It’s interesting reading this alongside The Flame Trees of Thika. Both books are about white people in Africa, but whereas the Huxley’s in Thika are resourceful and hard-working, the people in this book are bored and lazy. No wonder the Huxley’s, though guilty of British superiority at times, see the Africans as actual human beings where here all they see is ugliness because they themselves are ugly.
Daily Archives: April 6, 2014
51% done with The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
It’s funny that the harder the Huxley’s try to make Africa more like Europe the exact opposite seems to happen. They’ve actually resorted to rounding up cattle as hostage bargaining against witchcraft.
The concept of property, morality, and even how to treat animals is so different. From the Huxley’s POV is frustrating, but to the African’s it’s perfectly normal
She does a nice job of conveying this frustration