Author Archives: thephraser

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The Theory of Flight – Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

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This book was a birthday gift. I’d never heard of the title before I received it, nor of the Zimbabwean author. I finished the book a few days ago, and have been thinking of it ever since.

One point to make right at the start is that I almost put the book down when I read the prologue, and realised that one of the story’s foundation stones is the shooting down of a passenger plane.

However … I read on, and I was fascinated. The writing is beautiful.

At the heart of the story is Genie – beautiful and defiant, and profoundly giving. She knows love and gentleness, and always holds true to those, despite the dislocation, disloyalty, and disease that follow her into adulthood. It is her life that links together the many other characters in the book who surround her, some intersecting with her only briefly or indirectly but each of them adding their own flawed humanity to the context through which Genie evolves.

That, for me, is the chewy soul of this book – the way it gives villains and heroes alike, lives and hopes and dreams. No person is right or wrong, regardless of whether they are navigating or inflicting trauma. They are simply revealed, their day to day sharply focused, but their roles smudged around the edges with magic realism. There is real trauma, but it is blurred in a way that spares the reader.

The impression I’ve been left with is of a book that is gentle, but also devastatingly powerful. I loved the writing, and would rate it as one of the most striking novels I’ve read by a Zimbabwean author.

(The copy I have is published by Catalyst Press. The novel was originally published by Penguin Books in South Africa in 2018. It won the Barry Ronge Prize for Debut Fiction in South Africa.)

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Puppies and dogs, and who owns who

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“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

It’s been a grey, wet, windy day here, but made so much brighter for us by family … and a puppy.

We’ve had visits from two puppies recently, both only a few months old, with teeth sharp as razors, and bodies wriggling with happiness and curiosity. They’ve padded and explored, tested and tasted, chewed and chased.

Now they are gone, and the house settles back into the rhythm of adults. It is a good rhythm, but different. In the quiet since, I’ve done some looking and found out a few things about dogs and who owns them.

The YouGov Dog Ownership Report 2023, lists 56% of American households as having a dog in them, while an MDPI National Dog Survey 2023, reports that in the UK it’s 34%. The World Population Review 2023 puts that into numbers – 90,000,000 million dogs in the USA, and only 12,000,000 in the UK. The Kennel Club in the USA has given the nation’s most popular dog spot to the French Bulldog, while in the UK that spot has gone to the Labrador Retriever. 

And, of course, there is one piece of evidence that has never changed, at least it hasn’t so far – all dogs, wherever they are, begin as puppies, who play and grow … then suddenly they are tired.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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So how was it for you?

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“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” J R R Tolkien, The Hobbit

Boxing Day is sinking away beneath a full moon, as we flop into still spaces, and try to understand how to bring ourselves back towards some sort of everyday where there is no chocolate.

And while we flop, the world turns as it always has done, taking us and our muddle with it.

Here in the south of England the weather has been warmer than normal, warmer in a way that is hard not to notice. But perhaps that is a good thing. Perhaps, the combination of national holiday and unseasonal warmth will help to underline the shift that is happening to the climate. Perhaps it will mark the end of the year that helped to focus our wandering attention on the fractured weather surrounding us. Perhaps.

And if it does, then we’ve still got time to line up a whole new set of resolutions for next week.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023