Christopher HopeRezensionen

This is the mystery of David Mungo Booi, the orphan child who survived a fire as an infant. He has gone to seek help from the Queen of England and subsequently disappeared. His journals are all that is left. They are returned to the tribe in a brown suitcase carried by a white woman in a blue hat.
The ability to speak English was a well-treasured accomplishment of our narrator. He repeats often that he is the only English speaking individual among the tribe and he is self-taught.
What became of the boy after his entire family was burned to death? Where can one find the King of Bongo-Bongo-Land? What is the true color of ostrich bile? Could a settlement in England be established? Can Humpty-Bloody-Dumpty be put back together again? What is the answer to cultural identity if there is only muscular gloom? The belief that if you had been to Cape Town you knew the ways of the world. What is the Great Paper? Does Old Auntie with Diamonds in Her Hair know the truth? Speaking of truth, I wanted to laugh more when reading Darkest England. I wanted the satire to be bitingly funny. Instead I found it to be more dark than snark. In hindsight, the prison scene was kind of funny. Steel bracelets around ones wrist, being taken from one place to another in a "courtesy" vehicle, the stark "apartment", having a toilet next to the bed was a luxury, and best of all, the devotion to privacy - all doors locked behind us.
Maybe if I had bonded with any character it would have made a difference. I'm not sure I liked anyone even a little bit.

Booker 1992 shortlist. Very sophisticated humour. And now that I'm 80, pretty mean humour. Of course the House in the title is a place for oldies who can't manage any longer. There's always hilarity in that - maybe not .P.C. but isn't laughter the best medicine?½

Wow What a great book! Dark, full of satire and irony! High Recommend i!

Christopher Hope grew up a member of a minority within a minority of South Africa. His family was white, but English and Catholic, rather the ruling Afrikaan and Dutch Reform group. The Afrikaans distrusted the English for being insufficiently tough on the black majority. The book begins with Hope ending his self-imposed exile. His first novel, Separate Development was banned by the Nationalist government. Hope returns to his homeland for the 1988 elections. This would be the last election the Nationalist party would win. The Nationalist party was responsible for the development and implementation of the apartheid system.
Christopher Hope tells the story of South African's recent history through the story of his growing up. The Nationalists rise to power when Hope is about five or six. It bears repeating that the Nationalist did not take power in a putsch, but were elected (although of course the black majority did not yet have the franchise). For me at least, history told in this personal manner had much more impact than an traditional, impersonal history.
I'd recommend this as an introduction to South Africa history.

If you lived in Johannesburg and are a contemporary of Christipher Hope one approaches this novel from a slightly different perspective because it tells a story of home , one's own city and the political transition one has survived. if one is a fan of Hope's writing ...and I still consider his Love songs of Nathan J Swersky a portrayal of childhood memories of Sandringham in Johannesburg of the fifties, and an African homage to TS Elliott a superb work, , then each new novel raises high anticipation and Hope's work has to live up to all his previous good reads.

My Mother's Lovers is a rich tapestry of memory, action, biography and autobiography but it also portrays the outsider's / insiders view of childhood and place. ... Because like Hope himself , the narrator no longer lives in Johannesburg and has become an worldlt expat who has new adult other place criteria to judge his SAfrican up bringing and now returns to face his past and possibly future and encounters surprisingly new situations and people.

It's fictional, with larger than life characters who represent types rather than individuals . They are almost improbable but the funny thing is that in a city such as Johannesburg with its mining camp history and sophisticated cosmopolitan veneer you may just have met one or two of them .

The canvas is broad and the novel through the the device of an aviatrix mother whose memories and experiences stretch time sequences from the turn of the twentieth century and the Boer War to the post 1994 liberation and new South Africa . It sprawls from South Africa to the Congo from Kenya to West Africa and in that sense , breadth is sacrificed for depth of place. Encounters with Hemmingway, Beryl Markham, Karen Blixen, Albert Schweitzer , a Rain Queen of the Magaliesberg or a second world war Western Desert pilot are all here.... Its romantic and dreamlike ... All in the air of Africa. Believe it or not and believe it you do because it is fiction well told. Just don't fool yourself that it is all true.

