00 TvL 52 (2) WEB 03.. - Tydskrif vir Letterkunde

Transcription

Tydskrif
VIR LETTERKUNDE
’n Tydskrif vir Afrika-letterkunde • A Journal for African Literature
52 (2) 2015 • Vierde reeks • Fourth series • Lente • Spring
Die Slag van Elandslaagte, 21 Oktober 1899, soos geskilder deur F. Neumann
en gereproduseer in ’n litografiese druk van 1900.
Die weergawe op die buiteblad is deur Daniël du Plessis (na Neumann), Oktober 2015.
The Battle of Elandslaagte, 21 October 1899’ as depicted by F. Neumann
and reproduced in a lithograph print cica 1900.
The version on the front cover is by Daniël du Plessis (after Neumann), October 2015.
’n Tydskrif vir Afrika-letterkunde • A Journal for African Literature
Tydskrif
VIR LETTERKUNDE
Hoofredakteur / Editor-in-chief
Hein Willemse, U Pretoria, Pretoria (RSA)
Redakteurs / Editors
Algemeen / General
Willie Burger, U Pretoria, Pretoria (RSA)
Magreet de Lange, U Utrecht, Utrecht (Nederland / The Netherlands)
Arabies / Arabic
Muhammed Haron, U Botswana, Gaborone (Botswana),
Frans / French
Antoinette Tidjani Alou, U Abdou Moumoni, Niamey (Niger)
Kasongo M. Kapanga, U Richmond, Richmond (VSA / USA)
Oos-Afrika / East Africa
Alex Wanjala, U Nairobi, Nairobi (Kenia / Kenya)
Resensies / Reviews
Andries Visagie, U Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch (RSA)
Suider-Afrika / Southern Africa
Jacomien van Niekerk, U Pretoria, Pretoria (RSA)
Jessica Murray, Unisa, Pretoria (RSA)
Lesibana Rafapa, Unisa, Pretoria (RSA)
Wes-Afrika / West Africa
Chiji Akoma, Villanova U, Philadelphia, (VSA / USA)
Isidore Diala, Imo State U, Owerri (Nigerië / Nigeria)
Administrasie / Administration
Tercia Klopper, U Pretoria, Pretoria (RSA)
Ontwerp en uitleg / Design and layout
Tienie du Plessis, Hond BK/CC, Pretoria (RSA)
Adviesraad / Advisory Council
Frank Martinus Arion (Antille / Antilles)
P. H. Roodt (RSA)
Medewerkers / Consulting Editors
Rita Barnard, U Pennsylvania (VSA / USA)
Amadou Bissiri, U Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
Ampie Coetzee, U Wes-Kaapland / Western Cape (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Joan Hambidge, U Kaapstad / Cape Town (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Antjie Krog, U Wes-Kaapland / Western Cape (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Mokgale Makgopa, U Venda (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Henning Pieterse, U Pretoria (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Cornelius Thomas, U Rhodes (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Annemarié van Niekerk (Nederland / The Netherlands)
Helize van Vuuren, Nelson Mandela Metropolitaanse / Metropolitan U (SA)
Steward van Wyk, U Wes-Kaapland / Western Cape (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Louise Viljoen, U Stellenbosch (Suid-Afrika / South Africa)
Drukker / Printer
STN Drukkers, Soutpansbergweg 126, Pretoria
ISSN 0041-476X
GW 15–16, Geesteswetenskappe-gebou HSB 15–16, Humanities Building
Universiteit van Pretoria, Pretoria 0002 University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002
Tel: +27-12-420 4320 Faks:/Fax: +27-12-420 3949
e-pos:/ e-mail: tvl.postino@up.ac.za
Webblad / Website: www.sabinet.co.za/journals/onlinejournals.html
www.ajol.info
www.scielo.org.za
www.letterkunde.up.ac.za
INHOUDSOPGAWE / CONTENTS /
5
An analysis of the bodily spatial power relations in Agaat by
by Marlene van Niekerk — Reinhardt Fourie and Melissa Adendorff
21
Bodily disintegration and successful ageing in Body Bereft by Antjie Krog
— Antoinette Pretorius
33
Wai Nengre: ’n verdere ondersoek na tendense in die letterkundes van drie
voormalige Nederlandse kolonies — Steward van Wyk
48
Twee Fischers, twee dramas: Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie (1938)
en Die Bram Fischer-wals (2011) — Marisa Keuris
61
Die historisiteit van resente Afrikaanse historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog
— Fransjohan Pretorius
78
Historiese korrektheid en historiese fiksie: ’n respons — Willie Burger
99
Historisiteit en historiese fiksie: ’n repliek — Fransjohan Pretorius
102
’n Alternatiewe beskouing van die natuur se andersheid in E. Kotze se kortverhaal
‘Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal’ — Susan Meyer
117
Negotiating growth in turbulentscapes: Violence, secrecy and growth in Goretti
Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More — Ogaga Okuyade
138
The place of Urhobo folklore in Tanure Ojaide’s poetry
— Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega
159
Didacticism in African literature: Chukwuma Ibezute’s The Temporal Gods
and Goddess in the Cathedral — Solomon Awuzie
176
Desert Ethics, Myths of Nature and Novel Form in the Narratives of
Ibrahim al-Koni — F. F. Moolla
197
Tribute: André Brink: In defiance of boundaries — Isidore Diala
200
Tribute: Birthing me: André P. Brink (1935–2015) — Henning Pieterse
205
Tribute: Reading can be disturbing: a tribute to André Brink — Willie Burger
210
Huldeblyk: André P. Brink se bevrydende woord en dissidensie — Hein Willemse
215
Huldeblyk: Johan Degenaar (1926–2015) — Johan Snyman
217
Huldeblyk: T. T. Cloete (1924–2015) — Willie Burger
219
Huldeblyk: Johan Smuts — Louise Viljoen
221
Tribute: Chenjerai Hove — Irikidzayi Manase
224
Resensies / Reviews
Tydskrif
VIR LETTERKUNDE
ISSN 0041-476X
GW / HSB 15 -16 U Pretoria, Pretoria 0002 Suid-Afrika / South Africa
Tel +27-(0)12-420 4075 • Faks / Fax +27-(0)12-420 2349
E-pos / E-mail tvl@postino.up.ac.za
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Tak / Branch: Hatfield
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Naam en van / Name and Surname …………………………………………………………………
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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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Reinhardt Fourie
and Melissa Adendorff
Reinhardt Fourie is a lecturer in the
Department of English Studies at the
University of South Africa.
Email: fourir@unisa.ac.za.
Melissa Adendorff is a lecturer in the
Unit for Academic Literacy at the
University of Pretoria.
Email: melissa.adendorff@up.ac.za.
An analysis of the bodily spatial
power relations in Agaat
by Marlene van Niekerk
An analysis of the bodily spatial power
relations in Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
The aim of this article is to explore the power relations portrayed through the bodily spatial interaction of the characters of Milla
and Agaat in Marlene van Niekerk’s 2004 novel, Agaat. This interaction is analysed according to the theory of Thirding-asOthering posited by Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja in terms of the body in space. The body in space is interpreted through
agency which is exemplified in the intimacy of the relations of these two bodies through the actions of bathing, giving birth, and
the physical aspects of the process of “civilising” the child character of Agaat. Through an analysis of three sets of incidents and
scenes which illustrate the physical inhabitation of space through agency, the power relations between Milla and Agaat are
exemplified and discussed. The analysis culminates in the conclusion that the relationship between Milla and Agaat is a cyclical
power play that does not come to any pure form of dominance or submission because of the inhabitation that they enact through
each other. With agency being tantamount to inhabitation and assertion of power, Agaat has the ultimate power on the farm
through Milla, as Milla’s body is othered by her illness and finally her death. Keywords: Agaat, Marlene van Niekerk,
Thirding-as-Othering, spatial inhabitation, power, body in space.
Introduction
The aim of this article is to explore the power relations portrayed through the bodily
spatial interaction of the characters of Milla and Agaat in Marlene van Niekerk’s 2004
novel, Agaat. This interaction is analysed according to the theory of Thirding-asOthering posited by Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja in terms of the body in space.
The body in space is interpreted through agency which is exemplified in the intimacy1
of the relations of these two bodies through the actions of bathing, giving birth, and
the physical aspects of the process of “civilising” the child character of Agaat.
Following the literary and historical contextualisation of the novel, a theoretical
overview is provided that sketches existing research on Agaat, the concepts of Critical
Spatiality, Thirding-as-Othering, and the body in space. The latter three concepts are
then applied in the analysis of the incidents of bathing, taming,2 and birthing.
TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 52 (2) • 2015
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v52i2.1
5
Literary and historical contextualisation
Since the publication of Agaat in 2004, the novel has been praised both nationally and
internationally. The novel has been awarded the prestigious South African Hertzog
Prize, inter alia, and its English translation by Michiel Heyns, published in some
territories as The Way of the Women (2006), has spread the novel to an international
audience that has been very positive in its reception.
Subsequently, scholarly interest in the novel has increased exponentially during
the past decade. An overview of published research reveals that the novel is often
approached from a postcolonial perspective. A number of studies have been conducted
on the challenges of translating Agaat from Afrikaans into English, while there has
even been an analysis of the novel within the legal context of landownership. Due to
the limited scope of this study, reference will only be made to other studies on the
novel that are related to the focus of this article: the portrayal of power relations
through the bodily spatial interaction of the characters of Milla and Agaat.
The component of the research conducted on Agaat that falls within postcolonial
studies has a strong focus on the novel as plaasroman (farm novel) and the fraught
relationship between the colonised Agaat and coloniser Milla. Central to this has
been the investigation of Agaat as the Other/other, as is the case in an article by
Loraine Prinsloo and Andries Visagie (43–62).
According to Prinsloo and Visagie, Agaat represents the colonised other of the De
Wet family. Prinsloo and Visagie (51–8) contend that Agaat’s identity as other is
informed by her relationship with the white landowner, Milla, concluding that while
Agaat is not entirely part of “them” (being the subordinate group of coloured farm
workers on Grootmoedersdrift), she does not become part of “us”(the dominant, white,
landowning family) either (Prinsloo & Visagie 58).3 With reference to Levinas’s (149)
conception of the other, Prinsloo and Visagie also note that Agaat forms part of a larger
postcolonial discourse:
In her farm novel Agaat, the representation of the brown domestic worker, Agaat
Lourier, is interspersed with the realisation that is so characteristic of the impeded
white postcolonial author, namely that any attempt to represent the other is
embedded in an age-old colonial discourse about the other that from the outset
problematises and undermines the credibility of white authors. As opposed to the
colonial period, the postcolonial author becomes aware of the countenance of the
other—not as an obstacle or threat whose extent the writing “I” is attempting to
determine, but as something against which the “I” must be measured (our translation).4
Agaat can thus also be viewed as an examination of the limitations the postcolonial
(Afrikaans) writer is faced with when writing about the other (Prinsloo & Visagie 44).
In a similar vein, Ena Jansen (102–33) considers the representation of the maid in a
selection of Afrikaans novels, including Agaat. She indicates that due to the nature of
6
their working situation, maids always find themselves in strictly delimited power
relations (Jansen 114). Although they are privy to some of the most intimate parts of a
family’s life (particularly in terms of the so-called madam), there is no doubt about
their position as subordinate in the family. While Jansen (102–33) focuses mainly on
the representation of maids in literature, the stringently defined power relations
maids are bound to certainly have bearing on the formation of their identities, both
for the maid and the madam. In this study, the specificities of the maid/madam
relationship between Milla and Agaat will as such not be discussed. However, the
power relations between these characters are central to the analysis.
Homi Bhabha’s “mimicry” is an important concept which has been utilised in
postcolonial analyses of Agaat. According to Bill Ashcroft, Graham Griffiths and Helen
Tiffin (124) the term “mimicry” in postcolonial theory describes “the ambivalent
relationship between colonizer and colonized”—therefore between self and other.
Mimicry is an adoption of the coloniser’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions
and values, and because it is an adoption, it is “never a simple reproduction of those
traits”(Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin 125). Bhabha (126) defines the term as “the desire for
a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but
not quite”. While the coloniser wants the colonised to adopt his/her (the coloniser’s)
cultural habits, assumptions and values, he/she only wants this to a certain extent
(Fourie 28). Bhabha (127) explains this on the basis of the ambivalence of mimicry
(“almost the same, but not quite”), which “does not merely ‘rupture’ the discourse,
but becomes transformed into an uncertainty which fixes the colonial subject as a
‘partial’ presence”. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (125) point out that mimicry thus
reveals the limitations of the colonial discourse’s authority, and as a result of this, the
mimicry is also possibly mockery. This menacing feature—always only suggesting
the presence of some other identity, hiding something that cannot be discerned,
challenging the authority of colonial discourse—is explained by Bhabha (131):
As Lacan reminds us, mimicry is like camouflage, not a harmonization or repression
of difference, but a form of resemblance that differs/defends presence by displaying
it in part, metonymically. Its threat […] comes from the prodigious and strategic
production of conflictual, fantastic, discriminatory “identity effects” in the play of a
power that is elusive because it hides no essence, no “itself ”.
Fourie (28) summarises how mimicry functions in Agaat:
The uneasiness of the colonial interpreter (Milla in Agaat) comes as a result of two
problematic issues in the question of self/other. Firstly it is the ability to recognise
familiar elements of its own “culture” (“the same”) in the colonised (and the knowledge
that there is something more). Secondly it is the inability to recognise anything but that
(“the difference”). Furthermore, mimicry shows just how constructed the coloniser’s
identity is. As such, mimicry exposes just how performative colonial power is.
7
For Willie Burger (178), explorations of self/other and “the central position of the
mirror as a recurring metaphor in [Agaat] invites a Lacanian approach” to the novel.
He focuses specifically on language as a means through which the self can attempt to
understand the other. However, he notes that “it is impossible for one subject to know
another as the other is always taken up in the subject’s language” (Burger 178). Milla’s
attempt to understand Agaat is central to Van Niekerk’s novel, as Milla at one point
wonders (by that point echoing the thoughts of the reader): “What must it feel like to
be Agaat? How could you ever find that out? Would you be able to figure out what
she was saying if she could explain it? She would have to explicate it in a language
other than the tongue you had taught her” [474]).5 While Burger (192) acknowledges
the limitations imposed by language on the process of the self understanding the
other, he also points to how the body and bodily interaction presents another way of
knowing:
Through language the mirror surface can be a rendezvous point with the other.
With Milla there is the hope that it would be possible. And she and Agaat make
progress in that direction. The bond between them progresses—indeed, she dies
with Agaat’s hand in her hand. And with this much more is also said concerning the
possibility of knowing the other—the body and all the familiarity with the most
intimate bodily functions between people bring in another way an intimacy, one
besides that of the level of language, a possibility to be able to know (our translation).6
Through the use of Elizabeth Grosz’s notion of the embodiment of space (2001), Lara
Buxbaum (“Embodying”) explores Agaat within the context of Van Niekerk’s greater
oeuvre. She specifically focuses on how Van Niekerk’s fiction “challenges conventional
understandings of the relationship between corporeality and spatiality” (Buxbaum,
“Embodying” 29). Buxbaum convincingly argues that Milla’s story, her identity and
sense of self are inexplicably linked to the land (35–9). Similarly, Agaat is also aware of
how her identity is linked to place: “Agaat is […] simultaneously aware of the
geographical barriers governing her movement and of her body as a racialised place
which dictates her identity, her place” (39).
In another article, Buxbaum (“Remembering”) explores how the protagonists in
Triomf and Agaat narrate their trauma through their wounded bodies. She indicates
that there is a clear suggestion that trauma must be confronted, even though this is
only possible through the medium of the body:
In both Triomf and Agaat, the revelation of a tortured past is mirrored by the exposure
of the victims’ fragmented bodies. It is only when characters are faced with the
irrefutable evidence of trauma as wreaked on each other ’s bodies that they are
forced to reckon with and recognise the truth of their familial and national narratives and perhaps initiate healing. (98)
8
In her conclusion, Buxbaum (98) echoes Burger (192) when she says “If words fail,
bodies can speak”.
This article aims to further illuminate the intricacy of the relationship between
Milla and Agaat through an analysis of the characters’ bodily spatial interaction and
what this may ultimately reveal about the power relations between them.
Theoretical overview
David Greene (375) states that “it is implicit in the Newtonian worldview that space
logically precedes human consciousness of spatially located objects, that space is
indifferent to the particular objects that occupy it”. Space is incumbent in the most
“primitive consciousness”, and the concept of spatiality develops and becomes more
refined through the development of a person’s “reflexive awareness” as that person
sees and perceives the world (Greene 378).
The study of space is, therefore, essentially, a humanistic undertaking, because it
is only understood through the experience of “sensation, perception, and conception”
(Tuan 388). “The space we can perceive spreads out before and around us, and is
divisible into regions of differing quality” (Tuan 399). Yi-Fu Tuan (399) explains the
visual interpretation of and cognition of space as follows: far away from the body, a
person perceives a seemingly “static” space with indistinct objects in it. Closer to the
body is the visual-aural zone, through which space is interpreted through both sight
and sound. Next to the body is the affective zone, within which space is experienced
through sight, sound, smell, and touch.
The fact that spatiality stems from awareness and perception is related to the fact
that, according to Henri Lefebvre (405), “the whole of social space proceeds from the
body”. When the body is understood in spatial terms, the senses “prefigure the layers
of social space and their interconnections” (Lefebvre 405). The body’s perception of
space, whether active or passive, is what creates a spatial understanding of the world
for the individual who inhabits that body.
Critical Spatiality and related spatial theories, such as the theories of boundaries,
analyse how a particular place (and its inherent space) is constructed through the
perceptions of it, and attributions made to it in terms of the psychosocial perceptions
and understandings of its inhabitants at a given time (Matthews 165–8). This can be
extended to include an interpretation of the human body as a space, as the body is a
physical location, and has psychosocial attributes due to its existence in a social reality;
a relevant extension by virtue of the fact that Critical Spatiality encapsulates the physical
location proper, individual cognitive associations as well as cultural meanings that
are explored in terms of the social dynamics that occur within it subjectively and
reflectively (Matthews 168).
9
The creation of an “other” space on the margins of a society is directly related to
how a society’s power relations dictate how a space is inhabited. Foucault identified a
“power-knowledge-space complex” which “designates an overlapping bundle of ways
of acting, modes of thinking, seeing, speaking, and understanding, as well as modes of
coercion and strategies of production” (West-Pavlov 147). The power-knowledge-space
complex allows for those spatial inhabitants with power to banish other inhabitants to
the margins of the society, brandishing them as outsiders, and essentially, “other”.
Edward Soja’s and Henri Lefebvre’s theory of Critical Spatiality is based on premises
which govern the experience of a space, and can be categorised as follows (Flanagan
15–43):
1. Spatial Practice: espace percu
‚ (perceived space), which serves as the medium
and outcome of human activity, behaviour and experience [Firstspace];
2. Representations of Space: espace concu
‚ (conceived space), which serves as the
mental spaces that represent power, ideology, control and surveillance, and
whereby resistance to these relations make them visible [Secondspace];
3. Representational Spaces: espace vécu (lived space), which are spaces that are
directly lived, spaces of freedom and change [Thirdspace].
Lefebvre’s lived spaces are the spaces in which otherness becomes prominent, due to
the fact that through a society inhabiting a space, having given it certain attributes,
that society’s power dynamics become apparent. This occurs because the attributions
made by a society are intrinsically based in power and knowledge, resonant of
Foucault’s power-knowledge-space complex (Flanagan 15–43). Through social practices which occur in a given place, representations of space are made, which lead to
the existence of representational spaces.
Thirdspace comprises the physical of Firstspace and the emotional of Secondspace
simultaneously, and within Thirdspace, these conceptions become a “double illusion”
that gives birth to a social space with two distinct features; one being that it is a field
which can be separated from the physical and mental, and two, that it becomes an
“approximation for an all-encompassing mode of spatial thinking” (Soja 62).
Soja (60) explores Thirdspace in a more in-depth manner, introducing Thirdingas-Othering in Lefebvre’s terms of it being “a ‘moment’ that partakes of the original
pairing but is not just a simple combination or an ‘in between’ position along some
all-inclusive continuum”. Thirding introduces the other into the dualistic pairing of
what is and what isn’t, and thus, the idea of the trialectics can be traced to the dualistic
reflexive thought of opposites, such as the relationships between subject-object,
continuity-discontinuity, open-closed, as seen in the paradigm of Western philosophy.
This binary opposition has become ineffectual, though, as the signifier and the signified
are inherently more than a relation between two terms. “One always has Three. There
is always the Other” (Lefebvre 225, 143). Thirding-as-Othering becomes either a method
10
of empowerment to the othered, or a means of torment and punishment. In Agaat, the
assimilation of the bodily spaces of Milla and Agaat represents Thirding-as-Othering,
as their cumulative spatial inhabitation becomes the other bodily space that is inherent
in their individual bodies. The power dynamic of this Thirding-as-Othering oscillates
between Milla enforcing the othering upon Agaat, and vice versa.
The process of othering has been described as the “discursive process by which
powerful groups who may or may not make up a numerical majority, define subordinate groups into existence in a reductionist way which ascribes problematic and/
or inferior characteristics to these subordinate groups” (Jensen 65). This process ensures
that the powerful groups retain their power and gain more power, through the
subjugation of their subordinates. This process plays an important role in the formation
of the identities of the subordinates, or others, as it gives them the choice to accept
their banishment or to rebel against it. In terms of how this process influences the
respective identities of Milla and Agaat, see Buxbaum (“Embodying”, “Remembering”),
Prinsloo & Visagie (43–62) and Jansen (102–33).
This choice means that the human body becomes a centre of power in its own
right, through the potentiality of taking the power to act, and becoming a space of
othering when physical ramifications for other behaviour are exacted upon the body
in the form of punishment. This ties in with Foucault’s theory that the body is a space
that exists for the exercise of discipline as well as punishment.
The potentiality of action and its inherent intent and its own power cannot occur
outside of space and place. This is because the “lived body” is a cohesive entity that
has a sense of place, past (memories), and power inherent to place. “The body is the
only aspect of our being-individual or collective-capable of performing place, that is
to say, making place a living reality” (Casey 718).
The world that a person meets through his/her body is a socially constructed
world within which that body has to function. The world within which a body
functions is ruled by bodily interaction, to an extent, and as such, “one’s self-concept
is constructed out of how one understands certain impressions that are given off in
the course of face-to-face interaction” (Waskul & Vannini 299). This means that the
concept of the self is rooted within the bodily expression of communication, as
“presenting oneself is a communicative act” (Waskul & Vannini 300).
The human body is conceived of in terms of the culture and society in which the
given body has to function. These societies have different conceptions of what the
body should look like, and it should function, and within these parameters, body
distortions take on significance.
The human body in society functions on three levels: the first is that of the
individual’s self-experience in relation to the group experience; the role the body
plays in the production of social meanings); and the body’s role in power relations
within a society as either the subject or object (McGuire 285).
11
The fact that the bodily expressions of a disabled, or an ill individual, or any
“other” individual with a body which does not conform to societal norms of bodily
expression is distinguished by society, is due to the fact that a person, comprised of
both physiological, psychological and psychosocial experiences, exists within the
context of a society. A person thus exists within a social reality (Pilch 109), and his/her
body and psyche are to be interpreted within the context of that reality.
Mike Featherstone and Bryan Turner (3) provide a context for the interpretation
and study of the body in a societal reality as follows, based on the philosophy of
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: “The body is a sentient entity and it is the capacity of the
body as flesh to be both sentient and sensible, to be a visible-seer, a tangible-toucher,
and an audible-listener”. The perception of the body is rooted in a cultural interpretation of it, and is also “transmitted” to the individual culturally, in order to guide
behaviour (Benoist & Cathebras 858), “hence, the body becomes imagery and message”.
Even though the “social body constrains the way the physical body is perceived”,
because the physical experience of the body is socially mediated, it “sustains a particular view of society” itself (Benoist & Cathebras 858). The body’s “selfhood” is based
on an individual’s own experience, as well as the individual’s collective experience.
These sets of experiences provide the body with “a constellation of physical signs with
the potential for signifying the relations of persons to their contexts” (Comaroff 6).
The body in space is a living memory of the bodies that have been in that space
before it, and is culturally bound to that bodily history. The body’s cultural past is
sedimented in “neuromuscular patterning and kinaesthetic memories—the way in
which specific experiences and concepts of time and space are built into our bodily
modus operandi” (Farnell 353). “Places hold experiences together” (Farnell 354).
Marga Viljoen (3–11) states that space is relative to the place where the “I” can be
positioned, and that the situation of the “I” provides a sense of space and place that
has the power to orientate people within that given space. This exemplifies how
space is a social product, and how the situation of a body within a certain space
renders both the body and the space as significant. The body’s situation in space
allows for social interaction with and social perception of a space. The body’s
inhabitation of a lived space, which makes it an embodied space is the location which
is bound to human and bodily experience (Low 9). The body in space functions
because in embodied spaces, human consciousness and experience “take on a material
and spatial form” (Low 9).
The movement of the body in space is an undeniable action; “the dynamically
embodied signifying practice of a human agent” (Farnell 343). The body in space has
an undeniable agency and the “complex structures of bodily action” that people
engage in are “laden with social and cultural significance” (Farnell 343). The agency
of the body thus has an inherent “embodied intentionality to act” (Farnell 343), because
it is only through action and movement that a body can inhabit a space.
12
The body of an other, which has a body schema different to the social norm of
bodily expression, is not isolated from the social bodily norm. Marga Viljoen (50)
states that “I experience the other’s body as a mysterious continuation of my own, and
that we are ‘tied together’ in a sort of anonymous existence”. The other body does not
exist in isolation from the norm, because the body in space is both a subject and an
object of perception and experience, and is in an interdependent relationship with
the bodies around it in order to be perceived and to perceive. “Flesh is the formative
medium of the subject and object” (Viljoen 75).
The body as space is the place where an individual “experience[s] pain, pass[es]
through various kinds of ritual death and rebirth, and redefine[s] the relationship
between self and society” (Schildkrout 320). The space of the body is an embodied
space, and as such, has an effect on the individual whose body is in question. “Alterations of the embodied self-identity have either a positive or negative impact on
one’s emotional experience” (Waskul & Vannini 298) in terms of pride or embarrassment.
Analysis
The following series of incidents illustrate the spatial power relations between Milla
and Agaat. The first series of scenes involves Agaat bathing the paralysed Milla, and is
focalised by Milla in her “present” state. The second series of events depicts the physical
taming of Agaat, and is narrated through Milla’s recollections of Agaat’s childhood,
as written up in her journals. The narrative structure of the text suggests that the
reader can access these journal entries because it is Agaat reading them to the debilitated
Milla. Finally, the birthing scene, which is narrated in “real time”, shows the
inhabitation of space through the body of the other. As will become clear in the
analysis, these three scenes have been selected due to their importance in depicting
the progression of the shift in terms of bodily power between the two characters.
The scene in which Agaat wakes, feeds, and bathes Milla exemplifies Thirding-asOthering in terms of their interaction, where there are no boundaries to Milla’s body
which Agaat does not cross. Agaat is in control of the space of Milla’s body, and
through the manipulation of Milla’s body, Agaat inhabits the space for Milla, through
Milla. Milla’s bodily identity is dependent upon Agaat’s manipulation of it. The first
instance of this manipulation is evident when Agaat readjusts Milla in her bed. “She
cranks me up, she pummels my pillows, she hoists my neck out of my body, she props
up my head, she arrays me” (68).7 This is an external manipulation, though, and is
focused on the Firstspace geography of Milla’s body as a space which has to be moved
into position within the space that it inhabits, namely, her bed. The boundary between
the external bodily space and internal bodily space becomes breached the moment
when Agaat wipes out the inside of Milla’s mouth with a lukewarm, wet sponge.
13
Agaat further exerts control over Milla as a spatial entity when she manipulates Milla’s
agency in the process of urination, after feeding Milla her morning tea. Agaat initially
instructs Milla to urinate; “Well go on pee, Ounooi, I haven’t got all day” (69) (“Nou
toe pie, Ounooi, ek het nie heeldag tyd nie” [83]), and then coaxes Milla into the act
through swirling water in the wash basin and pouring water from a glass into the
basin, repeatedly.
While Milla attempts to ignore her, Agaat’s presence and agency cannot be ignored,
or escaped, and this presence in the face of what is considered to be private bodily
function is an example of Thirding-as-Othering, as Milla is othered not only in the
space of her bedroom, but also in the space of her body. Milla has no choice in the
matter of Agaat’s presence, nor Agaat’s instructions to her to void her bladder. Milla’s
only option of dissociation from the moment is to think about the maps of her farm
(which Agaat refuses to show her, othering her will in her space and enforcing the
power dynamic between them), but in terms of dissociative agency, she is powerless
over Agaat’s influence in her space.
When Milla finally does urinate, Agaat addresses her as one would a child, saying
“good girl” (70 “soet kind” [85]), once again reinforcing her dominance. Milla feels
uncomfortable with Agaat’s control of her bodily functions, and rebels against the
Thirding-as-Othering to an extent, by not urinating and defecating in the nappy during
the night, as she wishes to avoid Agaat’s commentary (84). This rebellion, however, is
not entirely successful in terms of the assertion of agency, as, when Agaat says, “You
don’t perhaps want the number two pan as well, seeing that you’re in the swing of
things now? […] You don’t want dung and piss over everything if you can help it”
(70).8 Milla eventually defecates after being verbally shamed when Agaat says,
“Otherwise we’ll have no choice but to dose you with a Pink Lady again […] a Pink
Lady for the lady of Gdrift, it’s five days now that her guts have been stuck. Perhaps
that’s what’s making her so restless. What goes in must come out, after all, good heavens!”
(70).9 In the original text, the exclamation “good heavens” is rendered as “allawêreld”.
This reinforces the tone which one would employ when addressing a child, once
again reasserting the power dynamic. Unfortunately, this tone is lost in the translation.
The fact that Agaat speaks to Milla, about Milla, in the third person also affirms this.
Agaat investigates Milla’s urine, which is another invasion of the body as space.
Following her commentary on this investigation, Milla’s powerlessness is made
apparent through the following:
What can I reply to that? What acrobatics of eyelids to convey: Your sarcasm is
wasted on me. If I could die to deliver you, I would do so, today. Go and find
somebody else to pee perfection for you on command. You’re the one who wants
to be perfect. You want me to be perfect. We must not be lacking in any respect. If
you can do without, I must be able to do without, that’s what you think. A perfect
nurse. A perfect patient. As I taught you. (72)10
14
This statement exemplifies Milla’s despair at her othered nature, and her reliance on
Agaat to do for her what she cannot do for herself. Through mentioning that she
taught Agaat to be this way, Milla acknowledges a previous power dynamic in which
she was the dominant figure, Thirding Agaat through instruction and spatial
boundaries. This admission is rare throughout the novel, and it significant in this
instance because Milla created the other who would end up othering her.
The aforementioned scene, which culminates in a “quarter-body wash” (71)
(“kwartlyf se was” [85]), is reminiscent of the scene in which Milla bathed Agaat
when she was a child. This scene signifies the start of the creation of the other. This
incident is recorded in Milla’s journal.
After finding and removing the toddler Agaat from her childhood home, Milla
drugs her with Valerian root (485). This enables Milla to manipulate Agaat’s body,
inhabiting space with and through her, and establishing convenient physical
dominance. Milla shaves Agaat’s head, and while this was done to clean the child, it
is a significant gesture inasmuch as it alters the appearance of the child to the extent
that the identity of the body is altered, thus othered. Milla’s suggestion that Agaat’s
decaying teeth be extracted is an invasion of the bodily boundary of the mouth, and
once again exacts Milla’s dominance over Agaat’s body as space. During this scene,
Milla refers to Agaat as “Asgat” (485), and states that she needs to find a new name for
the child. The process of renaming, exemplifies the othering of the child’s personality
and sense of self, as once she is renamed, she is cleansed and “reborn” in the image
that Milla projects for her: “And if your name is good, says [the priest] it’s a selffulfilling prophecy. Like a holy brand it will be, like an immanent destiny, the name
on the brow, to do good, to want to be good, goodness itself ”(416).11
Agaat’s attempts at inducing Milla’s urination stem from her instruction in potty
training where Milla also poured water from a glass into a beaker, and when Agaat is
unsuccessful at urinating and defecating in the potty as instructed, Milla puts her in
a nappy. This is re-enacted with the othered Milla. Agaat’s rebellion against Milla’s
ablutionary authority is exemplified when Saar points out that though Agaat urinates
in her potty voluntarily, she defecates in the garden, when she assumes that she is not
under surveillance (501).
When Milla chastises Agaat for this, she threatens the child with the withholding of
treats (jelly): “Jelliedreigement werk goed” (502) (“Jelly threat works well” [414]). Agaat
then complies with Milla’s ablutionary instruction in order to get her treat. This incident
is not met with the pride and accompanying treat, however, as Milla chastises Agaat for
showing her what she had done in the potty, and says that she will only get the jelly
now, if she were to speak in full sentences. This initiates the co-dependent feature of
not being able to be perfect in the eyes of the object, while having the subject strive to
please in every way. As Milla states “You’re the one who wants to be perfect. You want
me to be perfect” (72) (“Dis jý wat perfek wil wees. Jy wil hê ek moet perfek wees” [87]).
