Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Chapter 1 - Scenes from Apartheid

7 Chapters - 181 pages

So here's my thought:
with such a short book (a least short in comparison with the last book),
why not do a post on every chapter and really take the time to read it and enjoy it and learn from it?

Here we go....

Chapter 1


Eugene de Kock

We're briefly introduced to this man - "the man whom many in the country considered the most brutal of apartheid's covert police operatives."

Although Pumla doesn't spend a lot of time writing about him yet, and who he is and what he's done - the way she describes him does make him seem evil.  i guess I'll see if I feel the same way as I continue reading.


One of my favorite parts of the book is after she was recounting a memory from her childhood and then found out that what she remembered was different than the actual facts recorded of the event:
"Can what was still so vividly alive in my memory be described simply as a misrepresentation of the facts, a recontruction of events as they happened?"

Thoughts similar to this (but obviously not so eloquently said) cross my mind when I can remember conversations or events SO CLEARLY, yet when I ask the other person that was present, it isn't exactly what they remember either.  Are they wrong?  Am I wrong?  Or is that the event happened differently than we both remember and because of how we interpreted it, that's how it's replayed in our minds?  I don't know!

Does this happen to you too?

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