Should one expect accuracy of place politics, hsitory, and geography ? . There are some errors but the pace and the interest of the novel with preposterous people and situations which are only slightly connected to the possible sustain one's interst. It is a novel that captures the mood and madness of the city Johannesburg, with it's sharp angles to living , the coping strategies of high walls and anti hijack tactics , at a particular moment in time ... early 21st century .

If you are or were a South Affican it is as likely to remind you in vivid and telling phrases why you left the metropolis of gold , the magnetic city of hopes and promises of riches but also why you are drawn back to live here, to love the excitement of transition and find that despite the "in your face contrasts between wealth and poverty" this can be a place to put down roots and where your life here sustains a dozen others.

Could be spoilers. Part of the project to read at least one book by everybody listed in the Who's Who of Twentieth Century Novelists. I did not like this book. Not at all. It is told in the first person as the story of a boy/young man with uncertain racial identity in South Africa. He starts out in a privileged position & aside from a few comments nobody questions his right to be there. But then he gets into trouble and leaves home and in his new life he is clearly perceived as non-white. The characters are mostly unpleasant (I know...realism!), and the narrator is not very smart. There are lots of unpleasant earthy details, like ear-wax and flat feet. I guess..what...maybe this is a satire showing life in South Africa? The pub date is not 1997, but 1981, but it seems very old fashioned. Not like the sophisticated writings of the "great" South African writers. I found it slow to read & often hard-going; partly because of the language and partly because of the story.

De Hottentot Room is een plek waar bannelingen, emigranten en zwervers samenkomen om aan Afrika te worden herinnerd: voor vriendschap en roddel, om te ontsnappen aan eenzaamheid, vervreemding en eksentrieke wezens van overal

A black comedy set in an old people's home in London, this is the story of Max Montfalcon, the genial giant of Serenity House who might have been left to die in peace, but whose life took on a decidedly new turn when it becomes increasingly evident, helped by the investigation of his son-in-law MP who has a special interest in the War Crimes Bill, that Montfalcon was, in an earlier incarnation, Maximilian von Falkenberg. Falkenberg was known to be a brilliant German anthropologist who in 1942 conducted research on genetic racial differences in a Polish facility, possibly killing thousands of Jews and Poles with lethal injection.

Enters Jack, an all-American boy, eccentric and obsessed with violent videos and Chinese takeaways. Max is haunted by dreams of the Holocaust. The occupants of Serenity Hause is haunted by Jack.

The story is entertaining despite the grim and macabre theme (notions of people-disposal). While I did not fall for the story, I still enjoyed very much the satire and his crisp wit, and look forward to another of Hope's books.

Published in 1981, this novel is a brilliant satire set in late 1950s South Africa that is at its heart an indictment of apartheid. No wonder this book was banned in South Africa, and was controversial in many circles. The author, himself, who later won awards for this work and other books, was exiled from SA since 1975.

The story is a "confession" of Harry Moto, a 15-yr old white boy whose main preoccupation was, as befit his age, his fallen arches, hair that was becoming more crinkly by the day, plump breasts, and unusually dark skin. We follow his last days as a "white" person -- as a member of a middle-class family, as a student in a Catholic school, and as a typical teen-ager eager for experience and adventure. His "non-white" features increasingly obvious, more and more get him ridiculed and into very embarrassing situations. Before he could fully grasp it, events overtake him and he is forced to become the unthinkable. He has always known there was something "odd" about him, and so it is without qualm, indeed, it was with great relief and not a little joy, that he "morphed" into invisibility as a coloured individual. As we follow Harry's "descent", we learn, together with him, how it is to be the oppressor, then the oppressed.

I liked very much Hope's intelligent, crisp, unsentimental writing --- the book is very funny, outrageously funny even, it had me laughing off my seat many times, but there is nothing intrinsically funny about the subject matter, that is, Harry's fate and the nature of apartheid. And that is the brilliance of this novel --- he uses to maximum effect ridicule and satire, without ever demeaning into low humor or venturing into moral exhortation, to expose the cruelty and the absurdity of the racial system. And with this device, he gets the message across even more sharply and more effectively.

Hope is one of those breed of authors who write superbly and with incredible acuity and sensitivity, but who aren't a big commercial success because they write about issues that are politically sensitive, even offensive to some. But, for me, all the more reason to search out the works of this lesser-known jewel.½

Not a satisfying novel, but how can you not like an excuse for the phrase nasty, British and short.

