Should be read but perhaps not one to keep
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I feel bad not giving this novel five stars, the brief furore it created when it was published helped, if only for a fleeting moment put the issue of child soldiers at the forefront, but viewed objectively as a piece of literature it unfortunately isn't a classic. It is however still a worthwhile book to read though one does has to persevere with it in the beginning whilst one gets used to the slightly annoying style in which the book is written. The book, as it progresses does get a lot better but still unfortunately doesn't quite get under the skin of a child soldier and there is a certain lack of realism and as a result one is slightly detached from the story. The best bits of the book in my opinion occur at the end where a the conversation with the psychologist occurs and there for me was where the greatest insight was to be gotten.
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Beasts of No Nation
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The BEASTS OF NO NATION story reigns true in the countless civil wars that have ravaged Africa from the East (Somalia, Congo, Rwanda) to the South (Mozambique and Angola) the West (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria) and in Algeria and Sudan. It is mirrored in the light of the Palestinian. The underlying theme of teenage soldiers being used for a cause against their comprehension is a dehumanizing crime that should be met with the harshest of punishment against the perpetrators. Also seen in USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, THE BIAFRA STORY, TRIPLE AGENT DOUBLE CROSS, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, we find that the scar of war leaves a haunting legacy in the lives of children, especially the children who killed .
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Powerful
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I'm glad that the subject of child soldiers in Africa is finally beginning to show it's face in literature other than UN pamphlets and NGO booklets. Iweala's Beasts of No Nation is a very short read, but it does everything that it needs to do to get the point across. The narrative is a unique style that places you right along side the main character. The lost youth of this soldier is almost tangible.This is a powerful novel. I would suggest it to all.
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Essential Reading
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I found this book absolutely gripping. It’s the perfect length for even the most time-pushed, attention deficient of us – this vital tale of becoming set in war-torn West Africa had me so immersed that I devoured it in one reading. Although the overall theme of the book is extremely harrowing, Iweala doesn’t overplay the horrific elements in his story. Instead, because the story is told from the perspective of a shell-shocked child in his naïve, unfamiliar, and awkward vernacular, such events are recounted with an emotional detachment similar in effect to the work of Primo Levi. There is more for our imagination to engage with, this serves only to make it more moving. Momentum in the narrative is generated through the growing compassion felt for our young narrator, Agu, as he is wrenched from an idyllic and precocious childhood into complicity with a world of senseless violence and civil war that he is too young to understand. He faces an acute dilemma – to kill or be killed – and is in a permanent state of conflict as the morals he learned from the warm and peaceful community that nurtured him sit at odds with his instinct for survival, which lies in a tragic necessity to please the brutal guerilla group that pillaged his village and probably killed his father.
Detached descriptions of savage rape and murder are juxtaposed with touching recollections of his loving upbringing and the culture that he is now, unwillingly, helping to destroy. These pre-war accounts tell of a West African (we are never given a specific country) way of life and heighten a sense of loss and injustice, of innocents getting dragged into a conflict that they never wanted.
If you have read books like A Clockwork Orange (also a book about coming of age, but set in a fictional dystopia rather than in an historical anarchy) you will not have difficulty adjusting to the language Iweala deploys – it’s all in English, you just have to mind the tenses. You will probably also really enjoy and appreciate the vernacular style that takes you much deeper into the character and the rhythms of the world that he describes.
These days it’s all too easy to become absorbed with the war our government started in Iraq, and to forget all the other, often more atrocious wars taking place elsewhere. This book raises awareness of just how intolerable life is for so many people in West Africa, and inspires one to read more about this situation. If our governments were as committed as they say they are to creating world peace, they would address issues of poverty and dictatorship in Africa, rather than creating more death and disorder by channeling their resources on the oil-rich Arab states.
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Powerful, International and Emotional
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This is not a book I normally would have read. Under strong recommendation I picked it up and was amazed. I was very impressed with the character development and the strength of the narrative voice in a relatively short book. Irrelevant factors were ignored and unimportant issues not even mentioned. The important thing was only Agu, a boy who asked only to live. I usually turn against protagonists who turn on virtue--I empathized with Agu in his darkest deeds. My only complaint concerns the use of a modern deus ex machina, but even so, it does not serve to undo the past, but rather to grant perspective--and in that goal it succeeds. All in all, a powerful read and a necessary read for anyone who is internationally-minded.
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Canada