Cry the Beloved Country

I have a few extra minutes here to attempt to do justice to this beautiful novel. I'd love to just turn the job over to Lis, for a truly lucid and thorough presentation. But I guess you'll have to settle for me. :)

First, just go ahead and add this to my top . . . 12. I might even bump something for this book. The most striking thing about Cry the Beloved Country is the way beauty and suffering move along side-by-side, both sinking deep into your heart through Paton's lyrical poetry.

Set just before the official institutionalization of apartheid in South Africa, it's a story about a rural priest trying to rescue his family from innercity Johannesburg. His attempt to reconstruct his family, as well as his rural community, mirrors the country's attempt to repair itself, and Paton--without succombing to stereotypes or sentimentality--shows that, when God touches men, redemption and reconstruction are possible. As one priest puts it, "I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power or money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it."

It takes a great deal of pain and then forgiveness to get to that point. In fact, great suffering seems to be the one thing that produces enough vision for change. White and black, both having endured and forgiven, do finally come together with hope for themselves and their community. The ending may be among the most moving I've read. To see such largeness of spirit, such goodness and peace, rise from men we know to be faltering humans is soul expanding.