Tarina Afrikan muuttumattomuudesta ja muutoksesta, äidistä ja pojasta.½

This is an absolutely delightful tale about a little girl and a dragon, and you don't have to be a child to enjoy it.

A book that is funnier in its premise than in its actuality. A San Bushman is sent to explore England, to meet with the Queen, and to evaluate the land for colonization by his people. The whole colonial history of Africa turned on its ear, but the book is very dark in its humor, and personally I think gives both an unrealistic picture of England and the Bushmen. Sure there are many humorous culture-contact moments and some insightful satire, but the plot is so dire and the characters unlikable, I really couldn't enjoy it too much. Reminds me of the Sot-weed Factor in that attempts at bawdy humor come out as mean-spirited and what's supposed to be a laugh riot is just a drag.

Good premise, but - sadly, this book should be better than it is.

The only book I have EVER stopped reading. Maybe in another life I will try it again.

My Mother’s Lovers
Christopher Hope
Grove Press
448 pages
Hardcover $24.00
978-0-8021-1850-9

Alexander is obsessed with air—how to move it, heat it, cool it and clean it. In late twentieth-century South Africa, where millions of people crumble under weighty issues such as race, colonialism, revolution and AIDS, Alex clings to nothing. His mother is none too pleased. “‘Oh dear me,’ she said, ‘Air? I really wish you wouldn’t.’”
Hope’s ninth novel is rife with this kind of overt symbolism. White policemen detonate explosives to kill a group of majestic beached whales. A former revolutionary turned conservative inherits a cache of old escape routes as a reminder of his hypocrisy. Fortunately, the author’s humor and inventiveness keep the novel from succumbing to cliché. Alex Healey is a wry and observant narrator, recalling the violent power-grab of the Boer War with the same cynicism that he uses to dissect his cigar-smoking, buffalo-hunting, Stinson-flying mother. As he struggles to understand his elusive national and family heritage, Alex toys with his readers’ stereotypes and challenges their concept of justice, creating a rich psychological history of one of the most troubled regions in the world.
Born in Johannesburg in 1944, Hope won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction for his novel Kruger’s Alp; while Serenity House was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Readers accustomed to the South Africa portrayed by authors such as J.M. Coetzee will find that Hope is a different animal altogether. While the former’s storytelling is loaded with silent intensity, Hope’s opinions explode onto the page. He is more of a teller than a shower, and although his ideas are provocative they can also feel digressive and overwhelming at times. The colorful characters that carry this story—including historic personalities such as Ernest Hemmingway, Beryl Markham, Albert Schweitzer, and Karen Blixen—seem more like types than real individuals, and the author uses them accordingly as springboards for various philosophical musings.
Still, one must assume that this exercise is intentional. The fickle nature of identity is a recurring theme throughout the novel as people try on new personas like winter coats to fit the turbulent circumstances of their lives. The Healeys’ conservative gardener turns to boozing and hookers when he discovers that his wife has slept with another man, while Alex’s girlfriend transforms from a jaded suburbanite into a figure of forgiveness after becoming obsessed with rehabilitating her son’s murderers.
The only constants in this shifting landscape of national borders and identities are Alex’s mother Kathleen and Africa herself. Tender and savage, each is blind to race and evokes fierce love in others without overtly giving back. In this context, the title of the book takes on a different meaning. My Mother’s Lovers refers to every merchant, missionary and dreamer in Africa who hunts for a place to call home. (August)
Aimee Sabo

Harry Moto is a crazy guy - or is he a normal guy to whom crazy things happen? - absurd, hilarious, corrosive, original, savage, unique, bizarre, horrific - and very, very funny.

Christopher Hope is well-known as a novelist. In this book he returns to his native South Africa after 12 years abroad. To me it reads like the account of an inmate who has escaped revisiting the Mental Asylum. He uses his usual comic touch to assess the state of white South Africa (this is written in the late 1980s) and finds it so mad, so incredible that it is almost like reading a farce.

Nathan J Swirsky is the owner of a Pharmacy in a fictional Johannesburg suburb in the immediate post-war years. The narrator, a boy of 12 or 13, describes life in the suburb with all its confusions, and the rise, fall and resurrection of Swirsky. A very funny book.

A historical and political fantasy from South Africa.