15
Milla’s projection of perfection is seen in her treatment and taming of Agaat, where
she punishes the young Agaat for her intentional ruin of Jakkie’s christening tea. Agaat
acts out in order to physically manifest her displeasure at being excluded from the
christening ceremony. This incident is an example of the battle between Agaat and
Milla for the role of Jakkie’s mother. Agaat is othered from that role, and punished for
her rebellion. This punishment takes the form “rieme sit & brei” (232), where Agaat has
to work and bray thongs of leather into strips that Milla deems acceptable. This is a
physical othering of Agaat; because of the deformity of her right hand, this physical
task is difficult and somewhat shameful. The punishment mirrors Milla’s intention:
Tanned & brayed you must be […] I take a raw thong & I cut it & show her look the
core is black. Just like that it will be with you. I’ll wind you up until all your black
sins drip out of you & wind you down & wind you up again in the other direction
till you’re a decent servant-girl who doesn’t leave one in the lurch when you need
her most. She gives me that wooden eye I could slap her. (190–1)12
Milla’s process of othering and punishing Agaat others her from herself, though, as
she recognises that she doesn’t know herself any more, and acknowledges that she
has also othered her from all of the other workers on the farm who have borne witness
to this process: “I’m humiliating myself. God in heaven. […] They look at me as if they
don’t know me. Do I know myself?” (193)13
Another incident of chastisement that occurs when Agaat is still a child also
physically others Agaat, although not through her own agency. During the scene
where Milla attempts to pull Agaat out from under her bed, Milla spanks Agaat, and
writes in her journal, “She must learn, my goodness” (402) (“sy moet leer, allawêreld”
[487]). Milla uses her body to enforce her rule, whereas in the previous incident, Milla
forced Agaat into action, but not through a physical imposition of authority. Agaat
cannot, despite her attempts to manipulate Milla’s bodily functions, force Milla’s
agency in her own rebellion, and, as such mirrors this earlier form of punishment and
chastisement through language and tone when she addresses Milla. (The parallel
tone is again somewhat lost in the English translation.) The mirroring of the verbal
and physical incidences that othered Agaat and Milla shows the co-dependent
Thirding between the subject and the object in this particular relationship.14
The establishment of the subject-object relationship originates in Milla forcibly
taking Agaat from her biological family. This relationship, however, is physically
contested by the child, Asgat, as she was initially named, as she breaks free from
Milla’s grasp and runs away from her. As Milla gains her physical grip on the child,
she others Agaat’s bodily instincts of escape and tries to convince the child that she is
safe within the physical confines that Milla has created with her own body. After she
has successfully subdued the child, she verbally claims her as well: “You’re mine
now” [572]) (“Jy is myne nou” [694]).The child becomes Milla’s object.
16
Agaat, as Milla’s object, becomes an extension of Milla, serving as her eyes, her
ears, and her third hand on the farm. “You are my eyes and my ears, you wanted to
say” (198) (“Jy is my oë en my ore, wou jy sê” [241]). The hand that Agaat becomes in
terms of the extension of Milla’s body is exemplified in the scene where Milla gives
birth to her son: “It would be Agaat’s baby” (153) (“Dit sou Agaat se baba wees” [186]).
Milla others Agaat’s bodily instincts by forbidding her from becoming nauseated
(184) both in terms of the birth and becoming car sick. When Milla realises that she is
going to be delivering the baby en route she further others Agaat’s body with the
statement: “There really are not enough hands here” [152]) (“Daar is regtig nie genoeg
hande hier nie” [185]). She needs Agaat’s hands, but she needs more than Agaat’s
hands, and that others the deformed hand that Agaat would use to bring the baby out
of Milla. This act would shift the power dynamic from Milla’s control, even though
she has been giving the verbal commands throughout the process, to Agaat, who
would be inhabiting the space of Milla’s body to help with the birth: “The other hand
was inside you, you felt, the strong one, it reamed you as one reamed a gutter” (155)
(“Die ander hand was in jou, het jy gevoel, die sterke, dit het jou geruim soos mens ’n
geut ruim” [188]). Despite Milla’s best attempts, she cannot give birth, and she
surrenders her body to Agaat’s control, as Agaat takes the scissors and performs an
episiotomy, and frees the child: “You strained upright, heard the scissors clatter to the
ground, saw the strings dangling, slime and threads and blood out of you” (156).
As Milla uses glances, words, and body language to control Agaat’s actions
throughout the birthing scene, Milla instructs Agaat to move in her space, as she
herself cannot, because it is “only through action and movement that a body can
inhabit the space” (Farnell 343). This also recalls the words of Viljoen (50) when she
writes that ““I experience the other’s body as a mysterious continuation of my own,
and […] we are ‘tied together’ in a sort of anonymous existence”.
Conclusion
Throughout the novel there are many other scenes that could further illustrate this
dynamic between the characters, but due to spatial constraints, it is not possible to
include these in this study. The aforementioned scenes, namely the bathing, the taming
of Agaat, and the birthing illustrate the physical inhabitation of space through agency
which oscillates between Milla and Agaat. As Milla’s body is othered by her illness,
Agaat inhabits the Firstspace of the room in which Milla lives for and through Milla,
as Agaat’s movement of Milla’s body is the only agency that Milla has. The Secondspace
inhabitation takes place through the emotional connection that Milla has with Agaat,
especially in terms of the birth of the baby, as Milla concedes that through Agaat’s
agency, the baby would be Agaat’s child. Milla eventually harbours resentment towards
Agaat for this, but as she surrendered the birthing process, the nursing process and
17
much of the raising of the child to Agaat, she has surrendered her power as a mother.
In this way, Milla has essentially othered herself from that which came from her body,
as she would surrender her body to the mercy and ministrations of Agaat throughout
the course of her illness. Being at the mercy of Agaat’s physical inhabitation of her
space is mirrored by Milla’s physical domination of the child Agaat, as is exemplified
by Agaat’s repetition of behaviours, gestures, sounds, and songs, which she employs
to other Milla, and to prove her dominance within Milla’s space. The Thirding that
occurs is thus a spatial retaliation for the taming that Milla enforced upon the child.
When Agaat is a child, her bodily power and consequent spatial inhabitation are
usurped and controlled by Milla. In the final scene, Milla’s body is powerless and her
spatial inhabitation is controlled by Agaat.
Ultimately, the relationship between Milla and Agaat is a cyclical power play that
does not come to any true conclusion of dominance or submission because of the
inhabitation that they enact through each other. As much as one is dominant over the
other, she needs the other and through that need surrenders power to the other, and
this cycle is then repeated. Milla’s death removes the physical imposition of the othering
that Agaat had experienced throughout her life on Grootmoedersdrift. Without Milla’s
physical inhabitation of the space that she shared with Agaat, Agaat is ultimately
othered by the freedom of the potentiality of her own inhabitation in what is to
become her own space.
To know the other, is to control the other. Both Milla and Agaat have such intimate
knowledge of each other’s bodies that there could be no true subjugation between
them, because they experience one another through one another. As Burger (192)
states: “The body and all the familiarity with the most intimate bodily functions
between people brings in another way an intimacy, one besides that of the level of
language, a possibility to be able to know” (our translation).15
Milla’s death changes the nature of the Firstspace and Secondspace of
Grootmoedersdrift and frees the space of the farm from her legacy by leaving the farm
to Agaat. This ultimately changes the nature of the Thirdspace on the farm, as Milla
relinquishes the power over the land to Agaat, just as she had relinquished power
over her child, just as she had relinquished the power over herself. Agaat’s final act of
embracing her status as the other is the final and continual inhabitation of the land of
Grootmoedersdrift.
1.
18
Notes
“Intimacy” encompasses the level of self-disclosure between two parties. This exposure takes place
in terms of the body in space, as Agaat manipulates Milla’s body in the same way that Milla
manipulated the body of the child Agaat. The exposure of the body leads to vulnerability, which
creates the bodily spatial dynamic between the women. The physical intimacy of the relationship
is bolstered by the fact that there are incidents of “confiding, expression of affection, disagreement,
feelings of closeness” (Waring 11) as expressed verbally by Agaat to the ailing Milla, and by Milla in
her notebooks.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
The term “taming” is used to demonstrate Milla’s manipulation of Agaat’s inhabitation of a body
in space, by modifying her behaviour in order to establish the rules of the Thirdspace in which
Milla is in control. In this instance, to tame means to train to conform to the Thirdspace structure
of the person in power over the space. Any behaviour and spatial inhabitation other to that
structure may be seen as “wild”. While it falls outside the scope of this article, Fourie (26–27, 60–65)
offers a postcolonial analysis of Milla’s attempted “taming” of Agaat.
In Agaat there is also an exploration of othering in terms of gender. For Fourie (38–57) this mainly
revolves around the novel’s subversion of the male and female roles depicted in the normative
plaasroman. Pretorius (42) argues that while Jak is clearly connected to “white heterosexual
masculinity ” and “the decline of male Afrikaner authority in the face of changing political
ideologies […] his representation in the novel is complicated by the transient moments in which
he does not conform to the script of hegemonic masculine domination”. Finally, “the tension that
governs his attempts to achieve hegemonic masculinity within an emasculated space leads to the
crisis of masculinity which results in his death” (Pretorius 42). Since the analysis conducted in this
article relates to the relationship between Milla and Agaat, othering in terms of gender will not be
explored here.
The original in the Afrikaans version reads as follows: “In haar plaasroman Agaat is Van Niekerk se
uitbeelding van die bruin huiswerker, Agaat Lourier, deurspek van die besef wat so kenmerkend
is van die belemmerde wit postkoloniale skrywer, naamlik dat enige poging om die ander te
representeer ingebed is in ’n eeue-oue koloniale diskoers oor die ander wat die geloofwaardigheid
van wit skrywers van meet af aan problematiseer en ondermyn. Anders as in die koloniale periode
word die postkoloniale skrywer bewus van die gelaat van die ander, nie as ’n hindernis of as ’n
bedreiging waarvan die skrywende ‘ek’ die omvang probeer inskat nie, maar as iets waaraan die ‘ek’
gemeet word”. (Prinsloo & Visagie 43–4)
“Hoe moes dit voel om Agaat te wees? Hoe kon jy dit ooit te wete kom? Sou julle kon uitmaak wat
sy sê as sy dit kon verduidelik? Sy sou dit in ’n ander taal as die een wat julle haar geleer het, moes
uitlê”. (574)
“Deur taal kan die spieëlvlak ’n ontmoetingsplek wees met die ander. Daar is die hoop by Milla dat
dit moontlik sou wees. En sy en Agaat vorder in daardie rigting. Die band tussen hulle vorder—
sy sterf immers ook met Agaat se hand in haar hand. En hiermee word ook veel meer gesêioor die
moontlikheid om die ander te ken—die liggaam en al die vertroudheid met die intiemste
liggaamsfunksies tussen mense bring ook op ’n ander manier as bloot die taalvlak ’n intimiteit, ’n
moontlikheid om te kan ken” (Burger 192).
“Sy krink my op, sy skud my kussings, sy hys my nek uit my lyf, sy stut my kop, sy trek my reg”. (82)
“[…] jy wil nie dalk die nommer twee pan ook hê nie, siende dat jy nou aan die gang is? […] Mens
wil nie mis en pis oor alles as jy dit kan help nie” (85).
“[…] anders sal ons jou maar weer ’n Pink Lady moet injaag […] ’n Pink Lady vir die lady van
Gdrift, dis vyf dae nou dat haar derms vassit. Miskien is dit wat haar so onrustig maak. Wat ingaan
moet mos darem uitkom, allawêreld!” (85).
“Wat kan ek daarop antwoord? Watter akrobatiek van ooglede om aan te gee: Jou sarkasme is
gemors op my. As ek kon doodgaan om jou te verlos, sou ek dit doen, vandag nog. Gaan soek
iemand anders om perfek vir jou te pie op jou bevel. Dis jý wat perfek wil wees. Jy wil hê ek moet
perfek wees. Niks mag ontbreek nie. As jy kan klaarkom sonder, moet ek kan klaarkom sonder, dis
wat jy dink. ’n Volmaakte verpleegster. ’n Volmaakte pasiënt. Soos ek jou geleer het” (87).
“En as ’n mens se naam goed is, [sê die dominee], is dit ’n selfvervullende profesie. Soos ’n heilige
brandmerk sal dit wees, soos ’n ingeboude lewenslot, die naam op die voorkop, om goed te doen,
om goed te wil wees, die goedheid self ” (504).
“gelooi & gebrei moet jy word […] ek vat ’n róúriem & ek sny hom & ek was hom: Kyk die koor is
swart. Net so sal dit jou vergaan. Ek sal vir jou opwen tot al jou swart sonde uit jou uitdrup & vir
jou afdraai & weer anderkant toe opwen tot jy ’n ordentlike meid is wat ’n mens nie in die steek
laat as jy hr die nodigste het nie. Sy gee my daardie houtoog ek kan haar klap” (232).
“Ek verneder my. God in die hemel. […] Hulle kyk vir my of hulle my nie ken nie. Ken ek myself?”
(235).
This scene also clearly illustrates Bhabha’s notion of mimicry. See Fourie (27–8, 71–8).
“[D]ie liggaam en al die vertroudheid met die intiemste liggaamsfunksies tussen mense bring ook
op ’n ander manier as bloot die taalvlak ’n intimiteit, ’n moontlikheid om te kan ken” (Burger 192).
19
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Antoinette Pretorius
Antoinette Pretorius is affiliated to the
Department of English Studies, University of South Africa. Her research
focuses on older age in transitional and
post-transition literature in South Africa.
Email: pretoae@unisa.ac.za
Bodily disintegration and successful
ageing in Body Bereft
by Antjie Krog
Bodily disintegration and successful ageing
in Body Bereft by Antjie Krog
Antjie Krog’s Body Bereft (2006) details both the bodily changes brought about by older age and the ways in which these
changes fracture a person’s previously-stable sense of self. This article reads Krog’s depiction of the ageing body in a small
selection of poems from this collection in relation to the unavoidable reality of bodily decay and what is referred to in gerontological
theory as ‘successful ageing’. This tension dominates large parts of the gerontological field, and can be seen in Krog’s ambivalent
representation of older age in Body Bereft. Through close readings of a number of poems, I will investigate the ways in which Krog
problematises the relationship between the lived experience of older age with its concomitant sense of deterioration, and the
societal impetus to age well and accept ageing with magnanimity. I will demonstrate that this collection foregrounds the poet’s
refusal to accept pre-existing discourses that delimit ageing as something either to bemoan or celebrate. I will conclude that this
refusal finds particular expression in her poems “dommelfei / crone in the woods” and “how do you say this”. Keywords: Antjie
Krog; Body Bereft, gerontology; successful ageing, bodily deterioration
Introduction: Mapping the contours of older age
The construction of old age takes place in and is mediated by very specific sociocultural contexts. Rather than being a predetermined, essentialised category, it exists
as a complex conflation of the physical, the social and the political. While ageing is an
unfamiliar and unexplored experience that each individual has to undergo in his or
her lifetime, there are as many ways of growing older as there are older people. To
speak of older age means to speak of an immensely disparate variety of individuals, as
this “stage of life […] encompasses a greater variety than any other” and includes
“people aged from their fifties to past one hundred; those possessing the greatest
wealth and power, and those the least; those at a peak of physical fitness and the most
frail” (Thane 193).
Chris Gilleard and Paul Higgs (3) have defined ageing as “a ‘cultural field’ realized
through the activities and discourse of particular social actors within whose lives it
acquires concrete form”. As Julia Twigg (60) notes, “The aging body is thus not natural,
is not prediscursive, but fashioned within and by culture”, where “the body becomes
a project to be worked upon, fashioned and controlled, a site of self-identity and
reflexivity”. This performance of old age is mediated by divergent discourses; the
21
most pervasive one speaks of ageing in terms of loss, where “[n]arratives of decline
have replaced all other forms of meaning and interpretation of the body in later years,
so that other more humanistic or plural readings become impossible” (Twigg 54). In
reaction to the ubiquity of this discourse, Rowe and Kahn (1998) advocate the ‘successful
ageing’ paradigm. Stephen Katz and Toni Calasanti (28) explain that this approach
identifies “[s]uccessful agers” as “satisfied, active, independent [and] self-sufficient”.
This, according to Rowe and Kahn (38) could be achieved by “(a) forestalling disease
and disability, (b) maintaining physical and mental function, and (c) social
engagement”. Katz and Calasanti (26), however, criticize this perspective because
within this framework “individual choice is reduced to decontextualised healthrelevant choices, such as smoking, diet, or exercise” (29). Furthermore, it implies that
“populations are homogenized as either successful or unsuccessful agers” which means
that “the diversity of the aging experience is flattened, especially the consequences of
social inequalities as they intersect with age relations” (29).
This article aims to examine the ways in which selected poems from Antjie Krog’s
Body Bereft illustrate the tension between the “successful ageing paradigm” and the
“narratives of decline” found in gerontological theories on ageing. My close readings
of these poems will elucidate Krog’s representation of embodied ageing as fluid and
multivalent. Several critics have investigated the concept of ageing in Body Bereft as
well as in Krog’s oeuvre as a whole. Marthinus Beukes discusses the ways in which the
ageing body may be related to poetic form and technique in Verweerskrif. He argues:
“[D]it [is] duidelik dat die tema van verbrokkeling dominant is en [dat] die spreker se
ouerwordende lyf aan drastiese agteruitgang onderworpe is” (14). Similarly, Adéle
Nel analyses how selected poems from the collection may be read in relation to
paratextual elements such as the cover photograph. Both these authors, however,
read the ageing body only in relation to narratives of decline, despite their explorations
of the ways in which Krog transgresses these discourses. In contrast, in “‘I have a
body, therefore I am’: Grotesque, monstrous and abject bodies in Antjie Krog’s poetry”,
Louise Viljoen argues that while “themes of ageing, bodily decay and approaching
death (116) dominate the poems in Body Bereft, “there are also attempts to accept [the
ageing body] and to be at home in [it]” (123). Viljoen’s reading of Krog’s representation
of the ageing body is most in line with mine: like Viljoen, I aim to investigate the ways
in which Krog presents older age as fluid. However, my reading of the poems will be
related to gerontological theory that addresses the concerns depicted by Krog.
As Gilleard and Higgs (i) explain, while ageing can be viewed as “a process or
processes of biological change occurring after reproductive maturity has been attained
[…] it is not clear how determinate these ‘ageing processes’ are”. Furthermore, this
“assume[s] the existence of a socialized lifecourse in which a regular distinction is
made between adult and later adult life” (Gilleard & Higgs i). However, these
distinctions are in fact fluid, “varying over time and between societies” (Gilleard &
22
Higgs i). As will be elaborated on below, Krog gives voice to this fluidity in Body Bereft
(2006), through her emphasis on ageing as a process of becoming, rather than a preexisting condition. She writes of both the difficulty involved in attempting “to eke
out / the vocabulary of old age” (“how do you” 39, my emphasis), and of menopause,
in poems such as ‘sonnet of the hot flushes” (17).This indicates that the menopausal
body and the ageing body exist on a continuum that does not allow for easy
delineations, highlighting the fluid nature of the body presented in Body Bereft. This
ageing body is often defined by discourses of disintegration and loss. In “how do you
say this” (28), the speaking subject articulates this idea when she comments that she
does not “know how to write your ageing body / without using words like ‘loss’ or
‘fatal’” (4–5). In order to demonstrate Krog’s engagement with this discourse, I
investigate “when tight is loose” (23) in relation to the “[n]arratives of decline” discussed
by Twigg (54).
However, this discourse of lack is not the only marker of identity ascribed to the
older body by Krog. As my analysis below will demonstrate, in other poems Krog
presents defiant and resilient older bodies that refuse to be associated with only
decline. I will read “manifesta of a grandma” (30) in relation to its engagement with
the “successful ageing” paradigm advanced by Rowan and Kahn. I will next
demonstrate that through focusing on the multi-layered role played by the body in
the experience of ageing, Krog offers alternative modes of representation for bodily
identity in older age, and refuses to submit to discourses that delimit the potential
meaning of identity in later life. As such, I will analyse “how do you say this” (28) and
“dommeflei / crone in the woods” (68) as examples of poems that escape these narrow
delimitations. I posit that in these poems Krog presents alternate visions of ageing
that refuse to be pinned down by conventional understandings.
Disintegrating older bodies
In “when tight is loose” Krog presents us with an ageing body defined by its
disintegration (23). This wilfully disintegrating body is described as not “want[ing] /
to be firmly tied and trim” (my emphasis), emphasising the ways in which the speaking
subject is no longer in control of her corporeal identity. The poem reinforces this idea
of a body in revolt through dissecting the wholly coherent body associated with
youth into the fragmented components associated with ageing corporeality. The
speaking subject’s left eye “bubble[s]” with “its own / eccentric jumpiness”, her “upper
lip” plays the “accordion”, her “upper arm” becomes a flapping “new suede purse”
and her “stomach lies like a dish in her lap”. Each body part is described as an isolated
entity with its own intentions over which the speaker has no control. Not only are
“her thumbs […] crumbling away” but they also “refuse / to open bottles, taps or
masturbate”. The placement of the word “refuse” at the end of the line and stanza
23
emphasises how ageing has signified a transfer of power in the split between self and
body, and alludes to the deterioration conventionally associated with ageing.
This collapse is further illustrated in the stanzas that follow. The use of the word
“dare” in her “toe- / nails” that “dare” to “grow so riotous” and the description of “the
colon” that almost wilfully “crashes / through its own arse” amplify the ways in her
body is now defined by lack and loss. Significantly, the “arse” is described as belonging
to the “colon”, and not to the speaker, furthering the sense of displacement the speaker
feels from her body. This sense of disjuncture between subject and body can also be
seen in “God, Death, Love” (21), in which the speaking subject’s body is given
autonomy as it “no longer / wants to intensify with exhilarating detonations” (my
emphasis).
The body’s revolt against the speaking subject shifts into the speaking subject’s
revolt or revulsion at the ways in which her body is changing: her knees are “shrinking
like forgotten / prunes” and her skin “is loose from / her flesh like a shuddered boiledmilk / skin”. According to Jay Prosser (65), skin serves the function of “individualizing
our psychic functioning” and “making us who we are”. It “holds each of us together,
quite literally, contains us, protects us, keeps us discrete” (Prosser 65). What happens
when “tight” becomes “loose” is that the discreteness of the individual begins to be
compromised. The body described by Krog in this poem is fragmented into disparate
elements that lack coherent meaning. This culminates in the simile that compares the
speaking subject’s “skin” to a “shuddered boiled-milk / skin”, conveying the utter
sense of alienation invoked by her experience of ageing. In her discussion of Krog’s
portrayal of abject bodily identity, Viljoen concludes that while the simile conveys
Krog’s feeling that the speaking subject’s “ageing and menopausal body is indeed an
affront to the existing social order”, it is also an attempt to “confront society’s negation
of the menopausal woman by making this body visible in all its abject specificity” (120).
While this does convey a sense of empowerment, bodily decline remains the overriding
characteristic of Krog’s representation of the ageing female body in this instance.
While most of the poem details the speaking subject’s embodied experience of
ageing, the final three stanzas explore the far-reaching effects of this corporeal
disintegration in relation to the rest of the subject’s lived reality. Her diminishing
daring or “impulse” derives from her “blood”, her faltering memory relates to “the
dying nerve ends at the outer / edges of the skin” and the inability “to delight/ in
bright colours” is the fault of the failing “retina”. In each case, the division between
herself, her perceptions and her corporeal reality results in a dissolution of her
previously established identity. Furthermore, this description illustrates that it is
impossible to separate the biological reality of ageing from the cultural construction
of older age. This highlights the deterioration and collapse of the older body, and
thus illustrates the ways in which ageing is associated with the “[n]arratives of decline”
mentioned by Twigg (54).
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Socially-constructed older bodies
While “when tight is loose” foregrounds the body as the locus of representation,
“manifesta of a grandma” is concerned with stereotypes in society surrounding old
age generally, and grandmothers specifically. In this comic poem, Krog systematically
points out and challenges outdated representations of grandmother-hood by
parodying the representation of grandmothers in popular media forms such as
newspapers and children’s picture books. As will be illustrated below, this has the
effect of highlighting the societal impetus that demands “successful ageing” as the
ideal way of growing older. The poem starts off with a question, presumably asked by
a grandchild: “so how does it feel to be / a grandma?”. Significantly, this question and
the imagined facetious response involve issues of societal perceptions and
representations of grandmothers. Krog in this poem deconstructs how grandmothers
are perceived by both their grandchildren and by society as a whole and gives voice
to the difficulty involved in finding an accurate and encompassing definition for the
roles and characteristics of grandmother-hood. The first part of the imagined response
to the child’s question (“...very old thank you”) may be related to findings reported in
a study by Bäckvik et al, in which the researchers investigate how grandparents are
represented in children’s picture books and how this relates to the realities of
grandparent-hood. This study states that “storybooks are one means by which children
can learn and develop attitudes towards grandparents and older adults in general”
(299). Since “research indicates that children’s books often depict grandparents as
very aged”, the representations of grandparents in storybooks can be said to shape
and simultaneously reflect children’s perceptions of their grandparents. More
importantly, these depictions very often show grandparents to be homogeneously
aged. The facetiousness of Krog’s imagined response to the child’s question seems to
undermine this stereotype. However, in this poem, the speaking subject very pointedly
later refers to her “early breeding ability”, indicating that she does not fit into the
imagined community of “very old” grandparents who populate storybooks and
contribute to children’s perceptions of their grandparents. Thus, her inability to define
grandmother-hood and her resultantly conflating it ironically with being “very old”
undermine the idea that to be a grandmother should only mean to be “very old”.
Furthermore, the second part of the imagined response, (“I don’t / get cock past my
lips anymore”), controversially introduces the idea of sexuality to the definition of
being a grandmother, and consequently poses the question of whether being a
grandmother should mean being desexualised.
Krog goes on to define the characteristics of stereotypical grandparents, using
children’s books as a starting point. Her analysis of the representation of grandparents
in children’s books mirrors the findings of the study conducted by Bäckvik et al. Her
reference to the “grandma anachronistically [wearing] Dr Scholl’s shoes” is supported
by their finding that grandparents in children’s story books “wear clothes atypical for
25
the date of the story” (Bäckvik et al. 300). Furthermore, the study states that “[w]earing
glasses is the most common feature attributed to grandparents: nearly half of the
grandfathers and over one third of the grandmothers have glasses” (Bäckvik et al.
303). In Krog’s poem, both the grandmother and the grandfather wear glasses. According to Bäckvik et al (303), “[g]ender differences appear for accessories such as
aprons, sticks, and rocking chairs” and “more grandfathers than grandmothers are
portrayed with a stick”. In keeping with this, Krog’s parodic grandmother is “joyously
knitting—spectacled and bunned”, while the grandfather “fumbles along with stick,
/ coat and grey felt hat”. Both the grandfather and the grandmother in the children’s
books described in the poem can be associated with the “aged, fragile, weak, and
impaired” (Bäckvik et al. 313) grandparents found in the books analysed by the study,
also imply decline, lack and loss. Significantly, despite Krog’s reference to the speaking
subject’s “early breeding ability” which suggests that she considers herself somewhat
an anomaly, the study found that the grandparents in children’s books are decidedly
“older than the average grandparents of young children” (314). This could be attributed to the fact that the authors and illustrators of these books rely on their own
memories of their grandparents rather than on the diversity of types of grandparents
found in modern society and thus “do not seem to adequately represent the multiple
realities of most grandparents of preschool children who are still in the mainstream
of life” (Bäckvik et al. 312–3). Krog’s statement that the speaking subject’s “own children
don’t even know anyone / with a bun, not to mention [her] culturally mixed-up /
grandchildren” points to this discrepancy between the representation of grandparents
in literature and the realities of grandparent-hood.
In contrast to the stereotypical images of grandparents found in storybooks, the
speaking subject presents the reader with her own first-hand observations of the
elderly. This description seems to find resonance with Rowan and Kahn’s idea of the
successful ageing paradigm. Instead of the “aged, fragile, weak, and impaired” (Bäckvik
et al. 313) grandparents found in children’s books, these older adults are portrayed as
being capable and active. This difference comes across in both Krog’s description of
their appearance and of their activity. Firstly, instead of having hairstyles
stereotypically associated with older age, the women have “short-clipped hair” and
the man has a “ponytail”, and instead of wearing outdated forms of footwear, they are
wearing much more practical and modern “running shoes”. The “gent” does not use
the parodic wooden walking stick; instead he makes use of an “aluminium strut”.
Furthermore, he is described as “[n]imbly […] hop[ping] from the passenger seat”
instead of “fumbl[ing] along with a stick” with a befuddled “surprised expression on
his face”. Secondly, instead of being depicted as busy “joyously knitting”, these older
adults are on a shopping expedition. This implies that they possess a self-sufficiency
and capability that their literary counterparts lack, and are thus representative of
Rowe and Kahn’s idea of ‘successful ageing’.
26
The conclusion of the poem returns to the question that was posed at its beginning.
While the initial question might appear innocuous enough, the content of the poem is
evidence to the contrary and proves that defining grandmother-hood is a complex and
problematic endeavour. As has been discussed above, this is because perceptions about
being a grandmother are intrinsically connected to the abounding negative, outdated
and stereotypical representations of grandmothers in society, in literature and in the
media. As a result, the speaking subject’s response (“Grandpa and I here on the stoep /
we take it lying down”) implies that being a grandparent revolves around the tension
between the almost inevitable onslaught of these representations and the subject’s
need to retain a positive and unique sense of identity while being a grandmother. This
can be seen when contrasting the almost resigned acceptance in “we take it lying
down” with the poem’s attempts not simply to accept these negative stereotypes. In
light of the remainder of the poem, the subject’s sense of resignation itself becomes a
mocking reaction to the social pressure that demands acquiescence in older age.
This may be related to the discourse that speaks of older age in terms of bodily
disintegration, and the simultaneous impetus that demands ‘successful ageing’. Krog
highlights the fluidity of the construction of identity in older age through
foregrounding these divergent identities in this poem and throughout the collection.
Alternative older bodies
In “how do you say this”, Krog (28) most cogently expresses the tension between the
narratives of decline that characterise the lived experience of older age, and the societal
impetus that demands successful ageing. Despite claiming not to know how to write
the ageing body, Krog attempts to do so in this poem that describes a sexual experience
between two older bodies. She achieves this through liberating the ageing body from
being a self-enclosed marker of identity characterised only by lack and loss. Instead of
giving in to the reductiveness involved in categorising the components of the ageing
body in an unaccommodating language that inevitably has to render a “wrinkle […]
banal”, she instead gives a subjective account of a bodily experience. Through
focussing on how an ageing body perceives and interacts with another ageing body,
she is able to avoid pinning down the body, and the meaning ascribed to it instead
becomes fluid and shifting, as we see the speaking subject attempting to overcome
conventional ideas of the limited sexuality accorded to an ageing individual. Stephen
Katz and Barbara Marshall (4) write that historically “sexual decline was assumed to
be an inevitable and universal consequence of growing older; thus, aging individuals
were expected to adjust to it gracefully and to appreciate the special moral benefits of
post-sexual maturity”. While Krog does in this poem describe the maturity associated
with ageing, this maturity is decidedly sexual in nature and centres on the changing
dynamics of the sexual experience brought about by older age.
27
Instead of focussing on what has been lost in the process of ageing, this poem details
what has been gained. However, the difficulty involved in avoiding conventional
descriptions of the ageing body can be seen throughout the poem. As it progresses, her
rendering of the experience into a new language of the ageing body becomes clearer.
For example, while discussing the difficulty of writing the ageing body at the beginning
of the poem, she describes a beard that is “too close for language” and “too grey with
grit”. However, in the next section of the poem, she attempts to find new words with
which to describe the greyness of her partner: the beard becomes “grey hair [that]
crackles like lightning”, indicating a sense of power that the previous description
lacks. However, she lapses into a narrative of decline in the next line when she describes
his “face of erosion”, alluding to the conventional trope of the erosion of time on the
body. The “wrinkle” referred to at the beginning of the poem becomes “the grooves
cutting down from [his] ears”, and his “scalp surprises [her] with its own texture”. Here
we begin to see Krog articulate more innovatively the speaking subject’s love for a
familiar body that has paradoxically become new as the process of ageing allows it to
reveal itself to her in unexpected ways. Furthermore, the newness of her partner’s body
allows her to experience her own body in new ways. Equally importantly, the newness
of the experience allows her in turn to transcribe the experience into a language that
resists the conventional delimitation of the ageing body into a narrative of decline.
As described by Beukes (8) in his reading of the Afrikaans version of the poem, the
speaking subject initially frames her doubts about her ability to represent the ageing
body in language with qualifiers such as, “I truly don’t know”, “I really don’t know”,
and “I simply do not know”. In the middle part of the poem, in which she attempts to
find a language for the experience, she changes this to “I think / I’m trying to say”.
Here, the description of her partner’s ageing body as well as her reaction to it become
sexualised. Instead of describing his beard, his hair, or his wrinkles, she writes that
she finds “the thickening of [his] / abdomen attractive” and that “an erection against
a / slight curve leaves one wet in the mouth”. Almost as if abandoning convention
and propriety altogether, she continues, “god, / I think I’m trying to say that I can
surrender to / your thighs for the very first time because of / their soaking whiteness”.
She prefers “the soft / looseness of [his] buttocks to the young hard / aggressive passion”
of their youth. As she delves deeper into the sexual dynamics of the experience itself,
she abandons the use of qualifiers, and explains that the fact that he “no longer /
want[s] to breed children from” her grants her enjoyment of “the luxury of experience”,
not despite of but because of their maturity. This is the poem’s most striking example
of Krog’s refusal to lapse into the narrative of decline associated with the process of
ageing. Ageing is generally seen as undermining female identity, as it marks the end
of a woman’s reproductive capacity. Here, instead of regarding this as a loss of identity
and value, Krog undermines the conventional view and celebrates the sexual
satisfaction that has been gained because of older age.
28
The poem concludes with an allusion to Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do not go gentle
into that good night” (1952). In his famous poem, Thomas urges his dying father to
fight for the life remaining to him, and not to accept his impending death meekly.
Significantly, he does this from a relatively youthful perspective, as he was 37 years
old at the publication of the poem. While Krog does not seem to dispute the importance
of “rag[ing] against the dying of the light”, she emphasises that “at times it seems
easier to rage” against this than “to eke out / the vocabulary of old age”. Her allusion
makes the point that fighting against death is easier than living with old age and
writing from an ageing perspective. She reiterates this sentiment in her poem “God,
Death, Love” (21), when she writes that “to jump from the ageing body to Death / has
suddenly become a cop-out act”. Furthermore, her allusion to the Thomas poem
serves to highlight the way in which the ageing body has been muted in literature, in
favour of the more classically acceptable metaphor of Death. Significantly, despite
her attempts to write the ageing body in “how do you say this”, she concludes the
poem not on a triumphant note, but rather with an acknowledgement of the difficulty
involved in the writing process. This seems to undermine reading the poem only as
a celebration of postsexual maturity, as it highlights the constructed nature of old age
and emphasises its often-contradictory fluidity.
In “Dommelfei / crone in the woods” (68), Krog presents an alternative reaction to
menopause as well as an alternative representation of grandmother-hood and growing
older. Krog cites Mario en die diere (“Mario and the Animals”, 1939) by Waldemar
Bonsels as her intertextual inspiration for the poem. Originally written in German
and later translated into Afrikaans, Mario en die diere details the experiences of a young
orphaned boy who runs away into the woods after the death of his mother in order to
escape being sent to an orphanage. Here, he meets Dommelfei, the crone in the woods,
who takes him in and teaches him about animals and the woods. While it is clear that
Mario en die diere only serves as a very loose intertextual reference to the poem, the
characterisation of Dommelfei does carry through into Krog’s poem, as will be shown
below.
