Born a Crime: book club discussion, all welcome!

[ufcasey]

Today is the day for our twelfth book club discussion! The book picked for this month was Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah.

Just to help get you thinking, if you have a hard time figuring out what you want to say, there are some questions below that I found online. You definitely don't have to answer any of them!

Things to potentially consider:
- It can be argued that this book is more the story of Patricia, Trevor’s mother, than the author himself. How did her independence affect Trevor? How did she teach him to think for himself?
- Trevor describes himself as a chameleon, using language to blend in with different groups. Do the benefits of this outweigh the negatives?
- What did you know about apartheid South Africa before reading this book? What did you learn that you found most surprising?
- What parallels do you see in South Africa and America?
- What was your favorite 'story' in the book?

[ufcasey]

Tagging people who might have read this book:
sharknado, nursewife, LaceyV, sessy, compassrose, Michelle, travella, minzy, rainbowchip, Vespasia, wildrice, justemily, oliviapope

[rainbowchip]

It's been a while since I read this so my thoughts are a little vague.

I really enjoyed this book. More so than I thought I would. It was a lot more interesting and funny than I was expecting.

I really didn't know much about apartheid other than a general idea. So this book taught me more about it.

I get really upset (I don't know if that's the right word) when I read about how women have no other choice than to let the men in their life control parts of their life like their finances and then end up getting the shaft because the man is a horrible human being or dumb or whatever. I'm glad that we live in a time where we have a little more control over our lives.

[wildrice]

Wow, thank you for tagging me!

I listened to this on audiobook a couple of months ago. I highly recommend the audiobook if anyone reading this hasn't read the book yet - Trevor Noah is hilarious and reading his stories with his own inflections and emphasis really added to my enjoyment of the book. I actually have never watched the Daily Show or anything else with him, so I was only vaguely familiar with him outside of seeing a clip here and there or reading about something he had said.

I found the book really interesting in general. I do wish he'd included more about his journey to immigrating to the US and how he went from his life in South Africa to being an international TV star! Though I supposed that's another book, because he had enough interesting content to fill this one without needing to get into the later years.

I found it really interesting learning about his place as a biracial kid during apartheid. To be honest, that's not something I ever gave a thought to - what the people who weren't black OR white did. It's interesting too that he was often treated as a white kid, when it seems like it would always be the opposite in the US (if you have even a little black heritage, you're considered black).

I probably have a lot more thoughts about the book, but I'm already forgetting a lot of details. I'll be interested in following this discussion.

[monkeyfeet]

Yes to everything wildrice wrote. I also have never watched Trevor Noah. I did watch a few YouTube clips of his comedy, so I had little expectations.

I thought it started slow, but really picked up!

I rarely listen to audiobooks, but thought it would probably be better as an audiobook. But did get a lot of humor.

I also wanted to know more about how he came to the US, etc. The part that resonated with me most was how he talked about how much money he was making selling CDs, etc in the hood or near the bus stop, but all the hustling never let them get ahead, that they'd eat or drink most of their profits.

I also enjoyed how much his mom was woven into it. As independent as she was, she really seemed to let him sink or swim on his own. Like he was more afraid of her than going to prison!!

[rainbowchip]

wildrice I bet the audio book is fantastic! I'm a huge Daily Show fan and I didn't like Trevor at first but now I think he has really come into his own and I really enjoy him!

[travella]

I agree with a lot that had already been said.

I had no idea who Trevor Noah was before reading this book. I didn't find the book to be all that funny, but I did find it very interesting. I loved the story about his relationship with his mother. I found his mother to be the most interesting character, especially given the culture at the time. Part of me wonders if she really was like his recollection in the book or if her personality hasn't been magnified by her death*.

*I really need to wait until closer to our discussions to read our books. For some reason I forgot she survived the attack. I guess her larger than life personality and the gruesome attack took precedence in my mind and I completely blocked out her recovery. Now she intrigues me even more. I'd love to see if she really is as she is portrayed by Noah.

[wildrice]

Dec 27, 2017 17:07:45 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

wildrice I bet the audio book is fantastic! I'm a huge Daily Show fan and I didn't like Trevor at first but now I think he has really come into his own and I really enjoy him!

It really is a wonderful audiobook. I think that's why I thought it was funny - because his delivery on so many stories was really quite hilarious. I think the print version would have also been good, but I'm glad I got to hear him tell the stories.

