Semi-Review: 'The Yearning' by Mohale Mashigo
- Isabel Nkosi
- Sep 17, 2017
- 2 min read
I remember when I started reading The Yearning – I knew I was going to fall in love with the rest of the book, when I smiled throughout the part where Marubini tells us her gran’s favourite story – the day Marubini was born. Its in this narration that I could decipher that Marubini’s life story wasn’t anything close to a typical kasi girl story. She has a bit of every one of us, who has been unfortunate enough to taste the bitterness of grief.
The Yearning lets us into Marubini’s life and with every word, as you get to know her better and go through her pain with her, you so desperately get tempted to want to save her. When she starts confronting her yearnings, somehow the literature spills into your life, you start questioning yourself about your yearnings because its hard to not see a part of yourself in her. Its hard to not question yourself about your life when you read this book. Another beautiful thing about this book is, as you endure her pains and her demons with every page, its hard to not break apart along with her. And when she finally finds her strength, you find a way to heal from your own pain as well. This book, if you let it, might break you, but it will allow you to heal by the time you get to ‘Amen’ – the last chapter that is.
For me, The Yearning wasn’t just a book, reading it felt like a spiritual journey. You grow more into this beautiful weird sense of understanding with every page. More understanding with yourself, the roots of your pain, your own beliefs, more understanding of love, and even more deeply with your own yearnings. You grow more into this freeing understanding with the different chapters that Mashigo divided the book into: “The Name, The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit and Amen”. If that doesn’t sound like a prompt to pray, then perhaps you really do need to read this book.
The Yearning turned out to be a much needed reminder to myself, of how your fate always catches up with you, how all your meant to be’s always know how to get to where you are trying to run away to, before you even get there yourself. In my quest to find the best way to actually describe this book, the more I realise that Zakes Mda has already done that for all of us who might never find the best fitting words, where he describes it as ”‘A bewitching addition to the current South African literary boom. Mohale Mashigo tells her story with charming lucidity, disarming characterisation, subversive wisdom and subtle humour.’
I am not really trying to convince you to buy the book (I am), but I hope you do get yourself a copy. And perhaps a lot of what I am saying will make a LOT of sense after reading the book.
To say more would be giving away too much. Just go buy the book and let me know how it goes.
If you have read the book, please let me know how you found it
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