The poem starts off by listing the identity markers the subject of the poem can no
longer claim as her own. She “no longer reads books”, “listens / to music” or “watches
television”. Significantly, this description rests on how the subject previously identified
herself and why this identity is no longer available to her. The over-riding effect of
this section is to highlight the ways in which she is cut off from a world she previously
inhabited, and seems to suggest that she should be identified by decline, lack and
loss. This isolation from the world that she experiences can be seen in Bonsels’s text,
where Dommelfei takes great care to shun the society outside of the woods. However,
the difference between the story and this poem is the modernization evident in the
poem, as can be seen through its reference to the “television”, marking the shift
between it and the source-text. This, in turn, allows this poem to speak to the other
29
poems in the collection that also deal with the representation of grandmothers and
their identity. While this section is initially characterised by a script of negation, the
fact that “no children / can come from her any/ more” (alluding to society’s conflation
of feminine value and fertility), is mediated by her “refus[al] to raise/[the children] of
others”, which is an active decision defined by neither lack nor loss. Thus, at this
point, she begins to describe the identity markers she rejects and refuses to assume,
stating that “she has no interest in the inner / power mechanisms of men”. Here, Krog
depicts older age as an escape from the “demands of gender and behaviour”. While
the first section of the poem illustrates the ways in which Dommelfei’s identity is no
longer marked by the social and cultural mores of the world, her ageing is described
in this section as not being mediated by identification with the world of men.
Interestingly, the fact that “old men render her sad” seems to suggest that she feels a
sense of comradeship towards older men that she does not feel towards men who are
still embroiled in the machinations of power associated with youth. The poem’s
singular reference to Red Riding Hood can be seen in this section, when Dommelfei
states that “a red-hooded grandchild” is on the way to her. Krog’s choice of article in
this description seems to resist a direct connection between Dommelfei and the
grandchild: it is not “her” grandchild that is being described. This allows for further
disassociation from identity markers typically associated with grandmother-hood.
Significantly, the original Dommelfei takes Mario in and looks after him not because
he is her grandchild, but rather because she chooses to do so. Furthermore, this
reference allows Krog to reconceptualise the original Red Riding Hood story so that
the female figures now are resilient: the grandmother is no longer bed-ridden and
helpless, but canny and powerful, and the grandchild moves securely on “sturdy
legs” and is no longer innocent and vulnerable to predation. The reference to “rid[ing]
her life out / like a song” inscribes older age with sweetness and freedom, rather than
decline and lack. The “apron” can be read as an apt reference to the burden of
womanhood that Dommelfei’s older age allows her to ignore. After the asterisk, the
negation of the first section gives way to a description of what does define her identity.
Here, the negative connotations of witchery associated with crones are broadened
and redefined to suggest an affinity with and connection to the powers of nature.
This section undermines mechanised ideas of conventionally organised time. Instead
of being regulated by imposed conditions of linearity, Dommelfei’s habits are shaped
according to a more natural allegiance to the rhythms of nature. Instead of undergoing
hormone replacement therapy or subjecting herself to a hysterectomy, she makes use
of natural ingredients to alleviate her menopausal symptoms. This additionally
counters the conflation of crones with witches who cast spells or concoct malevolent
potions. The poem concludes on a disturbingly threatening note. This last section
starts off positively and self-reflexively addresses the reader in a sinister manner,
stating that Dommelfei will “knead your thighs” and “minister your” arms with
30
“balms”. The focus moves from the reader’s physicality to elements associated with
language and the reader ’s cognition, namely their “mind” and their “tongue”. This
uncanny separation of mind and body is a departure from the “comfort” Dommelfei
will provide. Significantly, the poem finishes with what may be a reference to “A
Prayer for Old Age” by W. B. Yeats (1956):
God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;
From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song’s sake a fool?
I pray—for word is out
And prayer comes round again—
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.
In this poem, Yeats expresses his lifelong dissatisfaction with the dualism that separates
mind and body in Neoplatonic thought, implying that “intellect by itself leads to
barrenness, intellectual sterility […] but a unity of thought and emotion instead
prompts fecundity” (Bornstein 56). This points to Yeats’s belief that it is “the self ’s
polarization of experience into the Neoplatonic divisions of pure and impure, bodily
and spiritual, inner and outer that inhibits its attainment of completion” (Wilson 33).
This is exemplified by his distinction between “think[ing] / in the mind alone” and
“think[ing] in a marrow-bone”. Thus, to Yeats, the “marrow-bone” becomes a symbol
of the ways in which mind and body, and thought and emotion, should be unified
rather than polarized. By stating that Dommelfei is able to “unfasten” the reader ’s
“mind” and “preserve” his or her “tongue”, Krog locates Dommelfei’s source of power
in her ability to “think […] in a marrow-bone”. While the reader will also be sent
“alone into the cold wind of ageing”, he or she will be “searing from the marrowbone”. The warm intensity of the word “searing” stands in stark contrast to the “cold
wind” Krog associates with “ageing”. The “cold wind” could be read in relation to
the narratives of decline discussed by Twigg (54), while the “marrow-bone” alludes to
the alternative and more positive approach to ageing suggested by both Krog and
Yeats. However, the ambiguous connotations suggested by the use of the word
“searing” point to the difficulty involved in reconciling the realities of bodily
disintegration with the societal impetus that demands ‘successful ageing’. It is thus
possible to conclude that this poem best represents Krog’s refusal to delimit the ageing
identity to being defined either by bodily decline or according to the impetus that
31
demands a homogenised idea of ‘successful ageing’. Krog does not attempt to deny or
negate the inevitable reality of ageing. Instead, she points out the existence of alternative
reactions to growing older, as well as other ways of representing older age in literature.
Conclusion
Body Bereft, as a whole, demonstrates the multivalent nature of identity in older age.
While presenting the negative bodily changes brought about by age as important
aspects in the construction of this identity, Krog does not delimit the older body to
being defined only in terms of degeneration, lack or loss. Similarly, while she does
suggest that many elderly people are more independent and active than their literary
counterparts, her emphasis on the realities of the changing older body implies that
she does not ascribe to the societal impetus that demands ‘successful ageing’ as the
standard against which all older people should be judged. Instead, through giving
voice to these often-contradictory ways of reading older age, she shows that the
meaning ascribed to it should be fluid rather than fixed, and that the ageing identity
is above all defined by its multi-layered nature.
Works Cited
Bäckvik, P., H. Hurme, M. Rusek, C. Sciplino & P. Smith. “Representations of Grandparents in Children’s
Books in Britain, Italy, Greece, Finland and Poland”. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships. 8.3
(2010): 298–316.
Beukes, M. “Ikonisering van liggaamsverval met spesifieke verwysing na Antjie Krog se bundel
Verweerskrif”. Stilet. 23.1 (2011): 1–17.
Bonsels, W. Mario en die diere. Trans. A. E. Carinus. Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1939.
Bornstein, G. “W. B. Yeats’s Poetry of Aging”. Sewanee Review. 120.1 (2012): 46–61.
Gilleard, C. & P. Higgs. Contexts of Ageing: Class, Cohort and Community. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2005.
Katz, S. & T. Calasanti. “Critical Perspectives on Successful Aging: Does It “Appeal More Than It
Illuminates?””. The Gerontologist 55.1 (2015): 26–33.
Krog, A. Body Bereft. Roggebaai: Umuzi, 2006.
Nel, A. “Liggaam, teks en parateks in Antjie Krog se Verweerskrif”. Litnet Akademies 5.3 (2008): 51–68.
Prosser, J. Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality. New York: Columbia UP, 1998.
Rowe, J. W. & R. L. Kahn. Successful Aging. New York: Random House, 1998.
Thomas, D. In Country Sleep and Other Poem. London: New Directions, 1952.
Twigg, J. “The body, gender and age: Feminist insights in social gerontology”. Journal of Aging Studies
18 (2004): 59–73.
Viljoen, L. “”I have a body, therefore I am”: Grotesque, monstrous and abject bodies in Antjie Krog’s
poetry”. Judith Lütge Coullie & Andries Visagie, Andries. (eds.) Antjie Krog: An Ethics of Body and
Otherness. South Africa: U of KwaZulu-Natal P, 2014.
Wilson, B. M. “”From Mirror after Mirror ”: Yeats and Eastern Thought”. Comparative Literature 34.1
(1982): 28–46.
Yeats, W. B. Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1956.
32
Steward van Wyk
Steward van Wyk is ’n professor in die
Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands,
Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland,
Bellville.
E-pos: svanwyk@uwc.ac.za
Wai Nengre: ’n verdere ondersoek
na tendense in die letterkundes van
drie voormalige Nederlandse
kolonies
Wai Nengre: Further research on tendencies in
the literatures of three former Dutch colonies
This article expands on research that explores similar tendencies in the literatures of three former Dutch colonies: the literature
from the Dutch Antilles and Surinam and black Afrikaans writing emanating from South Africa. It commences with an overview
of slavery in the Dutch colonial empire and its legacy which resulted in the establishment of a population that shares elements
of Dutch language and culture. It proceeds with an analysis of similar tendencies in the development of those literatures, in
particular the influence of Negritude and Black Consciousness and the representation of creole and hybrid identities. It concludes
with an analysis of creolization as a further development in these literatures and possibilities for future research. Keywords:
Black Consciousness, creole, creolization, hybridity, Negritude.
Inleiding
Vanaf die 15de eeu het Nederland ’n koloniale ryk opgebou wat oor etlike wêrelddele
gestrek het en ’n erfenis in daardie gebiede nagelaat lank na dekolonisasie. Hierdie
gebiede sluit in Suid-Afrika, Suriname, die Antille, Brasilië, Indonesië en ook die
staat New York in die VSA.
Die kolonies sou ’n groot bydrae lewer tot die welvaart van die Nederlandse ryk;
die maritieme en handelsbedrywighede van Nederlanders in die metropolitaanse
gebiede en die kolonies het die onderbou gevorm van wat vandag bekend staan as die
Hollandse Goue Eeu.
Die Nederlandse koloniale ryk was aanvanklik onder beheer van twee maatskappye; die Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) wat na die Kaap en die
Ooste moes omsien en die Westindische Compagnie (WIC) vir belange in die Nuwe
Wêreld. Terwyl die Oosterse handelsroete grotendeels toegespits was op speserye het
die handel met die Wes-Indiese Eilande hoofsaaklik gesentreer rondom tabak, suiker
en koffie (Smeulders 49).
Slawerny kan teruggevoer word na die antieke en Romeinse tyd toe wydverspreide
praktyke van gedwonge en onvrye arbeid plaasgevind het (Blakely 4, Boos 11–4). Die
Hollanders was reeds sedert die einde van die 16de eeu betrokke by slawehandel en
’n belangrike deel van die VOC en WIC se handelsbedrywighede en hul winste was
uit die slawehandel. Tydens die Nederlandse koloniale ryk was dit daarop toegespits
33
om groot getalle slawe aan die kolonies te lewer ten einde in die groeiende behoeftes
aan arbeidsmag te voorsien.
In die Wes-Indiese Eilande is slawe ingevoer vanaf die Weskus van Afrika en
plekke soos Angola, die Kongo en Guinee was ’n belangrike bron vir slawe na Brasilië
en die Antille. Allison Blakely (7) voer aan dat met die vestiging van Curaçao as ’n
slawedepot in 1654, slawehandel die belangrikste aktiwiteit van die WIC geword het,
in so ’n mate dat slawe aan ander koloniale moondhede soos Spanje en Frankryk
voorsien kon word.
Die slawehandel onder die VOC het ’n ander trajek gevolg. Die VOC het in
beperkter mate aan die slawe-handel meegewerk en alhoewel slawe tydens die VOCbewind sporadies vanuit Afrika na die Ooste verskeep is en omgekeerd, is die behoefte
aan slawe-arbeid in die Ooste grotendeels gevul deur inheemse slawepraktyke in
Indië en Suidoos-Asië. Met betrekking tot die Kaap is daar die opmerklike anomalie
dat slawe uit die Ooste, hoofsaaklik Maleisië, ingevoer is na die suidpunt van Afrika.
Later is slawe ook uit Mosambiek en Madagaskar gebring. Die rede hiervoor is dat die
plaaslike Khoekhoen-stamme nie erg gehad het aan die gereguleerde arbeidspraktyke
nie en dus nie beskikbaar was as ’n goedkoop bron van arbeid nie: “The Khoikhoi, for
as long as they retained access to their independent means of subsistence, would
prove a reluctant and inadequate labour force. Moreover, as so many Europeans settlers
discovered in other parts of the world, indigenous populations were notoriously
difficult to enslave” (Dooling 21). Hulle is ook fisiek ongeskik gevind vir akkerbou en
handearbeid (De Villiers 44).
’n Aspek van die nalatenskap van die Nederlandse koloniale ryk en slawehandel
as ’n belangrike eksponent daarvan, is die vestiging van ’n swart bevolking wat aspekte
van die Nederlandse taal en kultuur met die metropool en mekaar deel. Terwyl daar
heelwat aandag gegee word aan die bande tussen die voormalige kolonies en die
metropool, word daar minder gefokus op die bande tussen die kolonies onderling
met mekaar. Onder andere sou mens verwag dat met Nederlands as die gemene deler,
daar ooreenkomste en soortgelyke verskynsels met betrekking tot taal en kultuur in
die onderskeie kolonies sou wees.
Sodanige ondersoek kan raakpunte vertoon met die konsep van die “Black Atlantic”
soos deur die Brit Paul Gilroy (29) gepostuleer. Die idee van ’n Nederlandse “Black
Atlantic” is iets wat met vrug ondersoek kan word. Dit sou ook uitgebrei kan word na
gebiede in Suidoos-Asië, soos Indonesië.
Hierdie artikel is ’n uitbreiding op die navorsing wat ek onderneem het in die
artikel “Wan true puëma: tendense in die letterkundes van drie voormalige
Nederlandse kolonies” (2014). Die vergelykende perspektief wat hierdie werk onderlê,
sluit aan by ’n aspek van die terrein van diasporastudies. Daarin val die fokus op
soortgelyke ervarings van swart mense tydens en na afloop van kolonialisme, veral as
gevolg van slawerny en word verbande gelê tussen die ervaringe van gekoloniseerdes.
34
Die letterkunde is ’n gepaste terrein om sodanige ondersoek te doen en twee studies
is hier van belang. In A History of Literature in the Caribbean (2001, drie dele) word
vergelykend gekyk na die konstruk Karibiese Letterkunde en word letterkundes in
die koloniale tale Engels, Frans, Spaans, Portugees en Nederlands asook die inheemse
en kreoolse tale ondersoek.
’n Belangrike aspek van hierdie literatuurgeskiedenis is die verrekening van die
voormalige Nederlandse kolonies as deel van die konstruk Karibiese letterkunde en
die aandag wat aan kreoolse letterkundes gegee word. Die gebiede waarna hier verwys
word, sluit Suriname, geleë aan die noordoostelike punt van Latyns-Amerika en die
eilande in die Antille-gebied in. Hierna word soms ook verwys as die ABC-eilande
(Aruba, Bonaire en Curaçao) oftewel die Benedenwindse eilande en die Bowenwindse
eilande (St. Maarten, St. Eustasius en Saba).
In The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (2004) word slegs gefokus
op Engels, Frans en Spaans en word boonop ook die kreoolse letterkundes buite
rekening gelaat. Laasgenoemde voeg egter iets nuuts toe met die saamvoeging van
Afrika- en Karibiese letterkundes. Die redaksie stel dat hierdie literatuurgeskiedenis
’n perspektief bied op die “Euro-African intertextuality” waardeur die uitdrukkingsmoontlikhede van die Europese tale en die teoretiese omvang van postkolonialisme uitgebrei word. Hierdie uitgangspunt is belangrik vir my eie ondersoek
omdat dit die moontlikheid open om ’n vergelykende ondersoek te doen na aspekte
van die Afrikaanse, Afrika- en Karibiese Letterkundes en raakvlakke ten opsigte van
temas en vormlike konvensies uit te wys.
’n Vergelykende ondersoek na die transatlantiese letterkundes (waarby die
letterkunde van die Lae Lande en ook die kolonies ingesluit word) in die Nederlandse
taalgebied kan ’n belangrike toevoeging tot die genoemde literatuurgeskiedenisse
wees. Dergelike ondersoeke wat die letterkundes van die Antille, Suriname en SuidAfrika bymekaar bring, vind aansluiting by Vernie February se voorstel vir ’n
verruiming in die wyse waarop Nederlands in Suid-Afrika bestudeer word; ’n
benadering wat verskil van dié in studies oor die verhouding tussen die Afrikaanse
letterkunde en dié van die Lae Lande waarin terme soos “bloedverwantskap” en
“moederland” ’n sentrale plek inneem (Ons ernst 8–9). Hy betoog dat “die studie van
Nederlands […] nie los gekoppel moet word van die studie van Afrikaans nie, maar
anders benader moet word op grond van die feit dat in Suriname, die Nederlandse
Antille en in Indonesië, daar ‘swart’ skrywers, digters en wetenskappers is wat deur
hulle literêre corpus die Nederlandse taal en letterkunde op ’n opwindende wyse
‘maatschappelijk relevant’ kan maak aan die Kaap” (Ons ernst 10).
Hierdie artikel wil enkele aspekte in geselekteerde gedigte van Antilliaanse,
Surinaamse en swart Afrikaanse skrywers ondersoek en die fokus op vergelykbare
verskynsels laat val. Een van die vergelykbare aspekte is dat die drie letterkundes as
minderheidsletterkundes of klein letterkundes (Coetzee 162) binne ’n groter
35
letterkunde funksioneer en ooreenstemmende kenmerke soos kontestasie en
appropriëring van dominante kodes, ontginning van die eie en hibridisering van
uiteenlopende tradisies en invloede, vertoon.1
Hierdie temas toon ’n noue verband met die ontwikkeling van letterkundes in die
postkoloniale wêreld. Homi Bhabha se konsep van nabootsing (mimicry) tipeer die
eerste fase waarin die koloniale tradisie nageboots word. Hy toon ook aan dat die
proses van nabootsing onwillekeurig tot meervoudige gevolge lei: “the discourse of
mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective mimicry must
continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (Bhabha 85).
Die tweede fase sluit aan by die kulturele politiek van négritude. Dié beweging wat
deur Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor en Léon Damas gedurende die 1930’s in
Frankryk aangevoer is, lê klem op die ontwikkeling van trotsheid onder swart mense
met waardetoevoeging aan swart kulture en swart geskiedenisse asook solidariteit
onder swart mense in die afwerping van die koloniale juk. Négritude berei die weg
voor vir die ontdekking van dit wat eie is aan die inheemse kultuur; later sou dit lei
tot die besef dat ’n oorspronklike, outentieke kultuur ’n romantiese droom is. Dit sou
later neerslag vind in die idee dat die kulturele landskap na kolonialisme een van
meervoudigheid, verskeidenheid, vermenging en hibriditeit is.
Césaire se student, Édouard Glissant, gee vorm aan die idee van créolité waarin die
vermenging van kulture beskryf word. Lorna Burns (101) lig die verskil as volg uit:
“In the face of négritude’s attempt to revive Africa as the unique and reified origin of an
essentialised black consciousness, Glissant […] promotes creolization as a mixed
identity that refuses to solidify into a specified and fixed model”. Kreolisering is dus
’n oop en voortdurende proses van kulturele transformasie waarin ou, statiese
essensialismes ondermyn word (Willemse, “Kreolisering” 32).
Die kwessies wat in hierdie strominge na vore kom, vind mens ook terug in die
postkolonialisme en sluit aspekte in soos die soeke na oorspronge, die aanklag teen
diskriminasie en ander koloniale praktyke, die soeke na ’n eie stem en identiteit, die
geding met en ontginning van taal en die aanwending van verskeie kulturele uitings,
veral dié wat ontstaan uit inheemse en werkersklasgroepe.
’n Opvallende tendens wat op gegewe momente in al die letterkundes voorkom,
is (a) die aanvanklike modellering op die Europese tradisie, gevolg deur (b) ’n afwysing
daarvan en ’n verheerliking van Afrika en swartwees en daarna (c) die skepping van
’n eie tradisie wat ’n hibridisering/kreolisering van diverse invloede en tradisies is.
Négritude, Black Power en swartbewustheid is ’n belangrike tussenfase in hierdie
ontvoogdingsproses waardeur gegroei word tot die vind van ’n eie stem. Dat dit egter
kortstondig was, nie wyd inslag gevind het nie, maar wel ’n vormende invloed op
leidende figure gehad het, is opvallend in die letterkundes.
36
Modellering op die Europese tradisie
Trefossa (die pseudoniem van Frans Henri de Ziel, 1916–75) word gereken as die
persoon wat die Surinaamse digkuns gemoderniseer het: “een baanbreker onder de
‘moderne’ dichters in het Sranan”, aldus Albert Helman (149). Michiel van Kempen
(Geschiedenis 765) merk op dat Trefossa met sy debuutbundel Trotji (1957) die
ondergeskikte posisie van sy land in verhouding tot Nederland as ’n kulturele
problematiek gesien het en sy bundel was ’n bydrae tot die geestelike onafhanklikwording van Suriname. Bykans al die gedigte in die bundel het beroemd geword en
word as amper volmaak beskou.
Trefossa se gedigte is op die oppervlak eenvoudig, maar het ’n komplekse
betekenislading wat in die Surinaamse geskiedenis geanker is. Die derde gedig in die
bundel, “Bro”, is hiervan ’n mooi voorbeeld. Hierdie Italiaanse sonnet handel oor die
spreker wat vasgevang is in ’n skrikwekkende hede, ver van die stille stroom waarna
sy hart verlang.
Die woorde van die oktaaf roep die slawegeskiedenis op. Die sestet verbeeld die
droomland waarin die spreker ’n beter mens kan word, maar wat nie werklik die
realiteit kan verdryf nie. Die eerste tersine is verhelderend:
daar bij de kreek zal ik’t droomland zien,
waar alles zoeter is dan hier
en waar geen schrikverhaal mij hind’ren zal.
(vertaling van Michel Bergen in Van Kempen Geschiedenis 765).
Hierdie gedagtes toon ooreenkomste met S. V. Petersen se gedigte “Aand op Riversdal”,
“By Seweweekspoort” en “By die vlei” uit die bundel Die enkeling (1944) waarin daar
die versugting is na rus wat in die natuur gevind kan word:
Hoog in die bome,
hoog in die vlei:
Waar die voëltjies woon, ja daar
is die wêreld vry;
en die lug, so skoon
dat ek altoos daar wil bly:
onder die bome,
net langs die vlei.
G. J. Gerwel (“Petersen” 12) koppel Petersen se drang na vryheid aan ’n begeerte na rus
en kalmte wat in die natuur of in vergange kinderdae gesoek word.
Volgens Van Kempen (Geschiedenis 767) is Trefossa se poësie beïnvloed deur die
Wes-Europese estetiek wat hy met sy opvoeding in die tradisie van die Hernhutters
ingekry het; sy voorkeur vir die sonnet kom van die plegstatige, koraalagtige ritme.
Trefossa het ’n klein oeuvre gehad omdat hy deurgaans op soek was na ’n nuwe vorm
37
wat minder abstrak, minder hermeties en meer toeganklik vir ’n groter publiek was
en wat hy in latere gedigte sou vind.
In die ontwikkeling van die Antilliaanse literatuur het tydskrifte soos Antilliaanse
Cahiers, De Stoep, Simadán en Watapana ’n belangrike rol gespeel; Wim Rutgers beskryf
dit as katalisator van die literatuur (Beneden 234–48). Die bekendste skrywers,
waaronder Cola Debrot, Tipp Marugg en Frank Martinus Arion, het hul eerste werk
hierin gepubliseer. Een van hul voorgangers, René de Rooy, wat ook die pseudonieme
Marcel de Bruin en Andrés Grimar gebruik, beywer hom vir die ontvoogding van die
Antilliaanse letterkunde. Oor sy digkuns word die volgende geskryf: “Zijn Nederlandstalige Stoep-bijdragen waren romantisch van inhoud. Ze beschreven in
traditioneel dichterlijk jargon gevoelens van vriendschap, liefde, verdriet, vergetelheid, rust en verlangen dat onvervuld blijft” (Rutgers Beneden 242). Die gedig
“Het landhuis” uit 1940 getuig hiervan en toon raakpunte met die gedigte van Trefossa en Petersen hierbo.
Heb ik hier lang geleden niet gewoond
Toen alles nog niet zo vervallen was?
Rondom het huis tierde geen woek’rend gras
Of heb ik alles maar gedroomd?
Ik weet nog hoe de jongens o hun forse paarden
Over de velden renden, het zonlicht tegemoet
En hoe ze vruchten in de oogst vergaarden
En bij hun terugkeer schalde luid hun groet.
En als de heuvels bruinden in het avondrood
—De schemer had zich reeds genesteld in de dalen—
Braken bij’t zwakke lamplicht wij het brood
En de oude neger deed ons boeiende verhalen.
Vleermuizen fladderen nu weg onder ’t gebint
Vergeten in een kast wat porseleinen borden
Het huis biedt nog een laatste weerstand aan de wind
Wat vroeger was zal niet meer kunnen worden.
Soos Trefossa soek De Rooy in sy latere gedigte na ’n vorm en medium wat uitdrukking
gee aan sy liefde vir die eiland en sy mense en dit vind hy in sy Papiamentstalige
gedigte. Alvorens by hierdie ontwikkeling uitgekom word, word eers gefokus op
négritude en swartbewustheid as radikale breuk met die tradisie.
38
Négritude, swartbewustheid
In Stemmen uit Afrika (1957), gepubliseer as heel eerste uitgawe van die tydskrif
Antilliaanse Cahiers, vier Frank Martinus Arion van Curaçao Afrika as kulturele
voedingsbron en beeld hy ’n trots in swartwees en Afrika uit. In die gedig “XXIX” uit
hierdie bundel word Afrika verhef tot simbool waardeur trots in die onderdruktes
herstel kan word. Die digter suggereer dat sy mense trots daarop moet wees om
hulself nasate van die mense van Afrika te noem van die Nubiërs wat die piramides
gebou het.2 Die raakvlakke met die négritude-sentimente van Césaire en Sénghor is
onmiskenbaar in die trotsheid op die Afrikageskiedenis en die verheerliking van
Afrika en die vroeë Afrikaryke as bakermat van latere samelewings.
De Roo beskou hierdie verse as eksemplare van “Caribisch Pan-Afrikanisme”. Aan
die hand van Kenneth Ramchand se The West Indian Novel and its Background meld hy
die volgende tipologie: die verheerliking van Afrika as kulturele voedingsbron, die
gunstige interpretasie van Afrika se verlede, trots in swart-wees en “de verheerlijking
van de geïntegreerde sensuele persoonlijkheid van de neger” (De Roo 73). ’n Versreël
soos “hun negerzijn met trots te dragen” toon hierdie ooreenkoms aan.
Arion se gedigreeks “Oorlog aan Edelstenen” wat geskryf is om mynwerkers wat in
1973 in die mynongeluk by Carletonville gesterf het, te gedenk, sal vir die SuidAfrikaanse leser interessant wees. Die gedigte loods ’n aanval op die kapitaliste vir hul
onversadigbare honger na goud en diamante en die wrede wyse waarop die lewens
van volke, soos die Inkas, Asteke en Afrikane, geoffer is (February, And Bid Him Sing 166;
Rutgers “Arion” 159). Dit toon dat Arion vroeg in sy skrywersloopbaan ’n belangstelling
in Suid-Afrika gekry het en hom beywer het vir die antikoloniale stryd in die land.
Die Surinaamse digter Michaël Slory gebruik beelde uit Afrika en dra sy bundel
Wakadron op aan die Kongolese vryheidsvegter, Patrice Lumumba. Die titel van hierdie
bundel verwys na die trom van die inheemse stam, die Aukaners. In ’n ander bundel,
Sarka/Bittere Stryd (1961), skryf hy onder die skuilnaam Asjantenoe Sangodare gedigte
oor legendariese figure in die antikoloniale stryd, onder andere oor Kwame Nkrumah
en Jomo Kenyatta.3 Hierdie gedigte is deurgaans in die teken van négritude. Wat
uitstaan, is die solidariteitsverklaring met die mense van Afrika. In die gedig “Wai
Nengre”, geskryf in Sranan, betreur hy die feit dat swart mense wegdraai van hul
pynlike geskiedenis. Sy gevolgtrekking bied geen toeverlaat wanneer hy daarop
aandring dat daardie geskiedenisse in die oë gekyk moet word:
O, negers!
Hoe moeten wij kijken
in de spiegel
van de geschiedenis, die zwart, zwart is?4
Ook in die Afrikaanse letterkunde het swartbewustheid neerslag gevind, hetsy op ’n
beperkte wyse. Die skrywer wat die nouste daarmee geassosieer was, is Adam Small.
39
Small het in die 1970’s aanklank gevind by Biko en die swartbewustheidsbeweging;
Gerwel (“Language” 17) sien die aantrekkingskrag daarvan in “die beklemtoning van
eenheid onder onderdrukte groepe en die morele en menslike klank wat Biko daaraan
gegee het (kyk ook Willemse, “Outobiografie” 73). Dié beweging wou die politieke
vakuum vul wat ontstaan het na die verbanning van die ANC en PAC wat een van die
gevolge van die bloedige Sharpville-slagting van 1960 was. Dit wou aan swart mense
weer stem gee. Swart mense moes hulle trots terugvind en bevry word van die
mentaliteit van gekoloniseerdes en hul onderwerping aan die neerbuigende houding
van wit liberale. Hulle moes trots op hulle geskiedenis en afkoms wees.
Small se bemoeienis met die swartbewustheidsbeweging volg nadat hy aanvanklik
in die vyftig- en sestigerjare aansluiting by die Afrikaner gesoek het en al meer ontgogel
geraak het as gevolg van ’n verskeidenheid persoonlike en politieke gebeure. Hieronder
tel die strenger toepassing van apartheidswette en gepaardgaande onderdrukking en
sy persoonlike teenspoed om behoorlike huisvesting en ’n goeie werksomgewing in
Johannesburg te vind.
Sy aanklank by die beweging vind neerslag in sy digbundel Black Bronze Beautiful.
Sy keuse om in Engels te skryf, is betekenisvol. Willemse (“Outobiografie” 71) beskou
dit as “deel van ’n teendiskoers waarmee ontgogeling en politieke afstand bedui
word”. Hierdie bundel met vyftig kwatryne is volledig geïnspireer deur die
denkrigting van swartbewustheid; dit is ’n viering van Afrika en swartwees en die
beeldvorming is geskoei op die Afrika-wêreld, soos in die vyf-en-twintigste kwatryn:
My mind, pulsating black, throbs—hold my hand
The black drums of my soul beat—hold by waist
The music grows, beauteous and black now
like a black child grows into a tall black man
Soos die ander digters ontgin Small die tematiek van swartwees as ’n vorm van protes
teen die koloniale identiteit wat op hulle afgedwing is.
Die oorgang na ’n volgende fase in die ontwikkeling van die letterkundes volg
omdat négritude en swartbewustheid van korte duur is. Dit is klaarblyklik ’n tydelike
fase in die intellektuele lewe en skrywersloopbaan van hierdie digters en die
denkrigting het nooit ’n sterk vastrapplek in die letterkunde gevind nie. Bernabe et
al. (82) voer aan “Negritude replaced the illusion of Europe by an African illusion. It
manifested itself in many kinds of exteriority: the exteriority of aspirations (to mother
Africa, mythical Africa) and the exteriority of self-assertion (we are Africans)” (kursief
oorspronklik). Hulle bevestig nogtans: “it was a necessary dialectical moment, an
indispensable development”.
Martinus Arion laat blyk sy ontnugtering met négritude en neem finaal daarvan
afskeid in sy ander werk, waaronder romans soos Afscheid van de koningin (1975) en
Nobele Wilden (1979). Vir Adam Small was swartbewustheid kreatief ’n onproduktiewe
40
fase. Hy kon slegs een digbundel in hierdie fase publiseer. Michaël Slory het weggedraai van Afrika en van sy beste gedigte hierna was die liriese en liefdesverse in
Sranan, die inheemse, kreoolse taal wat in Suriname ontstaan het. Négritude/
swartbewustheid is ’n belangrike tussenfase in die soeke na ’n eie stem. Ten spyte van
die kortstondigheid daarvan het dit ’n vormende invloed op figure in die literêre en
intellektuele lewe uitgeoefen.
Die volgende fase wat op négritude/swartbewustheid volg, is die ontwaking van
’n breë Pan-Afrika-bewustheid. Figure soos Kamau Braithwaite en Édouard Glissant
registreer in hierdie tyd ook die ontdekking van die self en die eie lokaliteit. Die
ondersoek van kreoolse en hibriede identiteite en tematiek blyk vir hulle meer kreatief
en vrugbaar te wees.
Teoretisering oor kreolisering en hibridisering is ’n ontwikkeling in die postkoloniale teorie in die afgelope twee dekades en kan ondersoek word as model om
die unieke aard van die transatlantiese Nederlandse letterkundes te beskryf en dit te
posisioneer. Aangesien die konsep kreolisering in die Karibiese konteks ontstaan het,
kan dit met vrug gebruik word in studies van die Anglo- en Frankofone Karibiese
letterkundes (kyk Arnold 2001).
Kreolisering behoort egter nie beperk te word tot daardie geopolititieke ruimte
nie. Glissant het benadruk dat kreolisering nie opgesluit moet word in die Karibiese
gebied nie, maar dat dit ’n universele toepaslikheid het, aldus Denis-Constant Martin
(173). In situasies waarin mense van verskillende oorspronge soms in gewelddadige
kontak met ander kom en dinamiese nuwe kulture en uitwisseling tot gevolg het, kan
die konsep van toepassing wees en breër betekenis kry. In sy studies oor die Kaapse
Klopse merk Martin (173) op Suid-Afrika “is the momentary outcome of protracted
processes of conflicting and creative blending and mixing; its achievements […] are
largely due to the fact that it has been creolising for several centuries”.
Kreolisering en verwante konsepte soos hibriditeit/vermenging/verbastering het as
konseptuele instrumente in Suid-Afrika weinig inslag gevind, omdat dit gely het onder
die apartheidsdenke waarin rassuiwerheid en etniese mobilisering gepropageer is.
Kreoolse/hibriede identiteite
Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau en Raphael Confiant begin hul welbekende essay
Eloge de la créolité (Tot lof van kreoolsheid) met die verklaring: “Neither Europeans,
nor Africans, nor Asians, we proclaim ourselves Creoles” (75).
