Zoo City II

 ZOO CITY II

LAUREN BEUKES

BOOKS F0R BIGOTS

ZOO CITY deserves a second notice.  It is a book that has as its main character a somewhat mottled existence.  We are to see that she is a person of good instincts, not unkind, scrounging for a subsistence with the ability to find lost things which is her main source of income.  Living on the top floor of a basically abandoned building with water sometimes and electricity sometimes and associates that come and go as they find ways, mostly unethical, of making some cash.

We don't learn that Zinzi December will do what is necessary to retain some sense of maintenance until later in the book.  Helping to scam an elderly couple which clearly will devastate them gives us an immediate sense of unease.  Until that point, we feel Zinzi is a really ok person regardless of minor flaws simply trying to survive in a barely survivable world.  

Zoo City is named such because people have an animal with them as they go about their business.  Zinzi's animal is a sloth which perches on her shoulder as she goes about her business.  Others have their animals as well.  For instance, one of her associates has a mongoose.  These critters all seem content to sit on the shoulders of the person they are with and seem to be able to communicate with their ride.

Johannesburg is a nightmare with those with money hidden behind walls and barbed wire.  Johannesburg is also full of refugees from other parts of africa.  Strange place to congregate.  If Johannesburg is a Mecca for refugees, the rest of Africa must really be a nightmare. Now, none of this a Bigot wants to hear.  Acknowledging a world that is not fixable by prayer, is not something that can be tolerated - - so ignored.  Johannesburg and the life presented can not be fixed by prayer and one gets the impression as one proceeds through the book that it can not be fixed.

A major part of the action involves teenagers making records and becoming rich beyond their competency.  The idea that totally worthless teenagers (and they are totally unable to function in any way reminiscent of normal human conduct)  can become megastars by recording an album is a further commentary on life in the city, or anywhere for that matter.  The book has a plot that devolves into a final hurry up and lets get this thing over, but the plot is irrelevant to the scene - - something merely to carry it along.  

The book is worth reading which, alone, makes it unavailable to Bigots.  One of the chief characteristics of Bigots is to not read literature - - it causes too much angst to understand that the world is not what they make it out to be.

Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo