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| Mungoshi Jr. (Photo Credit: Zimbabwe Mail) |
Charles Mungoshi Jr’s debut offering “Candlelight Thoughts,” a dumpsite of evangelically-themed motivational nuggets, is a work of notable promise.
The twenty-seven year old joins several other showbiz heirs who have dabbled in their parents’ domains.
The book is the second publication from the family stable Mungoshi Press which broke onto the scene with the patriarch’s 2014 NAMA Best Fiction-winning title “Branching Streams Flow in the Dark.”
The title “Candlelight Thoughts” is derived from Mungoshi’s figurative appraisal of the impact of thinking on man. “The thoughts of a man are like a burning candle – the harder you think, the bright you glow or the sooner you burn out.”
Mungoshi notes that the more a person exerts their mind, results in either great success or failure, with the departure-point being the quality of material one feeds their mind on.
The experimental is not cast in a traditional literary form or any of the creative genres which have earned the elder scribe a fistful of gongs locally and internationally. It does not assume the conventional form of motivational literature.
It is a train of thought in the tradition of Blaise Pascal’s “Pensees” and Marcus Garvey’s “Philosophy and Opinions.” It is a more ambitious project than it appears at first glance, given that each thought has to stand, complete and self-contained, on its own.
Mungoshi uses the light motif to elucidate his idea of model responses to life challenges. “As you block the candlelight with your hand from the wind, you block it from lighting your path: it’s not always that you should go head on with challenges or obstacles to make it in destiny. Take your time, do not push through certain situations when you need to sit back, strategise and grow in knowledge.”
“Candlelight Thoughts” has something for everyone; wisdom, humour, anecdotes and real-life situations randomly collected for a wholesome impression on the reader.
Mungoshi flaunts his father’s story-telling flair with teasingly brief, at times eccentric, anecdotes such as “Jack Rhumba,” “Tambow,” “Dreams Not Neglected,” “Four Wheels” and “Hello!”
In between serious lectures about success and social propriety, Mungoshi indulges his lighter nature with crazy statements like a teacher intent on making the classroom bearable.
“Speaking Shona in English” recounts: “The car was walking too much. It was like the sky running away like this. I was misunderstanding what was happening. People were holding their intestines in their hands.
“The bus driver was running too much. The guy who was on my side screamed and said now we are dead. The lady on the other chair screamed and said he is full of water in the head, him the driver.”
Mungoshi throws punches on realism like William Blake who was notoriously averse to facts, preferring his own flights of fancy. He equates dry analysis with paralysis given that the analyst is driven by facts; the visionary, obstinate belief in his dreams.
The “Candlelight Thoughts” are designed to make the reader shine brighter not burn out, given ample devotion on right living, positive thinking and spiritual accomplishment.
Mungoshi harps on the question of grace and maintains that Christ’s grace is available to recompense for the shortfalls of fallible and flawed man. “The beginning of ministry is the understanding of why the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died.”
One leaves Mungoshi’s book laughing, edified, wiser, defiant in the face of challenges and asking what the young man’s book is all about.
Mungoshi is also into theology, script-writing and acting like his mother “Neria.” He is married to Piwai with who he has a son Mukundi Eli.
Elsewhere in Africa, Ngugi WaThiongo’s childredWanjiku and Nducu will be publishing this year bring the total of published authors in the family to four including the patriarch and Mukoma WaNgugi.