Beverley Ormerod (2) voer aan dat hierdie essay is “the most explicit attempt to
redefine Caribbean culture through the language and folkways that are the common
denominators of this diverse population”.
Die stelling oor kreoolsheid is egter kontensieus en kritiek is veral gelewer op die
essensialistiese terme waarin hulle dit definieer: “The title of the manifesto probably
41
encapsulates the limitations of Jean Bernabé et al’s text: it praises creoleness, not
creolisation. Although they hint at the potentialities of creolisation as a transformative
force, they dwell much more on creoleness, as an identity, as a condition, and as a
background for the stories they write.” (Martin 170)
Nogtans word hulle sentimente deur heelwat skrywers in soorgelyke taal herhaal.
Confiant nuanseer die omskrywing wanneer hy die volgende sê: “The Creole does
not possess a new identity […] but new identities. The phenomenon of creolization
has invented from all these fragments a multiple identity” (aangehaal in Knepper 72).
Een van die resultate van die créolité-denkrigting was dat dit ’n herwaardering van
die karakter van die metis, die persoon van gemengde afkoms, tot gevolg gehad het,
aldus Ormerod (4).
Soortgelyke sentimente oor kreoolsheid vind uitdrukking in die Surinaamse digter
Corly Verlooghen (skrywersnaam van Rudy Bedacht) se gedig “Thuisvaart van een
creool” (Van Kempen Geschiedenis 802–3):
Nu gooien zij mij niet meer overboord
omdat ik in mijn hut kan lezen over Afrika:
Westindische Compagnie
John Hawkins
Verwoerd en Sharpeville
Want ik ben Afrika en Amerika!”
In hierdie gedig is dit interessant hoe uiteenlopende geskiedenisse saamgelees word
om uitdrukking te gee aan die posisie van die kreool wat gevorm is deur uiteenlopende
geskiedenisse. Die verbintenisse tussen verskillende geskiedenisse word beklemtoon
om diversiteit van die kreool te belig.
Walter Palm van die eiland Curaçao beskryf in sy gedig “Avondmuziek” (1997) hoe die
liedere van die Katolieke nonne nog voortdraal en omskep word in ’n Antilliaanse wals
wanneer die nag toesak. Die melodie dryf uit die klooster na die agterplase en word
voortgedra op die ritmes van tromme en tumbas. Hy sluit af met die volgende reëls:
En Rome, Roosendal,
Ghana, Guinee en
Curaçao
zijn takken
van één boom,
woorden
op één pagina,
vijf vingers
van één hand,
de fluwelen
handschoen van
de nacht.
42
Ook Martinus Arion publiseer ’n aantal lriese verse in die tydskrif Ruku waarin hy sy
liefde vir die eiland Curacao uitdruk (Phaf 414–5).5 Onder redakteurskap van Arion
word in die tydskrif sterk standpunt ingeneem teen die Nederlandse kolonialisme en
’n Antilliaanse identiteit en kulturele lewe word gepropageer. Die inleiding by die
eerste uitgawe is betekenisvol: “Het maken van een tijdschrift is dan gewoon een
daad van vrijmaking, vrijmaking van het nederlandse, steriele, onproductieve,
oncreatiewe barbarisme. Het is aansluiting zoeken bij de slavenhutten daar beneden
in het dal” (aangehaal in Rutgers Beneden 337, Broek Eiland geschiedschrijving 211).
Arion verwys hier na die afstammelinge van slawe wat, ondanks die feit dat hulle in
armoedige omstandighede bly, ’n lewenskragtige kulturele lewe bedryf wat gevoed
word deur die kulture van hul plekke van afkoms.
In Afrikaans het Patrick J. Petersen ’n soortgelyke sentiment uitgedruk in sy
strydvaardige gedig “Ons kom van ver af ” in die gelyknamige bundel (79). In hierdie
gedig wat gerig is aan “my Xhosa broers en susters”, verklaar hy dat hy en sy mense
nie halfnaaitjies (sic) is nie, dus nie van ’n mindere afkoms nie. Hulle is Kaaps, gebore
en getoë deur die gewelddadige konflikte in die streek en bring met hulle ’n lang
tradisie saam. Hy bevestig die “mestico […] moulatto” (80) bloed van sy mense en
hulle uiteenlopende agtergronde. Soos Arion wil Petersen hier ’n trots kweek in die
kreoolse afkoms van die groep met wie hy identifiseer.
In “Komvandaan” in die bundel amandla ngwethu (1) vier die spreker die kulturele
uniekheid van die inheemse Khoi-mense en voer aan dat dit ’n deel van sy/haar
Afrikaansheid is. Hiermee gee die digter ’n positiewe bevestiging van ’n verwaarloosde
aspek van die geskiedenis van Afrikaans. Dit is in die kreolisering/hibridisering van
taal dat die skrywers hul letterkundige tradisies verder verdiep.
Kreolisering/hibridisering—die digter en sy/haar medium
Die kenmerke van ’n kreoolse letterkunde is volgens Bernabé et al. (1989) ’n
fundamentele oraliteit, inbedding van herinnering, die tematiek van bestaan, invloede
van moderniteit en taalkeuse. Baie hiervan oorvleuel met ’n postkoloniale tematiek
soos afgelei kan word uit hul programmatiese stellings. Hulle sê byvoorbeeld “we
shall create a literature, which will obey all the demands of modern writing while
taking roots in the traditional configurations of our orality” (Bernabé et al. 97–8;
kursief oorspronklik).
Ten opsigte van taal besing hulle die multitalige, polifoniese aard van kreoolse
taal, die valorisering van orale vorms en die skep van neologismes wat die verstarde
koloniale taal sal verryk. In die drie letterkundes onder bespreking is daar ’n aantal
tekste wat die spreektaal en die kreoolse vorm besing. Dit is die medium wat hulle
nader aan die onderwerp van hulle digkuns bring: die massas en gewone mens.
43
Daar is reeds melding gemaak van gedigte wat die kwaliteite van Papiamentoe en
Sranan in onderskeidelik die Antille en Suriname besing. Kaaps sluit hierby aan. Dit
is by voorkeur die medium van swart Afrikaanse skrywers waardeur hulle hul
identifisering met die lotgevalle van die gewone werkersklasmense op die Kaapse
Vlakte wil uitdruk. Die kwaliteite van Kaaps word ook deur die digters besing, onder
andere deur Adam Small en Peter Snyders. Eersgenoemde vergelyk dit met die liriese
kwaliteit van ’n kitaar. Kaaps word dikwels ook beskou as ’n voortsetting van die
kreolisering van Afrikaans.
Die kort gedig “Moedertaal” van Peter Snyders uit die bundel ’n Ordinary mens (3)
satiriseer subtiel die opgevoede elite se neerbuigende houding teenoor die taal van
die laer klasse. In die gedig “Of hoe?” sê die spreker:
Moetie rai gammattaal gebrykie:
dit issie mooi nie:
dit dieghreid die coloured mense—
of hoe?
Wat traai djy
Om ’n coloured culture te create?
of dink djy is snaaks
Om soe te skryf?
of hoe?
Traai om ôs lieweste op te lig;
ôs praat mossie soe nie …?
of hoe?
Die Antilliaanse digter Pierre A. Lauffer (1920–81) word geloof vir sy werk om
Papiamentoe te erken; hy is onder andere die samesteller van ’n bloemlesing gedigte
met die titel Di nos en publiseer lesmateriaal vir skole in hierdie taal (Broek Eiland
geschiedschrijving 243). “Mi lenga”, Lauffer se ode aan Papiamentoe, word gereken as
“the most memorable verse eulogizing his mother tongue” (Broek, Colour 39).6 Die
aanvangstrofe van die gedig herlei die ontstaan van die taal na die slawegeskiedenis.
Vervolgens word die liriese kwaliteite besing en word uitgewys hoe dit selfgenoegsaam
in alle sfere is, byvoorbeeld in die reëls “In mijn creoolse taal, / Met heel haar
klankenweelde, / Is geen vreugde of verdriet voor mij onzegbaar” (Broek, Colour 39;
Broek, Eiland anthologie 309).
Sranan is die onderwerp van menige Surinamese digter wat die taal prys vir sy
uitdrukkingsmoontlikhede. Een van die vroeë voorstanders van Sranan, Papa
Koenders, soos hy eervol in die Surinaamse literatuur vernoem word, sê die volgende
oor Sranan se opvoedkundige en kulturele waarde “our language is not that elevated,
44
not that old […] but it is still capable of doing what other languages are capable of ”
(in Voorhoeve en Lichtveld 145).
Die gevierde digter Trefossa besing die liriese kwaliteite van Sranan in metakommentaar op die kuns van poësie in sy gedig “Wan tru puëma” (’n Ware gedig)
(Voorhoeve en Lichtveld 198–9).7
Slot
In hierdie artikel is die raakvlakke tussen die Antilliaanse, Surinaamse en swart
Afrikaanse letterkundes ondersoek aan die hand van enkele gedigte. Alhoewel die
konkrete historiese omstandighede van hierdie voormalige Nederlandse koloniale
gebiede verskil, is daar ooreenstemmende tendense in die ontwikkeling van hierdie
letterkundes. Die letterkundes begin aanvanklik as ’n modellering op die koloniale
tradisie, daarna ontwikkel ’n trots en bewuswording van die eie onder invloed van
négritude/swartbewustheid en later volg ’n ontdekking van die verskeidenheid en
veelvoud van oorspronge en omstandighede wat kenmerkend van hibriditeit of
kreolisering is.
Dergelike transnasionale, postkoloniale perspektief op die Nederlandse letterkunde kan met vrug verder ondersoek word in ander genres en kultuuruitings en is
’n aanvulling tot ander studies waarin die literêre grensverkeer (kyk T’Sjoen en Foster)
tussen die Afrikaanse en Nederlandse letterkundes in die Lae Lande ondersoek word.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Aantekeninge
Ampie Coetzee (162) ontleen die term aan die werk van Deleuze en Guattari om die verskynsel
Swart Afrikaanse skryfwerk binne die Afrikaanse literêre sisteem te situeer. Sy opmerking dat hulle
dié letterkunde “binne ’n postkoloniale strewe geplaas (het), en dit dan revolusionêre potensiaal
sou hê”, is insiggewend en ter sake vir my ondersoek.
“Misschien zullen de kinderen / van dit volk eens hun hoofden / buigen over de legendes van hun
stam, / zoals de Amerikaanse kinderen doen // om zo als gij Kaukasiscch heet / en Uw afkomst fier
gedenkt, / hun Neger-zijn met trots te dragen // Hun verwantschap aan de Nubiërs, / van wie
Egypte de kunst van / tempelbouw en pyramiden erfde, / zal Amerika doen blozen. // En ook de
landen zullen blozen / die op alles wat een druppel / gloed van Afrika bezit, / in minachting
etikettes plakken. //Dan zullen negers niet meer / Verslagen honden zijn, / Wentelend in witte
straten. //geen ‘underdog’, geen ‘steamy side’, / maar de herauten van het bloed / dat dupplet in
hun aders.”
Van Kempen (Geschiedenis 779) verklaar die oorsprong van die naam as volg: “Het eerste deel van
die naam verwijst naar de Ashanti koningin-moeder Yaa Ashantewa die in 1900 in opstand kwam
tegen de Britten, ‘Sangodare’ is de naam van een Shango priester; Shango vernoemd naar de
Yoruba god van de donder, is een Afrikaans gebaseerde religie—vergelijkbaar met winti—die op
Trinidad gepraktiseerd wordt.”
“Wai nengre / Fa wi musu luku / na ini a spikri / fu istorya, di blaka, blaka.”
“Eiland, kom dichterbij / waar is mijn hart? Kom, / dat ik het bloed in je ader zie, / het witte bloed
van zeeschuim, / veel dunkorrelrige, zoute zeeschuim / als bier zich morsend over heelje klein
lichaam. // Eiland, jou bloed is mijn bloed, / kom dichterbij opdat ik nog even leve, / Curacao, kom
dichterbij, eiland / spat je vies geschuim in mijn ogen, / opdat ik nog eenmaal blind worde / aan
deze verre schrijftafel.”
45
6.
7.
“Mi lenga, / Den nesesidat Sali / Fo’alma di aventurero / Kultivá na boka di katibu A baj drecha su
pará / Den kwentanan di jaj. / Su kurashi sin keber / —E marka brutu di su nasementu— / A butele
rementá busá / I fórsa di su gan ‘i biba / A lant’e di swela Den un warwarú di pusta-boka. / Su
kantika tin kandela / Su simplesa tin koló. / Ku su wega di palabra / Mi por ’nabo bo sojá / Ku su
ritmo í su stansha / Mi por sinta namorá. // Na mi lenga di kriojo, / Kus u zjèitu di zonidu / No tin
dwele ni legría pa herami, / Ni tin sort’i sintimentu / Ku mi n’tribi machiká. (Mijn taal, / Uit pure
nood ontsprongen / Aan de harten van avonturiers, / Verder ontwikkeld in de mond van slaven,
/ Heeft haar vorm gevonden /In de verhalen van de baboe. / Haar grenzeloze moed / —Het brute
teken van haar oorsprong— / Heeft haar de muilkorf doen verbreken / En haar kracht van
levensdrift / Heeft haar zich doen verheffen / In een wervelwind van woordenwisselingen. // Haar
muziek heeft vuur, / Haar eenvoud is vol kleur. / En met haar woordenspel / Kan ik je levend villen,
/ Met haar rijkdom en haar ritme / Kan ik zitten minnekozen. / In mijn creoolse taal, / Met heel haar
klankenweelde, / Is geen vreugde of verdriet voor mij onzegbaar, / Noch is er ook maar één gevoel
/ Dat ik daarin niet heb gedurfd te uiten.)”
“A true poem is a thing of awe … / a true poem is made of words that linger on / when all the others
in one’s life are washed away: / one single kernel, / but one from which can sprout / life all anew.”
Geraadpleegde bronne
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Parys: Gallimard, 1989.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.
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Indiana UP, 1993.
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Broek, Aart. De kleur van mijn eiland: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao. Ideologie en schrijven in het Papiamentu sinds
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47
Marisa Keuris
Marisa Keuris is hoof van die
Departement Afrikaans en Algemene
Literatuurwetenskap aan die
Universiteit van Suid-Afrika.
E-pos: keurim@unisa.ac.za.
Twee Fischers, twee dramas:
Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie
(1938) en Die Bram Fischer-wals (2011)
Two Fischers, two plays: Die geheime
Bloemfontein-konferensie [The secret
Bloemfontein conference] (1938) and Die
Bram Fischer waltz (2011)
There is no better example within Afrikaner history where different generations of the same family played such extraordinary roles
in the course of important historical events for the Afrikaner as well as for South Africa than those of the Fischer family. The name
Bram Fischer is well known within more recent history, due to his role as the leader of the legal defence team during the Rivonia
trial where prominent political figures, including Nelson Mandela, were tried on several charges including high treason. He is also
remembered for his own sensational trial in 1966 where he was branded a traitor by the Afrikaner establishment. Bram’s
grandfather, Abraham Fischer, played an important role in the history of the Free State, by being the first premier of the then
Orange River colony. He was also known for his role as mediator and translator at the so-called “secret Bloemfontein conference”
of 31 May–6 June 1899, where President Kruger unsuccessfully tried to reach a compromise with Sir Alfred Milner—an
agreement which could have prevented the Anglo Boer War that followed shortly afterwards. I provide a comparative discussion
of the two plays written in Afrikaans about the two Fischers, namely the one about the grandfather, Abraham Fischer (Die
geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie [The secret Bloemfontein conference] by Dr. W. J. B. Pienaar in 1938), and Harry Kalmer’s The
Bram Fischer waltz (2011) about the grandson. The secret Bloemfontein conference will be discussed as an example of a
documentary drama, while The Bram Fischer waltz will be analysed as an example of a biographical drama. Keywords:
Afrikaner history, Afrikaans plays, Abraham Fischer (Orange River Colony Premier), Bram Fischer (defence lawyer), documentary
drama, biographical drama.
Inleiding
In die geskiedenis van die Afrikaner en van Suid-Afrika is daar geen beter voorbeeld
van verskillende generasies van dieselfde familie wat ’n uitsonderlike rol gespeel het
in die verloop van belangrike historiese gebeurtenisse as dié van die Fischer-familie
nie. Die naam Bram Fischer is algemeen bekend binne die meer resente geskiedenis
vanweë sy rol as leier van die regsverdedigingspan in die Rivonia-verhoor waarin
baie bekende politieke rolspelers, onder andere Nelson Mandela, aangekla is van ’n
aantal polities gemotiveerde misdrywe, asook vanweë sy eie opspraakwekkende
verhoor daarna as erkende kommunis, waarin hy binne die Afrikaner-establishment
as ’n verraaier van die Afrikaner gebrandmerk is. Terwyl sy vader, Percy Fischer, ’n
48
bekende Vrystaatse regsgeleerde was wat uiteindelik regter-president van die OranjeVrystaat geword het, het Bram se oupa, Abraham Fischer (die persoon na wie hy
vernoem is), ’n belangrike rol gespeel in die ontstaansgeskiedenis van die Vrystaat.
Hy is onder andere aangewys as die eerste minister van die destydse Oranjerivierkolonie (1907). As persoon wat beskryf is as die regterhand van president M. T. Steyn
(Jacobs) is hy ook bekend vir sy rol as bemiddelaar en tolk by die sogenaamde “geheime
Bloemfonteinse Konferensie” van 31 Mei tot 6 Junie 1899, waar president Paul Kruger
vergeefs probeer het om tot ’n vergelyk te kom met Sir Alfred Milner. So ’n ooreenkoms
kon die Anglo-Boereoorlog wat daarna gevolg het, moontlik gekeer het indien die
samesprekings in Bloemfontein suksesvol was.
In hierdie artikel bespreek ek die twee dramas wat in Afrikaans oor twee van die
bekende lede van die Fischer-familie geskryf is: een oor die oupa, Abraham Fischer
(Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie) en een oor sy kleinseun en naamgenoot, Bram
Fischer (Die Bram Fischer-wals). Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie, geskryf deur dr.
W. J. B. Pienaar (met ’n “proloog” deur prof. D. F. Malherbe) is in 1938 deur Nasionale
Pers gepubliseer. Die Bram Fischer-wals is deur Harry Kalmer geskryf—aanvanklik in
Afrikaans (Afrikaanse première by die Vryfees in Bloemfontein, 2011) en later deur
die skrywer self in Engels vertaal as The Bram Fischer waltz (Engelse première by die
National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, 2013). Beide Afrikaanse en Engelse gehore
asook kritici het die stuk met groot waardering ontvang, terwyl dit ook ’n aantal
bekronings ontvang het. Die drama is tot op hede nog nie gepubliseer nie.
Albei dramas handel oor historiese persoonlikhede en gebeurtenisse in die
Afrikanergeskiedenis en dus sou albei as historiese dramas getipeer kan word. Binne
die kader van die studie van die kontemporêre drama en teater word daar gewoonlik
in historiese dramastudies ook ’n verdere onderskeid gemaak tussen dokumentêre
drama en biografiese drama. Ek bespreek vervolgens die drama van Pienaar as voorbeeld
van ’n dokumentêre drama en dié van Harry Kalmer as voorbeeld van ’n biografiese
drama.
W. J. B. Pienaar se Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie (1938)
Hierdie historiese eenbedryf (deur die outeur omskryf as ’n “Historiese Episode in
Twee Tonele”) bevat, benewens die twee tonele waaruit die eenbedryf bestaan, ook ’n
hele aantal bykomende gedeeltes, naamlik ’n “Voorwoord” (6 bladsye), “Toneelwenke”
(3 bladsye), ’n kort omskrywing van ’n geskikte ouverture wat die “proloog” kan
voorafgaan, ’n “voorspel” (1 bladsy) en met die aanvang van die drama, wanneer Paul
Kruger op die verhoog verskyn, ’n gedig van Jan F. E. Celliers, getitel “Kruger”. Die
drama (twee tonele, 16 bladsye) word ten slotte afgesluit met ’n “Naspel” (2 bladsye),
’n kort “Nabetragting” en weer ’n gedig oor Paul Kruger, naamlik advokaat F. P. (Toon)
van den Heever se “Die beeld van Oom Paul”. In die voorwoord verstrek die dramaturg
49
redes vir die skryf van die drama, hy noem sy bronne, beskryf enkele opvoerings van
die stuk en wy ’n aantal bladsye aan Paul Kruger se ervaring van die gebeure rondom
die konferensie.
Naas al die bykomende geskrewe gedeeltes is daar ook ’n aantal foto’s van die
historiese figure betrokke by hierdie konferensie, naamlik op die titelblad ’n groepsfoto
wat geneem is “in Kaapstad onmiddellik voor die vertrek van Lord Milner en sy staf
na Bloemfontein”, ’n foto van pres. Paul Kruger by die voorwoord, ’n foto van Lord
Milner by die karakterlys, foto’s van J. C. Smuts en Schalk Willem Burger elk by die
toneelwenke, ’n foto van A. Fischer in die Eerste Toneel, en ’n foto van A. D. W.
Wolmarans in die Tweede Toneel. Hierdie sewe foto’s van die historiese figure betrokke
by hierdie gebeurtenis versterk die dokumentêre aard van hierdie eenbedryf. In die
persoonslys word die belangrikste rolspelers in hierdie drama dan ook net genoem,
aangesien geen inligting ten opsigte van hulle voorkoms nodig is nie—hulle is bekende
historiese persoonlikhede vir die destydse publiek.
Volgens dr. W. J. B. Pienaar was die Bloemfonteinse Konferensie, wat van 31 Mei tot
6 Junie 1899 plaasgevind het, “streng geheim en vertroulik van aard” (8). Hy stel dat
daar geen notule van die gebeure gehou is nie, maar dat historici na die tyd uit
“briewe en amptelike stukke en herinneringe, soos dié van F. Rompel en andere, ’n
verslag van die konferensie en sy afloop […][kon] opstel” (8). Hy noem hierna veral
twee bronne wat hy geraadpleeg het, naamlik “Die staatkundige ontwikkeling van
die Transvaal” deur Botha, en “The Milner papers” deur Cecil Headlam.
Die twee tonele word gekenmerk deur die afwisselende gebruik van twee tale wat
deurgaans volgehou word, naamlik Alfred Milner wat in Engels praat, Paul Kruger
wat deurgaans Nederlands praat en Abraham Fischer wat as tolk soms in Engels en
soms in Nederlands praat. Alhoewel daar dus met die tolking ’n noodwendige
herhaling van die dialoog plaasvind wat die dramatiese gang van die twee tonele
vertraag, beklemtoon die gebruik daarvan egter die sogenaamde outentieke aard van
hierdie uitbeelding.
Die drama as dokumentêre werk
Interessant is die klem wat Pienaar deurgaans lê op die feitelike oftewel die
dokumentêre aard van hierdie werk. Sy beklemtoning van die historiese “juistheid”
van hierdie werk voer hy so ver dat hy selfs in die voorwoord stel dat hy in der
waarheid “met hierdie stuk […] nie aanspraak maak op oorspronklikheid nie. Hy het
nie probeer om ’n toneelstuk te skryf nie” (8). Volgens hom was “al wat die opsteller
moes doen, […] om dit [die bronne hierbo genoem—MK] in die direkte rede oor te
bring, die vertalings van die tolk by te bring, en die geheel in geskikte vorm met
toneelaanwysings op te stel” (8). Die dokumentêre aard van hierdie drama word dus
nie net onderskryf deur die gebruik van foto’s van die historiese rolspelers in hierdie
gebeurtenis (die konferensie) of die steun op bepaalde bronne wat die gebeure
50
opgeteken het nie, maar blyk veral uit die deurlopende afwisseling van Engels en
Nederlands in die dialoog.
In sy omskrywing van wat dokumentêre drama is, beklemtoon Derek Paget (40)
veral die voorkoms van ’n “discourse of factuality” in sulke dramas. Ook van belang
in sy bespreking is die spanning wat volgens hom bestaan binne ’n fiksionele teks wat
terselfdertyd ook wil voorgee dat dit ’n feitelike dokument is, naamlik “the ‘documentariness’ existing within a text to be received otherwise as a ‘created’ work of
drama” (5). Hy som hierdie aspek op in die frase “factual ratification”, om sodoende
hierdie kenmerk van die dokumentêre drama te beklemtoon. Volgens Paget is sekere
van ons dominante kulturele voorbegrippe met betrekking tot dokumentêre werk
(dramas ingesluit) oorwegend afgelei uit ’n moderne geloof in feite (“faith in facts”,
Paget 8). Volgens hom verwag ons
to gain information, to aquire access to hitherto unrevealed (or narrowly distributed)
“facts” when we consume anything “documentary”. From initial ignorance (total
or partial), we anticipate that we shall be put “in the know”. The information base
is at one and the same time interesting (persuading us that the piece of cultural
production in question is worth consuming), and authenticating. (Paget 8)
Richard H. Palmer, in sy bekende werk getitel The Contemporary British History Play,
sien die dokumentêre drama ook as kenmerkend van ’n positiwistiese ingesteldheid
(wat sekerlik ook kenmerkend was van die tydvak—1939—waarin Pienaar geskryf
het), naamlik: “One manifestation of positivism that did influence historical drama
was the documentary drama, the incorporation of verbatim historical documents
into a production” (12). Volgens Palmer het hierdie gebruik sy ontstaan gehad in die
1930’s met die sogenaamde “American Federal Theatre Project—sponsored by Living
Newspapers” en is daarna ook algemeen in Britse historiese teater vanaf die 1930’s te
vinde. Volgens hom is dit ook kenmerkend van dramas wat ’n spesifieke politieke
agenda besit—iets wat natuurlik teenstrydig is “with the objectivity presumably
implied by the use of documentary material” (12). Hierdie omskrywing is sekerlik
ook van toepassing op Pienaar se drama: die dramaturg het baie duidelike politieke
en kulturele redes waarom hy hierdie werk geskryf het en hy skroom ook nie om sy
bedoeling(s) met hierdie stuk in die voorwoord uit te stippel nie, naamlik: “Die
historiese een-bedryf hier aangebied, vloei uit ’n besluit van die Bestuur van die
S.A.O.U.-tak, Paarl: dat met die oog op die viering van Kultuurdag die Paarlse skole
versoek word om elk ’n hoofmoment uit die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika dramaties
voor te stel” (7). Uit inligting in die voorwoord kan mens aflei dat die stuk ten minste
by ’n Kultuurdag (Paarl) en in 1936 tydens die Heldedagviering in Kaapstad “voor ’n
geesdriftige gehoor” opgevoer is (7).
Die uitbeelding van ’n belangrike historiese gebeurtenis (vir Afrikaners), is egter
nie al rede waarom hy hierdie drama geskryf het nie. Hy verklaar in ’n volgende
51
paragraaf van die Voorwoord: “Die doel van die oorspronklike voorstel was nie alleen
om geskikte stof vir Kultuur- en Heldedagfeeste te verskaf nie, maar ook om ons
volksdrama te bevorder. Die Afrikaner moet dit verder bring as verdienstelike historiese
optogte en voorstellings. Ons toneel, en veral ons historiese drama, wag op ontwikkeling en ondersteuning” (7).
’n Ander interessante beskouing van Paget is sy uitlig van die “ethical/aesthetical
problem” onderliggend aan dokumentêre werk, naamlik: “By using documents at
all, the dramatist problematises (calls into doubt or question [sic]) both the fictional
nature of drama and the factual nature of information” (15). In die Abraham Fischerdrama is die onderskeid tussen die “feitelike”een die “estetiese” heel opvallend. Die
sterk dokumentêre inslag van die werk laat mens wonder hoekom Pienaar ’n drama
daaroor geskryf het en hoekom hy dit nie net in ’n historiese verslagvorm gelaat het
nie. ’n Antwoord hierop vind mens op sowel die buiteblad as die titelblad, naamlik
dat die stuk geskryf is met die oog daarop om by spesifieke feeste, naamlik kultuur- en
heldedagfeeste opgevoer te word. Die drama is dus, soos sovele van die dramas van
daardie tydperk, geskryf met ’n duidelik Afrikanernasionalistiese intensie. Vergelyk
byvoorbeeld ’n tydgenootlike bundel eenbedrywe deur J. R. L. van Bruggen, naamlik
Bakens (1939), waarin daar ook in die voorwoord duidelik verklaar word: “Wat met
hierdie uitgawe beoog word is in die eerste plek om as hulpmiddel te dien by die
onderwys van geskiedenis in ons skole, en in die tweede plek, om as geskikte materiaal
gebruik te kan word vir konserte, funksies, ens., wat deur Kultuurverenigings
georganiseer word.” Van belang vir hierdie dramaturge (en andere van hierdie tydvak)
is dus drie sake: (1) ’n opvoedkundige ideaal (let daarop dat Pienaar hierbo verwys na
die S.A.O.U—die Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie—se rol in die aanvanklike besluit
om so ’n drama te skryf; (2) ’n kulturele ideaal (om werk te skep wat by kultuur- en
heldedagfeesvieringe opgevoer kan word); en (3) ’n breër Afrikanernasionalistiese
ideaal, naamlik dat die stuk ’n “hoofmoment uit die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika” (7)
dramaties voorstel. Die histories-feitelike toonaard van die drama, soos deurgaans
deur Pienaar beklemtoon, word egter afgewissel met die insluit van elemente (die
gedigte, ouverture, tableau vivant aan die einde) wat heel duidelik meer inspeel op ’n
estetiese vlak in die drama.
Volgens Paget is die verskil tussen dokumentêre en ander historiese werke of
dramas die volgende: in dokumentêre dramas “primary sources assume a much higher
profile than is the case in a historical drama (where secondary sources are more often
the norm). It is not unusual to find the primary sources packaged in the Introduction
to (or in some part of the editorial apparatus of) the documentary play” (16–17). In
Pienaar se drama noem hy pertinent in die voorwoord twee primêre bronne waarop
hy steun vir die uitbeelding van die gebeure, naamlik Botha en Headlam. Nog ’n
kenmerk wat Paget uitwys as behorende tot dokumentêre drama is dat “Documentary
Theatre is predominantly events- and/or issues centred” (43). In hierdie werk is dit
52
natuurlik ook die geval, soos wat die titel van die werk (Die geheime Bloemfonteinkonferensie) aandui.
Dit is egter ook so dat bekende historiese persoonlikhede hoofkarakters in hierdie
drama is (president Paul Kruger, Lord Alfred Milner en Abraham Fischer). Terwyl
daar enkele fisieke en sekere persoonlikheidomskrywings van Milner en Fischer gegee
word, is dit veral die uitbeelding van Kruger wat opval in hierdie drama. Die
bewondering wat die dramaturg vir hom koester, grens aan heldeverering en sy
figuur word steeds respekvol en met deernis uitgebeeld. In die “Naspel” is Paul
Kruger in Clarens, Switserland (1903) en is hy besig met sy afskeidskrywe aan sy volk
kort voor sy dood. Ook hier word sy woorde verbatim weergegee, wat aansluit by die
dokumentêre aard van die drama, terwyl die slotsin meer getuig van die dramaturg se
empatie met president Kruger (“Oom Paul buig sy hoof stadig vooroor en sit asof in gebed”,
48).
Die “Slottoneel” (met as onderskrif: “Nabetragting”) is geplaas in die Pretoria van
1914 by “die standbeeld van Oom Paul” (49).’n Verhoogaanwysing lui soos volg:
Onmiddellik na afsluiting van die naspel word alle ligte gedoof en die persoon wat Oom Paul
gespeel het gaan in die agtergrond kniel sodat net sy kop en skouers deur die venster
sigbaar is. ’n Gipsbeeld kan ook gemaak of gebruik word. ’n Flou silwerlig slaan op sy bleek
gelaat wat as deel van ’n standbeeld moet vertoon en ’n voordraer agter die skerms dra
onderstaande gedig plegtig en gevoelvol voor.1
Vervolgens verskyn Toon van den Heever se gedig “Die beeld van Oom Paul”, en ten
slotte hoor mens ook nog die lied “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” speel nadat die gordyn
gesak het.
Abraham Fischer se rol tydens die Bloemfonteinse Konferensie
Min inligting oor Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) se persoon word in die drama verskaf
en mens kry die indruk dat die dramaturg gewoon aanneem dat almal weet wie
Abraham Fischer is. Die foto van hom wat op bladsy 31 verskyn, het klaarblyklik
enige verdere beskrywings van sy voorkoms oorbodig gemaak. In die persoonslys
word sy naam direk onder “Staatspresident Paul Kruger” as “Mnr. Abraham Fischer”
gelys. Alhoewel hy as dramatiese persona gereeld op die verhoog aanwesig is aangesien hy as “tolk” tussen Kruger en Milner optree, vind mens slegs enkele beskrywings
van hom in die verhoogaanwysings. Sy opkoms op die verhoog word as volg beskryf:
“Eerste kom mnr. Abraham Fischer regs op. Hy het ’n rol papiere in die hand en ’n legger onder
die arm. Hy het die houding van ’n besige man en stap oor die verhoog links af” (24). As al die
persone hulle plekke om die konferensietafel ingeneem het, word hy as volg beskryf:
“Fischer is besig met skrywe; papiere en boeke langs hom” (27). Terwyl van die ander
persone hulle plekke inneem, fokus die handeling steeds op sy skrywery: “Stilte;
geskraap van Fischer se pen hoorbaar” en dan: “Meteens kyk Milner vinnig en vraend op,
53
Fischer knik instemmend en Milner staan op” (27–28). As Milner begin praat, neem die
konferensie amptelik ’n aanvang. Ná Milner se spreekbeurt lees mens die volgende
verhoogaanwysing: “Hy sit. Almal verslap hul gespanne houding en keer hulle na Fischer
wat, nadat hy nog ’n laaste woord geskryf het, saaklik opspring en vinnig begin tolk” (29). In
die res van die toneel vind mens geen verdere beskrywings van die indruk wat
Fischer op die omstanders maak nie en vervul hy gewoon sy funksie as tolk. In die
tweede toneel kry mens ook net twee toneelaanwysings wat hoofsaaklik tekenend is
van die bepaalde vertrouensverhouding tussen Fischer en Kruger, naamlik op bladsy
44: “FISCHER (praat byna vertroulik met OOM PAUL wat vooroor geboë sit)” en bladsy
45: “(MILNER buig effens. OOM PAUL sit vooroor asof in mymering verdiep. FISCHER
gaan na hom en fluister in sy oor. Hy skrik, staan stadig op en stap met onsekere tred na die
deur”.
