Catching up on a classic I'd never read

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a famous book, of course, and I'm just getting to it now, almost 80 years after it was written. This is a book of tragedy and sadness. Some of it literal, in terms of the characters, but some of it clearly metaphorical. It touches on both the good and bad people in South Africa, as well as the potential for life to be different and possibly better. Having lived through the history of the anti-apartheid movement (including major protests in my college days), I know things didn't change easily, and racial discrimination and inequality continue to be issues in South Africa to this day.

The writing itself strikes me as stilted. Part of that may be the age of this book, but I also felt it didn't flow as well as other books of its era. I realize the author was trying to convey the manner in which his characters would have spoken, but I didn't particularly enjoy that and felt it hobbled the pacing of the narrative, at least for me.

Overall, I think this is an important work for its time, and I was split between 3 and 4 stars. I went with 3, because it was a slow read due to the writing style, and I feel that's a very important consideration.

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