“The Book of Not” by Tsitsi Dangarembga

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A book that starts with the phrase “I was not sorry when my brother died” does not promise any positive emotions while reading (Dangarembga, 2004, 3). A book that opens with a leg, blown off by a bomb flying through the air and getting hooked on a tree cannot but horrify the reader with the first pages (Dangarembga, 2006, 3). Terror-stricken and willing to know what has happened, the reader starts the journey through Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel The Book of Not: A Sequel to Nervous Conditions (2006). The main themes that this work is focused on are racial prejudice/ inequalities and war/revolution.

The book under consideration is a sequel to the seminal Nervous Conditions. The two works reveal the idea of nervous conditions. This idea is borrowed from Jean-Paul Sartre’s introduction to Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and implies a function of mutually reinforcing attitudes between colonizer and colonized that cause psychological disorder of the colonized. The mental condition of the main character of the book is the main point of this paper’s concern. The main character’s moral state is determined by her aspiration to the ideals of the colonial system, but the girl’s strivings are constantly brought up short by the realities of racism.

As in the Nervous Conditions, in The Book of Not the main character, Tambudzai or Tambu does not feel sorry for her sister Netsai whose severed leg is described at the beginning of the novel. When the action starts, the author vividly describes the picture of nationalists, but Tambu calls it “this primitive scene” (Dangarembga, 2006, 5) and wants to get away from it. She feels as if she jumps into the spinning limb and rides as it rotates moving up to somewhere out of it. This is a very successful metaphor suggested by the author. I believe that this description of the girl’s feelings implies that she wants some changes in her life but does not know what to do about it. Still, we know that the girl wants to be somewhere at the prestigious Young Ladies’ College with a scholarship that will turn her into a lady with a promising future. But this future is so far away from her.

Instead, Tambudzai faces a series of “notes”: first, she can only bow her head “to summon the peace that comes with not seeing.” (Dangarembga 28) Then, she is “peopled not by those who looked like us but by Europeans” (Dangarembga 38). Her rights there are constantly infringed upon: African pupils live in six in a room intended only for four students. The senior students who should have separate rooms have to live with first formers. When the main character uses the toilet reserved by the white students, the headmistress reprimands her and accuses her of having a complex.

Tambu’s school develops in her a sense of her inferiority. Though she has achieved the best o-level grades in her class, she does not get a school prize for this because of her skin color, a white girl gets it. Later, a credit for her perfect copywriting goes to a white male superior. As a result of constant discrimination towards the blacks, Tambu starts to hate herself. The color of Tambu’s skin and her limbless sister that remains a testimony of her connection with war prevent her from living a happy life. This weighs heavily on her. Tambu decides to act somehow to integrate herself with the authorities.

But if initially, she believes that she is treated wrongly because of the stereotypes towards other black girls’ poor treatment and tries to do something about it, later, she realizes that there is no possible way out from her situation and agonizes that often the school made her question her own existence. When she finds a positive answer to this question, she realizes that she does not want to exist anymore.

More than once Tambu says: “What I was most interested in was myself and what I would become.” (Dangarembga 69) The thing is that Tambu does not even realize that her goal to break the stereotypes towards the blacks is unachievable. It seems that neither her ambitions nor strong will are able to move the obstacles placed before her.

I cannot but admit the skillfulness with which the author depicts the girl’s moral state: while reading the book I perceived the world around me as if I were in Tambu’s shoes. Now I realize that often I mixed up the reality and the world that Tambu has created for herself. Once the author of The Book of Not stated: “I write to save myself… I really believe that’s the only valid reason for writing.” (Podis 55) I am inclined to believe that Tambu’s rebellion speaks for the author’s rebellion, though, contrary to her character, Dangarembga was more realistic about it.

If we compare the author’s depiction of Tambu in the Nervous Conditions and in its sequel, we will see that Dangarembga’s narrative observes the movement of Tambu’s character with the focus made on the way it is morphed by the Western education she is engaged in. At the end of the Book of Not we can see Tambudzai who is now alienated from her birth mother and her native culture, but, at the same time, she is equally alienated from the Western culture. The girl desperately wants to live according to the principles of the world of the whites but cannot manage to do it still.

The school where the girl studied is just one example of the sites where she could demonstrate her rebellion against racism that is a part of her “nascent Zimbabwean soul” (Dangarembga 123). This is a place where Tambu tried to debunk the system that was based on the humiliation of the black people. Unfortunately, often it is not in the human’s power to resist the whole society. In this case, the only thing left to do is to retain one’s individuality and do not get broken by the severe system.

The Book of Not is the author’s view of how a person strives for his or her happiness and how this person’s character is modified and adapted to the reality he or she lives in. The reader is given a wonderful opportunity to train one’s skills as a psychologist whose aim is to understand the patient’s problem and to help solve it somehow. Though we are not empowered to help Tambu in her strivings, we are still thankful to the author for the brilliant depicting of the character and for giving us the opportunity to think about our own principles on the course of life is based on.

Works Cited

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. Seal Pr , 2004.

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. The Book of Not: A Sequel to Nervous Conditions. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006.

Podis, Leonard A., and Yakubu Saaka, eds. Challenging Hierarchies: Issues and Themes in Colonial and Postcolonial African Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.

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“The Book of Not” by Tsitsi Dangarembga

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