In die meeste geskrifte oor Abraham Fischer word een bron gewoonlik uitgelig as
die volledigste bron beskikbaar oor sy persoon, naamlik D. S. Jacobs se proefskrif oor
Fischer wat opgeneem is in die Argief-jaarboek vir Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis (28 (II),
1965), getitel Abraham Fischer in sy tydperk (1850–1913). In Hoofstuk VII (290–300) bespreek
Jacobs spesifiek onder die opskrif Bemiddelaar in die spanningsjare, 1897 tot 1899 die
Bloemfonteinse konferensie en die groot rol wat Fischer daarin gespeel het.
Indien mens Abraham Fischer se rol in die gebeure van 31 Mei tot 6 Junie 1899 bloot
as dié van “tolk” tussen Kruger en Milner omskryf, gee mens nie ’n volledige beeld
weer van die persoon en sy bydrae tot hierdie historiese gebeurtenis nie. Jacobs beskryf
in Hoofstuk VI die betrokke gebeure aan die hand van drie opskrifte (“Onderhandelaar”; “Die Bloemfontein-konferensie en daarna”; “Die aanloop tot die oorlog”
[272–86]). Volgens Jacobs was dit juis die besondere aansien wat Fischer teen 1899
geniet het wat veroorsaak het dat hy as die geskikste kandidaat vir die posisie as
bemiddelaar beskou is: “Deur sy persoonlike hoedanighede en deur die sameloop
van omstandighede het Abraham Fischer hom met die aanbreek van die krisisjare in
’n posisie bevind wat hom as’t ware vanselfsprekend die bemiddelaar tussen die
botsende partye, die Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek en die Britse maghebbers in SuidAfrika, gemaak het. In die Oranje-Vrystaat, die geografiese en politieke brug tussen
die botsende partye, was hy naas president Steyn die invloedrykste man” (273).
Fischer is deur beide Milner en Kruger versoek om as tolk/bemiddelaar op te tree,
maar hy sou ook as lid van die Uitvoerende Raad van die Oranje-Vrystaat sy mening
kon gee tydens die samesprekings. Die samesprekings het hoofsaaklik gewentel om
die sogenaamde Uitlanderkwessie. Kruger het sekere toegewings gemaak ten opsigte
van die verblyftydperk wat moet verloop voordat ’n “uitlander” stemreg kan verkry
(onder andere ’n vermindering van vyf jaar op die aanvanklike tydperk). Vir Milner
was die nege jaar wat oorgebly het egter steeds te lank.2 Volgens Jacobs was dit vir
Kruger en die lede van sy afvaardiging duidelik dat Milner geen toegewings wil
maak nie, en die enigste slotsom waartoe Kruger kon kom, is vervat in sy bekende
54
uitroep, naamlik: “Dis nie die stemreg wat julle wil hê nie, dis my land, my land”
(275).
In die drama beeld Pienaar hierdie toneel heel dramaties as volg uit:
OOM PAUL (staan waggelend op en wys met sy vinger op Milner): “Uw Excellentie is
een harde man; (roep uit): U wilt mijn land hebben, Milner, dat is mij duidelijk!’ (Sak
neer met hande oor die gesig en snik ’n paar maal—alleen skouerbewegings hier—trane in
die oë. Doodse stilte; WOLMARANS, SMUTS, FISCHER snel na OOM PAUL. Meteens
begin hy weer praat): Het is onmogelijk u tevreden te stellen. Volgens u voorstel
moet ik het bestuur van mijn land en mijn regering in de handen van vreemdelingen
overgeven. Dat ben ik niet bereid te doen. De zaak is hopeloos” (stem gebroke). (43)
Wanneer president Kruger emosioneel ingee onder die druk van die onderhandelinge
en sy bewustheid van die prys wat betaal gaan word vir die mislukking van hierdie
samesprekings, is dit Fischer wat leiding neem en die slotwoord uiter. Alhoewel daar
relatief min inligting oor Abraham Fischer as persoon gegee word in die drama, word
die indruk wel in beide die verhoogaanwysings en in die dialoog geskep (vgl. sy
uitstekende tolkwerk in Engels en Nederlands) van ’n sterk, kalm en bekwame persoon.
Die belangrike rol wat Fischer steeds in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis gespeel
het na afloop van die Bloemfonteinse konferensie word verder uitvoerig deur Jacobs
bespreek in sy proefskrif. Hy noem onder andere die sterk vertrouensband tussen
Abraham Fischer en president Steyn (byvoorbeeld Fischer se besoeke aan ’n
verskeidenheid Boerelaers in opdrag van President Steyn met die uitbreek van die
Anglo-Boereoorlog, ’n besluit teen 1900 om hom as lid van ’n “buitegewone
gesantskap”3 na Europa en die VSA te stuur om steun vir die Zuid-Afrikaansche
Republiek te werf teen die Britse inval, en sy aanstelling as eerste minister van die
Oranjerivierkolonie in 1907 na afloop van die oorlog).
Die groot rol wat Abraham Fischer in die vroeë geskiedenis van die Afrikaner
gespeel het (vanaf 1879 as Volksraadlid tot en met sy dood op 16 November 1913), blyk
duidelik uit Jacobs se omvattende en gedetailleerde bespreking van sy rol in hierdie
tydperk. Interessant in sy bespreking is die klem wat hy deurgaans op die besondere
persoonlikheid van Fischer plaas. Aldus Jacobs:
Fischer se innemende geaardheid was by lede aan albei kante in die parlement
spreekwoordelik; hy was een van die mees geliefde persone en altyd met ’n grappie
gereed. Hy was sonder uitsondering vriendelik teenoor ondersteuner en opponent
[…] [I]n sy privaat lewe was Fischer ’n stil, beskeie, goedhartige man. Hy het ’n groot,
intieme vriendekring gehad wat baie aan hom geheg was […][G]eneraals Botha en
Hetzog het nie alleen onder Fischer se intiemste vriende getel nie, maar daar het ook
’n onuitwisbare vriendskap tussen hom en pres. en mev. Steyn bestaan […] Indien
Fischer as staatsman groot hoogtes bereik het, was sy persoonlike gewildheid nog
groter. (425–26)
55
Harry Kalmer se Die Bram Fischer-wals (2011)
In ’n ander artikel, getitel “Portrait of an Afrikaner revolutionary: Harry Kalmer’s The
Bram Fischer Waltz”, bespreek ek Harry Kalmer se drama oor Bram Fischer redelik
omvattend as ’n voorbeeld van ’n biografiese drama oor ’n historiese figuur.4 Ek noem
vervolgens net die hoofpunte van die Engelse artikel voordat ek in die res van hierdie
artikel bykomende insigte uiteensit wat veral na vore kom uit ’n vergelyking tussen
die twee dramas oor die twee Fischers (Abraham en Bram).
In die Engelse artikel stel ek die biografiese subjek as die fokus van ’n biografiese
drama —in hierdie geval Bram Fischer—op die voorgrond. Aangesien Fischer so ’n
prominente rol in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis gespeel het, was dit nodig om ook
hierdie konteks te bespreek: sy rol as leidende regspersoon vir die verdediging tydens
die Rivonia-verhoor waar Nelson Mandela en andere skuldig bevind is aan hoogverraad;
sy eie verhoor daarna toe hy as selferkende Kommunis lewenslange tronkstraf opgelê
is, en—oënskynlik teenstrydig—sy deurlopende identifisering van homself as ’n Afrikaner. Sy private lewe (sy verhouding met sy vrou en kinders) vorm eweneens deel van
’n studie van die dramatiese subjek en is ook bespreek teen die agtergrond van Kalmer
se drama. Spesiale aandag is ook gegee aan die rol wat Raymond Schoop gespeel het in
Bram Fischer se suksesvolle ontduiking van die veiligheidspolisie vir 290 dae (onder
andere veral weens die vermomming wat Schoop vir Fischer geskep het).
Vir ’n hedendaagse gehoor sal die figuur van Bram Fischer sekerlik meer bekend
wees as dié van sy oupa, Abraham Fischer. Ook in Bram se geval is daar redelik
uitvoerig oor sy rol in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis geskryf. Naas geskiedenisboeke
wat na sy besondere rol in veral die bekende Rivonia-verhoor verwys, bestaan daar
ook verskeie biografieë oor hom. Terwyl Jacobs se werk sekerlik as die belangrikste
bron oor die oupa, Abraham Fischer, beskou kan word, word die biografie wat Stephen
Clingman oor Abraham “Bram” Fischer geskryf het, deur die meeste navorsers as die
omvattendste en betroubaarste bron oor die kleinseun beskou. Hoewel beide Martin
Meredith en Hannes Haasbroek se Fischer-biografieë sterk steun op Clingman se
deeglike studie van Bram Fischer, gee elkeen wel ook nuwe perspektiewe op Bram
Fischer. Meredith is byvoorbeeld die enigste bron wat die rol wat Raymond Schoop
in Fischer se vervalste voorkoms gespeel het uiteensit, terwyl Haasbroek ook fokus op
die groot rol wat sy ma, Ella, in sy lewe gespeel het.
Dit is belangrik om kennis te neem van hierdie werke (biografieë) oor Bram Fischer,
aangesien Harry Kalmer se drama Die Bram Fischer-wals duidelik eerder as ’n
biografiese as ’n dokumentêre drama getipeer kan word. Volgens Ursula Canton (63)
is die bespreking van ’n biografiese drama in der waarheid afhanklik van ’n kennis
van sodanige bronne:
For biographical drama, an extra-theatrical approach to characters is a basic
requirement if a play is intended to provide the impression of a truthful reconstruction of a historical life […] For a biographical character the concept of
56
extra-theatricality has to be based both on formal similarities to human beings, and
on an overlap with previous discourses about this figure.
’n Vergelykende bespreking van Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie (1938) as
dokumentêre drama en Die Bram Fischer-wals (2011) as biografiese drama
In hierdie artikel val die fokus hoofsaaklik op ’n vergelykende bespreking van Pienaar
en Kalmer se dramas oor die twee bekende Fischer-mans. Alhoewel Harry Kalmer se
drama ook oor ’n bepaalde historiese persoonlikheid handel (Bram Fischer) en daar
verskeie verwysings gegee word na belangrike polities-historiese gebeurtenisse waarby
Bram Fischer betrokke was (onder andere die Rivonia-verhoor), verskil hierdie drama
totaal in aanslag van Pienaar se drama wat ook oor ’n aantal historiese persoonlikhede
(Milner, Kruger, Fischer) en ’n spesifieke polities-historiese gebeurtenis (naamlik die
Bloemfonteinse konferensie) handel.
In Kalmer se drama gaan dit duidelik oor die mens (die biografiese subjek)—Bram
Fischer—self: hy is aan die woord en die leser/toeskouer leer hom ken deur dit wat hy
onthul oor sy lewe. Nie net word sy politieke beskouings en belewenisse op passievolle
wyse oorgedra nie, maar ook sy private lewe en dramatiese ervarings daarbinne word
op ’n intens emosionele wyse uitgebeeld. Fischer is alleen op die verhoog en die werk
speel af in die tronksel waarin hy hom bevind ná sy skuldigbevinding as deelnemer
aan die bedrywighede van die verbode Suid-Afrikaanse Kommunisteparty (SAKP).
Binne hierdie beperkte ruimte herleef Fischer van sy mees openbare politiese ervarings (die Rivonia-verhoor) tot sy mees intieme en intense belewenisse (die dood van
sy vrou). Die leser/toeskouer bou ’n sterk empatiese band met die karakter op soos wat
die drama vorder—wat sekerlik kulmineer in die emosionele einde waarin Fischer se
sterwensdae by sy broer beskryf word. Terwyl Pienaar se drama ’n sekere historiese
insident (die konferensie in Bloemfontein) vooropstel, plaas Kalmer die persoon van
Bram Fischer op die voorgrond in sy drama. Pienaar wil duidelik ’n feitelike en (in sy
oë) histories korrekte voorstelling van die gebeure vir die leser/toeskouer konstrueer
en die rolle wat Alfred Milner, Paul Kruger en Abraham Fischer in daardie gebeure
gespeel het so outentiek moontlik in sy drama uitbeeld.
Kalmer se uitbeelding van Bram Fischer in sy drama staan in totale kontras met
Pienaar se werkwyse: in hierdie biografiese drama is die fokus meer op die persoon
(en die persoonlike belewing) as op die histories-feitelike gegewens. Bram Fischer
herroep wel verskeie gebeure en persone wat in ’n historiese konteks geplaas is en
selfs feitelik nagegaan kan word indien die leser/toeskouer dit sou wou doen. Kalmer
het duidelik ook (soos Pienaar) gebruik gemaak van bepaalde dokumente en bronne
(onder andere biografieë oor Fischer), soos wat hy ook in verskeie onderhoude vermeld
het. Die “feitelike” is hier egter ondergeskik gestel aan die belewenis van die onderskeie
insidente: terwyl Bram Fischer sy storie aan die leser/toeskouer “vertel”, herleef hy
57
intens emosioneel sekere tonele uit sy lewe en raak die leser/toeskouer ingetrek in sy
innerlike wêreld.
’n Verdere verskil is die feit dat Bram Fischer sy verhaal nie chronologies vertel
nie, maar dikwels verskillende insidente ineenvleg wat eers op dramatiese hoogtepunte
tot afsluiting gebring word. So is daar byvoorbeeld die geleidelike opbou tot sy vrou
se dood wat oor ’n aantal bladsye strek en eers in kort verwysings aangeraak word,
voordat haar dood weens verdrinking na ’n motorongeluk uiteindelik meer uitgebreid
aan die orde kom om sodoende hierdie insident op ’n emosionele klimaks te laat
eindig. Alhoewel die drama wel ’n oorwegend chronologiese tydsverloop het, veroorsaak die oproep van herinneringe dat ’n sekere vervlegting en geleidelike uitbou
van sekere herinneringe gegee word. Die gevolglike intieme toonaard van hierdie
drama staan in kontras met die oorwegend feitelike—amper saaklike—toon van
Pienaar se drama.
Opvallend in Pienaar se drama is die streng chronologiese uitbeelding van die
gebeure–selfs tot op die minuut, byvoorbeeld, die voorspel (“Bloemfontein, 9.50 v.m.,
31 Mei 1899, 24), die eerste toneel (“10-uur v.m.”, 27) en die tweede toneel (“5 Junie, 10
vm”, 38), naspel (“Clarens, Switserland, 1903”, 47), terwyl Die Bram Fischer-wals die
tydsbelewing van die gebeure op ’n baie meer subjektiewe wyse uitbeeld.
Die verskil in aanslag tussen Pienaar se dokumentêre drama en Kalmer se
biografiese drama is reeds op te merk in die onderskeie titels van die twee dramas.
Terwyl Pienaar se dramatitel die historiese Bloemfonteinse konferensie voorop stel, is
die titel van Kramer se werk duidelik gefokus op die persoon van Bram Fischer. Die
woord “geheime”ein die titel: Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie op die buiteblad
verleen ’n dramatiese toon aan hierdie titel en is sekerlik ook bedoel om die voornemende leser/toeskouer van die stuk se belangstelling in hierdie gebeure te prikkel.
Op die titelblad in die teks word die titel verder omskryf met spesifieke feite, naamlik: “Die geheime Bloemfontein-konferensie tussen President Kruger en Sir Alfred Milner 31
Mei–6 Junie 1899”.
Die titel van Kalmer se drama sou ook ’n voornemende toeskouer interesseer,
aangesien ’n bekende openbare persoonlikheid (Bram Fischer) hier met ’n ongewone
konnotasie (die wals) verbind word. Fischer se liefde vir dans (veral die wals) was
welbekend onder sy vriende en familie. Die titel is evokatief en opvallend juis as
gevolg van die jukstaposisie tussen die politieke persona (Fischer) en ’n persoonlike
handeling soos dans. Al is daar deurentyd net een persoon op die verhoog (die akteur
wat Fischer voorstel), simuleer hy verskillende danstonele tussen Fischer en sy vrou,
Mollie Krige, en word haar teenwoordigheid ook vir die gehoor opgeroep deur hierdie
simulasie. Kalmer het in ’n onderhoud verklaar dat die verhouding tussen Bram
Fischer en Molly Krige vir hom een van die “grootste Suid-Afrikaanse liefdesverhale”
is, en dit is duidelik dat hy hierdie verhouding ook op die voorgrond stel in sy
drama. Terwyl hy hom in die eng ruimte van ’n tronksel bevind, kry Bram se verlange
58
na die afgestorwe Mollie en sy verlange na fisieke vryheid uiting in die volgende
aangrypende verbeelde dansfantasie:
Ek hoor nog steeds die musiek in my kop van daardie aand in Waverley. Wanneer
dinge vir my te erg raak […] onthou ek daardie musiek en verbeel myself dat ek
met Mollie dans. Op belangrike dae […] soos die herdenking van haar en my seun
Paul se dood en my dogters Ruth en Ilse se verjaarsdag maak ek ’n punt daarvan
om regop te staan en dans. Maar meestal lê ek sommer net op die bed en verbeel
myself hoe ek die danspassies uitvoer en hardop tel. Soms droom ek, ek dans met
Mollie […] En dan droom ek, ek dans uit by my sel tot in die binneplaas van
Pretoria Local Prison en dan wals ons al hoe vinniger totdat ons begin opstyg en
die straatligte en Jakarandas al hoe kleiner word en ons tussen die sterre tol en
draai en bly dans tot in die voorkamer van ons huis in Beaumontstraat. (28)
Ten slotte
Al handel die twee dramas oor die twee Fischers albei oor bekende historiese
persoonlikhede en geskiedkundige gebeurtenisse, verskil die dramaturge se aanslag
in die onderskeie dramas grootliks; ’n verskil wat duidelik blyk uit die keuse om óf
op ’n meer objektief dokumentêre aanslag te fokus (Pienaar) óf om die biografiese
subjek op die voorgrond te plaas (Kalmer). Die persoon van Paul Kruger wat in albei
dramas ’n rol speel—prominent in die geval van Pienaar se drama en slegs by wyse
van ’n aanhaling in Kramer se drama—is nie net ’n interessantheid om terloops op te
merk nie, maar is in ’n breër Suid-Afrikaanse konteks ’n besondere ironiese gegewe
wat ook in die huidige politieke bestel voortleef.
In sy slotrede tydens sy eie hofsaak spreek Bram Fischer die volgende woorde
(verbatim deur Kalmer aangehaal in Die Bram Fischer-wals): “Ek het afgesluit met die
woorde van Paul Kruger oor die lotgevalle van die Boere in 1881. ‘Met vertrouwen
leggen wij onze zaak open voor de geheel de wereld. Het zij wij overwinnen, het zij
wij sterven: de Vrijheid zal in Afrika rijzen als de zon uit de morgenwolken’” (17).
Dit is duidelik dat Bram Fischer juis vir die Afrikaners die parallelle tussen die
twee vryheidstryde (die onderdrukte Afrikaners onder Britse bewind en die onderdrukte Afrikane onder die Afrikanernasionalistiese bewind) wou aantoon en die
ironiese ooreenkoms tussen hierdie twee konflikte wou blootlê. Die resonansie wat
hierdie aanhaling verkry het binne die Afrikane se vryheidstryd in Suid-Afrika is
sekerlik ’n verdere ironie. ’n Mens sou in der waarheid ’n studie van uitsluitlik hierdie
frase (“freedom shall rise in Africa like the sun from the morning clouds”) kan maak
in die ANC se geskiedenis.
Die twee dramas oor die twee bekende Fischers—Abraham en Bram—maak dus
nie net twee wêrelde oop wat histories op mekaar inspeel nie, maar roep ook gebeure
op wat steeds resoneer in die huidige Suid-Afrikaanse politieke bestel.
59
1.
2.
3.
4.
Aantekeninge
Hierdie slot herinner aan Jan F. E. Celliers se drama, Heldinne van die oorlog (1913), wat ook eindig
met ’n tableau vivant, naamlik wanneer die drama eindig met die sterftoneel van die jong seun
(Japie) in sy moeder (Bettie) se arms en waar die toneel as ’n direkte nabootsing van Anton van
Wouw se bekende beeldhouwerk by die Vrouemonument weergegee word (kyk bespreking in
Keuris, “Taferele” 756–65).
Jacobs som op bladsy 275 Milner se besware teen Kruger se voorgestelde beleid t.o.v. die Uitlanders
as volg op: “(1) Die tydperk wat ’n vreemdeling in die Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek moet inwoon
voordat hy volle stemreg kan kry, is langer as in die ander state van Suid-Afrika; (2) Die Uitlanders
het geen verteenwoordiging in die Eerste Volksraad nie; (3) Naturalisasie en die verkryging van
volle stemreg in die Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek vind nie gelyktydig plaas nie; (4) Die eed van
naturalisasie van die Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek bevat ook die afswering van vroe¸re
onderdaanskap.” Gebaseer op hierdie lys besware het Milner, volgens Jacobs “met die onmoontlike
eis vorendag gekom dat volle stemreg gegee moes word aan alle vreemdelinge wat vyf jaar of langer
in die land woonagtig was en aan die gewone voorwaardes voldoen het.”
Volgens Jacobs was Fischer die aangewese persoon om die deputasie te lei: “Abraham Fischer was
in die Oranje-Vrystaat, naas die President, die man met die grootste reputasie. Hy was regsgeleerde,
lid van die Uitvoerende Raad en president Steyn se mees beproefde raadsman. Fischer was dus die
aangewese man om deur beide Republieke afgevaardig te word en as voorsitter van die Deputasie
op te tree” (296).
Aanvaar vir publikasie in South African Theatre Journal.
Canton, Ursula. Biographical Theatre: Re-presenting Real People? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Clingman, Stephen. Bram Fischer: Afrikaner Revolutionary. Kaapstad: David Philip, 1998.
Haasbroek, Hannes. ’n Seun soos Bram: ’n Portret van Bram Fischer en sy ma Ella. Kaapstad: Umuzi
(Random House Struik), 2011.
Jacobs, D. S. Abraham Fischer in sy tydperk (1850–1913). Argief-jaarboek vir Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis/
Archives year book for South African history Vol II. Kaapstad: Kaapse Argiefbewaarplek, 1965.
Kalmer, Harry. Die Bram Fischer-wals. S.I.: s.n.
Keuris, Marisa. “Taferele, tableaux vivants, tablo’s en die vroeë Afrikaanse drama (1850–1950)”. LitNet
Akademies 9.2 (2012): 744–65.
______. “J. R. L. van Bruggen (Kleinjan) se eenbedryf Bloedrivier uit Bakens: Gedramatiseerde mylpale uit
die Groot Trek (1938/193 )’n terugblik vanuit 2013". Litnet Akademies 10.3 (2013): 629–50.
Meredith, Martin. Fischer’s Choice: A Life of Bram Fischer. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2002.
Paget, Derek. True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage. Manchester: Manchester UP,
1990.
Palmer, Richard H. The Contemporary British History Play. Londen: Greenwood, 1998.
Pienaar, W. J. B. Die geheime Bloemfontein-Konferensie (tussen President Kruger en Sir Alfred Milner 31 Mei–6
Junie 1899). Kaapstad: Nasionale Pers, 1938.
Van Bruggen, J. R. L. (Kleinjan). Bakens: Gedramatiseerde mylpale uit die Groot Trek. Johannesburg: Afrikaanse Pers, 1939.
60
Fransjohan Pretorius
Fransjohan Pretorius is emeritusprofessor in die Dept. Historiese en
Erfenisstudies, Universiteit
van Pretoria.
E-pos: fransjohan.pretorius@up.ac.za
Die historisiteit van resente
Afrikaanse historiese fiksie oor
die Anglo-Boereoorlog
The historicity of recent Afrikaans historical
fiction on the Anglo-Boer War
Authors of creative writing in the Afrikaans language find a rich source of dramatic material in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to
1902. Themes from this war that lend themselves superbly to be woven into historical novels and short stories, are the
concentration camps (where 28 000 Boer civilians died); the bitterness that plagued Afrikaners in the aftermath of the war; the
pride in Boer heroism on the battlefield; important historical figures; treason that lurked in Boer ranks; the relations, usually
fraught, with the British, with black people, with fellow-burghers and those with Boer women, often at an individual level. Then
there were the experiences of prisoners of war; and the Boers’ heartfelt religiosity—on the one hand the deepening of the
spiritual experience and on the other the incidence of apostasy; the disillusionment of defeat; and the challenge of reconstruction
after the war. In this paper recent historical fiction that has appeared since 1998 from distinguished Afrikaans writers on the
Anglo-Boer War is assessed to establish its historical authenticity. The author determines whether what is portrayed is historically
correct; what was possible but verges on the improbable, and what is factually incorrect. The works of Christoffel Coetzee, Ingrid
Winterbach, Sonja Loots, P.G. du Plessis, Karel Schoeman, Zirk van den Berg, Margaret Bakkes, Jeanette Ferreira, Engela van
Rooyen and Eleanor Baker are assessed. Finally, an attempt is made to indicate the fruits of co-operation between the writer of
historical fiction, the publisher and the historian. Keywords: Afrikaans historical fiction, Anglo-Boer War, historical authenticity.
Inleiding
In hierdie studie word resente historiese fiksie van vooraanstaande Afrikaanse skrywers
oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog van 1899–1902 beoordeel ten einde die historiese
korrektheid van voorstellings in die werke vas te stel. Met historiese fiksie word in
hierdie geval bedoel romans en kortverhale wat die Anglo-Boereoorlog as milieu het,
en met historiese korrektheid word in die eerste plek bedoel dat die skrywer sy of
haar verhaal teen ’n histories korrekte agtergrond laat afspeel. So byvoorbeeld sal die
bestaan van ’n konsentrasiekamp vóór September 1900 of blokhuislinies teen Januarie
1900 histories foutief wees. In die tweede plek word bedoel dat die skrywer histories
herkenbare figure in die verhaal na hul histories bekende aard laat optree. Om generaal
Piet Cronjé as ’n inskiklike en aarselende man uit te beeld, strook nie met die historiese
dokumente nie. In die derde plek word bedoel dat gebeure binne konteks moontlik
moet wees, want anders kan bloot gevra word waarom dan die moeite doen om ’n
61
tema uit die geskiedenis te neem. Uitspraak word oor die algemeen nie gelewer oor
die letterkundige gehalte van die tekste nie, maar waar dit wel gebeur, is dit om aan te
toon dat ’n teks wat aan historiese korrektheid inboet, nogtans ’n goeie verhaal mag
wees.
Hierdie studie is ten slotte ook ’n poging om die wenslikheid en moontlikheid
van samewerking tussen die skrywer, die uitgewer en die historikus aan te dui. Voorbeelde van sodanige samewerking word gegee. In die proses word gekyk na Afrikaanse
historiese fiksie in die tydperk 1998 tot 2014. ’n Tiental werke word onder die loep
geneem.
Die vernietigende Anglo-Boereoorlog wat tussen 1899 en 1902 op Suid-Afrikaanse
bodem gewoed het, verskaf ’n ryk bron vir kreatiewe skryfwerk in Afrikaans. Temas
uit hierdie oorlog wat ideaal geskik is om vir historiese romans en kortverhale
geëksploïteer te word, is die konsentrasiekampe (waar 28 000 Boere-burgerlikes gesterf
het); die gevolglike Afrikaner-bitterheid in die twintigste eeu; Boere-heldhaftigheid
op die slagveld; belangrike historiese figure; verraad in eie geledere; die verhouding
met die Britte op individuele vlak; die verhouding met swart mense, met medeburgers
op kommando en met Boerevroue; die ervaring van krygsgevangenes; godsdiens—
aan die een kant die verdieping van die geestelike ervaring en aan die ander die
verskynsel van afvalligheid; die ontnugtering van nederlaag; en die heropbouproses
ná die oorlog.
Afrikaanse skrywers se nasionale benadering tot die Anglo-Boereoorlog
Afrikaanse skrywers van historiese romans en dramas en veral volksdigters het in die
eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu die Anglo-Boereoorlog as tema geneem om die
heldedade van die slagveld te besing of die lyding en sterftes van die Boerevroue en
-kinders te betreur. Hulle het in Afrikaans geskryf, al was dit in die eerste kwarteeu
nog nie ’n amptelike taal van die staat nie.
Die gedigte van Jan F. E. Celliers, C. Louis Leipoldt en Totius (J. D. du Toit) het die
Afrikaanse poësie laat uitstyg bo blote rymelary. Gedigte soos Celliers se “Dis al” en
“Generaal de Wet”, Leipoldt se “Oom Gert vertel” en “Aan ’n seepkissie” en Totius se
“Vergewe en vergeet” het vir minstens drie geslagte in die boesem van die Afrikaner
gaan lê.
D. F. Malherbe se historiese roman Vergeet nie: Histories-romantiese verhaal uit die
Anglo-Boereoorlog het in 1913 verskyn. Gustav Preller, wat hom veral in die twintig- en
dertigerjare as volkshistorikus sou vestig, het in 1923 met Oorlogsoormag en ander
sketse en verhale die oorlog in herinnering gebring.
Die oplewing van Afrikanernasionalisme in die dertigerjare het vir ’n goeie oes
aan historiese romans oor en ’n mitologisering van die Anglo-Boereoorlog gesorg,
onder meer J. R. L. van Bruggen se Bittereinders in 1935, en T. C. Pienaar se ’n Merk vir
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die eeue in 1938. In 1941 het Ewald Esselen met Helkampe ontplof, wat ’n twintigtal
hoofstukkies van lydingsverhale uit die oorlog bevat, gebaseer op werklike gebeure
(Wessels 194–7).
Demitologisering van die Anglo-Boereoorlog in die Afrikaanse letterkunde
In die nagloed van die triomf van Afrikanernasionalisme het die demitologisering
van die Afrikaner se heroïese rol in die Anglo-Boereoorlog in die letterkunde egter
begin. N. P. van Wyk Louw, bekend vir sy lojaal-kritiese werke soos Die dieper reg en
Lojale verset, het vir die vyfjarige herdenking van die Republiek in 1966 ’n drama in
opdrag van die Transvaalse Raad vir Uitvoerende Kunste geskryf, getiteld Die pluimsaad
waai ver of bitter begin. Dit het hewige kritiek van die eerste minister, dr. H. F. Verwoerd,
ontlok vir sy empatieke skildering van ’n weifelende Transvaalse generaal as deel van
die verhaal. Dit het uiteindelik eers in 1972 by Human & Rousseau verskyn.
Sestigers soos André P. Brink en Jan Rabie het verkies om nie te skryf oor die era
van die Anglo-Boereoorlog nie wat vroeër gebruik is om Afrikanernasionalisme te
bevorder. Heldefigure of konsentrasiekampsmarte was nie deel van hulle
verwysingsraamwerk nie.
Die demitologisering het ’n inspuiting ontvang met Etienne Leroux se
Magersfontein, o Magersfontein! in 1976, ’n satiriese skets oor die Afrikaner se “heilige
geskiedenis”, aangesien die Slag van Magersfontein ’n skitterende Boereoorwinning
in Desember 1899 was. Die boek het opslae gemaak, want stoere Afrikanernasionaliste
het nie die satire in die teks waardeer nie. Dit het nogtans aan Leroux die gesogte
Hertzogprys van die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns besorg. In
dieselfde jaar het die dramaturg Pieter Fourie met Die joiner op die gebied van die
polities-betrokke teater beweeg—’n burger wat die Britte na die Boere se posisies lei
ten einde ’n aantal vroue van verkragting te red (Kannemeyer 314).
Só het ’n tydperk van demitologisering begin. Dit sou veral reflekteer in ’n aantal
belangrike historiese romans en kortverhale wat in 1998 rondom die herdenking van
die Anglo-Boereoorlog ’n aanvang geneem het, en tot die huidige voortduur.
Die eeuwending was ’n belangrike tydperk in die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika en
van die Afrikaner. Met die koms van die demokratiese Suid-Afrika in 1994 het die
Afrikaner die politieke beheer verloor wat hy bykans vyftig jaar lank geniet het. Saam
daarmee het sy ontnugtering gekom met die openbaringe voor die Waarheids- en
Versoeningskommissie van sekere regeringsvergrype teen teenstanders van apartheid.
Dit is bowendien opgevolg deur die honderdjarige herdenking van die AngloBoereoorlog van 1899 tot 1902. Aan die een kant het dit gelei tot ’n hernieude
belangstelling onder Afrikaners. Sowel die ouer garde as die nuwe generasie was
nuuskierig om te verneem van ’n oorlog en sy lyding wat menige van hulle slegs van
gehoor het en min van geweet het. Hulle het met trots gevoel hulle kon bewys lewer
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dat swart mense nie die enigste oorlogslagoffers in die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika
was nie—die Afrikaner het óók in die proses gely. Maar aan die ander kant het dit die
weg gebaan dat Afrikaners meer ontvanklik was vir ’n meer gebalanseerde skildering
van die Anglo-Boereoorlog—om die Afrikaner te sien met beide sy deugde en sy
vratte, en om selfs verder te gaan en ’n “alternatiewe” perspektief van die oorlog te
omhels. Daarmee word bedoel dat die rol van die antiheld belig word en dat die
Boere regtens of ten onregte en gedeeltelik of volkome in ’n negatiewe lig geteken
word (vgl. “Antiheld” in Cloete 13–4).
Wat veral treffend is, is die deeglike navorsing van die skrywers van historiese
fiksie in hierdie tydperk. Hulle maak gebruik van die beskikbare literêre bronne—
gepubliseerde dagboeke en herinneringe van die oorlog, en akademiese werke. Een
van die klassieke werke van die Anglo-Boereoorlog, Deneys Reitz se Commando: A
Boer Journal of the Boer War (1929), is veral benut in onlangse historiese romans. ’n
Akademiese bron wat geblyk het baie nuttig te wees vir agtergrondinligting oor die
ervaringswêreld van die burger op kommando, is Fransjohan Pretorius se
Kommandolewe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899–1902 (1991). Verskeie skrywers van
historiese fiksie het stof hieruit getap. Pretorius het ook ervaar dat skrywers teenoor
hom erken het dat hulle die boek nuttig gevind het in die skryf van hul historiese
fiksie.
Hier is dus ’n besonder bruikbare verhouding—noem dit ’n hartlike samewerking—tussen die historikus en die skrywer van historiese fiksie. Soos die historikus
André Wessels tereg verduidelik:
Aan die een kant is geskiedenis so ’n ernstige (belangrike) saak dat dit nie aan
historici alleen oorgelaat kan word nie, en skrywers, digters en dramaturge het
dus ook ’n rol te speel in die ontwikkeling van begrip van ons verlede. Aan die
ander kant is die letterkunde so ’n ernstige (belangrike) saak dat dit nie aan literatore
alleen oorgelaat kan word nie, en gevolglik het historici ook ’n rol te speel in die
kontekstualisering en verklaring van ’n bepaalde teks (Wessels 188).