[minzy]

I read this book a year ago, so am hazy on some of the details. Not knowing much about the book beforehand, I had assumed it would be funny, but found that it was not. (Of course that was totally fine and he had an important story to tell.) My main impression was that he had overcome so much to get to where he now is. He's obviously gifted. My sister saw him perform earlier this year and said he was hilarious.

I think my first exposure to the idea of apartheid was as a teenager as a Dave Matthews fan. (He left South Africa because of it.) It's also a minor part of the storyline in The Poisonwood Bible, which I read a couple of years ago.

[sakoro]

Dec 27, 2017 12:39:26 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

Things to potentially consider:
- It can be argued that this book is more the story of Patricia, Trevor’s mother, than the author himself. How did her independence affect Trevor? How did she teach him to think for himself?
- Trevor describes himself as a chameleon, using language to blend in with different groups. Do the benefits of this outweigh the negatives?
- What did you know about apartheid South Africa before reading this book? What did you learn that you found most surprising?
- What parallels do you see in South Africa and America?
- What was your favorite 'story' in the book?

Preface: I was born in Apartheid South Africa in the late 1970s to white parents. (My dad is American and was over there working for Ford and GM when he met and married my mom, a local.) So yeah, I’m pretty familiar with it unfortunately. However, it was interesting to hear Trevor’s experiences in Soweto because Whites were not allowed in townships at that time. His whole upbringing was so different than my experience there (although he did live in the same suburb as my uncle once they moved in with the stepfather in Orange Grove).

Trevor’s mom is an exceptional woman given the context she grew up in. The system was brutal towards anyone (especially black South Africans)who didn’t toe the line. I had always assumed that Trevor was an accidental pregnancy— the thought of a couple trying to conceive a biracial child in that context is crazy!!! The most likely outcome is that both you and the father would be thrown in jail and the baby taken away from you and adopted into a coloured (mixed race) family. Also it would have been so hard and highly unusual to even try buy a house, work a white collar job or get a car. It must have taken so much confidence for Trevor’s mom to do those things.

In terms of how she taught Trevor, it was mostly by example. That probably had more impact than 100 lectures.

As for being a chameleon, it’s certainly benefitted him during his early career as a comedian in South Africa because he can mimic so many accents and present issues from many different viewpoints. It’s also helped with moving abroad and taking by over the daily show— that must have been so hard to take on a show about American politics when you didn’t grow up here. I imagine he is pretty lonely though because there are so few people who share his experience (1st generation biracial South African raised in the black community). I imagine most other biracial couples left the country and raised their kids elsewhere.

My favorite story was early in the book when his mom’s car broke down and they still had to attend the 3 church services in 3 different parts of town. They got kidnapped by the taxi driver and his mom had to throw him out of the car and tell him to run. The way he tells it is so funny.

[oliviapope]

I too listened to the audiobook, which I highly recommend as hearing him say particular words and the inflection during certain parts of the book were helpful in painting the scene.

I related to soooo much of it being bi-racial. And to reference a previous poster, I wasn't shocked at all by him being treated white. And I'd even disagree that it's the opposite in America, at least in my experience. White people treated me as a white peer as long as I acted as they did. Which sometimes made my black peers side eye me (and looking back I side eye me too). I found it very hard to find my place until I was much much older.

His mom is just amazing. I love her lol.

[compassrose]

I loved the audiobook! His many accents and his stories about his mom really made book for me. His mom is such a complex person, such strong faith and determination, and caught for so long in the horrible trap of domestic violence. It's incredible she survived.

[ufcasey]

Ok I just now finished reading the book (whoops) and wow, I can't believe his mother was shot in the head and ended up being fine - alive and with no brain damage. Crazy. I have so much respect for his mom in general. If she ever wrote her own book I would definitely read it.

Going into this book I only knew that apartheid was basically racism upheld by laws in South Africa, and that was about it. So this book was very eye opening to me on that account. I'm frankly kind of embarrassed that I know so little about it. I'm now going to actively look for other books on this subject so please let me know if you have any recs.

The Hitler story was so funny!

I really hope he writes another book about how he went from his failed music stealing/dj-ing enterprise (thanks to a gun happy cop) to being the host of The Daily Show.

[ufcasey]

Dec 27, 2017 17:07:45 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

wildrice I bet the audio book is fantastic! I'm a huge Daily Show fan and I didn't like Trevor at first but now I think he has really come into his own and I really enjoy him!

Same!!

[monkeyfeet]

I saw on goodreads he has a Netflix documentary called You Can Laugh but it’s True that addresses how he became a comedian.