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Scribbling The Cat (Paperback)

by Alexandra Fuller (Author)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press (TRD); Reprint edition (April 26 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143035010
ISBN-13: 978-0143035015
Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 12.7 x 1.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 182 g

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #188,792 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#13 in Books > History > Africa > Zimbabwe
#24 in Books > History > Africa > Southern Africa

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Memoirist Fuller (Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight) describes this book, about her friendship with a Rhodesian war veteran, as "a slither of a slither of a much greater story." This disclaimer doesn't excuse the book's thinness, as it traces Fuller's journey with the white ex-soldier, K, from his farm in Zambia through Zimbabwe and into Mozambique, to the battlefields of more than two decades ago. Fuller evokes place and character with the vivid prose that distinguished her unflinching memoir of growing up in Africa, but here she handles subject matter that warrants more than artful word painting and soul-searching. Writing about warâ€"its scarred participants, victims and territoryâ€"Fuller skimps on the history and politics that have shaped her and her subjects. Her personal enmeshment with K is the story's core. She's enamored of his physical beauty and power, and transfixed by his contradictions: K's capacity for both violence and emotional vulnerability, his anger and generosity, the blood on his hands and the faith he relies on (he's a born-again Christian) to cope with his demons. Fuller becomes K's confessor, and the journey turns into a kind of penance for her complicity, as a white girl in the 1970s, in a war of white supremacy. When K recounts how he tortured an African girl, Fuller swallows nausea and thinks, "I am every bit that woman's murderer." Fuller and K embark on their road trip ostensibly for the shell-shocked man to get beyond his "spooks" and for Fuller to write about it, but this motivation makes for a rather static journey. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Fuller, whose powerful memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2001) told the story of her family's life before and during the Rhodesian civil war, returned to Africa to follow a soldier in that war and relive the past. On a trip to the Sole Valley in Zambia, where her parents now live, Fuller met K, a white farmer who fought in the Rhodesian war. Lonely, tormented K is drawn to Fuller, and in turn Fuller is interested in the story of his life and how the war shaped him. Her fascination with him leads her to ask him to travel to Mozambique to revisit the places he fought in; his fascination with her leads him to say yes. And so begins their journey, where K's demons are indeed uncovered and Fuller learns more about him and his past than she bargained for. "You can't rewind war," Fuller writes, "It spools on, and on . . and the stories contract until only the nuggets of hatred remain and no one can even remember, or imagine, why the war was organized in the first place." Fuller's unflinching look at K, war, and even herself makes for an extremely powerful book, one that takes readers into a complex, deep-seated, and ongoing conflict and sees through to its heart. Fuller is a truly gifted and insightful writer. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars This painful book is important reading, Jul 20 2004

By	KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scribbling The Cat (Library Binding)

I don't know what to say; rather, I have too much to say. I didn't grow up in a godforsaken war zone as Fuller did in Africa but I was neck-deep and more in the colonial environment of Panama. This book cut me to the quick. Even without my background, however, the book is a special compilation of pages that very much need to be read. It's an unusual and amazing book; a reminder of how humanity stretches and can be brought to the edge of redemption before it knows it's not quite human any more. This book will be on my end-of-year Best Books list, no question. Even though I still am flumoxed by its contents. Which, I think was the writer's point. In which case, she done just fine.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps not a book so much about Africa or War, but People., Jul 16 2004

By	Alex J. Avriette "Alex Avriette" (Arlington, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Scribbling The Cat (Library Binding)

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this book up, but was looking for a change of pace. Unlike most of the readers here, I haven't actually read the other book of hers. It was simply something different.

So the book starts off rather charming. People wandering around Africa (Zambia, I suppose) and just describing the absurdity of the condition. Describing the landscape and the people. I enjoyed that. A refreshing change.

As it continues, we actually begin to notice ... what aren't really flaws in the Author's character so much as, well, as the Amazon reviewer put it, craters. You start to see that both the people (K and the Author) are fairly scarred and unhappy people.

This goes on, and the unhappiness really increases substantially. I found the book to have gone from charming and lighthearted to depressing and rather bleak. This, perhaps intentionally, seems to coincide with the landscape. We start off in Zambia at the downright comical parents' fish farm, and continue to a somewhat bleaker K's home, and then back to the States, thoroughly unhappy and indeed missing everything in Africa, and then it gets really unpleasant -- lost in the African outback, being chased by a pet Lion (!), and so on.

So while it might be hard to finish, as the change is so drastic (although mercifully slow), like other art, it is sometimes painful, and we as readers are compelled to do so.

As another reviewer mentioned, there just isn't a hollywood ending. It ends. There isn't anything tied up or completed, the threads of the book remain, sadly, frayed. That, however, I suppose, is the Author's point.

I'd been trying to decide between 3 and 4 stars for the book, and erred on the side of 4. I'd probably read it again, but I'd make sure to do it at a time when I wasn't looking for anything pleasant or uplifting.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Readers will be both pleased & disappointed, Jun 1 2004

By	"jbr04753" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scribbling The Cat (Library Binding)

Readers of Fuller's first book, Don't Lets Go..., will likely be both pleased and disappointed with Scribbling The Cat. Fuller has lost none of the poetic earthiness and honesty that makes her work so delicious. Sadly, the story line seems somewhat lacking in substance, given the complexity and gravity of the war. Readers are provided with a only a vague itinerary (Mozambique battlefields) and only the briefest thumbnail sketch of the conflicts' major events. Also missing is the charm of Fuller's own innocence. Unlike her first book, birth and fate are not why she finds herself in precarious circumstances. Rather, it's her own questionable judgment and admitted desire to push the envelope. Nevertheless, the characters are memorable, and once again Fuller brings to life the land in all its sensory glory.

The book reads like a gifted-but-underachieving student's school report. As if she attempted to overcome a dearth of solid research by relying heavily on descriptive talent...B+

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars no pretty bows
This is another amazing book by Fuller. Buy it. Read it. Soak up all of its unflinching honesty. What a wonderful and refreshing thing that there are no Hollywood endings in this... Read more

Published on May 28 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Alexandra the Great
What is most striking about a book that contains multitudes of gob smacking passages is Alexandra (Bobo) Fullers excruciating honesty. Read more

Published on May 23 2004 by Sara Burlingame

5.0 out of 5 stars You read Alexandra Fuller with your spine
With so much to recommend this book, where does one begin? At the outset, give Alexandra Fuller her due: this young woman is more than just an accomplished writer; she is one of... Read more

Published on May 22 2004 by David Reese

3.0 out of 5 stars Factually inaccurate
I bought this book because I loved Alexandra Fuller's first book. However, this one is riddled with factual errors. Read more

Published on May 22 2004 by Natalie K. Stork