Die historikus behoort dus nie met slimmighede oor historiese feitefoute te kom om
die skrywer van historiese fiksie oor sy verhaal te kritiseer nie, maar kan ’n nuttige rol
speel om die skrywer van historiese fiksie vóór publikasie op histories inkorrekte
inkleding van die geskiedenis te wys.
‘Alternatiewe’ historiese romans
’n Aantal belangrike “alternatiewe” historiese romans het in die laaste sestien jaar oor
die Anglo-Boereoorlog verskyn. Daarmee word bedoel tekste wat nie die standpunte
van Afrikanernasionaliste verteenwoordig nie—’n demitologisering van die
geskiedenis of die Afrikaner se nasionalistiese geskiedbeskouing dus, waarna vroeër
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verwys is. Anders gestel: ’n donker sy in die Afrikaner se geskiedenis, wat dikwels ’n
meer genuanseerde blik op die verlede bied.
Die eerste was Christoffel Coetzee se Op soek na Generaal Mannetjies Mentz in 1998,
’n soeke na die donker in die Afrikaner se geskiedenis van die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Vir
die hoë letterkundige waarde daarvan het dit minstens drie belangrike toekennings
ontvang—die M-Net-, Eugène Marais- en De Kat/Sanlampryse. André P. Brink het die
werk aangeprys: “What [Coetzee’s] novel reveals, not just about the ‘Afrikaner soul’ or
the underbelly of the Anglo-Boer War but about the darknesses and excesses of the
human psyche, makes it a milestone and a must-read in our post-apartheid literature”
(Brink).
Dit is die verhaal van ’n Boerekommando onder ene Generaal Mannetjies Mentz,
wat Boerekrygsgevangenes onder Britse bewaking weer gevange geneem het en hulle
gedwing het om weer by die Boerekommando’s aan te sluit. Indien hulle geweier het,
het hulle ’n aaklige dood tegemoet gegaan aan die hande van Mentz en sy manskappe.
In ’n onderhoud het Coetzee self verklaar: “Ek het grootgeword met een waarheid
oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Ek probeer nie om die geskiedenis te herskryf nie, maar
om ’n alternatiewe waarheid te skets, want elke oorlog het sy skadukant” (Nieuwoudt).
Die vraag is nou: hoe waar is hierdie alternatiewe waarheid wat Coetzee bied?
Sommige aksies en voorstellings in die boek was waar. Ten eerste het die oorgawe
van generaal Marthinus Prinsloo met 4 400 Vrystaters werklik plaasgevind. Dit was
in die Brandwaterkom, suid van Bethlehem, en het sedert 29 Julie 1900 oor ’n paar dae
gestrek. Korrek is ook die belangrike verskynsel dat Boerevroue en hul kinders in
groepe in die talle spelonke wat die Witte- en Roodeberge van die Brandwaterkom
gebied het, vir die res van die oorlog weggekruip het om nie deur die Britse magte na
konsentrasiekampe weggevoer te word nie. Derdens: ofskoon die meeste swart mense
op ’n Britse oorwinning gehoop het omdat hulle gereken het dat hulle politieke en
sosiale posisie daardeur bevoordeel sou word, strook die beskerming en hulp wat die
swart man Jan Witzie en sy mense aan Ma-hulle gebied het, tog ook met die werklikheid. Sommige swart mense het om verskeie redes hulp aan Boerefamilies verleen.
Onderdanigheid of skyn-onderdanigheid van getroue plaasarbeiders was een rede
daarvoor.
Sekere belangrike feitefoute of foutiewe voorstellings in die verhaal (dit wil sê
romanmateriaal wat nie deur historiese dokumente gerugsteun word nie) moet egter
aangedui word, omdat dit die geloofwaardigheid van die historiese gegewe in die
verhaal en sy konteks in die gedrang bring. In die eerste plek vervroeg Coetzee die
afbrandings van plase in die Oos-Vrystaat met ’n hele paar maande om by sy verhaal
in te pas. Hy plaas dit in Mei 1900, terwyl afbrandings van Boerewonings in hierdie
geweste eers teen Julie 1900 begin is. Tweedens plaas Coetzee die bestaan van die
refugee-laers in die Oos-Vrystaat te vroeg, naamlik Julie 1900. Die korrekte datum is
einde-1900. Derdens word daar vertel hoe die Boere teen Julie 1900 hul Britse
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krygsgevangenes van hul klere beroof het, terwyl dit eers in Mei 1901 ’n aanvang
geneem het.
Coetzee het met hierdie roman “alternatiewe waarhede” probeer aanbied, maar in
die proses sekere uitsonderings in Boere-optrede as die norm voorgestel. Dit is miskien
die verskil tussen die werk van die historikus en die romanskrywer: die historikus
skryf oor die algemene (hy veralgemeen) en wys op die uitsonderlike wat nie by sy
skema inpas nie; die romanskrywer skryf oor die uitsonderlike, want elke mens het ’n
verhaal, en stel dit voor asof die uitsonderlike die norm is.
Wat is dan hierdie alternatiewe waarhede wat Coetzee opdis? In die eerste plek was
daar nie so ’n persoon of generaal soos Mannetjies Mentz nie. Die ironiese name “man”
en “mens” waarmee hierdie offisier met sy onmenslike optrede gestempel is, val op. En,
tweedens, daar was nie so ’n kommando wat Boerekrygsgevangenes/wapenneerlêers
onderskep het, hulle ’n keuse gegee het om weer by die kommando’s aan te sluit en
diegene wat geweier het, dan wreed om die lewe gebring het nie. Coetzee het die
skepping van Mannetjies Mentz se kommando te danke (Coetzee 4–5) aan die ervaring
van die jong Deneys Reitz wat in die winter van 1901 op verskeie klein vrybuiterkorpse—”small private bands”—in die suidwes-Vrystaat afgekom het, “remnants of
larger forces that had dwindled away under the misfortunes of war”. Hulle was
verflenterde groepies wat die bietjie ammunisie tot hul beskikking op wild uitgeskiet
het en gelukkig was solank hulle uit die hande van die Britte kon bly. Aan die Sandrivier
het ene veldkornet Botha oor twee korporaals en ses manskappe bevel gevoer. ’n Groepie
in Fauresmith het rondom Deneys Reitz en sy makkers saamgedrom met die oproep:
“Maak dood die verdomde spioene”. Hierdie uitvaagsels is deur een van die vroulike
inwoners van die dorp beskryf as “riff-raff ejected from the fighting commandos,
existing on what they could rob and loot” (Reitz 181–4 en 195; Pretorius 231).
Hierdie vrybuiterkorpse wat rondgeswerf het, kan volgens beskikbare gegewens
nie met patriotisme aan die Boeresaak vereenselwig word nie en het nie die gemiddelde
Boer van 1900 verteenwoordig nie (Pretorius passim). Daar is ’n diskrepans tussen
gedokumenteerde historiese gegewe en Coetzee se romangegewe.
’n Tweede “alternatiewe” historiese roman is Ingrid Winterbach se werk Niggie in
2002, wat in 2004 die gesogte Hertzogprys verower het. Dit is nie in die Afrikaner
nasionale paradigma geskryf nie, waar die held in volkome beheer van sy lot en sy
hart sou wees.
Dit is ’n buitengewone verhaal. Twee Boere, Reitz Steyn en Ben Maritz (vir die
historikus irriterende samevoegings van historiese figure), wat as natuurwetenskaplikes op kommando diens doen, word deur ’n vrybuiter Boerekommando gevange
geneem. Hulle word van spioenasie beskuldig. Wanneer hulle ’n opdrag vir die
Boere-offisier uitvoer, word hulle gewond en deur simpatieke Boerevroue versorg.
Dit is nie ’n besonder sterk verhaal nie, maar dit beeld die ervarings van twee antihelde
uit wat in ’n oorlog opgevang word.
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Winterbach het ’n beperkte hoeveelheid maar goeie bronne geraadpleeg om haar
verhaal geloofbaar te maak. Soos gebruiklik, word hierdie bronne nie in haar werk
erken nie. En soos met Christoffel Coetzee se Mannetjies Mentz vorm Deneys Reitz se
vertelling van ’n vrybuiterkorps wat hy in die Vrystaat teëgekom het, ’n belangrike
agtergrond tot die verhaal. ’n Tweede belangrike bron vir Winterbach is die oorlogsdagboek van die later bekende digter, Jan F. E. Celliers, wat in 1978 gepubliseer is.
Die drome op kommando van die karakter Japie Stilgemoed in Winterbach se boek is
onbeskaamd Jan Celliers se voortdurende filosofering oor die oorlog. Vir die oningeligte leser is dit indrukwekkend, want drome is ’n belangrike tema in Winterbach
se werk, maar vir die historikus is dit ongemaklik dat Celliers so sonder erkenning
oorgeneem word.
In ’n gesprek by Aardklop op 30 September 2004 het Winterbach teenoor Pretorius bevestig dat sy goed gebruik gemaak het van sy werk oor die kommandolewe.
Trouens, in sy resensie van Niggie in Die Burger van 25 November 2002, het Gunther
Pakendorf opgemerk:
Niggie gee ’n realistiese naby-opname van die onbestendige lewe van die Boeremagte
teen die einde van die oorlog, “die nuttelose slingertogte … die verveling en ongerief
van hul daaglikse bestaan, die reën, die koue, die min kos” (bl. 221). Die karakters,
aktiwiteite en gesprekke kom plek-plek voor soos ’n fiksionele weergawe van
Fransjohan Pretorius se Kommandolewe, ruwe gewoontes, gekruide taal, boerse
humor, growwe vooroordele en al (Pakendorf ).
Ten spyte van Winterbach se goeie navorsing, vind ons in Niggie ’n hele aantal minder
belangrike historiese feitefoute en uitbeeldings wat nie met die historiese gegewe klop
nie. Enkele voorbeelde: op geen manier kon kommandant Senekal teen Februarie 1902
nog ’n walaer gehad het nie—want daar was nie meer genoeg waens op kommando
nie; daar word verkeerdelik voorgestel dat generaal Jan Smuts meer as een maal die
Kaapkolonie binnegeval het; daar was nie in die latere fase van die oorlog vuurhoutjies
beskikbaar vir Gert Smal om te kou nie; lord Milner was nie ’n “Cambridge boy” nie—
hy was op Oxford; die Britse nagtelike aanvalle het nie eers in November 1901 begin
nie, maar reeds in Mei 1901. Belangrik is egter dat daar by Winterbach sekere optredes
was wat kon gebeur het maar wat hoogs uitsonderlik sou wees. Die bestaan of nie van
so ’n wilde Boerekommando waarin Reitz Steyn en Ben Maritz hulle vasloop, is reeds
gemeld. Dit is moontlik dat die twee wetenskaplikes hulle in so ’n korps kon vasloop.
Gert Smal se swart assistent op kommando, Esegiël, is ’n verdere voorbeeld van
iemand wat kon bestaan het maar ’n uitsondering sou wees. Oor die algemeen het die
Boere hul Bybel goed geken, maar hier word Esegiël afgeskilder as iemand wat ’n
beter kennis van die Bybel het en ’n man wat die Boere reghelp as hulle daarmee
fouteer. Maar hy is ook Gert Smal se geheue, en wanneer hy gevra word, ken hy al die
datums en gebeure van die oorlog en die Afrikaner se geskiedenis paraat. So iets was
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moontlik, maar sou hoogs uitsonderlik wees. ’n Duitse vrywilliger by die Vrystaatse
magte, Oskar Hintrager, het juis in sy dagboek melding gemaak van die gewone
Boere se verstommende kennis van die Bybel ([Hintrager] 87, 117–8).
’n Derde “alternatiewe” historiese roman met die Anglo-Boereoorlog as tema is
Sonja Loots se Sirkusboere in 2011. Dit vertel die ware verhaal van die sirkusbaas,
Frank Fillis, wat ’n aantal Boere, swart mense en voormalige Britse soldate gekry het
om by die Wêreldtentoonstelling in St. Louis, VSA, in 1904 belangrike momente uit
die Anglo-Boereoorlog op te voer.
Prominent in die verhaal is die sirkusbaas Frank Fillis en die oud-Boeregeneraals,
Piet Cronjé, wat oneervol met 4 000 Boere by Paardeberg oorgegee het, en Ben Viljoen,
wat ook gedurende die oorlog krygsgevange geneem is en hoë aspirasies gehad het
om ná die oorlog ’n nuwe lewe in Meksiko te lei. Die karakterisering van hierdie drie
manne is besonder briljant—en histories verantwoordbaar. Kenmerkend is die skrywer se uitstekende empatieke benadering. Vir Frank Fillis het die lewe ’n sirkus gebly.
Cronjé was toegewy aan sy skanddaad—gedurende en ná die oorlog tot met sy eensame dood in 1911 is hy verwerp deur sy mede-Afrikaners wat sy oorgawe in die
oorlog met woede en minagting bejeën het. Hy is by uitstek die antiheld. Viljoen
weer, het sy verlede met gemak van hom afgeskud. Ofskoon hy naam vir homself
gemaak het met die veldslae van Vaalkrans en Helvetia, het sy optrede ná die oorlog
om ’n Afrikaner-nedersetting in Meksiko te vestig en sy ondersteuning om die diktatorskap van Porfirio Diaz van Meksiko omver te werp, hom nie geliefd gemaak nie
en hom inderdaad vervreem van die nasionale Afrikaners van die twintigste eeu. Hy
het nooit deel geword van die Afrikaner se nasionale paradigma nie.
Buitengewoon is die indrukwekkende sewe bladsye-diskussie deur Sonja Loots
van die bronne wat sy geraadpleeg het. Die belangrikste werke was Floris van der
Merwe se Die Boeresirkus van St Louis (1904) in 1998, Floris van der Merwe se Frank
Fillis: Die verhaal van ’n sirkuslegende in 2002, en J.W. Meijer se biografie, Generaal Ben
Viljoen 1868–1917 in 2000.
Vanweë die uitstekende navorsing is daar dus nie historiese feitefoute wat die
historikus pla nie. Konteks en feite en die skrywer se artistieke vermoë werk gevolglik
in harmonie saam om ’n besonder leesbare historiese roman aan te bied. Dit wek geen
verbasing nie dat dit verskeie toekennings ontvang het, soos die Eugène Marais-, die
M-Net- en die K. Sello Duikerpryse.
Besonder populêr is P. G. du Plessis se Fees van die ongenooides in 2008. Dit is ’n
historiese roman wat oorspronklik in Engels vir ’n televisiereeks geskryf is. Dit is ’n
briljante verhaal van die familie Van Wyk in die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Die slagveld en
die konsentrasiekamp speel ’n belangrike rol. Dit het die ATKV-, die Helgaard Steyn
en die Universiteit van Johannesburgpryse verower.
Wat kan in breë trekke aanvaar word as histories korrek? Die navorsing is deeglik
gedoen. Militêre feite is korrek. Alle veldslae en militêre gebeure wat in die loop van
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die verhaal vermeld word, kom in die korrekte volgorde voor. Oupa Daniël se oorgang
van ’n godvresende man na onverskilligheid was ongewoon, maar hierdie soort gedrag het tog voorgekom. Danie-hulle se ervarings op kommando in die guerrillafase
strook met die werklikheid (vgl. Pretorius passim). Hulle skud die Britse krygsgevangenes uit en vat hulle skoene, gewere en perde; hulle drink wortelkoffie en rook
blare; skiet ook nou almal met Engelse gewere; hulle word met dryfjagte teen die
goedbewaakte blokhuislinies vasgedruk; en baie burgers is (soos Deneys Reitz) geklee in goiingsak en enige ander bedekking waarop hulle hul hande kan lê.
Die verhoudinge in die konsentrasiekamp tussen die vroue wie se mans nog op
kommando was en die families van burgers wat die wapen neergelê het, word met
empatie uitgebeeld. Die Boerevroue se ervaring van die kamphospitale word waarheidsgetrou weerspieël deur Martie “en al die vroue” se denke: “Die hospitaal is die
dood self. Waar kom die storie van die kampowerhede vandaan dat elke sieke moet
hospitaal toe? Om wat te gaan maak? Ek sal jou sê: om te gaan sterf. Want daar kan
hulle hulle moordplanne van naby af uitvoer en van enige olike kind ’n lyk maak”
(Du Plessis 294). Toe Driena siek word, het Martie, omdat sy bang was die kind kry ’n
trek, soos die Boerevroue destyds in die kampe, die tent diggemaak en die siekte stil
gehou uit vrees vir die hospitaal. Die verbeteringe wat teen die einde van 1901 in die
konsentrasiekampe aangebring is—die werk van die Dameskomitee na aanleiding
van Emily Hobhouse se onthullings in Brittanje en die feit dat lord Milner die kampadministrasie by Kitchener oorgeneem het—word korrek deur Du Plessis deurgegee.
Wat is feitelik verdraaid om by die verhaal in te pas? Daar kon slegs een geval
gevind word waar Du Plessis die historiese feite verdraai het om sy storie te laat klop.
Dit is by die aankoms van die Van Wykvroue by die konsentrasiekamp êrens in die
Vrystaat teen einde Maart 1901: die rye grafte, die té groot begraafplaas, die lykswa
wat verbykom met drie kiste, terwyl daar reeds twee begrafnisse aan die gang is.
Daarmee saam: “Uit die sloot onder die hoenderstellasies [= toilette] het die
bedwelmende stank van ’n pes, van maagkoors se skittery, van verdierliking en
vernedering opgewalm” (Du Plessis 241).
Nee, die groot sterftes en maagkoors het nog nie einde Maart 1901 plaasgevind nie.
Volgens die amptelike syfers van Goldman in 1913 was daar in Maart 1901 in ál die
Vrystaatse kampe maar 119 sterfgevalle, en dit in vyftien kampe. Vir Maart 1901 is dit
vier sterftes per dag in vyftien kampe (d.w.s. nie eens een per kamp per dag nie). Die
groot sterftes was tussen Augustus en Desember 1901, toe daar in die Vrystaatse kampe
per maand tussen 1 164 en 1 514 gesterf het. Wanneer die sterftes gedy, vra die predikant
vir oupa Daniël om te help met begrafnisse, want “daar was toe soms byna veertig
begrafnisse op ’n dag”—in één kamp?! Dit is 1 200 per maand in één kamp. Daar was
wel soveel in al die kampe sáám in die tyd (Hobhouse 407–26). Hierdie verdraaiing
van die historiese feite kan moontlik as skrywersvryheid aanvaar word, maar dit gee
ongetwyfeld ’n skewe beeld van die werklike situasie.
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Wat kan as moontlik waar maar as hoogs uitsonderlik beskou word? Die skrywer
maak sekere voorstellings wat as moontlik waar aanvaar kan word, maar hoogs
uitsonderlik vir die tyd sou wees. Dit is sy metode om ’n goeie verhaal te vertel.
In die eerste plek is daar Magrieta se buitengewone verhouding met die Britse
kaptein Brooks wat sentraal in die verhaal staan. Dwarsdeur die teks smeul hierdie
verhouding sonder om werklik vlam te vat. Die Anglo-Boereoorlog het hom tot sulke
uitsonderlike verhoudings geleen, en daarom kan dit volkome as ’n gegewe aanvaar
word.
Tweedens, aangesien Daantjie hom as ’n bangerd openbaar, neem die Van Wyks se
getroue swart agterryer, Soldaat, sy rol as vegter oor. Telkens wanneer Daantjie met ’n
geveg kleinkoppie getrek het, het Soldaat ingespring en geskiet. Inderdaad is enkele
agterryers deur hul meesters in die Anglo-Boereoorlog toegelaat om met gewere aan
gevegte deel te neem. Soms was dit ’n eenmalige gebeurtenis, ander kere het so ’n
agterryer vir ’n geruime tyd aan Boerekant geveg (Pretorius 319–21).
Verliesfontein van Karel Schoeman (1998) is ’n werk wat nie in die kader van
bogenoemde historiese romans inpas nie. Die verteller is ’n historikus wat in geselskap
van ’n fotograaf deur die Karoo reis om inligting in te samel vir ’n boek oor die AngloBoereoorlog. Dit het te make met die Vrystaatse magte se inval in die Kaapkolonie in
die guerrillafase van die oorlog. Die historikus in die verhaal het vooraf uitgebreide
navorsing oor die betrokke dorp, Fouriesfontein, gedoen. Die dorp is meestal
Verliesfontein genoem as gevolg van veediefstalle en botsings tussen die vroeë blanke
setlaars en die Boesmans.
Die historikus in die verhaal raak op ’n vreemde wyse betrokke by die gebeure in
die dorp, ofskoon die inwoners volkome onbewus van sy teenwoordigheid is. Weinig
opspraakwekkends gebeur. In die verloop van die verhaal verneem hy die ervarings
van drie inwoners oor die kort beleg deur die Vrystaatse kommando’s. Aan die einde
tob hy oor die betekenis van hierdie drie stemme en sy eie ervaring van die verlede.
Willie Burger wys daarop dat die historiese “feite” soos dit in die roman aangebied
word en die drie stemme wat drie verskillende weergawes van gebeure gedurende
die Anglo-Boereoorlog vertel, bloot fiksie is. Verliesfontein of Fouriesfontein het nooit
bestaan nie. Die Slag van Vaalbergpas het nooit plaasgevind nie, geen rebel met die
naam Gideon Fourie het gesneuwel nie, en die Vrystaatse magte het nie ’n bruin
gemeenskapsleier met die naam Adam Balie tereggestel nie. Dit is waarom die
historikus en die fotograaf nie die dorp kan vind nie. Die historikus ervaar die dorp
slegs in sy verbeelding. Sy ervaring is egter nie bloot fiksie nie, sê Burger. Dit verskaf
’n moontlike geskiedenis van ’n dorp, soortgelyk aan soveel ander dorpe waaroor die
historikus navorsing gedoen het. En, soos Burger daarop wys, dit is die soort gebeure
wat hulle in talle ander dorpe van die Noord-Kaap in die Anglo-Boereoorlog afgespeel
het. Die lot van Adam Balie verwys kennelik na die ervaring van Abraham Esau, ’n
bruin gemeenskapsleier van Calvinia, wat die Boere-inval openlik weerstaan het en
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uiteindelik deur hulle tereggestel is (Burger 107). Schoeman het trouens reeds in 1985
’n artikel oor die lot van Abraham Esau geskryf (Schoeman, “Abraham Esau” 56–66).
In Verliesfontein is daar geen opsigtelike historiese feitefoute nie, enersyds omdat
Schoeman in verskeie historiese werke oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog bewys gelewer het
van sy deeglike navorsing en kennis van die oorlog, en andersyds omdat daar slegs
vae verwysings na die militêre gebeure voorkom. Die belangrikste is egter dat die
skrywer daarin slaag om, soos in sy debuutnovelle, Veldslag (1965), die lotgevalle en
atmosfeer in ’n dorp tydens hierdie oorlog uitmuntend en geloofbaar te belig.
Die jongste historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog is Zirk van den Berg se
Halfpad een ding, wat in 2014 verskyn het. Dit is die verhaal van ’n Nieu-Seelander,
Gideon Lancaster, wat met ’n kontingent uit Kiwiland aan Britse kant veg, maar deur
’n offisier van die Britse Intelligensiediens, majoor Bryce, gevra word om met sy
vermoë om Nederlands te praat ’n Boerekommando te infiltreer en die Britte van
inligting te voorsien wat tot generaal Christiaan de Wet se gevangeneming sal lei.
Daar word geglo dat die oorlog dan verby sal wees.
Die histories korrekte uitbeelding getuig feitlik deurgaans van die skrywer se
goeie navorsing en kennis van die Anglo-Boereoorlog—soos byvoorbeeld dat dit die
eerste groot oorlog was wat deur beide partye met rooklose ammunisie geveg is; en
dat daar lang tye van niksdoen in die guerrillafase was waartydens daar weinig
militêre kontak voorgekom het. Soms strook die vertelling selfs tot in die kleinste
besonderheid met die feite, soos dat 1 September 1901 inderdaad ’n Sondag was.
Aan Britse kant is dit byvoorbeeld korrek dat hul Intelligensiediens (naas die
inwin van inligting oor die vyand) te doen gehad het met die opstel van kaarte; dat ’n
paar Maori’s in die Nieu-Seelandse eenhede ingeglip het; dat die Britse Mediese
Korps X-straalmasjiene gehad het (“ ’n masjien wat binne-in jou lyf kan kyk”); dat die
Britse burgerlike owerhede die konsentrasiekampe by die leër oorgeneem het ná die
hoë dodetal vroeër; en dat generaal De Wet die 11th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry by
Groenkop op Kersdag 1901 verslaan het.
Aangesien die verhaal hoofsaaklik oor Gideon se ervaring tussen die Boere op
kommando gaan, is dit belangrik om te kyk wat die skrywer van hierdie ervaringswêreld maak. Ook hier is hy kundig. Dit is byvoorbeeld korrek dat De Wet nie sy
burgers ingelig het oor waarheen ’n trek gaan voordat dit omtrent tyd was om te
vertrek nie, en dat hy soms sy sambok op ’n onwillige burger gebruik het; dat daar
Jode (soos Matzdorff) saam met die Boere op kommando was; dat beesvelry as straf en
vernedering korrek uitgebeeld word; dat baie Boere in die guerrillafase Britse gewere
gebruik het omdat die ammunisie vir hul Mausers op was; dat mieliepap belangrik
was as voedsel in die guerrillafase, veral in die Oos-Vrystaat; dat die Boere teen Oktober
1901 al meer Britse uniforms gedra het en dat ’n Boer in Britse uniform volgens
proklamasie van lord Kitchener geskiet sou word; dat ’n fiets oor ruwe terrein vinniger
bewys is as ’n perd; en dat die Boere nêrens gehad het om krygsgevangenes te hou
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nie, en hulle hul gewoonlik sonder klere of wapens vrygelaat het. Dit is ook korrek
dat kolonel Rimington (egter nie Remington soos die skrywer dit spel nie) in
November 1901 in bevel was van die 3rd New South Wales Mounted Rifles wat vir De
Wet in die noordoos-Vrystaat probeer vastrek het.
Daar is enkele situasies wat hoogs uitsonderlik maar moontlik was. Een so ’n
geval is die sentrale gebeurtenis—Gideon se infiltrasie as Nieu-Seelander van die
Boeremagte. Hy het hom as ’n Nederlander, afkomstig van Nederlands Oos-Indië,
voorgedoen, en só sy kennis van Nederlands wat hy aan moedersknie geleer het,
ingespan om te kommunikeer. Dalk word hy te geredelik deur die Boere aanvaar. ’n
Ander uitsonderlike verskynsel is Esther se aansluiting by Eksteen se kommando, al
gebeur dit teen die einde van die verhaal wanneer daar slegs die een militêre kontak
voorkom. In die lig van byvoorbeeld Sarah Raal se werklike aansluiting op
kommando tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog (Pretorius 350) is hierdie uitsondering
aanvaarbaar.
Daar het egter ’n klompie feitefoute en onhistoriese uitbeeldings deurgeglip. Dit
was byvoorbeeld nie Kitchener wat eerste besluit het om Boerevroue in konsentrasiekampe te plaas nie, maar lord Roberts; die Vrystaatse joiners was nie die Orange
River Volunteers nie, maar die Orange River Colony Volunteers; mens sit nie ’n koeël
in ’n loop nie, maar ’n patroon; die Britse lansiers het nie aan die Tugela geveg nie
(Elandslaagte, waar hulle wel beroemdheid/berugtheid verwerf het, is nie aan die
Tugela nie); Boere-wapenneerlêers het nie ’n eed van getrouheid aan die Britse monarg
onderteken nie, maar ’n eed van neutraliteit; die Vrystaters het nie by Majuba (in die
Eerste Anglo-Boereoorlog) geveg nie; Eksteen as een van De Wet se voortreflikste
kommandante sou teen einde November 1901 al geweet het dat koningin Victoria in
Januarie 1901 oorlede is; daar sou nie teen Oktober en November 1901 nog beskuit,
koffie, suiker en vuurhoutjies beskikbaar gewees het nie; en Kitchener het nie die
rang van veldmaarskalk gehad nie.
Samewerking tussen skrywer, uitgewer en historikus
Uit die voorafgaande is dit duidelik dat indien die skrywers en uitgewers met ’n
historikus gekonsulteer het, talle historiese foute en onjuiste uitbeeldings vermy kon
gewees het sonder om aan die verhaal afbreuk te doen. Die vraag is eenvoudig: waarom
sou ’n skrywer ’n historiese onderwerp neem en dan nie ’n histories korrekte milieu,
karakters of gebeure skep nie? Skrywer hiervan pleit dus vir noue samewerking
tussen die skrywer van historiese fiksie, die uitgewer en die historikus.
’n Uitstekende voorbeeld van sodanige samewerking word gevind in Margaret
Bakkes se Fado vir ’n vreemdeling (2011). Hierdie verhaal het die Boere-geïnterneerdes
in Portugal tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog as realistiese agtergrond. Maar die verhaal
van die hoofkarakter, Cornelis Homan, is verbysterend-tragies—en ontstellend waar.
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By die historikus O. J. O. Ferreira het Margaret Bakkes verneem van die lotgevalle
van Homan, wat saam met ’n duisend Boere in Portugal geïnterneer is—’n
bywonerseun wat vanaf die platteland in Johannesburg teregkom, op kommando
tydelik sy selfvertroue vind, in Portugal geïnterneer word, ná die oorlog na sy in
prostitusie vervalle eggenote terugkeer, van haar skei en dan met ’n verwagtende
Portugese meisie trou deur die gemene spel van die bruid se vader uit ’n
vooraanstaande gesin wat hy in Portugal leer ken het. Die afloop is onvermydelik
tragies.
Bakkes maak uiteindelik ’n aangrypende verhaal daarvan, met uitgebreide gebruikmaking van en erkenning aan Ferreira se navorsing, soos dit gestalte gevind het
in sy boek Viva os Boers! Sy gee aan Homan vlees en bloed en gees. Sy kloof onvoorstelbare smart en lyding oop. Jy vra die vraag: kon al hierdie dinge met één mens
gebeur het? Maar dan besef jy: ja, dit hét inderdaad. Die broosheid van verhoudings
lê weerloos oop. Dit is ’n werk wat lesers aan die hart sal gryp.
Skrywer hiervan wil ’n laaste aspek aanroer oor tekste waarby hy persoonlik
betrokke was. Dit is ’n aanwyser van die moontlikhede van die samewerking tussen
die skrywer van historiese fiksie, die uitgewer en die historikus.
Jeanette Ferreira, ’n vooraanstaande Afrikaanse skrywer van historiese fiksie, wat
tussen 1995 en 1999 ’n trilogie aan historiese romans oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog geskryf
het, en wat bekend is vir die deeglike navorsing in haar werk, was in 1998 die redakteur
van ’n bundel met 34 verhale oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Die titel daarvan is
Boereoorlogstories. Die uitgewer is Tafelberg, en 31 outeurs het tot die bundel bygedra.
Dit het soveel sukses behaal dat Tafelberg onlangs op ’n tweede uitgawe besluit het.
Deur bemiddeling van Ferreira, het Riana Barnard van Tafelberg skrywer hiervan
versoek om die historiese korrektheid van elke verhaal na te gaan. Vervolgens het hy
die verhale noukeurig deurgegaan, terwyl hy feitefoute wat die verhale of enige iets
in die verhale ongeloofbaar gemaak het, uitgewys het. Die daaruitspruitende tweede
uitgawe in 2011 was ’n uitmuntende sukses, wat sowel populariteit as verkope betref.
Dit kan verklaar word aan die hand van die reuse-belangstelling wat daar sedert die
100-jarige herdenking van die Anglo-Boereoorlog by die Afrikaanse leser aangetref
word.
Aangevuur deur hierdie sukses het Barnard Ferreira versoek om ’n tweede bundel
verhale oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog saam te stel. Weer eens is skrywer hiervan versoek
om die historiese korrektheid te ondersoek. Hierdie keer is hy ook gevra om ’n
Voorwoord te skryf waarin hy oor die vrugbare samewerking tussen die skrywer van
historiese fiksie en die historikus kommentaar lewer. Boereoorlogstories 2 met 32 verhale
deur 31 outeurs het in 2012 opgedaag, en dit geniet steeds groot sukses.
Watter soort historiese feitefoute is aan die uitgewer deurgegee? ’n Aantal
voorbeelde uit die manuskripte vir Boereoorlogstories 2 sal voldoende wees. In een van
die verhale stel die skrywer dit in sy manuskrip voor asof ’n Boere-dialoog in
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Nederlands plaasvind. Die waarheid is egter dat die Boere Afrikaans gepraat het. In
’n ander verhaal word voorgestel asof generaal Michael Prinsloo met 3 000 burgers
oorgegee het. In werklikheid was dit Michael se broer, generaal Marthinus Prinsloo,
wat met 4 400 man oorgegee het—trouens generaal De Wet het by geleentheid
droogweg opgemerk dat as hy ’n honderd Michael Prinsloo’s gehad het, hy Londen
sou kon inneem. En dan het een van die outeurs die bestaan gemeld van ’n
konsentrasiekamp in Februarie 1900. In werklikheid het die eerste konsentrasiekampe
eers teen September 1900 verskyn.
Die samewerking het ook daartoe gelei dat Barnard skrywer hiervan genader het
om die historiese akkuraatheid van die epiese Vuur op die horison deur Engela van
Rooyen (Engela Linde) na te gaan met die oog op ’n tweede uitgawe. Die eerste
uitgawe het in 2000 verskyn en die tweede, waar die korreksies of veranderinge volgens
sy rapport aangebring is, in 2012. Die verhaal, wat empatie vir sowel Boer as Brit en
swart man toon, strek oor generasies en kontinente, en begin in 1846. Weer eens
kenskets deeglike navorsing die teks, maar die oog van die historikus het inderdaad
’n aantal feitefoute en onwaarskynlike voorstellings raakgesien, wat die skrywer kon
korrigeer. Dit het die gehalte van die teks verhoog en groter geloofbaarheid aan die
verhaal gegee. Enkele voorbeelde: teen 1846 het Pretoria en die twee Boererepublieke
nog nie bestaan nie; ’n Mauser het nie rook gemaak wanneer dit afgevuur word nie;
teen Februarie 1900 was daar nog nie sprake van krygsgevangenekampe in Bermuda,
Ceylon en Indië nie; dit was nie regerings van Europa wat ambulanse na die Boere
gestuur het nie, maar private instansies; teen September 1900 was dit nie Kitchener se
verskroeideaardebeleid nie, maar Roberts s ’n; en ’n onjuiste voorstelling van die
vredesproses is gegee.
