First in a couple of days I am going to Mozambique back on the rig and apparently the internet connection is even worse now than it was then....so expect no blog!
Most of all: I am reading a great book "Waiting for the Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee.
I seriously started looking into books from Africa or "good" books about Africa and in J.M. Coetzee is one of the classic South African writer who thankfully does not write about the angst of living during apartheid or the end of it. Nothing against people who write about stuff like this but honestly this is not what I want to read.
Anyway, here is the very beginning of "waiting for barbarians":
"I have never seen anything like it: two little discs of glass suspended in front of his eyes in loops of wire. Is he blind? I could understand if he wanted to hide blind eyes. But he is not blind. The discs are dark, they look opaque from the outside, but he can see through them. He tells me they are a new invention. 'They protect one's eyes against the glare of the sun,' he says. 'You would find them useful out here in the desert. They save one from squinting all the time. One has fewer headaches. Look' He touches the corners of his eyes lightly. 'No wrinkles.' He replaces the glasses. It is true He has the skin of a younger man. 'At home everyone wears them.' "
This makes the book sound very light but here is part of the blurb at the back:
"...is an allegory of oppressor and oppressed. Not just a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times, the Magistrate is an analogy of all men living in complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency".
So quite relevant really. I've just started it but I am really enjoying it.
The price at the back is also quoted in Canadian dollars so presumably it is available home. I meant to only buy here what I couldn't get home but this is a thin volume and I couldn't resist.
