[Weep not, child is] an autobiographical novel, and its weaknesses come from the need to make it at once a book about the Mau Mau Rebellion and yet also a book written out of immediate and personal experience. There are scenes when the author is trying to sum up or present the whole situation, for example the conversation between Njoroge and Stephen Howlands, the schoolboy son of the white farmer, at a football match between an African and a European school. This seems contrived and unconvincing. When Mr Ngugi brings the violence of Mau Mau directly upon the scene, as when he describes the murder of Mr Howlands by Njoroge's brother, there is a failure in the writing which is serious enough to damage the whole novel. He also runs into the problem of all autobiographical novels of childhood and youth—that of coming to a conclusion. The scene at the end of the book when Njoroge is prevented from hanging himself by the timely appearance of his mother is not a happy solution.
Weep not, child is at its best presenting the ordinary life and awareness of a young African as he achieves his formal and informal education. The attempts at more dramatic effect fail but do not ruin the book's muted everyday quality of conviction. The very simple and direct style used gives each scene actuality as we read but leaves nothing standing vividly out, and the novel lives on in the mind as an atmosphere and not as a series of sharply drawn incidents.
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Wa Thiong'o, Ngugi 1938–: Critical Essay by John Reed Access Pass.
