The Orchard of Lost Souls in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 07, 2014 Beverly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book, africa, historical-fiction, cross-cultural, where-in-the-world

This was a 3.5 book for me.

My thoughts:
• Overall I thought that his was a brutally honest and intimate story where the elegance of the writing provides the necessary dignity to characters where survival is measured in daily terms. Nine year old Deqo joins a dance group on the promise of a pair of cheap sandals but after missing some steps at a national celebration she finds out violence, kindness, and greed may often look the same. Kawsar, a solitary widow has lost all that is important to her y This was a 3.5 book for me.

My thoughts:
• Overall I thought that his was a brutally honest and intimate story where the elegance of the writing provides the necessary dignity to characters where survival is measured in daily terms. Nine year old Deqo joins a dance group on the promise of a pair of cheap sandals but after missing some steps at a national celebration she finds out violence, kindness, and greed may often look the same. Kawsar, a solitary widow has lost all that is important to her yet she finds the thread of hope when all she wants is the end. Filsan is an ambitious soldier who only wants the praise from her disgraced father and comes to terms what the price of getting noticed by her male superiors. Good character development and being vested had me turning the pages despite the events that brings them together at the end feels a little forced.
• Enjoyed how the author evoked the landscape and intertwined the history of Hargesisa into the storyline. It provides an understanding of the area beyond the newspaper accounts.
• After finishing this book – and reading the ruthless regard the “government” had for its people and thinking that more oppressive would lead to more control and power gives a better understanding how Somalia is what it is today.
• While these stories need to be told – the unfortunate part is that these stories are being too common and if you change the names and places – this story could have been about many other places.

• A couple of poignant scenes for me:
o How the whole town had to “dress up”, and stand in the stadium for hours under the blazing sun so that visiting dignities and journalist can see how see well the regime is liked.
o The stifling obedience required by the oppressive regime being more important that getting water and food to the people.

• A couple of quotes I liked:
o “It is the kind of place where human skeletons might sink into the soil undisturbed and unmourned.”
o “Everyone is angry – even the sky is grey and motionless; there doesn’t seem to be space for anything but silence and obedience.”
o “In her orchard the trees had been born from deaths; they marked and grew from the remains of the children that passed through her. She never picked the fruit that fell from them, believing it a kind of cannibalism, but out of those soft, unshaped figures had grown tall, strong, tough-barked trees that blossomed and called birds to their branches and clambered out over the orchard walls to the world beyond.”

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