Skrywer hiervan het Riana Barnard, Jeanette Ferreira en Engela Linde versoek om
kommentaar te lewer op die positiewe samewerking met ’n historikus.
Barnard reken ’n skrywer en ’n historikus is elk ’n vakman met spesifieke vaardighede:
Natuurlik word daar van ’n skrywer verwag om goeie navorsing te doen, maar dit
beteken nie dat hy genoegsaam akademies “geskool” is om dit op ’n professionele
vlak te doen nie. […] Net so het ’n historikus nie noodwendig die literêre agtergrond
en (taal)vaardighede om byvoorbeeld karakterontwikkeling, die skep van intrige
of tyds- en ruimtehantering met dieselfde gemak as ’n egte skrywer te hanteer nie.
Sy is van mening dat ’n goeie skrywer weet wat hy nie weet nie, en dat dit dikwels
gebeur dat pryswennende skrywers (soos P. G. du Plessis of Alexander Strachan) hulp
koöpteer, soos Dalene Matthee vir Dan Sleigh betaal het vir sy navorsing toe sy
Pieternella van die Kaap aangedurf het. Barnard voeg by: “Daarby dink ek dat die
historikus en skrywer mekaar op ’n natuurlike wyse aanvul omdat hulle toegang het
tot verskillende bronne”—die historikus is afhanklik van formele dokumente wat in
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argiewe bewaar word, terwyl die skrywer blootgestel is aan persoonlike verhale en
familiegeskiedenisse wat direk uit die lewe kom. Sy gee die mooi voorbeeld van Klaas
Steytler wat vir sy Ons oorlog (2001) die vertelling van familielid Klasie Havenga
gebruik het as die impetus van verraaier S. G. Vilonel se verhaal—Havenga het dit
persoonlik belewe. Sy vervolg:
Daarom sou ek raai dat die skrywer ’n breër perspektief, ’n wyer hoek kan hê as
die historikus. En dat hy ’n stem kan gee wat ander perspektiewe en nuanses bied
op die geskiedenis as dit wat formeel opgeteken staan. Daarby beskik historiese
fiksie ook oor die vermoë om die geskiedenis aan ’n wyer leserspubliek bekend te
stel, lekker verpak in intrige. Mits dit natuurlik goeie historiese fiksie is (Barnard).
Ferreira stem saam: “Al is die skrywer se navorsing hoe deeglik, het sy die professionele
historikus se perspektief op die algemeen aanvaarde opvattings van die era waaroor
sy skryf, nodig.” Ferreira glo dat historiese korrektheid vir die skrywer van kardinale
belang is—die teks verloor geloofwaardigheid indien dit nie met die werklikheid
versoenbaar is nie. ’n Mens kan byvoorbeeld nie Nelson Mandela se vrylating in 1994
set in plaas van 1990 nie. “Enige teks staan soos ’n wilgeboom met sy wortels in die
water van historiese feite.” Op die vraag waar die balans tussen verbeelding en
historiese feite lê, het sy opgemerk dat die skrywer jag maak op daardie sake wat NIE
opgeteken is nie: “Dit staan nêrens dat Louis Tregardt nie blou oë gehad het nie.” So,
omdat sy wou, kon sy vir hom blou oë gee (Ferreira).
Engela Linde noem die samewerking tussen die skrywer en die historikus “’n
soort tapisserie-affêre”. Sy verklaar: “Ek het my nie die vryheid veroorloof om die
fiksie van ’n Anglo-Boereoorlog-roman te weef alvorens ek die historiese gegewe as
stramien gevestig het nie. Sonder vrees vir teenspraak wil ek die stelling maak dat ek
kwalik ’n sin geskryf het sonder navorsing daaragter (of sê dan maar ’n bladsy…).” Sy
verduidelik dat sy die Slag van Modderrivier (28 November 1899) so korrek moontlik
weergegee het, deur kruis-en-dwars navorsing. “Ja, De la Rey was daar en ja, sy seun
Adriaan is daar dodelik gewond. MAAR, en hier kom die artist’s prerogative aan die
man: my fiktiewe karakter Frans Viljoen gesels met De la Rey, tree op as ’n medeoffisier, verloor ook sy eie seuntjie daar. Historie en storie sou hier nie sonder mekaar
kon bestaan nie.”
Linde erken dat, ofskoon sy nie ’n bronnelys aangegee het nie vanweë die
geforseerdheid daarvan in ’n fiktiewe “storie”, sy diep dankbaar is teenoor historici
soos Pieter Cloete, Fransjohan Pretorius (veral sy Kommandolewe), Thomas Pakenham,
J. H. Breytenbach en Jan Ploeger. “Laaste maar nie die minste nie”, sluit sy af, “die fyn
vak-oog van die historikus was van onskatbare waarde tydens redigering en
heruitgawe.” Sy het spesifiek verwys na die historikus se “kosbare werk” met die
heruitgee van Vuur op die horison. Al was die meeste van haar karakters fiktief, was dit
vir haar tog belangrik dat Wynand op Spioenkop die regte tipe kanonne ervaar, soos
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Frans by Modderrivier, of Klint by Stormberg. Die kanonne is volgens haar maar een
voorbeeld van die historikus se deeglike en hoogs gewaardeerde redigering.
Oor die samewerking tussen historikus en skrywers van historiese fiksie verklaar
Linde:
Ek wil die stelling maak dat die fiksieskrywer die historikus veel, veel nodiger het
as omgekeerd. Die skrywer sou sy verhaal nie kon daarstel sonder die historiese
gegewe nie. Die historikus, daarenteen, is hom dalk kwalik bewus van die lekkerlees
verhale wat verskyn en waartoe sy werk miskien bygedra het. Die fiksie raak sy
koue klere nie, as ek dit respekvol so kan stel. Hy het dit nie nodig ten einde sy taak
as historikus voort te sit nie (Linde).
Vir Ferreira is die samewerking kosbaar. Sy reken die manier waarop sy en die historikus aan Boereoorlogstories 2 saamgewerk het, is ’n uitstekende voorbeeld van hoe dit
gedoen kan word (Ferreira).
Daar is natuurlik die gevaar dat die skrywer oorboord kan gaan, en te veel feitemateriaal kan invoeg oor klein of minder belangrike insidente en situasies. Die teks
kan dan pedanties word, en die leser sal gou besef dat hy/sy besig is om opgevoed te
word en onnodige detail gevoer word. Dit is die geval met Eleanor Baker se historiese
roman Groot duiwels dood (1998), waar sy byvoorbeeld generaal De Wet se gepubliseerde
herinneringe en Pretorius se Kommandolewe buitensporig in briewe van Johannes
aan sy vrou, Cornelia, aanwend (149–52, 292–96).
Ten slotte
Skrywers van historiese fiksie speel ’n belangrike rol om ’n kreatiewe en histories
realistiese verlede vir hul lesers uit te beeld. Andersins maak dit geen sin om ’n
historiese tema te neem nie. Hulle het ’n groot verantwoordelikheid om versigtig met
historiese feite om te gaan. Hul navorsing behoort van die hoogste gehalte te wees,
trouens nie veel swakker as wat van historici verwag word nie. Waar moontlik en
toepaslik kan hulle van oorspronklike dokumente (primêre dokumente) gebruik
maak—dalk familiebriewe op die solder—maar die geleentheid bestaan vir hulle om
op akademiese werke van historici staat te maak, dit wil sê van sekondêre bronne.
Daarby is die historikus maar al te gewillig om te help met die verskaffing van stof, en
ook om manuskripte deur te gaan vir historiese feitefoute. Daarom word kragtiger
bande tussen die skrywer van historiese fiksie, die uitgewer en die historikus in die
Afrikaanse letterkunde bepleit en in die toekoms voorsien.
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Erkenning
Dank aan die Nasionale Navorsingstigting vir ondersteuning. Menings uitgespreek is dié van die
skrywer. Ook dank aan Jeanette Ferreira wat die finale teks voor publikasie deurgegaan het.
Baker, Eleanor. Groot duiwels dood. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 1998.
Bakkes, Margaret. Fado vir ’n vreemdeling. Pretoria: Lapa, 2011.
Barnard, Riana. “Re: Samewerking”. Boodskap aan skrywer, 20 Sept. 2013. E-pos.
Brink, André. “Anglo-Boer War Spawns Milestone in New Fiction.” The Sunday Independent. 2 Aug.
1998.
Burger, Willie. “Karel Schoeman’s Voices from the Past: Narrating the Anglo-Boer War”. 105–6. Referaat
by ’n konferensie van die Poetry and Linguistics Association, Potchefstroom, April 1999.
Cloete, T. T. Red. Literêre terme en teorieë. Pretoria: HAUM-Literêr, 1992.
Coetzee, Christoffel. Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz. Kaapstad: Queillerie, 1998.
Du Plessis, P. G. Fees van die ongenooides. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2008.
Ferreira, Jeanette, red. Boereoorlogstories. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, 1998.
_____. Boereoorlogstories. Tweede uitgawe. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2011.
_____. Boereoorlogstories 2. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2012.
Ferreira, Jeanette. “Re: Samewerking”. Boodskap aan skrywer, 21 Sept. 2013. E-pos.
Ferreira, O. J. O. Viva os Boers! Boeregeïnterneerdes in Portugal tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog, 1899–1902.
Pretoria: O. J. O. Ferreira, 1994.
[Hintrager, Oskar]. Met Steijn en De Wet op kommando. Rotterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1902.
Hobhouse, Emily. Die smarte van die oorlog en wie dit gely het. Tweede druk. Kaapstad: Nasionale Pers,
1941.
Kannemeyer, John. Die Afrikaanse literatuur 1652–1987. Pretoria: Academica, 1988.
Linde, Engela. “Re: Samewerking”. Boodskap aan skrywer, 22 Sept. 2013. E-pos.
Loots, Sonja. Sirkusboere. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2011.
Nieuwoudt, Stephanie. “Roman beweeg na aan werklikheid”. Die Burger 20 Mei 1998.
Pakendorf, Gunther. “Hede word verlede. Winterbach wys weer sy is formidabel.” Die Burger 25 Nov.
2002.
Pretorius, Fransjohan. Kommandolewe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog 1899–1902. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau,
1991.
Reitz, Deneys. Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War. London: Faber & Faber, 1929.
Schoeman, Karel. “Die dood van Abraham Esau: ooggetuie berigte uit die besette Calvinia, 1901”.
Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library 40.2 (1985): 56–66.
Schoeman, Karel. Verliesfontein. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 1998.
Van den Berg, Zirk. Halfpad een ding. Johannesburg: Penguin, 2014.
Van Rooyen, Engela. Vuur op die horison. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2000.
_____. Vuur op die horison. Tweede uitgawe. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2012.
Wessels, André. “Die Anglo-Boereoorlog (1899–1902) in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: ’n geheelperspektief ”.
Die Joernaal vir Transdissiplinêre Navorsing in Suider-Afrika 7.2. (Des. 2011): 185–204.
Winterbach, Ingrid. Niggie. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2002.
77
Willie Burger
Willie Burger is die hoof van die
Departement Afrikaans, Universiteit
van Pretoria.
E-pos: willie.burger@up.ac.za
Historiese korrektheid en historiese
fiksie: ’n respons
Historical correctness and historical fiction:
a response
In this article the relationship between history and fiction is examined in response to the historian, Fransjohan Pretorius’s criticism
of recent Afrikaans fiction about the Anglo-Boer War in Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 52.2 (2015). The intricate relationship between
history and fiction is examined by pointing, on the one hand to the problematic of the relationship between history and the past
and on the one hand, to the difference between fiction and history. The function of aesthetic illusion, verisimilitude and
conceptions of reference is investigated theoretically before turning to the specific novels that Pretorius discusses. The article shows
that historical fiction cannot be restricted to novelized versions of accepted history, but that historical fiction also reminds the
reader that the past is always culturally mediated and that the primary aim of novels is not to represent the past but to examine
aspects of human existence. A comparison between fiction and history can therefore not be used as a norm to assess novels.
Keywords: aesthetic illusion, historical fiction, history fiction, verisimilitude.
Inleiding
In sy artikel, “Historisiteit van resente historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog in
Afrikaans”, sluit die bekende historikus, Fransjohan Pretorius (2015), aan by die soort
vrae wat dikwels deur lesers van historiese fiksie gevra word, naamlik: “Het dit regtig
só gebeur?”, “Is dít hoe dit werklik was?”
Hierdie vrae is geldig en dit is ook gepas dat ’n historikus derglike vrae oor romans waarin historiese gebeurtenisse beskryf word, ondersoek. Pretorius dui noukeurig aan waar verskeie onlangse romans afwyk van die aanvaarde historiese feite
oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog. Hy wys byvoorbeeld daarop dat sommige gebeurtenisse
wat in die romans beskryf word, “foutief ” is omdat die datum waarop dit plaasvind
nie met historiese bronne klop nie of omdat anachronismes in die beskrywings
voorkom soos dat karakters in die fiksieteks mekaar deur Mauserrook aankyk, terwyl
Mausers in der waarheid nie rook gemaak het nie. Ander gebeurtenisse of optredes
deur historiese figure wat in die fiksietekste voorkom word weer deur Pretorius as
“moontlik, maar hoogs uitsonderlik” beskryf.
Pretorius is ’n gevestigde historikus en kan gesaghebbend oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog skryf. Sy werkswyse om historiese fiksie met die historiese bronne te vergelyk,
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lewer interessante inligting op en die uiteindelike gevolgtrekking waartoe Pretorius
oor die samewerking tussen skrywers, uitgewers en historici kom, naamlik dat
sodaninge samewerking kan lei tot meer geloofwaardige fiksie oor die verlede, is ’n
geldige (indien enigsins voor-die-hand-liggende) afleiding. Pretorius bly egter nie
by hierdie uitgesproke doelstelling om die waarde van samewerking tussen historici
en fiksieskrywers te bespreek nie: hy maak ook ’n aantal ander uitsprake waaruit sy
onderliggende (en soms onuitgesproke) aannames oor historiese fiksie blyk. In hierdie
artikel word enkele van die aannames in die Pretorius-artikel as vertrekpunt gebruik
vir ’n ondersoek na die aard van historiese fiksie, die aard van geskiedskrywing en
die verhouding tussen geskiedskrywing en historiese fiksie.
Pretorius se ondersoek fokus op een aspek van historiese fiksie, naamlik historiese
geloofwaadigheid. Sy ondersoek word onderlê deur ’n mening oor wat historiese
fiksie behoort te wees. Vir hom is historiese fiksie ’n soort “verlenging” van
geskiedskrywing wat as ’t ware die verlede verlewendig deur ’n verhaal wat die leser
emosioneel kan aangryp en wat ’n geloofwaardige en oortuigende ervaring van die
verlede vir die leser bied. Hierdie verwagting van wat historiese fiksie vir Pretorius
behoort te wees, blyk byvoorbeld uit sy opmerkings oor Margaret Bakkes se Fado vir ’n
vreemdeling:
Bakkes maak uiteindelik ’n aangrypende verhaal daarvan, met uitgebreide gebruikmaking van en erkenning aan Ferreira se navorsing, soos dit gestalte gevind
het in sy boek Viva os Boers! Sy gee aan Homan vlees en bloed en gees. Sy kloof
onvoorstelbare smart en lyding oop. Jy vra die vraag: kon al hierdie dinge met één
mens gebeur het? Maar dan besef jy: ja, dit hét inderdaad. Die broosheid van verhoudings lê weerloos oop. Dit is ’n werk wat lesers aan die hart sal gryp. (73)
Hieruit blyk duidelik dat die doel van historiese fiksie volgens Pretorius is dat deeglike
historiese navorsing op aangrypende wyse aangebied behoort te word. Hierdie mening
is natuurlik geldig en is waarskynlik een van die redes waarom sommige lesers graag
historiese fiksie lees. Vir Pretorius hou historiese fiksie egter geen ander moontlikhede
in nie, soos uit sy gevolgtrekking blyk: “Skrywers van historiese fiksie speel ’n
belangrike rol om ’n kreatiewe en histories realistiese verlede vir hul lesers uit te
beeld. Andersins maak dit geen sin om ’n historiese tema te neem nie.” (76, my beklemtoning).
Pretorius beskou dus enige ander maniere waarop met historiese stof in fiksie
omgegaan kan word as “sinloos”. Hieronder verskil ek van Pretorius en redeneer dat
daar wel ook op ander maniere in fiksie sinvol met die verlede omgegaan kan word
en sodoende word uiteindelik aangedui dat Pretorius se ongenuanseerde benadering
tot ongegronde waardeoordele oor sommige romans oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog lei.
Ten einde aan Pretorius se verwagting van historiese fiksie as aangrypende en
realistiese uitbeeldings van historiese gebeurtenisse te voldoen, is ’n baie nou ooreenkoms tussen fiksie en die geskiedenis vir hom vanselfsprekend: “Skrywers van
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historiese fiksie speel ’n belangrike rol om ‘n kreatiewe en realistiese verlede vir hul
lesers uit te beeld. Hulle het ’n groot verantwoordelikheid om versigtig met historiese
feite om te gaan. Hul navorsing behoort van die hoogste gehalte te wees, trouens nie
veel swakker as wat van historici verwag word nie.” (76)
Hoewel hierdie aanname wel vir sommige historiese fiksietekste geldig is, kan
historiese fiksie nie slegs tot hierdie soort fiksie beperk word nie. Boonop word
hierdeur ’n ongenuanseerde en onproblematiese grens tussen geskiedskrywing en
fiksie veronderstel, terwyl hierdie grens veel ingewikkelder is.
Eerstens word Pretorius se uitgesproke doelstelling met sy artikel, om op die
waarde van samewerking tussen fiksieskrywers en historici te wys, ondersoek. Ek is
dit grootliks eens met Pretorius se bevindings in hierdie verband, maar vind dit
nodig om die spesifieke eis oor historiese korrekteid wat Pretorius stel, binne ’n groter
konteks te plaas, naamlik die idee van ’n geloofwaardige “skynwerklikheid” in fiksie
(versisimilitude). Sodoende word aangetoon dat die voldoening aan “eksterne faktore”
wat die skynwerklikheid van fiksie bepaal, wel ’n bepaalde rol speel, maar nog lank
nie genoegsaam is om sommige van die afleidings te maak waartoe Pretorius in sy
bespreking van sommige romans kom nie. (In die proses word aangedui dat Pretorius
se beskouing oënskynlik deur ’n onuitgesproke ideologiese beskouing onderlê word.)
In die tweede deel van my artikel word aan die hand van enkele aspekte van die
geskiedenis van historiese fiksie en enkele “soorte” historiese fiksie, aangedui hoedat
Pretorius se verwagtings van historiese fiksie oorvereenvoudigend is. (Eintlik nie
slegs sy verwagtings van historiese fiksie nie, maar selfs die beskouing van
historiografie wat onderliggend uit hierdie artikel blyk, is oorvereenvoudigend!)
Teen hierdie agtergrond word dit ook duidelik hoe kompleks die verhouding tussen
fiksie en geskiedenis is en dat historiese fiksie veel meer behels as die aangrypende
uitbeelding van historiese situasies.
Fiksie en die skynwaarheid van ’n ‘estetiese illusie’
Pretorius se uitgesproke doel is om aan te dui dat samewerking tussen skrywers en
historici waardevol kan wees. Ten einde hierdie doel te bereik, is dit vir hom nodig
om die historiese korrektheid van voorstellings van die Anglo-Boereoorlog in onlangse
Afrikaanse “historiese fiksie” vas te stel.
Pretorius definiëer “historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog” binne die konteks
van sy artikel as enige kortverhaal of roman met die “oorlog as milieu” en met
“historiese korrektheid” bedoel hy dat “die skrywer sy of haar verhaal teen ’n histories
korrekte agtergrond laat afspeel”. ’n Histories-korrekte agtergrond impliseer vir
Pretorius drie aspekte dat:
• gebeurtenisse byvoorbeeld op die korrekte datums plaasvind;
• “histories herkenbare figure in die verhaal na hul histories bekende aard”
optree;
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• die gebeure in historiese fiksie binne die bepaalde historiese konteks moontlik
moet wees omdat dit andersins nie die moeite werd sou wees om ’n “tema uit
die geskiedenis” te neem nie.
Hoewel Pretorius ook meld dat afwykings van hierdie eise nie noodwendig lei tot ’n
waardeoordeel oor die fiksie nie, is dit duidelik uit die res van sy artikel dat hy tóg
meer positief oordeel oor romans wat digby hierdie eise hou (en nie die sin kan sien
van fiksie wat nie daarby hou nie) en uitdruklik sy irritasie uitspreek met ’n roman
soos Ingrid Winterbach se Niggie wat nie daarby hou nie.
Sy slotsom dat samewerking tussen skrywers, uitgewers en historici waardevol
kan wees, geld nie slegs vir historiese fiksie nie, maar in bykans alle fiksie kan
samewerking tussen vakkundiges en skrywers in die uitgeeproses sinvol wees en dit
kom trouens ook dikwels voor. Wanneer ’n roman byvoorbeeld in ’n hospitaal afspeel,
kan ’n medikus gevra word om die roman na te gaan vir die geloofwaardigheid van
prosedures, siektes en die hantering van pasiënte. ’n Hofdrama kan deur ’n advokaat
nagegaan word vir juistheid ten opsigte van die regsprosesse wat beskryf word. Vir
die gewilde TV-komediereeks oor natuuurwetenskaplikes, The Big Bang Theory, is ’n
fisikus aangestel om die dele van die dialoog wat oor inhoudelike aspekte van die
fisika handel, te skryf en om seker te maak dat al die opmerkings en verwysings na die
fisika, juis is (Ulaby). Hierdie soort samewerking tussen vakkundiges en die skeppers
van fiksie, kom dus algemeen voor. ’n Goeie teksredigeerder behoort self in die eerste
plek oor ’n wye algemene kennis te beskik ten einde “foute” te kan raaksien en behoort
ook “feite” na te gaan. Indien ’n roman in Juliemaand in Pretoria afspeel en die
hoofkarakters kyk uit ’n hoë gebou na al die pers jakarandabome langs die strate, sal
dit steurend vir die leser wees en die vertelling sal aan geloofwaardigheid inboet
omdat die leser weet dat jakarandas nie in daardie tyd van die jaar blom nie.
Die soort samewerking waarop Pretorius gesteld is, het dus te doen met die skep
van ’n geloofwaardige fiksiewêreld wat as ’n “estetiese illusie” tot stand gebring word.
Alhoewel lesers bereid is om hulle agterdog voorlopig op te skort (Coleridge se
beroemde “willing suspension of disbelief ”) wanneer hulle fksie lees, beteken dit nie
dat die fiktiewe wêreld wat tot stand kom, sonder meer inkonsekwent kan wees nie.
Wat vir Pretorius belangrik is ten opsigte van historiese fiksie, en wat belangrik is vir
romans wat teen die agtergrond van byvoorbeeld die effektebeurs of ’n hospitaal of
polisiekantoor afspeel, is dat dit sal konformeer met ’n stel van “waarheidsnorme”
wat buite die teks staan: die historiese roman sal ooreenkom met die norme van die
geskiedenis (soos byvoorbeeld Pretorius se drie norme wat hierbo genoem is), die
sake- of hospitaal- of polisieroman met prosedures en agtergrond wat klop met die
“werklikheid” van hierdie onderskeie wêrelde.
Die estetiese illusie word deur Werner Wolf in The Living Handbook of Narratology
gedefinieer as ’n “basically pleasurable mental state that emerges during the reception
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of many representational texts, artifacts or performances. These representations may
be fictional or factual, and in particular include narratives” (1). Die estetiese effek
word tot stand gebring deur die samewerking van ’n aantal faktore (die representasie
self, die resepsie daarvan en die kuturele en historiese konteks daarvan) wat by die
fiksieleser lei die gevoel dat die gerepresenteerde wêreld erváár word: “Aesthetic
illusion consists primarily of a feeling, with variable intensity, of being imaginatively
and emotionally immersed in a represented world and of experiencing this world in
a way similar (but not identical) to real life.” (Wolf 3)
Fiksie wat streef na die skep van ’n artistieke illusie, poog om ’n nabootsing van ’n
“werklike lewe-ervaring” te bied en het dus meestal, volgens Wolf, ’n “quasi-experiential quality” terwyl dit ook dikwels ’n referensiële dimensie bevat (3). Op hierdie
maniere word die illusie gewek dat die handelinge in die “werklike wêreld” plaasgevind het. Die referensiële dimensie van die skep van ’n estetiese illusie staan sentraal
in die soort historiese fiksie wat Pretorius voorstaan, maar is natuurlik nie noodsaaklik vir alle fiksie nie (vergelyk byvoorbeeld fantasie of wetenskapfiksie). Hoe dit ook
al sy, die estetiese illusie lei tot die subjektiewe indruk dat die leser die gerepresenteerde wêreld ervaar.
Om by die leser die illusie te skep dat die gerepresenteerde wêreld “ervaar” word,
word onder meer gebruik gemaak van tegnieke wat bydra tot die vestiging van ’n
waarheidsillusie (verisimilitude). Verisimilitude word soos volg deur Gerald Prince
(103) gedefinieer:
The quality of a text resulting from its degree of conformity to a set of “truth”
norms that are external to it: a text has (more or less) verisimilitude (gives more or
less of an illusion of truth) depending on the extent to which it conforms to what is
taken to be the case (the “reality”) and to what is made suitable or expected by a
particular generic tradition.
Sterker verisimilitude, ’n sterker “waarheidsillusie”, is dus enersyds van “eksterne
faktore” afhanklik (die referensiële dimensie): die historiese “feite” in die geval van
historiese fiksie, die psigologiese motiveerbaarheid van karakters se optrede, of
geloofwaardige besonderhede ten opsigte van die ruimte waarbinne handelinge
plaasvind. Andersyds is daar ook “interne faktore” wat bydra tot ’n sterker “waarheidsillusie”. Met “interne faktore” word bedoel dié konvensies wat, binne die tradisie van ’n bepaalde genre (byvoorbeeld die romankuns), aangewend word om ’n
waarheidsillusie te skep.
Eksterne (referensiële) faktore wat tot die estetiese illusie bydra
Pretorius meet in sy artikel die historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog byna
uitsluitlik aan die referensiële dimensie, aan eksterne faktore, om die geloofwaardigheid van die “waarheidsillusie” wat tot stand kom, te toets. Hierdie eksterne fakto-
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re sluit die datums en gebeurtenisse, soos in die geskiedskrywing vasgelê, in. Daarom
kan hy anachronismes uitwys asook ooreenkomste en afwykings van die amptelike
geskiedskrywing. Hierdie referensiële dimensie of “eksterne faktore” waaraan fiksie
gemeet word, is egter nie onproblematies nie. Hieronder word op enkele aspekte van
die komplekse aard van so ’n praktyk gewys, deur, aan die hand historiografiese
metafiksie, te wys op die komplekse aard van geskiedenis as “waarheid” waaraan
gemeet word en die grens tussen feit en fiksie wat baie kompleks is.
Interne faktore wat tot die estetiese illusie bydra
Die “interne faktore” wat die waarheidsillusie bepaal, kom neer op verteltegnieke
wat ’n outeur kan aanwend om ’n soort “lifeness” (Wood 186–7) tot stand te laat kom,
op soortgelyke wyse as wat ’n skilder die illusie van diepte op ’n plat vlak kan skep
deur sommige voorwerpe groter en ander kleiner te skilder. Die verskillende
verteltegnieke kan volgens James Wood (186) ook ge-yk raak en daarom is daar
voortdurend verskuiwings ten opsigte van die tegnieke waarmee waarheidsillusies
geskep word. Gevolglik sal romans wat aanvanklik ’n sterker waarheidsillusie by
lesers geskep het, later veel minder geloofwaardig voorkom soos wat die konvensies
uitgedien raak.
Reeds in van die heel vroegste moderne romans word sekere strategië aangewend
om ’n sterker waarheidsillusie te skep. Daniel Defoe sluit byvoorbeeld ’n (fiktiewe)
joernaal van die skipbreukeling by sy vertelling oor die avonture van Robinson Crusoe
in om die illusie te wek dat die roman gebaseer is op ’n werklike skipbreukeling se
dagboek. Die gebruik van (fiktiewe) briewe in briefromans dra ook tot die
waarheidsillusie by, deurdat dit die indruk wek dat dit die “eie woorde” van die
korrespondente is en nie woorde van ’n (bevooroordeelde) verteller nie. In een van
die romans wat Pretorius negatief beskou, Christoffel Coetzee se Op soek na generaal
Mannetjies Mentz, word byvoorbeeld onder meer van voetnote gebruik gemaak—’n
konvensie van akademiese skryfwerk, eerder as van fiksie, wat bydra tot die illusie
dat die verhaal wat vertel word “waar” is, dat dit berus op historiese navorsing,
eerder as op die verteller se verbeelding.
Tom Wolfe (46–8) noem ten minste vier konvensies wat eie is aan “realisme” en wat
bydra tot die skep van ’n oortuigende fiksiewêreld:
• Toneelkonstruksie (“Scene-by-scene construction”): die verhaal word aangebied
deur van een toneelbeskrywing na die volgende te beweeg, eerder as wat ’n
uitvoerige historiese narratief gebruik word. In plaas van om te vertel dát iets
gebeur het, word die gebeurtenis self, die ruimte, die karakters en hulle handelinge, volledig beskryf—wat in die narratologie dikwels as “showing” eerder
as “telling” beskryf word (vergelyk Plato se onderskeid tussen mimesis en
diëgesis, maar ook in die werk van Percy Lubbock en Henry James). (Vir ’n
vollediger bespreking, kyk Klauk en Köppe).
83
• Ruimskootse gebruik van direkte rede: Die gebruik van realistiese dialoog skep
die indruk dat dit wat vertel word ’n direkte weergawe van die handelinge
van die karakters is. Daar word immers nie vertel dát karakters iets sê nie—
hulle eie woorde word weergegee.
• Interne fokalisering: Deur interne fokalisering kry die leser direkte toegang tot
die belewenisse van karakters. Daar is dus nie objektiewe beskrywings, soos
wanneer ’n waarnemer met beperkte kennis die karakters en hulle ervarings
“van buite” sou beskryf nie. Elke karakter se eie belewenisse word “van binne”,
soos wat die betrokke karakter ervaar en dink, weergegee.
• Fyn besonderhede (realiteitseffek): Die opteken van alledaagshede / fyn besonderhede
dra baie by tot die “totstandkoming van ’n wêreld” vir die leser. Oënskynlik
triviale beskrywings van ’n kamer se inhoud, meubels, die weer, ’n karakter se
gewoontes of voorkoms, kleredrag, ’n karakter se manier van loop, gedrag
teenoor kinders, ouers, meerderes, minderes, is alles deel van die besonderhede
wat strenggesproke nie bydra tot die verloop van die verhaal nie, maar wat
nodig is om ’n gevoel van realiteit by die leser te wek. Roland Barthes (in
Prince 82) definieer die “realiteitseffek” as die noem van besonderhede bloot
omdat dit in die vertelde wêreld voorkom. Hierdie detail is volgens Prince (82)
“exemplary connotators of the real (they signify ‘this is real’)”.
Hierdie konvensies is ingeburger en bepaal ’n ervaring van realiteit by die leser (maar
bied geen waarborg dat die werklikheid meer getrou gerepresenteer is nie).
Kenmerkend van al vier hierdie “tegnieke” is dat die leser aktief daardeur betrek
word. Wanneer ’n toneel weergegee word, met ’n gedetailleerde beskrywing van die
ruimte waarin die handeling plaasvind, met die direkte rede van die karakters en met
beskrywings van die karakters se eie ervarings daarvan, word die leser as ’t ware by
die gebeurtenis betrek, asof die leser self ’n waarnemer daarvan is, of dit self emosioneel
beleef en die estetiese illusie is sterker.1
Wanneer die leser op hierdie manier emosioneel betrek word en aktief deelneem
aan die konstruering van die fiktiewe wêreld, ontstaan die kragtige effek van historiese
fiksie wat Pretorius in sy artikel as waardevol ag. Die skrywer van historiese fiksie kan
die leser in staat stel om empaties mee te leef met historiese figure, om die historiese
gebeurtenis as ’t ware te ervaar.
Terwyl Pretorius glad nie eksplisiet aandag gee aan hierdie aspek van vertelling in
die romans wat hy bespreek nie, is dit duidelik dat hy hoë waardering daarvoor het
as die leser na sy mening emosioneeel by die teks betrek word (bv. in P. G. du Plessis
se Fees van die ongenooides of Bakkes se Fado vir ’n vreemdeling). Dit wil egter ook lyk asof
Pretorius hierdie moontlikheid van fiksie om ’n estetiese illusie te bewerkstelling
slegs waardeer indien dit aansluit by sy eie visie van hoe die verlede behoort weergegee
te word, soos wanneer Bakkes se Fado vir ’n vreemdeling die pyn en verlange van die
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oorlog uitbeeld, of indien Sirkusboere die wroeging en skuldgevoelens van generaal
Joubert uitbeeld, maar nie wanneer dit byvoorbeeld gaan oor die moontlikheid van
’n bende misdadigers in die Brandwaterkom in Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz
nie.
Estetiese illusie en geskiedskrywing
Soos fiksie, maak geskiedskrywing ook gebruik van sommige tegnieke van
fiksieskrywers (vergelyk byvoorbeeld Hayden White se Tropics of Discourse), wat
beteken dat die ervaring van ’n “ander wêreld” nie tot fiksie beperk is nie. Boonop is
die “referensiële werklikheid” ook baie kompleks, nie bloot omdat daar byvoorbeeld
verskille tussen historici kan bestaan oor wat “regtig” in die verlede gebeur het nie,
maar veral in die lig van die besef, op die spoor van die post-strukturalistiese denke,
dat alle “waarheid” eintlik geproduseer word, slegs in taal bestaan en dat dit
onmoontlik is om direkte toegang te kry tot ’n ongemedieerde, buitetalige werklikheid.
Hieronder sluit ek weer aan by die komplisering van die estetiese illusie omdat
juis hierdie implikasies daarvan in sekere fiksietekste, naamlik in die soort fiksie wat
Linda Hutcheon “historiografiese metafiksie” noem, sentraal staan.
Fiksie as ondersoek van menslike bestaan
Om historiese fiksie slegs as ’n verlewendiging van die verlede te beskou—’n empatiese
uitbeelding van die verlede wat ’n bietjie meer vryheid aan die verbeelding oorlaat as
die dissipline van geskiedskrywing, is ’n beperkende manier om oor fiksie te dink.
