The next meeting will be held on Mon 10th February 2025 at 7:30pm in the Ferryhill Community Centre.
The book under discussion is ‘Born a Crime’ by Trevor Noah.
One thought on “Feb 2025 – Born A Crime”
Trevor Noah, stand-up comedian and TV host, tells 18 anecdotes of his early life in South Africa. Trevor is born to black (Xhosa) mother Nombuyiselo and white father Robert, a chef from Switzerland, at the tail-end of Apartheid. The short stories span from life’s start (Feb 20th, 1984) to 25-year-old Trevor in the early part of his career, having left home aged 17 years. They encompass his mum’s fanatical church-going and Christian beliefs, his, initially, privileged schooling, colour, identity, language, understanding and belonging, living and moving around the areas, ghettos and townships of Johannesburg, youth crime, policing, poverty, male violence, gangsters, girls, family and female resilience. All told in a light-hearted manner that amuses and unsettles. Introductory sections to each chapter give a few details of the Apartheid Regime of South Africa in heavy type.
The anecdotes overlap and repeat in time with inconsistencies, contradictions, drama, confusions, gags and punchlines. Now and again there are passages of plain descriptions illuminating the condition of black male youth in the legacy of white rule, for example when Trevor visits ‘the hood’ Alex and we see the ‘constant human activity’, ‘epic acts of violence and crazy parties’ on the streets as Trevor walks with his friend Sizwe from the minibus rank past ‘a river of filth’, dirty bathwater, sewerage, old motor oil, smells and sounds, schools, soccer fields, hostels for migrant workers to the low income houses of Springbok Crescent where they hang around, ‘doing nothing, shooting shit’. Mostly, an unreflexive voice transmogrifies young Trevor’s appalling, offensive, cruel and criminal living in a way that is sinister when you look beyond the joke.
I am left questioning the ambition of the book, its egotism, excessive conceit and self-absorption. I also wonder about differences between memoir and the novel as, in our Ferryhill Book Group, we tend to read fiction and some would not read biographies by choice. In the past we’ve read heart-rending novels on the topic of colonialism, racism, oppression and slavery such as J M Coetzee ‘Disgrace’ and Sue Monk-Kidd ‘The Invention of Wings’, whose characters continue beyond the end of the book. In this memoir only the nine-year-old boy, pushed out of the moving car, lingered. I have no understanding of the man or others. I’m also left with the question of what value, virtue, harm, offence is it to write comedically about injustice? Is it about verisimilitude? Are Trevor’s stories of his childhood more fictitious than truth from a novel?
I’m more drawn to serious reflection on the injury of racism. Hazel Carby examines the challenge posed by ‘brown babies’, ‘half-caste’ and ‘everyday ties’ to the ‘racial logic fictions’ of oppressive systems in her non-fiction book ‘Imperial Intimacies’, 2019. Carby reflects honestly on her identity (prompted by Stuart Hall’s questions about her father) writing of her childhood self as ‘the girl’ and, when considering memories of her mother, confesses ‘I try to invent you for myself’.
Colette, 11th Feb 2025
Trevor Noah, stand-up comedian and TV host, tells 18 anecdotes of his early life in South Africa. Trevor is born to black (Xhosa) mother Nombuyiselo and white father Robert, a chef from Switzerland, at the tail-end of Apartheid. The short stories span from life’s start (Feb 20th, 1984) to 25-year-old Trevor in the early part of his career, having left home aged 17 years. They encompass his mum’s fanatical church-going and Christian beliefs, his, initially, privileged schooling, colour, identity, language, understanding and belonging, living and moving around the areas, ghettos and townships of Johannesburg, youth crime, policing, poverty, male violence, gangsters, girls, family and female resilience. All told in a light-hearted manner that amuses and unsettles. Introductory sections to each chapter give a few details of the Apartheid Regime of South Africa in heavy type.
The anecdotes overlap and repeat in time with inconsistencies, contradictions, drama, confusions, gags and punchlines. Now and again there are passages of plain descriptions illuminating the condition of black male youth in the legacy of white rule, for example when Trevor visits ‘the hood’ Alex and we see the ‘constant human activity’, ‘epic acts of violence and crazy parties’ on the streets as Trevor walks with his friend Sizwe from the minibus rank past ‘a river of filth’, dirty bathwater, sewerage, old motor oil, smells and sounds, schools, soccer fields, hostels for migrant workers to the low income houses of Springbok Crescent where they hang around, ‘doing nothing, shooting shit’. Mostly, an unreflexive voice transmogrifies young Trevor’s appalling, offensive, cruel and criminal living in a way that is sinister when you look beyond the joke.
I am left questioning the ambition of the book, its egotism, excessive conceit and self-absorption. I also wonder about differences between memoir and the novel as, in our Ferryhill Book Group, we tend to read fiction and some would not read biographies by choice. In the past we’ve read heart-rending novels on the topic of colonialism, racism, oppression and slavery such as J M Coetzee ‘Disgrace’ and Sue Monk-Kidd ‘The Invention of Wings’, whose characters continue beyond the end of the book. In this memoir only the nine-year-old boy, pushed out of the moving car, lingered. I have no understanding of the man or others. I’m also left with the question of what value, virtue, harm, offence is it to write comedically about injustice? Is it about verisimilitude? Are Trevor’s stories of his childhood more fictitious than truth from a novel?
I’m more drawn to serious reflection on the injury of racism. Hazel Carby examines the challenge posed by ‘brown babies’, ‘half-caste’ and ‘everyday ties’ to the ‘racial logic fictions’ of oppressive systems in her non-fiction book ‘Imperial Intimacies’, 2019. Carby reflects honestly on her identity (prompted by Stuart Hall’s questions about her father) writing of her childhood self as ‘the girl’ and, when considering memories of her mother, confesses ‘I try to invent you for myself’.
Colette, 11th Feb 2025