About the book

Nothing about The Old Drift is simple. It’s so complex I couldn’t evaluate it with a standard 1-5 star system. There are many surreal stories and mystical characters. The storyline starts in Africa in 1903 and finishes in the future.

Why it is sometimes difficult to read

The Old Drift is an ultra marathon of a book. I mean not only the size but complexity. When you run an ultra marathon the conditions often change. Sometimes the process is fast and easy, sometimes you stumble and fall. Sometimes the path is barely visible so you have to slow down and watch every step. Sometimes you get lost and you have to trace your steps back. That’s exactly what reading The Old Drift feels like. Sometimes you catch the rhythm and go with the flow but very often you have to slow down or trace your steps back to understand what’s going on.

The writing

There are many Italian words or words from an African language (I don’t know which one, Google translated it as Swahili). The book provides no translation for them. You have to guess what they mean. Very often it’s not possible. Try it for yourself. These are actual quotes:

‘Mwashibukeni, Ba Lonode’, Ba George bowed his head fondly. ‘Eyamukwayi, bashikulu,’ Ronald panted. ‘Do you know where Miss Agnes is?’ ‘ Mm?’ The old man frowned. ‘Ah, mwelbantu, katwishi. I do not know.’

“When it rained it sounded like you were in a giant silimba. Loveness kept an mbaula outside, where she fried vitumbua to sell.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d just read. There’s lots of rare vocabulary, words like “tintinnabulary”, “mellifluous”, “recalcitrant”, “malapropism”, “fratricide”. I actually find it amazing that the author used a precise term for each situation but that’s why the book is sometimes hard to read.

The repetition of a phrase about teeth sucking gets really annoying. “She sucked her teeth”, “he sucked his teeth”, “their sucked their teeth”. This phrase is all over the book. Whenever someone gets worried, frustrated or angry they “suck their teeth”. My brain got a blister in the place where this phrase is processed.

The structure

The timeframe shifts between different years. Sometimes it goes forward, sometimes it goes backward. There’s no correlation between the characters and the years. No character belongs to a certain epoch. Instead one character appears in several different timeframes and then another one appears in a few other ones, and then the third one borrows a bit from both of the timeframes but also gets one of his own. You have to really focus to keep track on who’s in the spotlight right now and what’s going on. I wouldn’t call it a traditional saga where characters are linearly connected through generations. Most of the time the characters seem not to be connected at all.

Great things about the book

The writing

Even though the book is often hard to read the first 90 percent is unquestionably an amazing work of art. The way Namwali Serpell uses the language is unrepeatable and unique. One chapter completely blew my mind. The author combined two narratives in one piece of text. If you read the whole text you get a prose version of what happened. If you only read the parts written in italics it becomes a poem.

The events

Some of the described events did happen! Which is incredible taking into account how surreal they are. For example, the bizarre space program in Zambia.

This mix of surrealism and reality creates an effect where you can no longer distinguish between fiction and reality. That’s an interesting thing to experience. The book goes on this way for the first 90%. I have only one explanation for what happens after that – Namwali Serpell left her desk and someone else finished the book.

What went wrong in the end

Suddenly, I was no longer reading intricate prose about unusual characters. The book turned into a second-rate women’s fiction with sci-fi elements about futuristic revolutionaries.

Girlish chats about men and sex promptly appeared on the pages and the heroine started “admiring muscles of his back”.

As the mutations of the book progressed, my notes on it narrowed down to one phrase only: “WTF has happened to the book?!”

I was considering DNFing The Old Drift 97% into the book! The remaining three percent seemed like too much torture. I even counted how many clicks it took to cover one percent (it took 16 clicks)! I was counting the clicks left till the end of the book!

Final thoughts

I cannot come up with one definite conclusion about this book. It’s beautiful in some places and not so much in others. You might love The Old Drift or you might hate it. Most likely you’ll do both at the same time.

I’m very thankful to the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

1.  The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

A surreal apocalyptic fairytale for adults about old ladies in a retirement home. I didn’t like it that much but it had its good moments.

2.  Force of Nature by Jane Harper

A good thriller about women on a hike in Australian wilderness. I loved the writing and the descriptions of nature. Most of all I liked the fact that it was a high quality thriller with an unpredictable ending. Full review here.

3. A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

Meh. That’s all I can say about the book, briefly speaking. A disappointing read that promised some adventures of pregnant women on a run in a foreign country but turned out to be a collection of unrelated reminiscences and memories.

4. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

I loved this novel. It uses elements of science fiction to make you think about the way people’s minds work and grow. The book will be published in January 2019.

5. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

Oh the almighty Universe how do I EVER explain what this book is like?! I can only say that it’s something huge, uneven, unpredictable and definitely not simple. I liked some moments and hated others. The Old Drift will be published on 21st March 2019. You can now read my full review of the book. 

6. Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

If I had to name the best book I read in September, Virgil Wander would get the prize. I liked it the most. Everything is perfect about it: the writing, the story, the characters. I still miss this book and I plan to read it again some time soon just to feel its beauty.

7. April Fool’s Day by Josip Novakovich

A scary, hard, funny and unusual book about a man from ex-Yugoslavia. He lives through the regime and the wars. It’s definitely not a light reading but it’s worthwhile. 

8. Checking Out by Nick Spalding

Light, silly, funny at places. If you are looking for something superficial but well written you might like this book. The full review is here.

9. Day of the Accident by Nuala Ellwood

A very well written thriller about a woman after a coma. The twists are not too guessable but the characters behave strangely sometimes. It’s one of very few recent thrillers that I actually liked. The book will be published on 21st February 2019. My full review will also be posted later.

10. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

To me this thriller was not what it promised to be. In my opinion it’s not really a gothic thriller. It’s still quite gripping and fast-paced. It’s about lives of teachers and students of a collage where bad things start happening. The book will be published on 1st November. 

That was my September list. Have you read any of those? Which one would you like to read? It would be nice to hear from you. Meanwhile I’m off for my October reading. So excited, so many Universes ahead!

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