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Dec 16, 2009

John rated it:

This isn't an infinitely quotable book, but occasionally it produces a line that is devastatingly clear and true. Lines like, "It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be." and, “It is the duty of a judge to do justice, but it is only the people who can be just.” made me put the book down and stare dumbfounded at the wall. But mostly this isn't a highly quotable book; it's a beautifully written, riveting book where passages or entire halves of scenes More...

3 comments like (21 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

brook rated it:

I cant say enough about this book. It is lyrically written, reads almost like an epic out of Ireland. The dialog between characters is straightforward, and the book manages to give you a glimpse of Apartheid S. Africa, from the richest people, to the poor urban laborers, to the criminals, to the peaceful rural farmers trying to maintain their land after many years of neglect. This is a classic that I have read probably 3 or 4 times.

My copy is beat to hell, but readable.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2009

Marcia rated it:

Just when I thought I had a handle on this book, it got really complicated. After getting over the shock of how much South African history and turmoil were skimmed over or ignored completely in my history classes, I felt like this story outlined a pretty clear cut good guy vs an obvious bad guy. My initial thoughts were that the natives were a perfectly content group of people who were just fine on their own until the Europeans stepped in and muddled up their entire culture. I thought Johannesbu More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2008

Denise rated it:

This book is one of those classics that I'm glad I read, but will probably never read again. The themes are important (racial equality, morality, forgiveness) and the writing is lyrical, but it's still hard to read. Alan Paton doesn't use any quotation marks. He chooses, instead, to preface each line of dialogue with a dash. I could get used to this technique, if he were consistent with it, but he's not. Sometimes the dialogue is in the middle of a paragraph, with no indication it's spoken More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2008

Gwendolyn rated it:

After hearing of Bryson's call to South Africa, it made me remember this book I read years ago. It is a fantastic book that opens your eyes to the cultural and political challenges in South Africa. Since I read it so long ago, the following is an "official" review:

"Cry, the Beloved Country is a monument to the future. One of South Africa's leading humanists, Alan Paton vividly captured his eloquent faith in the essential goodness of people." — Nelson Mande More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2009

Kat rated it:

I am a teacher and, after 34 years, attempt to find new combinations in the catalogue of "must reads." I have done this as a staple for years. Last year, when deciding what I wanted to do - kind of like window shopping for lovely clothes -- I decided to read this book after reading Hamlet. I love the mirrored plot structure. I adore the fact that the land is a character. The moral imperative and subsequent hemming and hawing in Hamlet takes on a different light and life in the beautifu More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2008

Beth rated it:

I was supposed to read Cry, the Beloved Country my senior year of high school. But you know how senior year is. Well, I wasn’t like that — promise. I wasn’t one who started slacking because I had my acceptance letter to college in hand. But I did decide that I didn’t really care for English, and that I found my European History class much more fascinating, and thus I spent all my study time pouring over my history textbook instead of my English novels (especially since the in-class discussions w More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2009

Elisabeth rated it:

This was a deeply moving book that will stay with me for a long time. It falls into the elite category on my bookshelf of "I will read this again and again". I loved Paton's writing style...short, concise sentences and the dialogue written without quotation marks (as well as the social themes in the book) made this very reminiscent of another of my all-time favorites, The Grapes of Wrath. The book looks at themes of equality and social justice in pre-apartheid South Africa from both More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2010

Valerie rated it:

Okay, I had to read this book for a class I'll admit but this book surprised me. I actually got into it. These men are old but somehow so full of promise. They learn so much and I learned a lot about South Africa. The reason I didn't give this book a higher rating is because its just so sad almost the whole time and just when I thought it was getting hopeful the author had to put some doubt into the mix. If you like nice sugary ending like I do I would not recommend this book. However I saw the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 12, 2008

Dan rated it:

This book caught my attention at a used book store in San Clemente, CA that I frequent when I am in town for my annual beach vacation. It caught my eay because it had the original dustjacket (already protected by an acetate sleeve) it was a first edition and it also bore the curious dedication, "To Aubrey & Marigold Burns of Fairfax, California". I found it highly unusual that the town where the dedicees lived was listed and it was significant to me because I was born and raised in Ken More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2008

Tammra rated it:

I love this book. It is one of my all-time favorites. The author had the beautiful ability to write about the tragedies in South Africa and at the same time interweave a deeply moving story of two fathers having the worst experience of their lives. The gripping sadness of the experience is overshadowed by the love and faith of a father who is just trying to do the right thing. Alan Paton's prose and insight make for an awesome reading experience. I highly recommend this book not only for re More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 07, 2008

Renee rated it:

"Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic tale, passionately African, More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 26, 2008

Hannah rated it:

Bleak and sad, and yet so very worth reading.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Doc Opp rated it:

This was a very interesting book. The style of the writing was very unusual - it felt like a mixture of a tribal oral history and a modern western novel. Which I suppose makes sense, given that it takes place in South Africa during a time of westernization. The book, despite what you might expect, is not really about Apartheid, although Apartheid is omnipresent in the background. It is about what happens when the old system of enforcing standards of behavior breaks, without anything to repla More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

emi rated it:

This simple, beautiful book is about a Zulu pastor named Stephen Kumalo who travels from his poor countryside home in Ndotsheni to the dangerous and crowded streets of Johannesburg in search of his son Absolom, and sister Gertrude. He finds them, but too late to save them.

The story is divided into 3 parts: the first is about Kumalo and his journey and isolation (from his beloved home and family as he ventures away; from his brother who is power-drunk, politically motivated, and man More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Daniel rated it:

I really liked this book. This book has a lot of depth in it. You have to stop and think about what you just read to fully understand the message the author is trying to get across.

