book thoughts: Born a Crime
Okay, I'm not even close to done with this book yet. I'm listening to it in the car, Trevor Noah reads it, and I'm just a disc in, but I can't tear myself away. It's the kind of audiobook you would sit in the driveway listening to, even after a long day at work.
First, I know this is much better than reading it because Noah can correctly pronounce the different words and phrases from all the different languages spoken in South Africa. I'm not sure what my brain would do when confronted with these phrases in text, probably just skip over them, but listening to Noah say them out loud, with just the right tone and inflection is beautiful, even when the phrase pretty much translates that his Mom is about to smack him upside the head for giving her lip.
Second, once again, I know nothing about apartheid beyond the basic idea of "it was bad and based on racism." To be honest, everything I know about apartheid, I learned from watching District 9. :| Noah not only breaks it all down for me, but he somehow manages to keep a sense of humor about it. As he points out many times, racism is stupid, and once you begin to question it, it begins to crumble. But, yeah, it is horrifying to think that this isn't some 150 year old bit of history that is so far in the past, it ended recently and South Africa is still trying to find a way to recover.
Third, (I'm not sure why I numbered these), listen to this book. Trevor Noah is just a very good speaker and a very smart man. I'm sad that I don't have access to The Daily Show now because I really want to start watching it again. I guess I could find clips on YouTube. But listening to this book, I can see why Jon Stewart saw a kindred spirit - they both come from backgrounds where they were part of an abused people but still found the joy in the world. They are both optimists and realists, somehow at the same time. They have religious backgrounds from parents that grounded them, but they have grown to question some things about organized religion.
Yeah, I'm only one CD into this and I am gushing and I want to tell everyone about it. It's that kind of book. Have you read/listened to any books like that before?
This entry was originally posted at http://orangerful.dreamwidth.org/1238625.html. Please comment there using OpenID.