Don't+Let's+Go+to+the+Dogs+Tonight

** 2010 Summer Reading Selection **



// Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight // [|Discussion Questions] swarthmore.edu/burke

1. Fuller works very hard to maintain a view of southern Africa from a child’s perspective. Would you rather know the history of those years from the inside out, through her eyes, or know something in advance from an authoritative, “objective” view? (This is always hotly debated in my classes when we read the book.) If you’d like to know something in advance about historical background and context, take a look at Wikipedia ( [|www.wikipedia.org] ) on the following topics: Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. (Feel free to pose questions here in the comments as well.) 2. The back cover calls the book “unsentimental and unflinching”. This is especially true of her description of the racial attitudes of white settlers: she does not apologize for them nor explains them away, but neither does she justify or excuse them. There’s almost nothing conventionally “confessional” here except perhaps her invitation into the home of a black African, pp. 235-239. When I’ve read this book with classes in the past, some people find this very unsettling; others appreciate the honesty. How do you react to this choice? 3. Fuller says here and elsewhere that she and her family are Africans, if “accidental Africans”. She makes it very clear that she resents anyone trying to qualify or refuse that statement. How do you react to that claim? 4. Fuller calls this book a declaration of her love for Africa. What is it that attracts the Fullers to Africa? Why do they come? Why do they fight so hard to stay? 5. How much of the family’s interior lives is an expression of their exterior situation? Is her mother’s psychological condition just that, one individual’s psychology, or is it an internalization of some instability or madness in the family’s social circumstances? 6. What’s the source of the violence and chaos that surrounds the Fullers’ world? Who or what is responsible (if anyone or anything)? 7. If all you had was this book, what could you say about black African individuals and communities? Do readers of this book really know anything about southern Africa when they’re done? 8. The incident involving Violet and July (pp. 117-129) is potent. What does it say about the mutual entanglement (or lack thereof) of white and black lives in late 1970s Rhodesia? 9. How do you react to Fuller’s use of descriptive imagery in her writing? Offer some specific examples and describe how you responded to her imagery. 10. How did you respond to the humor in Fuller’s memoir? Share some examples you found particularly funny and explain why you found it humorous. Why did she include that humor?

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