Kwani? LitFest 2010

In case you didn't know the Kwani? Literary Festival is on this week. The festivities kicked of yesterday at the secluded Kifaru Gardens, Lavington. I dragged a friend of mine there and what a lovely afternoon it was. Speakers included Micere Mugo, Marjorie Oludhe as well as performances by a suprisingly dashing Mukoma wa Ngugi and Binyavanga Wainaina. The event was not complete without Atemi's husky sweetness wafting deletable carols across a cool Nairobi evening. The full programme, which ends on Saturday can be accessed here. Also on show yesterday was a slightly embarrassing and barely heated exchange between an inebriated Tony Mochama and Wambui Mwangi which got a bit to personal and for me, quite funny. All in all a day well spent in intellectual immersion. 


In an aside, I spotted the great and benevolent Ngugi wa Thiong'o in the audience and nearly passed out!

Favourite Things: The Road

The Road was the first McCarthy novel I read a couple of years ago when it first came out. I was amazed and astounded by the books themes and McCarthy's voice, the simple narrative that had a god-like, almost biblical conviction. More recently I decided to write an academic paper trying to uncover the underlying themes that made this book of loss, post-apocalyptic societal decay and the strengths of the human will. In ten full readings and numerous other references, I examined closely and critically the images of darkness and light, the Christian myths and allusions, the parallels between the books protagonists and the story of Christ were almost uncanny but not in a way that seemed contrived or convoluted. By the end I should have hated the book, deconstructing the words and squeezing out the meaning, like watching the Special Features of a movie and finding out that the special effects were not that special and the actors merely human. Instead I loved the book even more and had a quite respect for McCarthy as this is a work of a genius, timeless and ever so relevant Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

for an increasingly misanthropic world. A Classic worthy of any Canon.

Here is one of my favourite lines in the book:

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

Copyright: McCarthy, C. 2006. The Road. London: Picador.