The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, “We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad many novels from poets, almost all thin. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. 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 valley. 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. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.Ĭry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.
Kellogg’s tutelage taught me how to read books as literature, for which I’m very grateful.Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948.
Cry, the Beloved Country is the story of a simple Anglican country priest who journeys to Johannesburg to find his son, who has been arrested for murder.Ĭry, the Beloved Country remains one of the most influential books I’ve read in part because of its powerful message about race, sin, family, forgiveness, reconciliation, in part because of Paton’s simple and beautiful prose but also in part, because reading it under Mrs. This novel is not an easy read like many other things that are not easy, once you’re finished, you’ll find yourself better for it. But I remember most vividly reading Alan Paton’s stirring account of South Africa on the brink of apartheid Cry, the Beloved Country. We read Beowulf, Macbeth, Lord of the Flies, Gulliver’s Travels, Jane Eyre.
This shift in my reading habits occurred in large part to Carol Kellogg’s English Lit class, in which we read lots of (what I imagine are) standards of most high school curricula. Sometime later in my high school career – my junior year, in fact – I started dramatically pairing down the number of Star Wars novels I read and began branching out in my choice of reading material. Heavy stuff, all those lightsabers and Bothan spies. Much to my chagrin now, I remember once in high school doing a book report on Shadows of the Empire, a novel expanding (fairly well, I might add) on the stories laid out in George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy.
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