- This magnificent novel won the 2021 Booker Prize, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a fascinating read, set in South Africa in the three decades after the end of the Apartheid regime in the early 1990s to the present day.
- Although it's a seemingly simple story of a white family living on a farm near Pretoria, it develops into much more than that as conflict, struggle and tragedy define the individual lives of the two parents and their three children.
- Galgut brings shifting perspectives and voices to his story. He darts from one consciousness to another, switching from the third person to the first person in the space of a sentence. And he’s not just a narrator but a commentator on what he's created too. It’s generous, sometimes folksy, prose, and is often delightful and funny.
- Rather surprisingly, as if there wasn't enough intergenerational conflict in the family, there is also a Jewish versus Christian rift. Loyalty to these Western traditions, and reverence for their respective religious ministers, defines them. It takes a while to be introduced to all the extended family members and friends and clerics, but there is one thing in common - an ingrained racism.
- The novel has a distinctly South African flavour. Differences dominate as the racist past still defines everything. The whites are masters, the blacks servants, the ugly arrogant overlords versus the lower classes. But the reckoning has begun, despite Nelson Mandela's breakthrough Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The fundamental social structure is in increasing decay. No lights, no water, lean times in the land of plenty. The whites' time is up.
- Anton, Astrid and Amor are the offspring, the younger generation. Their perspectives on their privilege are more critical of it, but despite the promise they show only the youngest girl Amor comes close to fulfilling it. The oldest, the son Anton, Galgut's principal focus, is an aspiring novelist, aware of the social change underway and its attendant obligations, but in the end amounts to a dismal failure.
- As the years progress Ma, the Jewish mother, dies and ten years later, Pa the Christian. Both of these characters are cranky and unlikable. The extended family members all unite and reunite for the funerals. Galgut brings a charming comic tone to these rather ridiculous get-togethers.
- There is a wonderful side story about the Rugby World Cup final between the Springboks (South Africa) and the All Blacks (NZ). It's on the same day as Ma's funeral. The whole country is watching, and amazingly South Africa wins. Mandela, released from jail a few weeks earlier, presents the cup. The nation is ‘beautiful’ and ‘amazing’ the media cries out. Everyone is gathering around their TVs. However the young daughter, Amor, who 'still holds herself aloof and apart' slips out. She knows. She just knows. There’s another side to South Africa - raw and vengeful violence.
- Troubles are always simmering. The clashes in the townships, the constant threats to Anton and the farm, it's all full of menace and there are always incidents. Astrid, the middle child is killed by a black thug in a carjacking.
- On a rare visit home for Pa's funeral, Amor wants to discuss with Anton the promise their parents made to Salome, their black maid for many years. They had promised to give her ownership of the small house on their farmlands that she and her son lived in. But they never delivered and now Anton also refuses to do it. The house has been neglected over the years: Amor looks around, at the cracking plaster. The broken cement floors. The missing planes of glass. Income from the farm is dwindling and land values falling. Anton's novel is not going anywhere. At 50 he realises he’s a failure. The decay of the old elite white structure in South Africa is self evident.
- The novel ends in tragedy but also hope. A tribute to love, care, compassion and service.
- All Booker prize winners are worth reading and this one is certainly no exception. And in the day of the long novel it's only 293 pages!
No comments:
Post a Comment