Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood Free

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Growing up in Rhodesia in the 's Alexandra Fuller had more than the usual mix of childhood perils to cope with. There were scorpions in the swimming pool and snakes in the kitchen. Worms and malaria were daily facts of life, as were the threats of land mines and guerrilla ambush. The country was in the midst of an armed struggle -- pitting white settlers, determined to hold onto white rule, against black nationalists, agitating for independence -- and the author's parents patrolled their farm with loaded weapons. Like most white children over 5, Ms. Fuller recalls, she and her sister, Vanessa, learned ''how to load an FN rifle magazine, strip and clean all the guns in the house, and ultimately, shoot-to-kill. To go to town, the family was required to travel in a convoy, accompanied by a mine-detecting vehicle and two or three trucks filled with Rhodesian soldiers. On such occasions family members would dress up in their best clothes: in case they were killed in an ambush or blown up by a mine on the way to town, they would ''be presentable to go and sit on the left hand of Godthefather. Fuller's gripping memoir, ''Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight,'' is made up, in equal parts, of stark, matter-of-fact reminiscences about her childhood and fierce, Dinesen-esque paeans to the land of Africa. Although short, italicized passages chronicle the wrongs that whites committed against black Africans in the region -- from the Rudd Concession ofwhich ''tricked King Lobengula of the Matabeles into surrendering mineral rights to the British South Africa Company,'' through the Land Apportionment Act ofwhich allotted '' Fuller does not judge, rationalize or explain her parents' commitment to white rule. Instead she simply describes what it was like to grow up in Rhodesia in the 70's, knowing that she had the power to fire her nanny if she wanted to, knowing that she attended a Class A school while black children attended a Class C school. The Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood narrative, much like the early fiction of Nadine Gordimer, gives the reader an intimate sense of what daily life was like in a segregated and racist society and its insidious emotional fallout on children and grown-ups alike. Some of Ms. Fuller's memories are alarming to say the least. She recalls family members cheering when they ''hear the faint stomach-echoing thump of a mine detonating,'' which means that ''either an African or a baboon has been wounded or killed. And Ms. Fuller recounts her own initial unease at boarding school at having to use the same table linens used by black students. The change in government meant that the Fullers' farm in the Burma Valley was put up for mandatory auction under a new land distribution program, and the family embarked on what would be a series of moves: first to a ranch in a hot, oppressive region of Zimbabwe once deemed on a map ''Not Fit for White Man's Habitation''; next, to a big, Spanish-style house in Malawi, where the Fullers feel they are ''dangerously, teeteringly close to disease and death in a slow, rotting, swamp- induced fashion ''; and later to a lovely farm in Zambia, which seems like ''the logical place for this family to stop. And mend. Certainly Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood is a lot to recover from. In addition to losing their Burma Valley farm, the Fullers lose three children: one dies of meningitis; the second wanders off while no one is looking and drowns Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood a neighbor's pond; the third dies at birth. After the death of baby Olivia, the author observes, her mother is never quite the same: her giddy social drinking gives way to alcoholic despair and a series of breakdowns. Eventually, a diagnosis of manic depression is made. The author's father meanwhile succumbs to bouts of reckless behavior, driving wildly while drunk and taunting armed soldiers at roadblocks to shoot him or let him by. What sustains the Fullers through Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood difficulties and what lends this book its power is the family's unaccommodated love for Africa, a love untainted, perhaps even galvanized, by their isolation and their travails. In their arduous efforts to farm the land -- to plant and harvest a crop of tobacco and see it safely to market; to reclaim a farmhouse from termites and rats and the encroaching jungle -- there is a hard-won respect for nature and Africa's tropical defiance of human order. In these pages Ms. Fuller conjures up a tactile sense of the landscape she loves. Its smell: ''hot, sweet, smoky, salty, sharp-soft,'' like ''black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass. She shows us droughts so advanced that crocodiles are seen in farmers' fields, prowling the dirt in search of water, and she shows us rains so intense that six-foot monitor lizards are washed from their swamps into people's homes. She describes landscapes populated by leopards and snakes and a cruel plant called the buffalo bean, which has hairs that ''can stimulate a reaction so severe, Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood burning and persistent, that it has been known to send grown men mad. In short Ms. Fuller gives us in this book the Africa she knew as a girl, a place of cruel politics, violent heat and startling beauty, a land she makes vivid in all its ''incongruous, lawless, joyful, violent, upside-down, illogical certainty. 