Cry, The Beloved Country

One of the sad parts of being sick was that I missed our book club's discussion of Cry, The Beloved Country, the absolutely amazing 1948 novel by Alan Paton. If you haven't read this book, read it. Such an honest, moving, ultimately hopeful book does not come along often. Set in South Africa, it is largely the story of the desperate plight of the native people there, and the resulting plight of the white people. It is so much easier to read about the disasterous racial relations in another country and see where things went wrong on both sides, and to feel openly engaged; not that the solution seems obvious or easy, but it just isn't so emotionally charged. But when considering the situation here at home, it does not feel as easy, although things are not so different here, only further progressed and entrenched. In this book it is mostly the first-generation of blacks who are being eaten up by their loss of identity and hope; here, it seems to be a few generations deep. Oh, cry, the beloved country, indeed.