Lev Grossman in his 6/23/08; Time Magazine review of the book "Say You're One of them" by Uwem Akpan. A Nigerian Priest concluded with:
"You could read it, but why? Kiss your family, enjoy a hot shower and donate the price of a hardcover book to charity instead."
The book is a horrific composition of narratives by children written by an African Priest speaking African things.
Lev Groomsman's conclusion is decadent posture. To view the human condition as he does with the elite-centric notion that horrific brutality in it's African form is anymore nasty and beyond the pale, that a cheap Irish Spring shower can cleanse the sins of the fathers speaks more of emotional cowardice and mental dwarfism than anything else.
It's one thing to review a work of art on it's creative merits. But it's entirely another to make social-commentary in the derisive context of charity as absolution.
There isn't insight to be found in Grossman's review. But panic of the self-centered, rationalizing in the Colonial de-humanizing motive with it's prey, the dark continent. Nothing less than decadent posture.
By Apropos
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