This book has some sad parts in it. Alan Paton does a really good job portraying the inequality of the blacks v.s. whites in Johannesburg. But because of this, it can get really sad. There is one part in the book where the black people in Johannesburg have no transportation so they have to walk ever More...

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Nov 16, 2011

Tonya rated it:

Beautiful story of redemption.

I admire authors who have the ability to comment on the depth and complexities of human relationships (all kinds...with other individuals, with cultures, with nature, with God) within the tight context of a story with relatively few words. The shorter the story, the fewer the words, the better the book and more profound the insights. ("A River Runs Through It" is the best example of this, in my opinion...this book is a close second.)

Pa More...

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Sep 20, 2011

Phyllis rated it:

Cry, the Beloved Country is perfect. Every word has been meticulously thought through by Alan Paton, who has created a work of art. This is the only novel I know I'll get something new out of, every time I read it. The format is unique, and gets rid of typical visual distractions, and with that and the fluid language, is more poem than novel. It has beautiful symbolism for the eyes that want to see, and has brilliantly insightful plots and side plots, that add a dimension to its pages that are u More...

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Sep 07, 2011

Teresa rated it:

Teresa Davis
Mr. Rich
English II
September 1, 2011
Cry, the Beloved Country Book Review
Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Group, 1948. 312. Print.

Cry, the Beloved Country was rather dispiriting. Although it is probably the most famous South African novels and most contemporary books possible, there was an excessive amount of depression in it, that I did not enjoy. I did not particulary love reading it, however, I did More...

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Jul 20, 2011

John rated it:

This is a classic. Its inclusion on a Great Books of the 20th century list initially brough it to my attention. Surprisingly, this book is quite popular and is assigned reading for many students. My experience with South African neo-colonial novels consisted mainly of J. M. Coetzee. Reading this work, which preceded Coetzee by at least two generations, one feels the same sense of outrage and shame. A beautiful country with magical landscapes and exotic names inhabited by warring cultures, to More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Sarah rated it:

“He went out of the door, and she watched him through the little window, walking slowly to the door of the church. Then she sat down at his table, and put her head on it, and was silent, with the patient suffering of black women, with the suffering of oxen, with the suffering of any that are mute.”

Cry, The Beloved Country is a gentle statement on anti-apartheid South African politics. Though this book was written by a novice, and there are several evidences of this, the whole of the More...

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Jul 05, 2011

Sara rated it:

Few words could be used to describe this novel and the impact it has made on me. I wish to go back and read it again, immediately following my first reading. I wish to read each word slowly, savor them, taste them. I wish to consider deep and long that of which the author speaks. I wish to gain a deeper understanding of the fear, the sorrow, the anger, the love, the hope, the courage, the compassion, of which Mr. Paton writes with a passion and power that moves me tears.

The plot More...

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Jul 02, 2011

Pati rated it:

This is my favorite book of all time! I have read it many times and each time I fall in love with it more!

Cry, the Beloved Country is a social protest against the structures of the society that would later give rise to apartheid. Paton attempts to create an unbiased and objective view of the dichotomies this entails: he depicts the Whites as affected by 'native crime', while the Blacks suffer from social instability and moral issues due to the breakdown of the tribal system. It shows More...

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Jun 18, 2011

Embejo rated it:

This was one of those books that when I’d finished, I wondered where it had been all my adult reading life. (Or prehaps where I’d been, or perhaps why hadn’t my High School English teacher set this as a required text?) I’d borrowed this book from a friend, but it one I definitely want on our shelves.

Published in 1948 about aparteid South Africa. This is a moving story about a black pastor Kumalo who leaves his village for Johannesburg to find his son who had gone away to work, but had More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 02, 2011

Sherry rated it:

This is a beautiful compelling novel of the struggles of apartheid in South Africa. It raised my awareness and imparted a strong love for this wonderful country and its people

When first published in 1948, Cry, the Beloved Country raised more than eyebrows as a powerful book about the power of unity and an author's unflinching hope of a future where segregation no longer exists. The book summoned feelings of pride, optimism, and anticipation of a long-desired goal. But Paton's lyrical More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 27, 2011

Rachael rated it:

I didn't love the style at first (influenced by Steinbeck and a little choppy in places), but it really grew on me by the end. Paton wrote so much meaning into his words that it became rich and beautiful to me. I was also wary of the painful truths Kumalo discovers upon reaching Johannesburg (talk about depressing!), but I loved the strong theme of redemption and hope by the end. It was a surprising combination of reconciliation and forgiveness within the context of political unrest, fear, pr More...

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Dec 07, 2010

Craig rated it:

This novel is set in South Africa in 1946 just after the end of WWII. Cumalo, an aging black Anglican Priest in a rural village some distance from Johannesburg has just received a letter advising that his sister who lives in Johannesburg is ill and in need of his help. Cumalo determines to go, and while there, look for his son Absolon who also left for Johannesburg some time before. Cumalo has never received a letter from either his sister or his son. Upon arriving at the great city (for the More...

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Jun 04, 2010

Heather rated it:

I just reread this for my book club this month. I had forgotten how beautifully and powerfully written it is. Rather than a review, I'll just share one of my favorite passages. This is when Stephen has arrived home after his journey to Johannesburg that was so trying that his friend asks him how he can still be a believing Christian.

"— This world is full of trouble, umfundisi.
— Who knows it better?
— Yet you believe?
Kumalo looked at him under the light of the la More...

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Jun 01, 2010

Meredyth rated it:

"Yet he is despised by some, for this golden voice that could raise a nation, speaks always thus. For this place of suffering from which men might escape if some such voice could bind them all together, is for him no continuing city. They say he preaches of a world not made by hands, while in the streets about him men suffer and struggle and die. They ask what folly it is that can so seize upon a man, what folly is it that seizes upon so many of their people, making the hungry patient, he s More...

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