The Lower River

Geschreven bij Lower River

mooi uitgegeven hardcover, snel en correct bezorgd door bol.com.
Theroux leest als een trein. Beschrijft een verpauperende afrikaanse samenleving. Door corruptie en misdaad die het hele leven doortrekt, van stads- en bushbewoners. "What can we do? We are so poor. " Hulp-acties van een lookalike van de Artsen-zonder-grenzen zijn funest voor het moreel, maar vormen nog de enige bron van voedsel. Hoofdpersoon wordt gekidnapt om als ruilmiddel te gebruiken. Bloedstollend verhaal. (Schrijver Theroux heeft ooit gewerkt voor Artsen Zonder Grenzen, waar hij uit gegooid is, omdat hij "" zich bemoeide met de interne politiek"" .....)

Het boek zelf niet gelezen maar gehoord dat de ontvanger het een goed boek vindt, was er erg blij mee.

PT returns to an early 1960’s theme some 50 years later. He introduces Ellis Hock, a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s who found eternal bliss working 4 years in the worst part of Malawi, teaching the Sewa people, building things and becoming famous for not fearing but catching snakes. Notified that his father is dying, he flies home and takes charge of his dad’s business. Over a 33-year period he marries, has a daughter and becomes totally bored with running a man’s wear shop near Boston. All the time he dreams about his years in Africa. Having broken with his ex and daughter and sold his business, he wants to relive the only time in his life he truly felt happiness and fulfillment…
He returns to Malawi’s Sewa region, aged 62 to find his imagined paradise in ruins and himself soon a captive of the local chief. Read this: ‘The days burned by, and on some smoldering late afternoons of suffocation aimlessness he felt that if he had a gun, he ‘d march Festus Manyenga to the creek and, in front of the whole gaping village, riddle him with bullets, then kick his bleeding corpse into the water’.
This is a real thriller full of bush intelligence and escape attempts, a story of deep personal drama, about only a few caring and many picking the white man clean, dreams of being loved, and an amateur ethnographic study, all conceived by PT. Full marks for his cruel portrayal of a man at the end of his wits, falling deeper and deeper.
This reader objects to the following: PT should not have named the ethnic group in question on almost every page. They really exist and number 300.000 and are likely to become the butt of ridicule, rubbished for years to come in their own country. Also, PT’s description of a fictional European NGO called ‘Agence Anonym’ working with helicopters and pop stars, doing “food dumps” rather than orderly distributions, will enrage many serious NGOs working in Malawi and beyond.