Kilimanjaro: A Fable of Utopia Book

One of my all-time favorite books is Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia, so I was excited to read this.

However... it's not exactly a reprise of Kirinyaga. It's actually about a different utopian world, from a neigbouring African culture to the Kikuyu, who study the "mistakes" made on Kirinyaga to develop a better African utopia that works for them.

So, it's different, and thus I shouldn't compare it directly to Kirinyaga. But I admit that I missed one of the central features that made Kirinyaga so memorable - where is the ethical conflict? In Kirinyaga, there was always a deep conflict between the old, traditional ways of the Kikuyu and the newer, modern ways.

In this book, however, there's nothing really challenging ethically. It's still a good read, with basically the same theme (exploring how modern ways overtake traditions). However, in Kirinyaga there was no sense of inevitability that modern ways would prevail; often, shockingly, the traditional ways were upheld in stark manners.

Here, however, there is a ever-present sense that in each story arc, the old traditions will not be upheld. This did diminish some of the reading pleasure for me. I did like the book, and would likely reread at some time. But it's more a case of "here is how things were able to change" instead of "here's how you're going to be stunned by the way we were able to stop things from changing".

...which briefly summarizes what was so great about Kirinyaga, and why this is merely a 4-star book. A very good book, but not a masterwork.