Before I Forget by Andre Brink (and a few comments on the other two books from South Africa)

When I first started reading this novel/memoir I sighed heavily. Why do male writers find it absolutely necessary to detail all of their sexual experiences in a book? "Here are all of the women I slept with and the effect it had on me." Yawn. However, the book is well written, and Brink's narrator (who I'm pretty sure is Brink masquerading as a fictional South African writer) has some humorous and poignant things to say about growing old and still having sexual desire. The character (73 years old) has some hilarious dialogs with his 90-something year old mother, who perhaps is the most sane character in the book despite her mind going. The story is framed by a friendship that the writer has with a younger woman and her husband. Inevitably, the apartheid years play an important role in the book (the writer is exiled after writing a book about Sharpeville). Also interesting to me was the fact that the writer is an Afrikaaner who basically rebelled against his father, who was a powerful man and a stern believer in the principles of apartheid (but also a total dog with women, like his son). The ending is pretty depressing and made me not want to get old.

I didn't plan it this way, but the three South African books I wound up reading had Xhosa, English and Afrikaaner narrators. Interestingly, Coconut (with the Xhosa narrators) had the least to say about the apartheid years; most likely this was because it took place in the present time. I also gathered from the story that life hasn't changed much for most blacks in South Africa post-apartheid. There are new middle-class blacks like Ofilwe and her family, but people like Fiks are still struggling to make a living, and all blacks still suffer the sting of racism.

The Syringa Tree

This book was a very rich history of South Africa during the apartheid years, as perceived by a young girl of English origin. The English in South Africa were generally more tolerant in terms of racial relations (at least, as portrayed by this author). The father of the narrator is a doctor and the mother is nuts so she spends a lot of time in her room. The girl is basically raised by her Xhosa nanny, who gives birth to a daughter who is kept secretly in the household because otherwise she will be sent to live in the townships. There are lots of twists and turns in this story, which explores the relationship between this English family, the Afrikaaners who live nearby (who are not portrayed sympathetically but who hold a certain fascination for the daughter), the grandparents, who live out in the country, and the English family's Xhosa household help, who are also engaged in some underground freedom fighting. The end of the book is absolutely wrenching and heart breaking. Like Coconut, it took me a while to get into this story, but once I did I was hooked.

Coconut by Kopano Matlwa

It took me a little while to get into this novel. You have to have a great deal of background knowledge about South African race relations, and South Africa in general, to fully understand where the narrators are coming from. However, it is beautifully written, almost in a stream of consciousness style but incorporating dialogs, straight narrative, and memories. It is actually two intersecting stories: one is the story of an upper-middle-class girl, Ofilwe, who is for all intents and purposes perfectly comfortable in her upper-middle-class life, but whose brother, Tshepo, is starting to pay closer attention to issues of race and class. Towards the end of Ofilwe's story she starts to realize that, for all of her efforts, she will never entirely fit in to the society she affiliates herself with. Fiks is a working-class girl from the townships who covets the trappings of upper-middle-class life but is working in a restaurant serving the very people she wants to be someday. Both Ofilwe and Fiks experience racism and sexism--the white males in this book are not especially kind. There are also interesting discussions about losing Xhosa culture and language. The book is a fascinating portrait of race and class in South Africa, but again, you need a little bit of background information. I'd recommend reading The Syringa Tree first, which gives a bit more backstory.

The Africa Reading Challenge

This has nothing to do with my dissertation, but since I have gotten re-interested in Africa by way of my spouse, Dr. Cuy, I figured I would take the challenge. More info can be found here. Basically, you read six books about Africa in 2008 and write reviews about them. Here is my list of books:

Coconut by Kopano Matlwa (South Africa)
The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien (South Africa)
Before I Forget by Andre Brink (South Africa)
Dinner with Mugabe by Heidi Holland (Zimbabwe)
The Uncertainty of Hope by Valerie Tagwira (Zimbabwe)
Paradise by Mike Resnick (Kenya--sort of)

I'll be posting reviews on this site. Stay tuned!

Hey! Anybody there?

I haven't posted in eons. I'm sorry. The thing is, I'm writing my dissertation, which means I no longer have any time to actually post about my dissertation.

Update: I have five chapters, two of which are "data tsunamis" in the words of my adviser. Which means I need to incorporate more analysis. I'm revising my theoretical framework and incorporating it into the aforementioned tsunamis. I'm pondering the job market in the fall. Most people I talk to seem ridiculously confident that I will get a job. We shall see.