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Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier Audiobook
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(3.00) - 2,189 listener ratings
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When Alexandra ("Bo") Fuller was home in Zambia a few years ago, visiting her parents for Christmas, she asked her father about a nearby banana farmer who was known for being a "tough bugger." Her father's response was a warning to steer clear of him; he told Bo: "Curiosity scribbled the cat." Nonetheless, Fuller began her strange friendship with the man she calls K, a white African and veteran of the Rhodesian war. With the same fiercely beautiful prose that won her acclaim for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Fuller here recounts her friendship with K. K is, seemingly, a man of contradictions: tattooed, battle scarred, and weathered by farm work, he is a lion of a man, feral and bulletproof. Yet he is also a born-again Christian, given to weeping when he recollects his failed romantic life, and more than anything else welling up inside with memories of battle. For his war, like all wars, was a brutal one, marked by racial strife, jungle battles, unimaginable tortures, and the murdering of innocent civilians-and K, like all the veterans of the war, has blood on his hands. Driven by K's memories, Fuller and K decide to enter the heart of darkness in the most literal way-by traveling from Zambia through Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Mozambique to visit the scenes of the war and to meet other veterans. It is a strange journey into the past, one marked at once by somber reflections and odd humor and featuring characters such as Mapenga, a fellow veteran who lives with his pet lion on a little island in the middle of a lake and is known to cope with his personal demons by refusing to speak for days on end. What results from Fuller's journey is a remarkably unbiased and unsentimental glimpse of men who have killed, mutilated, tortured, and scrambled to survive during wartime and who now must attempt to live with their past and live past their sins. In these men, too, we get a glimpse of life in Africa, a land that besets its creatures with pests, plagues, and natural disasters, making the people there at once more hardened and more vulnerable than elsewhere.
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"Wow. This was better than Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. Fuller's ability to write truth without judgment is remarkable. She is also blindingly honest about her own shortcomings - yet sans regret. I felt both privileged and enraged to see Mozambique through K's perspective."
— Kristin (5 out of 5 stars)
Scribbling the Cat Listener Reviews
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" This book was OK. I was expecting something better after reading "Don't let's go to the dogs tonight" by the same author. While the topic of the book is interesting (travels with an African warrior), the book reads like a newspaper - perhaps because the author is a journalist?! The whole book could have been written in a much more interesting way. Some atrocities are described in detail and yet the narrative fails to "speak" to me. "
— Ana, 2/17/2014 -
" Haunting, brutal, honest and funny at times, this is the kind of book that stays with you long after you have put it down. "
— Isabel, 2/17/2014 -
" Omigod, what a book. Can't recommend it enough. "
— prairiesister, 2/15/2014 -
" Let me start by saying not everyone should read this. It is raw, dirty, and real. There are very few stories that get to the heart of what the white soliders of Africa go through. It also looks at race in a really different way that I think most Americans can't understand. It is pure Africa take it or leave it. "
— Rachel, 2/13/2014 -
" it was too choppy - the narrative was hard to follow "
— Katie, 1/7/2014 -
" Fuller focuses on the effects of war on her generation while telling the story of one African soldier. Her achingly beautiful prose juxtaposed with the horrors of the subject make this a powerful read. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the wonderful Lisette Lecat. "
— Marija, 1/5/2014 -
" Fascinating, well-written, but hated the content. "
— Karen, 12/21/2013 -
" Powerful and tragic tale. "
— Nic, 12/20/2013 -
" I couldn't figure out what Fuller was doing running around Africa with "K" but it is an interesting book. "
— Katherine, 11/26/2013 -
" Another gem from Lisa's bookshelf. "
— Ayla, 11/22/2013 -
" Not as good as the first but definitely a great read. "
— Abby, 11/6/2013 -
" What happened here? Book without focus and selfish characters. Written as a adult follow-up to Fuller's book on her childhood. "
— Sabah, 10/21/2013 -
" This was well written and extremely well narrated by Lisette Lecat but was sometimes hard to listen to and was definitely more about the journey than the destination. "
— Sandi, 8/24/2013 -
" Not quite as good as her first book, but still a very good read. I think her point was a little lost at times, but she paints such vivid pictures with her words that it's hard to stop reading. "
— Geoff, 8/23/2013 -
" After reading Fuller's first book (Don't let's go to the Dogs Tonight) I had high expectations. This book suffers by comparison though as a standalone I probably would have liked it better. Still worth reading "
— Nancy, 6/10/2013 -
" I read Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tomight and enjoyed it, but I think I liked this one better. I don't think I would be friends with Alexandra Fuller, but I do like her writing. "
— Truthmonkey, 6/3/2013 -
" I did enjoy this book and would rate it closer to 3/5 stars. I thought her first one was more enjoyable. This one seemed disjointed and off the tracks a bit. I felt that she was a little uncomfortable writing it. All in all, a very good book. "
— Caroline, 4/29/2013 -
" this is different from her earlier book in the fact that this is stories of war, fighting and death, told to the author from "K", who was a soldier in the war. These are stories of the brutality and the casualties of war. "
— Amanda, 10/28/2012 -
" Not as funny & witty as her others but much more real in terms of the actual division between people growing up there and being native. A very interesting introspective. Well worth the read. "
— Amy, 10/21/2012 -
" Not as compelling as Don't Let's Go and lacking a strong driving plot, this was nonetheless told in Fuller's engaging style. "
— Meghan, 6/17/2012 -
" Listened to audio of this after her Don't Go to the Dogs ... book. Interesting, but not w/ the depth of the other book. "
— Susan, 3/21/2012 -
" Beautiful, savage, haunting, devastating... Africa, love, hate, war. I can't find the words right now, I am still raw with emotion. Fuller is a writer of supreme talent, truly gifted . "
— Marcie, 12/21/2011 -
" The author visits her parents in Zambia, then she goes to Mozambique with a white ex-army Rhodie. Graphic descriptions, slightly odd. "
— Melitta, 12/5/2011 -
" Eye opening! Gives you a "in your face" view of the emotional effects of African war "
— Mary, 6/11/2011 -
" I want to go back and start this book fresh with different expectations. I just finished reading her childhood memoir, and I wasn't really ready for how dark this would be. I liked it, but it makes me so sad that I almost physically hurt. "
— Erin, 5/24/2011 -
" really excellent. i don't always like alexandra fuller as a person, but i always like her as a writer: her unflinching, direct honesty, her ability to look things in the face and call them what they are, are far and away her best qualities. "
— Maryn, 2/21/2011 -
" Disappointed after reading Don't let's go to the dogs tonight; although some characters are interesting, format is somehow stilted. "
— Claire, 2/12/2011 -
" Great book - written very real and raw but still moments of humor. "
— Shanna, 1/8/2011 -
" Fascinating, well-written, but hated the content. "
— Karen, 1/3/2011 -
" Not for the faint-of-heart. It's like watching a train wreck. Explains a lot about the ghosts that live in people's minds. "
— Robanna, 11/28/2010 -
" Haunting, brutal, honest and funny at times, this is the kind of book that stays with you long after you have put it down. "
— Bella, 11/15/2010
About Alexandra Fuller
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to a farm in southern Africa. She lived in Africa until her mid-twenties. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming. She is the author of three memoirs, including the New York Times bestseller Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness.