[.uk] Before the Knife (ISBN 0375713468)

I Should Really Finish the Book First...:
So I confess to having not done so (finishing the book.) I am a mere 25 pages from the ending, and I am left feeling not more than a little perplexed. There is the niggling sense that the author is not playing fair. She describes a childhood rife with neglect and pain, but increasingly she is starring in her memories in a sort of grandiose, romantic way. I find myself not trusting the narrator's voice. It has become besot with victimization, so that her memories begin to all sound the same: poor, poor me. Horrid parents. Boarding schools and hand-me-downs, cruel nuns, lost love, nothing going right! Which is sad, don't get me wrong. But other authors can write about such heartache without seeming to "star" themselves in such a superlative way. I read on, because the author is a gifted writer, and she can describe the African bush with much eloquence. She refuses to tell the American reader the difference between "African", "Afrikan" and "Afrikaan," along with what the various native foods and phrases might translate for us in the United States. For some reason, this lack of explanation begins to feel like condenscension, and coupled with the author's ascending view of herself and her suffering, so does the whole book. Interesting read. I would like to finish it, if for no other reason than to see if the author revisits the bomb she dropped in the introduction. Will she? Won't she? I don't think she's been entirely fair by dragging it out this long.

Don't miss this memoir; it's finest kind!:
This gorgeously, generously written memoir by the novelist, Carolyn Slaughter, is certain to be on my list of Best Books at year's end. These are Slaughter's young years from birth in India to age 14. She moved with her parents from India to England to Africa where she spent most of her childhood, or what should have been her childhood. A brilliant, affecting, important book. Slaughter has been one of my favorite writers since I read her Africa novels (highly recommended!) years ago: Dreams of the Kalahari and The Innocents.

Unhappiness dominates:
In Before The Knife Carolyn Slaughter describes her childhood, a fraught, anxious prelude to an adulthood that continued to suffer from its heritage. She tells us early on in the book what caused this anguish, and what gave rise to its associated self-pity, self-abuse and anger. She was raped by her father at the age of six. But then the book unfolds almost without another mention of the trauma until its reality is finally recognized, long after the father, the self-tortured mother, and even the younger sister have gone to their graves. Carolyn Slaughter's life, though not fully acknowledged in the book, could only have been lived in a narrow window of history. The British Empire, always eager to install a white face in a position of colonial authority where people of race might not be trusted, elevated many lower middle class émigrés to effective aristocracy. It meant that they could only feel at home, that is, only attain the status they assumed, if they lived outside of the Sceptred Isle. Carolyn's mother had been born and brought up in India. She had grown used to a life with servants, where sewing, cooking and cleaning could be delegated to the competent. This created time for the important things in life, like deciding what to wear for dinner, what would go with what, and whether the lunch invitees would gel. Not that there were many expatriates to invite in the Kalahari Desert. Carolyn Slaughter seems to have lived an itinerant's life. More significantly she seems to have adopted an itinerant relationship with life. It happened as a result of denial, as a result of not accepting or acknowledging what happened to her. The father, a shop worker back home, was a District Commissioner in the Empire when his white face provided his main qualification. His wife, Carolyn's mother, unable to accept what the daughter had told her or, indeed what evidence proved, slumped into a private depression that never left her. The author's African childhood was almost wholly unhappy, even depressing. Her tantrums angered others, her self-abuse threatened her own life, and yet the father who was the source of the tragedy soldiered on, apparently stoically, delivering whatever duty the assumptions of Empire might demand. There were times when I lost touch with the sense of depression and foreboding, periods in the book when I knew things were lighter and brighter than the reminiscences suggested. Occasionally, the weight being borne got too much. But then I had a happy childhood, without abuse, indeed with love, affection, and support throughout, so who am I to criticize this insight into a world I never knew? So, towards the end of the account, when the horror of the abuse can be re-lived in later life and thus partially expunged, we can sense the destructive havoc it has wreaked through the family's life. It's a rather one-paced account, but the seriousness of its focus justifies its form.

Triumph over torment:
The saga by Ms. Slaughter is a touching tale of courage, and determination ... a tragedy using the failed British Empire rape of India and Africa as a backdrop to to the personal rape and subsequent journey of this brave Lady. She emerged triumphant... the Empire failed. Ms. Slaughter. Well Done.

Captivating:
Captivating, , honest, searing, this is a beautifully rendered story of a painfully difficult childhood. Carolyn Slaughter made me fall in love with the Africa of her childhood while wanting to whisk her away from that very childhood.