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Alexandra Fuller's book tells the story of her family of white Zimbabwean tenant farmers in the years before and after Independence. These are not the wealthy landowners demonised by the present Zimbabwean government; they struggle to make a living off the land, as well as the usual hazards of the African bush, they fear landmines and attacks by guerrillas crossing the border from Mozambique. During the civil war, their parents join the police reserve. Bobo and her sister are warned not to come into their parents' bedroom in the night because they sleep with loaded guns. Then at IndependenceBobo and her classmates are stunned to see black pupils far wealthier and more sophisticated than them joining their elite high school. Their farm is seized by the new government and awarded to political cronies under a land distribution programme and they move south to a much harsher ranch, where their diet is based on impala and brackish water from a borehole that is strictly rationed. From Zimbabwe, the Fullers move to Malawi, where they are closely watched by government agents, notably a houseboy Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood presents himself for employment and will Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood take 'no' for an answer. When Bobo's father jokingly describes his newly built beach hut on the shore of Lake Malawi as 'a palace', the houseboy makes his report and the carload of presidential officials who rush down to inspect it are furious to find a hut made of mud, poles and thatch. When the family moves on to Zambia, they have lived in every country in the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. With the resilience of childhood, Bobo takes extraordinary events in her stride. The politics and the everyday struggle to make a living from the land are mixed with family tragedy; a sister drowned, a brother dead from meningitis and another stillborn. The family handle their mother's alcoholism and insanity with the same stoicism they handle any other misfortune, though they do occasionally compare themselves to families with Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood mothers, clean swimming pools, home baking and children free of worms. The title is taken from a line by the writer and humorist AP Herbert, 'Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, for mother will be there'. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. New York Times. Retrieved 13 January Retrieved 30 November Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from November All articles needing additional references. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Add links. Alexandra Fuller’s African childhood | Autobiography and memoir | The Guardian

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Original Title. Zimbabwe Malawi Zambia. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Please provide summary and book club questions. Lyndi Brown Fabulous memoir of growing up in Africa on hardscrabble ranches, with loving but eccentric parents. I enjoyed author's near-sighted vision of a child, …more Fabulous memoir of growing up in Africa on hardscrabble ranches, with loving but eccentric parents. I enjoyed author's near-sighted vision of a child, without analysis of political strife around her. Did she feel loved? Were her parents neglectful or did they teach her independence? What does the title mean? Katie Found this was from a poem as copied below by A. Not sure that answers the question as to the full meaning behind it. Maybe that the adults …more Found this was from a poem as copied below by A. Maybe that the adults in the books are hard drinkers and like to have a party. Herbert "Come," said he--"a night for dancing, Lips alight and bright eyes glancing. Auntie chooses all the tunes, Uncle bags the best balloons, And all the roundest men in town Are dancing mother's figure down; Puffing, panting, Barging, banting, Bless their snowy hair! Night-clubs now are simply spas For our young Methuselahs, So don't let's go to the dogs to-night In case my granny's there. Let's go home and play backgammon. Pushing, shoving, Lurching, loving, Bless their silvery hair! Let the old ones have their fun; Some day we'll be sixty-one. But don't let's go to the dogs to-night, In case my granny's there. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jun 05, Juliefrick rated it it was amazing Shelves: nonfiction. This is one of my top-ten favorite books of all time. An extremely compelling memoir, well-written, poignant but not maudlin or precious. I've read it twice and feel another reread coming on. The brutal honesty in this story is startling, and Fuller does not set out to insert political or social critique into her story. This is probably unsettling for readers who come face-to-face with her family's Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood attitudes and expect to hear her criticize and critique them. However, I prefer that Fu This is one of my top-ten favorite books of all time. However, I prefer that Fuller let the story stand on its own. The book doesn't set out Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood dissect "Issues," but rather to tell one particular- and it is a particularly heartbreaking, frightening, disturbing, visceral, and funny one- story. View all 5 comments. Dec 15, Allie rated it liked it Recommends it for: Childhood memoir fans. I almost gave this book four stars because it was very well-written and evocative. But I just never felt much of a connection to the book or to any of the characters. The author's writing skill made it a pleasant enough read - at least, pleasant enough to finish. But it definitely wasn't a can't-put-it-down kind of book. If I had to give concrete criticisms of the book, the main one would be that she doesn't develop any characters outside of her immediately family in fact, it seemed her family I almost gave this book four stars because it was very well-written and evocative. If I had Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood give concrete criticisms of the book, the main one would be that she doesn't develop any characters outside of her immediately family in fact, it seemed her family didn't have any substantial relationships with anyone, other than each otherand even those characters could use a bit more context. Why were they in Africa? I mean, what really motivated them to keep slogging it out in Africa, really? Where did their racism come from? How did she feel about their racism? How did her parents meet and what ties did either of them have to Africa before deciding to raise their kids there? What motivated them to raise children in a country in which a civil war was raging? On the other hand, she writes terrific dialogue and her sensory descriptions of Africa made me feel like I was there. View all 12 comments. The memoirs of the childhood of a white girl Alexandra, known as Boboraised on African farms in the s and s, along with her sister, Van essa. But it's not a gilded, ex-pat life: her parents lose their farm in forced land distribution, after which they are itinerant farm managers, who move where the work is, often to disease-ridden and war-torn areas. They also have their own problems with bereavement and alcohol. It is perhaps closer to misery lit, although the tone is mostly light, The memoirs of the childhood of a white girl Alexandra, known as Boboraised on African farms in the s and s, along with her sister, Van essa. It is perhaps closer to misery lit, although the tone is mostly light, and the worst Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood glossed over. It is told in a chatty and slightly childish and rambling style she is a child for most of the bookmostly in the present tense. This means the precise sequence of events is not always clear, but overall, it is an endearing insight into some troubled lives and times. It does rather fizzle out at the end, though. By the age of 5, all children are taught to handle a gun and shoot to kill. There are many more examples throughout the book. For instance, the parents buy a mine-proofed Land Rover with a siren "to scare terrorists", but actually its only use is "to announce their arrival at parties". At the airport, "officials wave their guns at me, casually hostile". Mum says "We have breeding Often, they live in homes that are really dilapidated and lacking basic facilities. Bobo feels neither African where she spends most of her childhood nor British where she was born. At a mixed race primary school, she is teased for being sunburnt and asked "Where are you from originally? She is also very aware of her family's thick lips, contrasting with their pale skin and blonde hair. However, as I read it, Fuller is merely describing how things really were: casual, and sometimes benevolent racism were Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood norm. As a small child, she resists punishment by saying "Then I'll fire you", which is awful, but reflects a degree of truth, and similarly, her disgust at using a cup that might Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood been used by an African is a learned reaction. However, as she grows older and more questioning, it's clear she is no racist. It would be very sad if fear of offence made it impossible to describe the past honestly, though the list of terms by which white Rhodesians referred to black ones might be unnecessary. I suppose you could argue she should have done more to challenge the views around her, such as when Mum is bemoaning the fact that she wants just one country in Africa to stay white-run, but she was only a child at this point. In her parents' defence, they treated their African staff pretty well, including providing free first aid help, despite the fact they were so short of money they had to pawn Mum's jewellery to buy seed each year, then claim it back if the harvest was good. What to make of an observation like this? The verges of the road have been mown to reveal neat, upright barbed-wire fencing and fields of army- straight tobacco In contrast, the tribal lands "are blown clear of vegetation. Spiky euphorbia hedges which bleed poisonous, burning milk when their stems are broken poke greenly out of otherwise barren, worn soil. The schools wear the blank faces of war buildings, their windows blown blind by rocks or guns or mortars. Their plaster is an acne of bullet marks.