Book Review: Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country

Originally published in 1948, this first book by Alan Paton is now a classic novel and was an instant best seller when it came on the scene 62 years ago. Why? One paragraph may be enough to answer:

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of this land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."

The writing is simple, yet poetic. Just as one would expect when writing from the viewpoint of a simple tribesman. But the message is profound. Alan Paton writes of South Africa and the building of Shantytown, Johannesburg. This is a firsthand, maybe even lived, look at apartheid and the complexities of living in South Africa. Paton strives to be unbiased in painting this enduring portrait. And yes, it has political meaning. Some of that meaning is no longer relevant, or may be more so- I am not one to say. But the story itself also resonates for the individual. It is a deeply effecting human story.

We are introduced to Stephen Kumalo, an elderly and poor clergyman living in a rural valley. He watches his people suffer and leave for the seeming promise of better things in Johannesburg- including several of his own immediate family. Eventually, he is called upon to make the journey to Johannesburg to search out these relatives who, in almost all cases, have ceased to write home. While there, he sees for he first time the bewilderment of a big city that is growing faster than anyone or thing can keep up with. He is first introduced to the politics of living in Johannesburg and the fear and hate that grows on all sides. He treks into Shantytown, which was built literally overnight by official decree and remains as painfully impoverished as it was then. He learns much that causes him great suffering. He learns that the tribe is irrepairably broken and returns determined to find something to replace the broken tribal system and restore his beloved valley of Ndotsheni. But not through politics. What he has seen has made him leary of that.

In the end, the novel is left in some ways unresolved. The story of South Africa within the story of this old man's personal trials is ended by quoting one of the characters in the book, Msimangu, who said: "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find that we are turned to hating."

The true beauty of this novel, though, is that a true love for the physical land of South Africa and its motley of peoples shines through in every sentence, every word. That simple poetic language is the charm that brings one back to this book again and again.