecting the revolution any time soon.

If this were a new book, it would be criticised because Paton is a white person writing from the point of view of a black protagonist, using elements of style that are clearly meant to give the book an African rhythm, but which can sometimes start looking rather Hiawatha-ish: Here is a white man's wonder, a train that has no engine, only an iron cage on its head, taking power from metal ropes stretched out above. Conversations that are supposed to be in Zulu are rendered in very formal, courteous English, which is perhaps an accurate representation of the way social relations in Zulu work, but starts after a while to look like a cliché of old-fashioned exoticising colonial fiction. It's clearly all well-meant, of course, and in the context of its time, we can't really use the "cultural appropriation" argument that Paton is stealing space in which black writers could have been selling their books. If anything, he's helping to create a demand for more African writing.

Of course, Paton wrote this for an international audience, during a stay abroad, and the book must owe a lot of its success to the self-satisfaction American readers got from discovering that there were worse things in the world than their own home-grown racism, and British readers from finding that it wasn't their responsibility any more. The South African authorities, of course, banned it. But Paton did go back home and continued to engage in South African politics, doing his best to swim against the tide and work for change.

Whatever you think of it, it's an engaging tear-jerker and an important document of its time.

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This is a gem, a story of South Africa from a Zulu perspective published just before Apartheid was instituted.

Alan Paton, a south African of Scottish decent, creates a rural Zulu-feeling narrator that gives the book a beautiful, rich and simple feel. It's an easy book to fall into. We follow the

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story of a Zulu Christian minister who leaves his tribe to search for some family members in Johannesburg. And through his story and his naivety, we discover South Africa - a shockingly terrible place where a conflicted white population lives in fear of the masses of destitute broken black second-class citizens.

It's the simplicity of the beginning that draws you in, and then Patton knocks you down. And we suffer through the story, yet still find it beautiful.

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I read this book practically on the heels of The Grass is Singing which were written at about the same time and about the same subject, relationship between the whites and the natives of South Africa. I came away from Cry, the Beloved Country book feeling exactly the opposite of what I did after

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reading The Grass is Singing. Both evoked intense feelings, but while TGIS emphasized the racial tensions, CTBC spoke of harmony, of forgiveness, of benevolence on the part of the colonial masters. While Lessing talked of the harsh, dry and unforgiving land, Paton spoke of the gentle hills and the vast plain, of promise and rain - South Africa's two faces. Lessing writes in spare prose, while Paton's prose is as if bibilical poetry.

Did I like this book? Yes, but not as much as most people do. It is heartbreaking, sad, inspiring, but it borders on paternalistic, where the little coloured man is white man's burden (even in spite of the wrong done him here). For it's Christian themes of love, forgiveness, compassion and hope, I recommend this book and I'm glad to have read it. But I prefer Lessing's, Gordimer's, and Coetzee's South Africa any time.

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Alan Paton is an amazing writer. I knew what this book was about, of course. And I expected it to be a good book. What I didn't expect was to be so moved by the story, by the words, by the writing.

Now that South Africa has made some strides towards equality, I find it so sad that Paton died before

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he could see what has happened in the country he loved.

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Cry, The Beloved Country is a deceptively simple novel, but underneath its parable-prose there is a lot of weight. The book hits you emotionally, first, but there's plenty to mull over after that initial blast.

Father Kumalo must make the long journey to Johannesburg to discover what's become of

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his son, sister, and brother in the big city. What he finds there, and subsequently takes back to the hills of Ndotsheni, is by turns tragic, inspiring, repulsive, compassionate.

Where to start? Few books have made me so aware of my ignorance. Paton, writing in 1944, touches on so many issues that would occupy South Africans and the world for decades after. It doesn't feel right to call the novel prescient, as it seems he was just writing what was in front of him, but it astonished me how contemporaneous many of the book's concerns are.

It's not simply a matter of race, but also of culture and environment. Paton examines each in turn, and not merely through excoriation or blind empathy. Hiding within the biblical tone there is an intuitive and nuanced understanding of both black _and_ white, English _and_ Afrikaan, religious _and_ secular - and crucially the different way these cultures interact with each other to produce a terrible darkness.

But this cerebral element is couched in emotive, human terms. It's not a thesis book, and human connection and response is ultimately the most important part. Paton's thoughts and prescriptions don't come at the expense of his characters,and the characters themselves are archetypical, but ultimately relatable, and human.

With this kind of quite formalised, simple prose, there's always a risk of patronising other voices and cultures, reducing them to caricatures or cut-outs, but the great strength of Cry, The Beloved Country is how Paton resists this and carries the moral and symbolic complexity through his clean, oratorical writing. It's really impressive, a very sociological novel at a time when such a concept was not really widespread.

