I didn't find this book particularly compelling, and had to force myself to keep going (it was for a book club). None of the characters particularly resonated with me, and they all seemed quite caricatured. Rather than fully embodied human beings, they were made to stand for ideas.

The ending was also bizarrely abrupt, and left several loose ends hanging. Genuinely wondered whether my library copy may have had some pages removed.

Having said that, the book does a great job of using magical realism to introduce an ignorant reader to the conceptual world of the amaXhosa people of South Africa, and the issues surrounding South Africa's 19th century heritage, the sins of which continue to be visited upon the modern generation.

I particularly liked the book's portrayal of ancestral (would you call them religious?) beliefs and what effect they have on the lives of their descendants. The pervasive and often insidious influence of Belief and Unbelief is well explored.

We are left with not one single hero, and no one side is shown to be completely blameless. Amidst the melee of different and competing cultures in the story, human weakness is shown to be universal.

(n.b. discovered my new favourite word in this book: sneezewood.)