Sunday, June 16, 2019

Deogratias: A Tale of the Rwandan Genocide
by Jean-Philippe Stassen

Synopsis (via Goodreads): The 2000 winner of the Goscinny Prize for outstanding graphic novel script, this is the harrowing tale of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, as seen through the eyes of a boy named Deogratias. He is an ordinary teenager, in love with a girl named Benigne, but Deogratias is a Hutu and Benigne is a Tutsi who dies in the genocide, and Deogratias himself plays a part in her death. As the story circles around but never depicts the terror and brutality of an entire country descending into violence, we watch Deogratias in his pursuit of Benigne, and we see his grief and descent into madness following her death, as he comes to believe he is a dog.

Told with great artistry and intelligence, this book offers a window into a dark chapter of recent human history and exposes the West's role in the tragedy. Stassen's interweaving of the aftermath of the genocide and the events leading up to it heightens the impact of the horror, giving powerful expression to the unspeakable, indescribable experience of ordinary Hutus caught up in the violence. Difficult, beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking, this is a major work by a masterful artist.


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Originally, I requested this on NetGalley to read, but the PDF expired before I could get to it. It wasn't the book itself, but the content that made me hesitate to pick this one up. Deogratias isn't something you grab for a little light reading. The Rwandan genocide "lasted 100 days and took 800,000 lives." I decided to buy the book after stumbling across a copy, and I almost wish I hadn't.

I hate to say this, but I was disappointed with the overall story. The forward was the most interesting and informative part of the book, and it's only a few pages long. I felt like it really set the tone for the story, while also conveying the severity of the situation. The forward also mentions that Stassen didn't go to Rwanda with the intention of writing a book about the genocide, but he did, and he's profiting from it. I think this story needs to be told by those who were there and experienced what happened firsthand, or at least by someone who was affected by what happened. It seems like Stassen told his version of events through a character that he himself is unable to relate to. How can you write about something like this as a white male with an outsider's perspective?

Speaking of perspective, the main character was an unreliable narrator. We see the boy he was before (someone only interested in having sex with girls), to the broken shell of a person he is after. When the Hutu started killing Tutsi, the author didn't show us how Deogratias felt, only that he chose to participate in what was happening around him. I couldn't connect with Deogratias and what he was experiencing, because it felt like everything that happened to him was out of his control. There was no depth to him or what he was feeling as the world fell apart around him.

It's clear that Deogratias has been through something traumatic, and it's impacted his mind and how he perceives himself and the world, but the author still uses him to mention female mutilation and dogs devouring bodies (always random and without warning). When we finally discover what happened to him, it's very choppy, and also disturbingly graphic. There's no explanation of his actions, and we're not given any information that would help us understand how certain parts of the story unfolded. We're just supposed to infer based on broken conversations, and images that I won't describe. 

I have very little experience with this topic, so I went into this without any expectations. I do know that children were often made to do things they wouldn't normally do, and they did them to survive. I'm not sure how old the main character was supposed to be, but I think we're supposed to believe that his actions were mostly forced. However, the author doesn't even pretend to give him a choice, but makes one for him without giving us any relevant information.

None of the other characters were expanded on either, which made the story feel somewhat flat. The author has a full cast of diverse people, yet chooses to focus on other aspects of the story. The illustrations felt like caricatures of people, which felt wrong when the author was depicting graphic scenes from the genocide. The violence was often sudden and unexpected, and while it may be accurate, felt like it was included to shock an audience instead of inform them.

The Rwandan genocide is something that happened fairly recently, and I disagree with how this author chose to depict the horrific events that occurred. His story feels like an insult to the people who were there, and to those who lost loved ones to unfathomable cruelties.

20 comments:

  1. Definitely not my kind of book but I'm sorry to hear you ended up not liking it t all.

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    1. I was curious about this book, because I know very little about the Rwandan genocide. My husband and I watched Hotel Rwanda a few years ago, and it was a truly heartbreaking experience. I cannot even begin to imagine what those people went through, or how others managed to survive during the aftermath. It's not a subject that people talk about often. The author is a middle-aged white man that went to Rwanda after everything happened, and now he's profiting off the pain of others. His version felt like an insult to the people that suffered during that time, and to those that still live today. I don't know what makes him qualified to write a story like this, especially one so graphic and violent.

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  2. Seems like in different hands this could have been a very thoughtful and authentic story. It makes you wonder why Stassen chose to tell this particular story (as such an outsider) but to tell it the way he did. Sounds like a real missed opportunity ere. :(

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    1. I really don't understand what he hoped to accomplish with this story. Did he want to bring attention to what happened? Maybe enlighten a new generation to the horrors of the Rwandan genocide? If that's true, then I think the profits from his book should go towards a charity, or helping Rwanda in some way. It makes me feel gross to think that this man is profiting off the pain of another country. There are plenty of other people that could have told this story, and done so with more authenticity. It felt wrong when he would speak through his characters, and how he chose to portray them. I wish the author had collaborated with someone that had been affected by everything that happened.

