Immediately hailed as a classic (Atlantic Monthly called it "the best contemporary novel on colonialism to be written by an African woman"), Nervou...
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Dec 16, 2009
Kate
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This is an amazing African Feminist version of the classic "coming of age" novel. Think Great Expectations set in 1960's Zimbabwe and from the point of view of a girl caught between her native culture and that of British colonialism. I ordered a set of this book to teach College Prep Seniors but they're too dumb. I'm hoping to teach it to more academically-inclined seniors next year. (I might actually be teaching Honors Seniors next year!!!)
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Feb 22, 2011
Bunxena
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Actually, I don't remember much about this book, despite having studied it only about six months ago. It was well written; the narrator, Tambu, was acutely observant and expressed herself well. Coming off reading Anthills of the Savannah, I found Nervous Conditions much easier to get into.
We talked about the book in terms of hybridization, discussing how Nyasha, Tambu's cousin, is trapped between two cultures: the British upbringing she's known, and the African tradition into which s More...
We talked about the book in terms of hybridization, discussing how Nyasha, Tambu's cousin, is trapped between two cultures: the British upbringing she's known, and the African tradition into which s More...
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Dec 16, 2009
Eliza
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"The condition of natives is a nervous condition" - Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth , 1961 - This is the basis for the title of Nervous Conditions, an account of a young woman from rural Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) struggling to find herself amid influences from Western-educated relatives, missionary schools, and traditional family values. Africa is known by its cliches; it's easy to forget the faces behind them- this is a good account of the psychological hazards of colonialism a
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May 29, 2011
Vasha7
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This growing-up story is told in a very adult voice, with hindsight and analysis: it's the words of a woman who's gone a long way from the poverty of her childhood and seen a lot of the world, but remembers that her family kept telling her not to forget them. This story is proof enough that she didn't. She speaks of the women and the landscape with love, but doesn't spare the men from scorn, not even her uncle Babamukuru, whom she admired so much growing up. Now she can see clearly how oppressiv
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Jan 26, 2011
Andrea
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I liked the book a lot. It took me to Africa and shed light on the life of the Africans who migrate or give in to post colonialized Africa. It points fingers to the fact that those who give in and conform eat, live well and can become educated where they can live even better, like kings in some cases. Where those who stay behind the times, will have their condition worsened.
The Condition of the African in Africa after colonization of the Europeans made for a nervous condition, and t More...
The Condition of the African in Africa after colonization of the Europeans made for a nervous condition, and t More...
Jan 25, 2011
Becky
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I was expecting an entirely different novel to the one I got, after reading the blurb about Nervous Conditions. I was expecting a culture clash to be at the forefront of this coming of age novel, but instead, the influence of the English in Rhodesia was more insidious - a background undercurrent. I'm pretty sure this was for the better. Nervous Conditions is the story of Tambu, a young peasant from a farm who would like to escape her cultural lot. Her father is a waster who relies on his bro
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May 17, 2010
Rowland
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The Influence of Colonialism
The essential action of the novel involves Tambu’s experiences in a Western-style educational setting, and the mission school both provides and represents privileged opportunity and enlightenment. Despite Ma’Shingayi’s strong objections, Tambu knows the only hope she has of lifting her family out of poverty lies in education. However, the mission school poses threats, as well: Western institutions and systems of thought may cruelly and irreversibly alter More...
The essential action of the novel involves Tambu’s experiences in a Western-style educational setting, and the mission school both provides and represents privileged opportunity and enlightenment. Despite Ma’Shingayi’s strong objections, Tambu knows the only hope she has of lifting her family out of poverty lies in education. However, the mission school poses threats, as well: Western institutions and systems of thought may cruelly and irreversibly alter More...
Jul 04, 2009
Corinne
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Tambu, raised on a homestead in the back country of Zimbabwe (then a colony of Britain, called Rhodesia) has very little to engage her young mind. As she grows and her desires for education and knowledge increase, she finds that she is constantly fighting against two factors: the fact that she is female and the fact that she is African.
And while she loves her parents and can find some beauty in her tiring and off-the-land life on the homestead, what she truly wants to go to school. A More...
And while she loves her parents and can find some beauty in her tiring and off-the-land life on the homestead, what she truly wants to go to school. A More...
