Here are the discussion questions for May's meeting in Horsham:
1. How did you feel about Tim Butcher’s venture as a Daily Telegraph journalist to follow the Congo River, just like Henry Stanley did when he was correspondent for the same newspaper in 1876? Did the personal connection justify the undertaking?
2. How much did you know about the Congo prior to reading?
3. Blood River might have been conceived as a travelogue but maybe results in a history. By making the connections between those earlier travellers' tales and his own experiences, Butcher finds himself considering The Congo's biography and tries to understand the dark heart of the continent. How effective is the genre, and his examination of what has happened?
4. Which aspects of the journey did you find most disturbing?
5. Does the narrative structure of the journey make compelling drama?
6. Does Butcher successfully distil the causes of Africa's 'broken heart'?
7. Perhaps an idea that remains at the end of reading is that The Congo is a country that is 'not just undeveloped but undeveloping'. How do you respond to this?
8. Was the journey productive in any way?
9. Butcher observes that,'The world seems to view the Congo as a lost cause without hope of ever being put right'. Does he offer solutions?
10. Butcher’s descriptions reflect the product of an age when the world could not penetrate the depths or hope to influence what went on in the remoteness of the Congo. Should we, the richer world, be prepared to allow that to continue, or do the people that Butcher met on his travels deserve a better future?
11. Do you share Butcher's 'grudging respect' for Stanley by the end?
12. Our other non-fiction reads thus far have included Stasiland and The Bookseller of Kabul. How does this compare in terms of research and execution?