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  3. I recently saw a review on a book about the Rwandan genocide and it was written by a Rwandan. I can't remember the title, but I think Stephanie @ Literary Fits did it for her world reading challenge. Bummer this one wasn't what you needed for this event.

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    1. I'll have to see if I can find it on her blog. Thanks for letting me know! It seems weird that someone has won awards for writing a book about a tragedy he didn't experience. There are plenty of people that were there when it happened, survivors and participants, that could better tell what happened to them. Maybe if he was donating all of his profits to Rwanda or another charity? It feels wrong. He put words in people's mouths, shared horrific experiences, and what does he know about it? How does he know what they were thinking or feeling when it happened?

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  4. How does one even mess this up? It should be hard to read and making you scream never again and despair how evil humans are

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    1. We're introduced to quite a few characters, and most of them have different backgrounds. I feel like they could have been expanded on to make a more believable story, but the author chose a darker route. We watch as the main character succumbs to his mental trauma, while also trying to make amends for his past actions. It was sad to see, especially when compared to the version of himself before all the killing started. His transition from innocent boy to murderer wasn't really explained, but simply happened. I find it hard to believe (based on what we knew from the story, not real life) that he would do what others claimed he did, and he said very little in his own defense. I would have liked to see how he transitioned from happy innocence, to a shattered shell of a person.

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  5. This sounds like such a frustrating read. I'm sorry to hear it.

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    1. It was very frustrating. I sympathized with the characters and what they were going through, and it was truly terrible to read about, but I felt like the author cheapened the story. The violence was randomly thrown in, and it felt forced to elicit strong emotions. We don't need to be shocked into feeling horrified, because the genocide of over 800,000 people is horrific enough. I don't think his story came across the way he intended.

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  6. This would be a tough subject to read about and it's unfortunate that this didn't feel like a proper telling of the Rwandan Genocide. Sounds like a depressing read.

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    1. I honestly don't know what a proper telling would be, since I actually know very little about the subject. I know the basics, but I'm sure there is much more to the story. There are people alive today that experienced what happened, and I believe those people should be the ones telling their stories. Stassen came in afterwards as an observer and wrote a fictional story based on his experiences. It felt like he took something horrific and lessened it somehow. What is his connection to the people he wrote about? Did he suffer himself or lose a loved one? It was hard to connect with his characters, because there was no depth to them, and the story was too choppy to really follow. What happened in his graphic novel is devastating, but I don't think he was the right person to tell it.

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  7. It sucks when a book does a misinterpretation of something as serious as this. I think I'd be super frustrated while reading :/

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    1. I thought about DNFing this one a few times, but I wanted to see how the author handled the rest of the story. It makes sense as a whole, but I think he missed important nuances that someone with experience would have included. How could he hope to understand something so devastating, when he wasn't there to experience it himself? Even if he had been there, the white people were evacuated when things started to get bad. No one intervened on their behalf, but he felt like writing his version of story he knows nothing about. I apologize if I'm wrong, because I did research the author afterwards, but based on what I found and the forward, he was simply there after everything happened. Eventually he wrote a book and won prizes, but his story has no authenticity to it. There are so many people that could have told this story with personal experience, or at least more relevance.

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  8. Ugh, yes... this is why the white guys have to start stepping away and let Own Voices authors handle subjects like this. I see he was also the illustrator, instead he should have offered to help someone affected by the war tell their story and donate the profits to that person, or a Rwandan charity. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

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    1. Yes, he wrote and illustrated the graphic novel. I wish he had collaborated with someone more connected to what happened in Rwanda, and that could have offered a more personal perspective. It feels gross that he's profiting off of a tragedy that he wasn't involved in.

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  9. I guess if he really wanted to do this and had a story idea - as an illustrator - he could have brought people in who lived the experience as the writers and then illustrated it? It sounds like a better use of his talents and more authentic way to tell the story. Use your platform to boost their voices.

    It's hard to capture the full depth of the horror as an outsider. You know it's devastating but you're still bringing an outside view to it and ignoring details that wouldn't even occur to you.

    Karen @ For What It's Worth

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    1. Yes! I totally agree. He could have had the idea for the story, but let someone else tell it. He could have used his talents as an illustrator to convey their stories, instead of making something up.

      Yes again! You're so very right.

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  10. Not good... Not good at all.
    I've been reading a lot about this genocide lately as the 25th anniversary is putting it back in the news and it's beyond horrific. I have no idea how an outsider thinks they could accurately portray that!

    Regardless of who wrote it, I don't think I could read it. Reading an article yesterday about the mothers having to tell their children they were born from the repeated gang rapes and sharing their stories was enough to traumatise me for a month.

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    1. Right? We know it was bad, but there's no way for us to fully comprehend the atrocities that happened there. It seems wrong for us to even try to write a story that should be told by the survivors and victims.

      It's a hard subject to read about, but I think it's important for us to know our history so it doesn't get repeated in the future.

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