Jul 01, 2009
Carolyn
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Nervous Conditions makes an attempt at portraying the complexity of the situation for women operating in a post-colonial environment; educated or not, Anglicized or traditional, rich or poor, married or single, each of the women in narrator Tambudzai’s life is oppressed in some way, and each resists in her own way, even when resisting one form of oppression means capitulating to another. Without ignoring the heterogeneity and intersection of all forms of oppression, Dangarembga allows each of he
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May 16, 2009
Catherine
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This is a tremendously compelling book, a story woven from the threads of four female lives in 1960s Rhodesia: Tambu, the protagonist, a young girl who gains entry to a more materially comfortable way of life through education; Nyasha, her cousin, who spent five years in England as a child; Maiguru, Nyasha's mother, who has a Master's degree but few opportunities to use it in the patriarchal world in which she lives; and Tambu's mother, who married because she was pregnant, and who lives in pove
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Feb 22, 2010
Claudia
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An amazing coming of age story, where a country and a girl are finding their own identity. I was reminded of Zora Hurston's conflicts with the male Harlem Renaissance artists: they wanted to highlight the plight of the racial conflicts, while Hurston saw the gender inequities as well. Tambu, while aware of the racial difficulties of her home in Rhodesia of the 60s, she was a witness to the unequal battle of the sexes -- her mother, her aunts, and her doomed cousin all struggle to find the balanc
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Oct 11, 2011
Emily
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The last of the three African feminist books recommended recommended in Ngugi's The Wizard and the Crow .
I really loved this one, a coming of age story set in Rhodesia in the 60s (now Zimbabwe). Tambu, the main character, is sent to the mission school after her brother's death (before his death she had no access to education because of her sex). She lives there with her uncle's family who have recently come back from six years in England. Sharing a bedroom with Nyasha, her rebellio More...
I really loved this one, a coming of age story set in Rhodesia in the 60s (now Zimbabwe). Tambu, the main character, is sent to the mission school after her brother's death (before his death she had no access to education because of her sex). She lives there with her uncle's family who have recently come back from six years in England. Sharing a bedroom with Nyasha, her rebellio More...
Oct 06, 2010
Rachel
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 20, 2007
emi
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I learned that history, esp. of colonialism/imperialism, stains anything it touches for ever and ever... that the true success of colonization is marked by how much the colonial subjects internalize the gaze of otherness. I also learned that I really like how the words operate in this book to make ugly seem beautiful.
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Feb 11, 2012
Maria
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The themes of woman's rights and racism are strongly portrayed in this novel very well. There's also the theme of keeping hold of your cultural identity. The narrator tells her point of view of a story of how her family slowly suffered and grew adapted to the "white ways" and started depending on Babamukuru and his life as the headmaster of a missionary. Though at the homestead, Tambudzai's mother isn't pleased with how her family's losing their cultural sense and adapting more to the
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Jul 25, 2011
Gretchen
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This is a highly engaging novel with complexly portrayed characters about whom the reader cares deeply. In the beginning it appears that it will be about Tambu’s brother’s death and the events leading up to it, but that only sets the stage. It is about strong and intelligent women dealing each in their own way with the oppression of being black and being women in a country (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) of dueling cultures. It is secondarily about black men in this same country of culture clash, who are
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Jan 31, 2011
Elsje
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Tambu is een meisje dat halverwege de jaren '50 geboren wordt op het platteland van Rhodesië (het latere Zimbabwe). Ze is de oudste dochter in een arm boerengezin. Haar oom heeft de mazzel gehad opgenomen te worden in een missiepost en daar een opleiding te hebben gekregen. Hij mag zelfs begin jaren '60 met zijn vrouw, zoon en dochter vijf jaar in Engeland gaan studeren om daar zijn masters te halen. Bij terugkeer wordt hij de hoofdmeester van de school op de missiepost.
Noblesse obli More...
Noblesse obli More...
Jul 21, 2010
Bucket
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I now know there is a sequel to this book, and it's a good thing because "Nervous Conditions" ends very abruptly, just when I thought Tambu might start to determine her place in the world and sort out some of the sticky issues related to culture and race that are colliding in her life.
There was an interview with the author in the back of my copy of the book and it seems that Dangarembga ended there because she wasn't ready to tell any further - she needed to prepare. " More...
There was an interview with the author in the back of my copy of the book and it seems that Dangarembga ended there because she wasn't ready to tell any further - she needed to prepare. " More...
Apr 30, 2011
Dpruess
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This is a terrific book about the formation of a young mind. The protagonist is an African girl in 1960s Rhodesia, and we also get a good look at her cousin (who has been to England), her mother ("uneducated," lives on a farm), and two aunts (one, educated, has been to England; the other not). It's very much an inner work, but from the detail of the inner minds, we can come to a pretty good understanding of the greater landscape and historical development of that period. Very thought-p
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Feb 12, 2010
Shannon
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This book is about women in Zimbabwe and different strategies they adopt to resist male/colonial dominance. We get the life story of the narrator, Tambu, who finally is able to attend school and a Christian mission after her brother dies. The story begins by saying, "I was not sorry when my brother died." The death of Tambu's brother allows her to obtain and education to better her family, but also throws her into an identity crisis as she tries to reconcile the life that she was rai
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Jul 21, 2011
Lisa (OhThatLisa)
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Feminism and gender inequality in Post-colonial Rhodesia. Very teacherly. It felt like it was created specifically to:
(1) be taught in a high school classroom
(2) make white liberal hearts hemorrhage
The actual writing suffers for the sake of imparting to us important lessons about identity, independence, womanhood, class, sexism, etc. (God, I sound like NPR even just trying to describe the thing.) My primary problem with the book was that instead of weaving the themes in More...
(1) be taught in a high school classroom
(2) make white liberal hearts hemorrhage
The actual writing suffers for the sake of imparting to us important lessons about identity, independence, womanhood, class, sexism, etc. (God, I sound like NPR even just trying to describe the thing.) My primary problem with the book was that instead of weaving the themes in More...
Jul 15, 2010
Hannah
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*Update*: Re-read this in a day back in the end of June. I think re-reading it in such a short period of time made it seem much less epic, but reminded me all the same of why I liked it and identified with it so much. Seeing Tambu's transformation from an assertive, driven girl at her home to a quiet, meek adolescent in her rich uncle's home, and her own realization of the great changes within her, was really telling. Nyasha's struggles with being Anglicized and realizing all the self-hatred tha
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May 03, 2009
Dan
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this is a compelling coming-of-age story about a poor girl in colonial rhodesia. the first-person narrative is often quite beautiful, particularly in its psychological approach to etiquette. though not explicitly political (at least in the sense that the revolution which would rename the country "zimbabwe" is not directly addressed), the novel is written from a refreshingly unapologetic feminist perspective. the absurdity of gender hierarchy is inescapable within the novel, and seems t
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Jun 24, 2010
Deborah
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I really wanted to like this book more. I think a better editor might have wrung a better structure out of it but, ulitmately, I just wasn't persuaded by the characters (Tambu and Nyasha) that Dangarembga uses as the vehicles for her exploration of Rhodesia's political and colonial influences. To begin with I quite liked the stream-of-consciousness type of device that TD uses with Tambu but, too quickly, this feels a clunky device that serves as a crutch to poor narrative style. The first third
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Feb 03, 2012
Jess
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This book was our "feminist lens" novel for my college Literature class and I enjoyed the book but did not find it to be the best example of feminist lit. The female characters were all unique and interesting, and I enjoyed reading them, but it was another book where the men were never brought down and it didn't seem like any of the women were truly happy at the end.
I need to keep an open mind, though. I am not African. Dangarembga wasn't writing for the white Western au More...
I need to keep an open mind, though. I am not African. Dangarembga wasn't writing for the white Western au More...
Feb 01, 2012
Mikki
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What I loved most about this book was the underlying story of coming to self and not so much to age. In first person narrative, Tambu, a 14 year old Zimbabwean, speaks directly to the reader telling not only her story of growing up female in a patriarchal society, but also those of the women around her.
In the opening sentence, Tambu makes no apologies regarding her lack of emotion toward her brother's death. Because with no other male children in the family, she is now the one af More...
In the opening sentence, Tambu makes no apologies regarding her lack of emotion toward her brother's death. Because with no other male children in the family, she is now the one af More...
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Nov 11, 2010
Barbi
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Nov 16, 2009
Keith
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When Dr. Stec mentioned in class that NERVOUS CONDITIONS is the African or Zimbabwean equivalent of JANE EYRE, that brought back vivid memories of having to read that novel in high school and absolutely hating the experience. Then when I was a undergrad, I took a literature class where I read Maxine Hong Kingston's WOMAN WARRIOR and not really liking that novel either. Now, after just finishing NERVOUS CONDITIONS, it's one of my favorite novels we've read this semester. Granted, there are certai
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Aug 18, 2009
Anjali
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I'm so relieved that there is a sequel to this. It totally breaks off suddenly at the end - it wouldn't be fair to say it stops when it's just starting to get good, because it is all very good, but it definitely breaks off when it's getting better and better. There is sooo much description at the beginnning, which is helpful to situate the narrator, a young girl named Tambudzai, in her traditional, unglorified, poor family home in rural Zimbabwe before she moves to the conservative home of her
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May 08, 2010
Kate
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“But for all the glamour, the thought persisted that Nyasha would not be good for me. Everything about her spoke of alternatives and possibilities that if considered too deeply would wreak havoc with the neat plan I had laid out for my life” (76).
“Looking back, I see that that is how our friendship began. In fact it was more than friendship that developed between Nyasha and myself. The conversation that followed was a long, involved conversation, full of guileless openings up and More...
“Looking back, I see that that is how our friendship began. In fact it was more than friendship that developed between Nyasha and myself. The conversation that followed was a long, involved conversation, full of guileless openings up and More...