Was Paton alone in thinking or saying these things? I don't know, but I doubt it. Was the book unique in its plaintive and human tone at the time? I don't know. It feels very unique to me.

I guess history tends to polarise, and reading a primary source likes this shows the heterogeneity, and the complexity behind these huge social movements. A country is a fiction in a lot of ways and you can't reduce a real population to "sides". Cry, The Beloved Country is inescapably modern, and I guess that's what really hit me about the book; he broke apartheid out of history (for me) and ignited a hunger in me to learn more about South Africa - not just facts, but the emotional realities. Powerful stuff, even seventy years later.

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This book is the reason I have traveled to South Africa so many times in my life. Even if it was a required reading in my High School english class it was well worth the time it took to read it.

This is one of those stories that works on many, many levels simultaneously. What all the levels have in common, however, is their exploration of man’s capacity for both selfishness and selflessness.

On one level, this is the story of the disintegration of a family. An elderly South African

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pastor travels to Johannesburg to track down members of his family who have vanished into the maw of that ravenous city, never to return. Heartbreakingly, he discovers that all of them have been marked and warped by their brush with soulless urbanism: his sister has become a prostitute, his brother a radical politician, his son, a thief and murderer. In the course of trying to cope with these heartbreaks, the aged, gentle Umfundisi (Zulu for “pastor”) is aided by a host of sympathetic strangers, both black and white. The juxtaposition of their generosity and capacity for kindness with the corruption and apathy of the city is deeply moving.

On another level, this is the story of the destruction of a way of life, as drought and ignorance of sound agricultural/land management practices threaten to forever destroy the beautiful valley of the Umfundisi's memory, leaving behind a dry and desolate plain. With characteristic equivocation, Paton challenges us to consider the extent to which we humans bring our evil with us – in the form of plows and tribes and customs – regardless of our intent.

On still another level, this is the story of the evils of European colonialism and the devastation wrought upon an unprepared native population by greedy mine owners, capitalists, and politicians. Paton doesn't shy away from blaming colonialism for the ruin of the corruption of the Umfundisi’s family and the loss of South Africa’s soul. And yet, again, he chooses the path of ethical ambiguity over the much easier path of moral righteousness, juxtapositioning acts of soulless exploitation with acts of stunning philanthropy.

Finally, this is the story of the transition of men from innocence to understanding. In ways both subtle and deeply ironic, the core tragedy of the tale forges an unexpected bond between the Umfundisi and a grieving white African businessman, kindling in both men a deeper wisdom and, unexpectedly, a faint stirring of hope that illuminates the final few pages of this complex and moving tale.

All this, Paton achieves via a wholly distinctive, lyrical narrative voice that mimics the rolling, repetitious rhythms of South African speech. At first I found this use of repetitive phrases and exchanges (for example, the staple farewell ritual of “stay well” and “go well”) a little self-conscious. By the end of the tale, however, I understood the extend to which these simple exchanges could communicate as much depth of feeling and pathos as a whole chapter of Dickens.

Readable, poignant, relevant … can we ask more from any book? If the definition of a “classic” is a tale that still has things to say about the human condition, then this one definitely deserves its spot in the pantheon.

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There's a reason why this book is a classic of 20th-century fiction. The story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo, who travels to Johannesburg in search of his son and sister, still packs a wallop sixty years after it was published. Set in apartheid South Africa, Cry, The Beloved Country depicts the

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stark contrast between rural and urban life in that country, and puts on vivid display the absurdity of an unjust and inhuman social policy. Paton does not preach. Rather, he allows his characters to show us how living under apartheid affects their lives and the choices they make. Kumalo, an old man at the time of the action and painfully aware of his weaknesses, does not fight the system or even question it, and yet his struggle to make sense of it and somehow find solace in tragedy is full of passion and drama. A masterpiece.

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Had to read it for AP English high school, very glad I did. Extraordinarily well-written book set in South Africa.

I am deeply saddened, angered and touched. I just finished by Alan Paton' Cry, the Beloved Country. Saddened, because in this book, written in 1958 about South Africa there is barely a character who comes out as a winner after tribulation. I am angered, because the aforementioned tribulations are

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moree structural than personal. That is the strength of Paton's book to show through the stories of individuals what was wrong with his society. Also angered,because even today in the US there are people who are racist, because they are unable to see the structural damage that was caused by slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. The blaming the victim mentality and focusing on symptoms of societal problems instead of (or rather in addition to ) the causes is maddening. But mostly I am touched by the beauty of simple words, simple life and simple story of Kumalo, his family and circles. I can certainly see Steinbeck's influence on him. Very tight writing without any unnecessary adjective.

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An early anti-apartheid novel. A good book, especially if you are interested in the subject.

Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the

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gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic tale, passionately African, timeless and universal, and beyond all, selfless.

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