Ondjaki: Good Morning Comrades

[Mirabell]

Wow what an excellent novel. I was wary at first, ready to discard it after 15 pages, after 25 pages I was hooked. Loved it. Will gather my thoughts and come back later

[Mirabell]

wrote a sorta confused review

s*: Ondjaki: Good Morning Comrades


shouldn't drink so much.

[Heteronym]

An inspiring review, Mirabell: makes me want to buy the novel as soon as possible.

So now that you have discovered the joys of Angolan literature, how about giving Pepetela a try too?

[Eric]

Mirabell, your "sorta confused" review did bring up some interesting points. As someone who has a downer on Soviet imperialism, I noticed your comment:

This ambivalence, between oppression and liberation, of communist dictatorship, which in the novel is presented as yet another kind of colonialism, with beaches just for the Soviets and Cuban teachers and inspectors, while not actively governing the country, are apparently in firm control of central infrastructural points, is important. So are others: now we get to the really tasty bits. The Cuban/Soviet colonialism is never reflected, but the former Portuguese is, in two different ways. One is an old man, Comrade Antonio, who is old enough to remember Portuguese rule and constantly insists on the fact that it hasn't been that bad, in a way that reminded me of old GDR citizens, who remember the 40 yrs fondly.

This is exactly what the Baltic countries suffered when they were a kind of piggy in the middle between the colonialist desires of Hitler and Stalin.

It is interesting that Cuba was used as the extended arm of Russia, to increase Russian influence in Africa. Cuba could not possibly have armed and paid for the war, were it not for Russian backing. I'm not sure that apartheid South Africa could be regarded as the extended arm of the USA, but it was certainly a Western nation, despite the racial discrimination.

The ration cards episode is telling. We had them in Britain after WWII, but within a decade they were gone. The Soviet Union and its allies suffered periodically from shortages.

Curiously, the Swiss appear to have done the most translations of Onjaki's works (both German and French). The full list of the original Portuguese works is as follows. Frustratingly, I cannot find anything about his 2008 novel in any language except Portuguese. Though I'm sure the fact he studied at Columbia University in the States for six months in 2003-2004 will have put him on the literary radar there, and that American translations will soon appear:

LIVROS

“Actu Sanguíneu" (poesia, 2000);

"Bom Dia Camaradas" (romance, 2001);

"Momentos de Aqui" (contos, 2001);

"O Assobiador" (romance, 2002);

"Há prendisajens com o xão" (poesia, 2002);

"Quantas Madrugadas Tem a Noite" (romance, 2004);

“Ynari: a menina das cinco tranças” (infantil, 2004);

“E se amanhã o medo” (contos, 2005);

“Os da minha rua” (estórias, 2007);

“AvóDezanove e o segredo do soviético” (romance, 2008).

[Karen]

I wasn't too sure about this book to begin with -- it seemed a little rough around the edges. By the time I finished it, though, I was a fan. It's roughness, I think, captures the mind of a twelve-year-old boy. And, as Mirabell points out in his review, it's simplicity is deceptive.

Setting is a major point of this book, as has already been pointed out, and Ondjaki uses a light but effective touch in conveying the political realities of the time, including a scene at the radion station in which our hero encounters first-hand the limits on freedom of expression.

But what I liked best about the book was its depiction of what it was like to be a kid there and then. Ndalu is a likable but not romanticized kid, and Ondjaki does a good job of showing both the unusual aspects of his life. and the universal -- particularly the importance of imagination when you can't really control much about your own existence.

[Heteronym]

I loved this novel.

I think writing children well is difficult, but Ondjaki captured so perfectly the imagination, humor, exaggerations, even the prejudices of childhood. I haven't been this impressed since reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

I also liked the use of Angolan idioms. My edition contained a glossary. Some words are used in current Portuguese as slang, but in Angola they belong to everyday speech.

Since you've read translations, can you tell me how they dealt with a pun at the start of the novel about teacher María telling two students to stay quiet and instead they fall on the ground?

[Karen]

Originally Posted by Heteronym

Since you've read translations, can you tell me how they dealt with a pun at the start of the novel about teacher María telling two students to stay quiet and instead they fall on the ground?

This was one part where I felt like something must have been lost in the translation, but I don't know how you do puns in another language:

..."Then this morning, over in the classroom, everybody was making a lot of noise and she tried to give a detention point to Celio and Claudio...Oh!...They got up in a hurry to take off and the teacher said..." Helder was laughing so hard he couldn't go on. He was all red. "The teacher said: "You get down here," or "there" or something!"
"Yeah, and after that?" I was starting to laugh too, it was contagious.
"They threw themselves right down on the floor."

[Heteronym]

Yeah, difficult wordplay to translate. The Spanish verb 'quedar' (stay put, stop) is similar to 'queda' (fall), that's why the kids fall on the ground when the teacher tells them to stay quiet. I loved this episode, it's just the malicious type of thing students do to their teachers for fun. Children are such little bastards.