Dit is beslis nie die enigste manier om na historiese fiksie te kyk nie en in die spesifieke
romans wat Pretorius betrek, word ander moontlikhede oopgemaak. Hier word op
twee maniere gewys waarop historiese fiksie ’n veel komplekser saak kan wees as wat
uit Pretorius se artikel blyk.
Grens tussen feit en fiksie: historiografiese metafiksie
Linda Hutcheon gebruik in haar werk oor postmodernisme die term “historiografiese
metafiksie” om na fiksie te verwys waarin die grense tussen “feite” (geskiedenis) en
fiksie vervaag. Ook Brian McHale (87) verwys in sý studie oor postmodernistiese
fiksie op ’n teenstelling tussen die “klassieke” historiese roman waarin daar nie
getorring word aan die “amptelike”, aanvaarde, kanonieke geskiedenis nie en waar
die verbeelding slegs gebruik word om die “donker kolle” van die “amptelike”
geskiedenis met fiktiewe gebeure in te vul aan die een kant en “postmodernistiese
romans” aan die ander kant, waarin geen duidelike onderskeid te tref tussen die
sogenaamde feite en versinning nie. McHale (87 e.v.) wys byvoorbeeld daarop dat die
grens tussen feit en fiksie oorskry word deur onder andere die skep van ’n apokriewe
geskiedenis, die ontdekking van sameswerings wat kwansuis éíntlik vir die verloop
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van die verlede verantwoordelik was, die integrering van fantasie en geskiedenis en
die doelbewuste ontluistering van ’n luisterryke geskiedenis.
In historiografiese metafiksie word die grense tussen fiksie en geskiedenis voorop
gestel en doelbewus vertroebel, ten einde die leser bewus te maak van die ingewikkelde
gevolge wat sowel die eksterne as die interne faktore wat die estetiese illusie bepaal,
vir fiksie sowel as vir geskiedskrywing het. In ten minste een van die romans wat
Pretorius betrek, naamlik Karel Schoeman se Verliesfontein, word hierdie grens juis
vooropgestel. In die roman word die onmoontlikheid om die verlede werklik te
agterhaal en die rol wat die geskiedskrywer se verbeelding juis daarom speel, beklemtoon en sodoende word ’n gemaklike grens tussen fiksie en geskiedenis
ondermyn.
In romans soos Verliesfontein word sowel die eksterne as die interne faktore wat
die skynwaarheid van ’n teks bepaal, as besonder kompleks ontbloot. Die “eksterne
faktore” (historiese feite) is problematies omdat ’n absoluut onafhanklike, objektief
waarneembare en getroue weergawe van die “waarheid” waaraan die fiksie gemeet
word, nie agterhaalbaar is nie. (In hierdie verband kan gewys word op die verteller se
besef dat foto’s van die dorpie, Verliesfontein, sowel as kerkraadsagendas in die argiewe
bestaan, maar dat daar geen foto’s of geskrewe inligting oor die “lokasie” buite die
dorp behoue gebly het nie.) Hiermee sluit Verliesfontein aan by die besef van die
twintigste-eeuse taalteorie en post-strukturalistiese denke dat ’n onafhanklike,
omvattende weergawe van die “waarheid” problematies is. Die besef dat taal nie ’n
objektiewe instrument met ’n een-tot-een korrelasie tussen woorde en objekte nie is
nie, maar dat taal selfreferensiëel is en daarom nie ’n objektiewe beskrywing van die
werklikheid moontlik maak nie, en veral dat kennis daarom nie iets objektiefs is wat
gewoon in taal uitgedruk word nie maar dat kennis juis deur taal tot stand gebring
word, het verreikende implikasies. Ten opsigte van geskiedskrywing in die algemeen,
lei hierdie opvattings tot die argument dat die geskiedenis (as ’n “eksterne faktor”
waarteen die “waarheid” van historiese fiksie gemeet word) reeds problematies is
(soos ook deur White in Tropics of Discourse aangedui is). Die besef dat die geskiedenis
nie ’n omvattende en volledig toetsbare weergawe van die verlede kan wees nie, maar
dat dit altyd ’n verhaal óór daardie verlede is, het verskeie implikasies—veral vir ’n
eenvoudige vergelyking van feit met fiksie.
Niemand kan ooit omvattend en volledig enige gebeurtenisse wat lank gelede
plaasgevind het, ken nie. Geskiedkundiges maak staat op “spore” van die verlede wat
in ons tyd behoue gebly het en maak afleidings daaruit—lê verbande daartussen.2
Omdat geskiedenis as verhale oor die verlede aangebied word, wat uiteindelik in
die plek van die afwesige verlede staan, is dit ook noodsaaklik om na die invloed van
vertelling op die geskiedenis te ondersoek (Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1 185).3 White
het reeds in Tropics of Discourse daarop gewys dat die manier waarop die verhaal oor
die verlede aangebied word, ’n groot invloed het op die manier waarop die velede
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uiteindelik verstaan word. Enige vertelling is immers ’n seleksie en ’n ordening (soos
Ricoeur in Time and Narrative se eerste volume aandui) en doen as sodanig die “werklikheid” van die verlede geweld aan. Albei hierdie aspekte van vertelling (seleksie en
ordening) plaas beperkings op die moontlikheid om ’n volledige weergawe van die
verlede te kan wees. Dit is bloot onmoontlik om alles wat gebeur het in ’n vertelling
in te sluit (omdat te veel van die gebeurtenisse uit die verlede nie van toepassing is vir
die spesifieke verhaal wat vertel word nie). Slegs sekere gebeurtenisse word geselekteer
wat relevant is vir die spesifieke vertelling. Die verhaal, die plot, bepaal dus watter
feite relevant is om ingesluit te word, eerder as wat die feite die plot bepaal. Jenkins
wys daarop dat slegs dié feite geselekteer word wat by ’n spesifieke verhaal oor die
verlede inpas—wat sin maak in die verhaal. Boonop word gesoek na feite om ’n
sekere verhaal te steun (en ook gevind) terwyl ander feite nie raakgesien word nie,
omdat nie daarvoor gesoek word nie (33). ’n Ander verhaal kan dus selfs ander feite
oplewer. (Dink maar byvoorbeeld aan die manier waarop die rol van vroue in weergawes oor die verlede dikwels gewoon verswyg omdat dit nie plek gehad het in ’n
spesifieke diskoers oor die verlede nie.) In die sin produseer die verhaal die feite,
eerder as andersom. Hierdie besef word in historiografiese metafiksie belig, maar het
belangrike implikasies vir enige vergelyking tussen geskiedenis en fiksie, omdat dit
die historiese bepaaldheid van die diskoers waaraan fiksie gemeet word, aandui.
Benewens die seleksie van sekere handelinge om in die plot oor die verlede op te
neem, speel die manier waarop die handelinge gerangskik word, ook ’n belangrike
rol in die uiteindelike verhaal. Ricoeur wat in sy eerste volume van Time and Narrative
aansluit by Aristoteles se begrip van “handelingskomposisie” (emplotment), wys daarop
dat die geselekteerde gebeurtenisse saam-gekomponeer word om ’n verhaal met ’n
begin, middel en einde te vorm. Juis binne die geheel van hierdie verhaal kry elke
individuele handeling betekenis (Ricoeur gee ook hieraan aandag in Oneself as Another
142). Die implikasies (waarop ook White wys) is dat die beginpunt of eindpunt wat
vir ’n spesifieke verhaal oor die verlede (soos die Anglo-Boereoorlog) gekies word,
arbitrêre keuses is en ander begin- of eindpunte sou gevolglik ook ander betekenis
aan die individuele gebeurtenisse toeken. Word die verhaal vertel volgens die plot
van ’n komedie, ’n tragedie, ’n heldeverhaal of slagofferverhaal? Wie is die helde en
wie die skurke of die slagoffers in die verhaal? Hierdie keuses beïnvloed weer watter
“feite” geselekteer (en gesoek) word en bepaal waar die verhaal eindig. (Pretorius gee
implisiet aan hierdie problematiek erkenning as hy aandui dat die eerste golf van
fiksie oor die Anglo-Boere-oorlog Afrikanernasionalistiese sentimente gedra het—
lyding in die kampe en heldhaftige optrede in die veld staan sentraal. Later word
hierdie eensydige opvattings van die oorlog uitgedaag. Wat Pretorius nie noem nie, is
dat dieselfde ook in geskiedskrywing oor die Anglo-Boere-oorlog gebeur.)
Geskiedenis word nie sonder meer vertel omdat daar gebeurtenisse in die verlede
plaasgevind het nie. Geskiedenis word altyd met ’n spesifieke doel voor oë aange-
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bied—ten einde mense trots te maak op hulle eie identiteit, of om ’n bepaalde morele
standpunt aan die hand van voorbeelde uit die verlede oor te dra, of om ’n sekere
toestand in die hede te verklaar of te regverdig. Hierdie doel, het uiteindelik ’n
bepalende invloed op die seleksie van begin- en eindpunte, van handelinge en van ’n
plotstruktuur.
Met hierdie soort kritiese opvatting oor geskiedskrywing (onder meer ingegee
deur die agterdog van Freud en Marx asook die poststruktuuralistiese denke) word
nie noodwendig gepleit vir die gelykstelling van fiksie en geskiedenis of ’n volslae
relativisme nie. Historiografiese metafiksie het nie ten doel om sonder meer alle
geskiedskrywing as fiksie af te maak nie, maar is daarop gerig om die leser bewus te
maak van die invloed van al die keuses wat geskiedskrywers uitoefen, van die vrae
wat gevra word en die soort verhaal wat vertel word. Hierdie soort fiksie plaas klem
daarop dat daar baie versigtig en krities omgegaan behoort te word met elke weergawe
van die verlede, en dat dit noodsaaklik is om te onthou dat daar geen finale en vaste
geskiedenis moontlik is nie, dat geen finale “meesterverhaal” bestaan nie.
Historiografiese metafiksie het juis ten doel om die leser te dwing om na te dink oor
die aard van “aanvaarde” verhale oor die verlede en span verskeie tegnieke in om die
vaspen van ’n enkele verhaal wat die plek van die verlede vul as die enigste, enkele
ware weergawe daarvan, uit te daag.
In historiografiese metafiksie word die “aanvaarde geskiedenis” onder meer
uitgedaag deur oordrywing, die gee van verskillende weergawes van dieselfde
gebeurtenis wat naas mekaar bly staan, die skep van alternatiewe verhale, die
ontmaskering van sogenaamde komplotte om die “ware weergawe” van die verlede
te onderdruk, vertellings oor dieselfde gebeurtenisse uit ander perspektiewe word
gegee (dikwels die perspektiewe van diegene wat deur die geskiedskrywing
gemarginaliseer is). Al hierdie tegnieke word aangewend ten einde ’n bewustheid te
wek dat die “aanvaarde” verhale oor die verlede nie “onskuldige” en objektiewe
weergawes van die verlede is nie.
Hoewel nie een van die romans wat Pretorius bespreek sonder meer as ’n ekstreme
voorbeeld van “historiografiese metafiksie” beskryf sou kon word nie, sluit sowel
Verliesfontein as Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz, tot ’n mate daarby aan omdat dit
ongemaklike vrae oor die “aanvaarde” geskiedenis opper. In ’n sekere sin is dit reeds
’n verwerping van Pretorius se beswaar dat dit nie sin maak om ’n “historiese tema” te
neem as dit nie sou klop met die aanvaarde weergawes van die verlede nie. Die sin
van uitbeeldings van “afwykings” kan juis daarin lê dat die leser bewus gemaak van
die maniere waarop geskiedenis as weergawes van die verlede, vanuit ’n spesifieke
historiese situasie, gekonstrueer word.
Pogings om ’n duidelike grens tussen fiksie en geskiedenis te trek, het ook self ’n
geskiedenis. Thomas Pavel (“Borders” 86), wys daarop dat die maklike onderskeid
wat deur sommige filosowe getref word tussen geskiedenis wat wel ’n referent in die
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werklikheid het en fiksie wat dit nie het nie, ’n hopeloos te growwe onderskeid is.4
Volgens Pavel (“Borders” 85) is die grootste probleem met hierdie pogings om fiksie af
te grens, dat ’n normatiewe perspektief daaragter skuil. Die probleem is dat hierdie
pogings ons daarvan weerhou om die menslike handelinge van die produksie en
begrip van fiksie genoegsaam te beskryf. Die behoefte om grense tussen fiksie en die
werklikheid streng af te pen, is eintlik syns insiens ’n redelik onlangse verskynsel wat
op ’n lang proses van strukturering, ossifisering en afbakening volg.
Pavel se redenasie kan soos volg saamgevat word. Aanvanklik is daar ’n gebeurtenis
—individue handel in die aktuele werklikheid. Hierdie handelinge word beskryf
(hetsy in ’n verhaal, ’n skildery of enige ander medium). ’n Proses van “kulturele
mediëring” (cultural framing) vind dus plaas. Niemand het ooit weer direkte toegang
tot die gebeurtenis wat in die verlede plaasgevind het nie, dit kan slegs gemediëer
meegedeel word. Só ’n mediëring is ’n seleksie en ordening—dus ook onvolledig en
inkonsekwent—en daarom word gebeurtenisse en handelinge op ’n sekere manier
uitgehef en beklemtoon wat dan aan die bepaalde gebeurtenisse en mense spesifieke
betekenis verleen (soos reeds hierbo met verwysing na Ricoeur bespreek is). Pavel
(“Borders” 86) noem hierdie mediëring ook “konvensionele raming” (conventional
framing). Konvensionele raming is alle tegnieke (stilisties en semanties) wat gebruik
kan word om ’n bepaalde perspektief op individue en gebeurtenisse te kan kry. Hierdie
perspektief gee ’n bietjie afstand sodat gebeurtenisse en individue makliker bedink
en verstaan kan word. Gegewe die twee-vlak-struktuur van ons kulturele organisering,
bestaan konvensionele raming uit die verskuiwing van individue en gebeurtenisse
van die vlak van aktualiteit na die vlak van kulterele mediëring. Hierdie verskuiwing
is vir Pavel “mitologisering” (“Borders” 86).
Die mites is vir die aanvanklike gebruikers daarvan “waar”. Die ruimte waarin
gode en helde optree is bekend aan die luisteraars en die heldedade wat verhaal word
gaan oor hulle eie voorgeslagte. Daarom is die verhale vir hulle die waarheid.
Geleidelik verloor die mites egter die status van “waarheid”, maar die verhale word
steeds as waardevol en nuttig beskou. Pavel noem hierdie verlies aan waarheidstatus,
“fiksionalisering”. Fiksionalisering vind plaas wanneer die referensiële skakel tussen
mense en handelinge wat beskryf word en dit waarmee hulle in aktualiteit ooreenstem,
verlore gaan. (Mense glo nie meer die referensiële skakel tussen Zeus en ’n god op
Olimpus nie). Die implikasie van fiksionalisering is nie dat die fiksie nou verwerp
word nie, maar bloot dat nie op dieselfde manier daarin geglo word as in die mite nie.
Waar die mite op ’n manier nog as referensiëel ervaar is, as “waarheid”, word fiksie
ervaar as ’n konstruk wat sekere “wysheid” bevat—insigte in die mens en die wêreld
daarin. Dit is dus duidelik dat die grens tussen fiksie en aktualiteit kan verskuif.
As gevolg van die beweging van ’n aktuele gebeurtenis na kulturele raming
(kulturele mediëring en mitologisering) en daarna van mitologiesering na fiksionalisering, is daar uiteindelik vir Pavel drie grense te onderskei:
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• die grens tussen fiksie en sakrale;
• die grens tussen fiksie en aktualiteit (verlede) en
• die grens tussen fiksie en leser (representasiegrense).
Hierdie grense skuif oor tyd heen. Vir die antieke Grieke was daar aanvanklik nie ’n
grens tussen die aktuele en die mitologiese nie. Al twee is saam aanvaar—die wêreld
van die gode en die leefwêreld behoort wel aan verskllende ontologieë, maar altwee
is “waar” in epiek en in mites. Eers veel later (soos met die tragedies) word die verhaal
nie meer as “waar” ervaar nie, maar as fiksie. Die gehoor ervaar egter dat fiksies sekere
onkenbaarhede van die werklikheid belig en sodoende “waarhede” openbaar. Hieruit
is dit duidelik dat referensialiteit nie genoegsaam is om ’n onderskeid tussen
geskiedenis en fiksie te tref nie.
Geskiedenis van die historiese roman
Die roman reageer nog altyd, deur die hele geskiedenis van die genre, op breë kulturele
en historiese veranderings. Een voorbeeld van derglike reaksie wat Thomas Pavel in
The Lives of the Novel (169 e.v.) noem, is dat 18e-eeuse Engelse romans gekenmerk word
deur die opkoms van handel, empirisisme en Metodisme. Maar Pavel beklemtoon
tereg dat dit moeilik om direkte verbande tussen historiese gebeurtenisse en romans
van voor die 19de eeu te lê.
Die Franse rewolusie en die uitgerekte oorloë van 1789 tot 1815 het volgens Pavel
’n radikale verandering aan die Europese politieke en kulturele landskap tot gevolg
gehad:
The past became the object of a vivid curiosity often tinged with nostalgia. It began
to seem obvious that each society and historical period is organized in specific
ways that may be questioned, understood and modified. National consciousness
and pride grew considerably all over Europe. Ideas of history, society, and nation
gained a new cultural centrality. (Lives 169)
Een van die gevolge van die Franse Rewolusie en die Napoleontiese oorloë was die
toenemende besef dat menslike persoonlikheid en gedragskodes afhanklik is van van
die historiese en sosiale omgewing: “Yet one thing was by now (after the French
Revolution and Napoleontic wars) generally accepted: human personality and its
codes of conduct very much depend on the historical and social environment.” (Pavel,
Lives 170)
Gevolglik is ook fiksiekarakters wat asof vanself sekere universele waardes en
kriteria volg al hoe minder geloofwaardig geag. Al meer het lesers verwag dat die
historiese, nasionale en sosiale kragte karakters se optrede moet kan verklaar: deugdelikheid en boefagtigheid bestaan nie op grond van universele, ewige kriteria nie,
maar ontstaan in spesifieke omstandighede, onder spesifieke mense en klasse van ’n
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sekere tyd: “To make sense of a given character’s qualities or actions, one had to
understand them as being deeply rooted in a historical, social and national soil.” (Lives
170) Die besef dat karakters se gedrag bepaal word deur sosiale omstandighede en ’n
spesifieke historiese situasie lei aan die begin van die 19de eeu tot die ontstaan van die
Bildungsroman (wat juis ondersoek hoedat ’n jong individu deur samelewingsomstandighede gevorm word), die Realisme (met aandag aan die fyn besonderhede van
hoe ’n gemeenskap funksioneer en die invloed daaarvan op ’n individu) en die ontstaan
van die moderne historiese roman (in die werk van Walter Scott en Heinrich von
Kleist) waarin die vormende invloed van die verlede ondersoek word eerder as wat
bloot epiese beskrywings gemaak word.
Dikwels in die eerste historiese romans van Walter Scott, is die hoofkarakters net
so idealisties en sterk en deugdelik as die “helde” uit ridderromans, maar die helde se
deugdelikheid word in sy werk gegrond in spesifieke historiese en kulturele terme:
die helde is die produkte van hulle spesifieke Skotse, Presbiteriaanse agtergrond.5
Anders as in die 18de eeu (en in ouer romans), toe deugdelike karakters opgetree het
volgens buitesosiale norme (die gode / openbarings), volg karakters in die 19de eeuse
romans die waardes wat uit hulle eie harte kom—gevorm deur hulle verhouding met
samelewingstrukture. Karakters kan slegs die morele norme wat deur die gemeenskap
geskep word op geloofwaardige wyse teenstaan indien die historiese en sosiale
omstandighede van hulle eis om die norme uit te daag.
In historiese romans vestig skrywers soos Scott eers ’n herkenbare historiese basis,
maar dan word fiktief voortborduur ten einde ’n ideologiese punt te maak—ontwikkel
die historiese basis langs ideologiese lyne:
nineteenth-century historical novels often distorted well-known facts for the sake
of making an ideological point. In this type of strategy, a non-fictional basis is first
secured, from which the construction derived a form of legitimacy; then fictional
extensions are built along ideological lines, often in such a way as to indeterminate
the frontiers between what is actual and what is not; all that matters is the circulation
of ideological material. (Pavel, “Borders” 87)
Deur vervaging van die lyne tussen historiese werklikheid en fiksie, kan ’n ideologiese
punt ontwikkel word, kan iets ontdek word van menslike bestaan en aard—dit is iets
wat deur Christoffel Coetzee gedoen word in Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz:
die lyne tussen fiksie en geskiedenis word doelbewys vervaag. In ’n fiktiewe verlenging
wat op die historiese basis gebou word, kan sekere aspekte van menslike bestaan
ondersoek word. In hierdie geval word byvoorbeeld boosheid in die samelewing
ondersoek.
Paul Ricoeur in die derde volume van Time and Narrative beklemtoon ook dat die
geskiedenis slegs as diskoers bestaan aangesien die verlede waarna dit veronderstel is
om te verwys, nie meer bestaan nie. Vir hom staan die geskiedenis “in die plek” van
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die afwesige verlede. Anders as die lees van geskiedenis waarin die historiese ’n rol
speel as die staan-in-die-plek van die verlede, lees ’n mens ’n roman nie as iets wat die
plek van die verlede inneem nie maar as iets wat ’n “ander wêreld” tot stand laat kom.
Hierdie ander (virtuele of alternatiewe) wêreld wat die leser mede-skeppend tot stand
bring deur die leesproses, maak volgens Ricoeur uiteindelik die leser bewus van
aspekte van sy/haar eie wêreld. Ook Wolfgang Iser redeneer in How to do Theory (63)
dat fiksie nie ’n direk aantoonbare referent het nie, maar dat die leeservaring lei tot die
belewenis van ’n “ander wêreld” en uiteindelik aanleiding gee tot ’n besinning oor
die “leefwêreld” van die leser.
In navolging van hierdie redenasie van Ricoeur en Iser het historiese fiksie dus nie
slegs die funksie wat Pretorius daaraan toeken (om die verlede te verlewendig) nie.
Die fiksiewêreld wat tydens die leesproses tot stand kom hoef nie—soos geskiedenis—
”in die plek van die verlede” te staan nie (en daarom word nie een van die romans wat
Pretorius betrek as “geskiedenis” aangebied nie maar juis as “fiksie). Historiese fiksie—
soos enige ander fiksie—bring ’n “wêreld” tot stand. Die ervaring van hierdie “alternatiewe wêreld” kan lei tot ’n herinterpretasie van die leser se leefwêreld. Voordat dit
kan gebeur, moet die fiksieteks egter losgemaak word van die eis van die “staan-indie-plek-van”. Hierdie is ’n eis waaraan Pretorius nie wil voldoen nie—en daarom is
hy so geïrriteerd met Niggie en Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz.
Roman as ondersoek van menslike bestaan
Milan Kundera onderskei in Art of the novel (1988) tussen tussen romans wat “die
historiese dimensie van die mens” ondersoek en romans wat ’n “illustrasie van ’n
historiese situasie” is (36). Laasgenoemde is nie vir hom werklik ’n roman nie. Kundera
se uitgangspunt is dat enige roman se bestaansrede is om ondersoek wat slegs in ’n
roman ondersoek kan word: “The novel’s sole raison d’être is to say what only the
novel can say” (36). In hierdie opsig sluit Kundera aan by Ricoeur se idee dat historiese
fiksie nie in die plek van die verlede behoort te staan nie maar ’n eie ervaring bied.
Kundera spreek hom uit ten gunste van “outentieke romanmatige denke”, ’n soort
denke wat volgens hom (reeds sedert Rabelais) onsistematies en ongedissiplineerd is,
soortgelyk aan Nietzsche se eksperimentele denke. Hierdie “outentieke romanmatige
denke” het volgens Kundera in Testaments Betrayed (1996) die volgende effek:
[I]t forces rifts in all the idea systems that surround us; it explores (particularly
through its characters) all lines of thought by trying to follow each of them to its
end. And there is this too about systematic thought: a person who thinks is
automatically prompted to systematize; it is his eternal temptation (mine too, even
in writing this book): a temptation to describe all the implications of his ideas; to
preempt any objections and refute them in advance; thus to barricade his ideas.
Now, a person who thinks should not try to persuade others of his ideas; that is
what puts him on a road to a system; on the lamentable road of the “man of
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conviction”; politicians like to call themselves that; but what is a conviction? It is a
thought that has come to a stop, that has congealed, and the “man of conviction” is
a man restricted; experimental thought seeks not to persuade but to inspire; to
inspire another thought, to set thought moving; that is why a novelist must
systematically desystemize his thought, kick at the barricade that he himself has
erected around his ideas. (Kundera, Testaments 174–5)
Vir Kundera word die opvattings van wat ’n kunswerk is, telkens herbedink en
geherdefinieer in elke individuele kunswerk. (Dit is terloops hoekom dit altyd so
moeilik is om ’n definisie van enige kunsvorm of genre te gee.) Elke individuele
kunswerk daag daardie definisie ook uit en verskuif daaraan. Daarom is elke roman
of gedig ook in gesprek met al die voorafgaande romans en gedigte. Uiteindelik is ook
elke waardeoordeel in gesprek met al die voorafgaande oordele en individuele werke.
Kundera vrees die dag wat hierdie gesprek met die voorafgaande kunswerke, die
voortdurende herdefiniëring van die kunswerk self, nie meer plaasvind in elke
kunswerk nie. Wanneer romans buite die geskiedenis van die roman begin staan, is
die dood van die kunsvorm in die pot.
But applied to art, that same phrase, “the end of history”, strikes me with terror;
that end I can imagine only too well, for most novels produced today stand outside
the history of the novel: novelized confessions, novelized journalism, novelized
score-settling, novelized autobiographies, novelized indescretions, novelized denunciations, novelized political arguments, novelized deaths of husbands, novelized
deaths of fathers, novelized deaths of mothers, novelized deflowerings, novelized
childbirths—novels ad infinitum, to the end of time, that say nothing new, have no
aesthetic ambition, bring no change to our understanding of man or to novelistic
form, are each one like the next, are completely consumable in the morning and
completely discardable in the afternoon. (Kundera, Testaments 17–8)
Hiermee spel Kundera duidelik uit wat hy verwag van die skrywer. Elke skrywer is in
gesprek met die tradisie, ’n tradisie wat die skrywer ook—ten einde werklik ’n bydrae
tot die kunsvorm te verleen—moet verruim en verken. Fiksie wat bloot die geskiedenis
op romanmatige wyse weergee, is hiervolgens vir Kundera verbruiksfiksie—om
vanoggend te lees en vanmiddag weg te gooi. Dit is eers as historiese fiksie ook
deelneem aan die tradisie van die kunsvorm, wat dit werklik ’n bydrae kan lewer tot
die moontlikheid om aspekte van menslike bestaan te ontdek.
Volgens Hermann Broch is die enigste bestaansrede vir ’n roman dat dit moet
ontdek dit wat slegs deur die roman ontdek kan word (in Kundera, The Art 5). Kundera
gaan so ver as om te sê dat ’n roman wat nie ’n tot dusver onbekende segment van ons
bestaan ontdek nie, immoreel is (The Art 5–6). Die taak van die letterkunde is nie om
geskiedskrywing te wees nie, nie om te bevestig wat ons reeds oor die verlede weet
93
nie, maar om die ongekaarte terrein van ons bestaan te ondersoek; om deur die verhaal,
deur die metafoor, kortom, om deur die moontlikhede wat taal bied, ’n ander manier
van ken, van verstaan van ons wêreld en van ons bestaan moontlik te maak.
In dié verband kan die historiese roman dus gesien word as ’n roman wat dit
moontlik maak om aspekte van die self en van die wereld en van menslike bestaan te
ontdek wat slegs deur hierdie leeservaring bemiddel word. Daarom gaan dit nie oor
blote vertelling oor gebeurtenisse van die verlede nie.
Dit is egter ’n kwade dag as romans bloot beskou word as romanmatige
geskiedskrywing. Indien ’n skrywer geskiedenis wil skryf, behoort dit geskiedenis te
wees, nie ’n roman nie (en só ’n geskiedenis kan ook van die hoogs individuele
uitgaan al is dit ’n fokus op die lotgevalle van ’n enkele deelsaaier in die ou WesTransvaal). Die romanskrywer wat regtig in die tradisie van die genre deelneem, wil
eerder ’n ervaring aan die leser bied waardeur ’n bepaalde aspek van menslike bestaan
ondersoek word—al is die vertrekpunte van die ondersoek in ’n bekende historiese
gegewe wat dan verder ontwikkel word.
’n Paar verdere opmerkings oor Pretorius se artikel
Pretorius vewys in sy kort historiese oorsig van fiksie oor die Anglo-Boere-oorlog na
“Afrikaanse skrywers se nasionale benadering tot die Anglo-Boere-oorlog” waarmee
hy eintlik bedoel ’n “Afrikanernasionalistiese benadering”. Dit word duidelik dat
hierdie benadering vir Pretorius eintlik die wenslikste benadering is, veral wanneer
hy later na “‘alternatiewe’ historiese romans” verwys. “Alternatiewe historiese romans”
is vir Pretorius dié romans wat “nie die standpunte van Afrikanernasionalisme verteenwoordig nie”. Hierdie klassifisering en benoeming bevat reeds ’n inherente
waardeoordeel—Afrikanernasionalisme word immers as die norm gestel waarteenoor
enige fiksie wat nie aan daardie norm voldoen nie as “alternatief”, met ander woorde
as “afwykend” en onwenslik geimpliseer word. Waar die alternatiewe romans volgens
Pretorius afwyk van die historiese gegewe is sy lof skaars, maar in romans wat ooreenstem—soos Du Plessis en Loots se romans—gebruik hy woorde soos “briljant”,
“besonder briljant” en “histories verantwoordbaar”.
Pretorius fokus uitsluitlik op die geskiedenis en hy hou nie rekening met die feit
dat romans dikwels nie pogings is om die verlede soseer te beskryf nie, maar dat dit
eintlik as ’n respons op die hede geskryf word. Pretorius haal tereg Brink se opmerking
oor Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz aan as ’n sterk waarderende oordeel, maar hy
ignoreer Brink se rede vir die spesifieke waardeoordeel. Brink wys naamlik daarop
dat die roman nie slegs oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog gaan nie maar oor die “donkerte
en eksesse van die menslike psige”. Daarmee plaas Brink die klem daarop dat Op soek
na generaal Mannetjies Mentz nie soseer ’n soeke na die donker in die Afrikaner se
geskiedenis is nie. Die roman is eerder ’n soeke na die donker in die menslike psige, in
94
die hede. Pretorius neem in hierdie geval oënskynlik ook nie die konteks van die
roman se verskyning in ag nie. Teen die einde van die 1990’s was die Waarheids- en
Versoeningskommissie se sittings in volle swang. Die ontmaskering van gruweldade
in die gemeenskap het gelei tot talle vrae oor hoe dit gebeur dat mense onuitspreekbare
dade teenoor ander kan verrig en Coetzee se roman het juis op hierdie vrae gereageer.
Aan die hand van ’n historiese vertrekpunt, ’n gesitueerdheid in die herkenbare
geskiedenis, word die moontlikheid van hierdie donker kant van die menslike psige
ondersoek.
Pretorius se afkeurende opmerkings oor Coetzee se roman spruit uit ’n vrees dat
die roman nie ’n beeld van die oorlog skep wat getrou is aan die Afrikanernasionalistiese beskouings daarvan nie. Hy spreek die kommer uit dat “alternatiewe waarhede”
uitsonderings as die norm sou voorstel—dat enkele Boere wat dalk sou optree soos
Mentz se strafkommando slegs uitsonderings was en dat dit nie so ge-organiseerd en
uitgebreid voorgekom het as wat in die roman uitgebeeld word nie: “Hierdie
vrybuiterkorpse wat rondgeswerf het, kan volgens beskikbare gegewens nie met
patriotisme aan die Boeresaak vereenselwig word nie en het nie die gemiddelde Boer
van 1900 verteenwoordig nie (Pretorius passim). Daar is ’n diskrepans tussen gedokumenteerde historiese gegewe en Coetzee se romangegewe.” (66)
Om die diskrepans tussen die historiese gegewe en Coetzee se romangegewe as
sodanig aan te dui, is natuurlik die waarde van Pretorius se artikel. Die negatiewe
oordeel wat hy op grond daarvan impliseer, is nie gemotiveerd nie en dui op ’n
misverstaan van die doel van die romankuns in die algemeen en van historiese fiksie
spesifiek.
Pretorius besef wel deeglik dat die romanskrywer altyd op die besondere fokus.
Dit is ook duidelik in hierdie roman dat Mentz of Niemann nie die norm is nie. Hulle
en hulle dade word ook nie in die roman as ’n norm van die Boeremagte se optrede
voorgehou nie maar die klem val daarop dat boosheid ook, soos Mentz en Niemann
se name aandui, oral teenwoordig is. Mentz word telkens in die roman juis as onmerkwaardig beskryf—’n gewone mens wat in die massa verdwyn, terwyl Niemann
eintlik niemand is nie. Dit gaan dus nie oor die spesifieke karakters as uitsonderings
nie, maar beklemtoon dat boosheid nie aan spesifieke mense gekoppel kan word
terwyl ander nie boos is nie, dat boosheid aan elkeen van ons deel het. Dit word die
bose kant wat so alledaags is dat mens dit nie eens raaksien nie.
Ingrid Winterbach se roman, Niggie, word ook deur Pretorius as “alternatiewe”
historiese roman beskryf. Hy skryf verder oor dié roman: “Dit is nie in die Afrikaner
nasionale paradigma geskryf nie, waar die held in volkome beheer van sy lot en sy hart
sou wees.” Hy gaan voort: “Dit is ’n buitengewone verhaal. Twee Boere, Reitz Steyn en
Ben Maritz (vir die historikus irriterende samevoegings van bestaande historiese figure),
wat as natuurwetenskaplikes op kommando diens doen, word deur ’n vrybuiter
Boerekommando gevange geneem.” (66) Met hierdie opmerkings is Pretorius baie
95
akkuraat, maar omdat hy slegs na die romans se ooreenkomste met die geskiedenis
kyk, maak hy ’n beperkte afleiding. Die feit dat die roman nie in die “Afrikaner nasionale
paradigma” geskryf is nie, is korrek—die roman het nie ten doel om hierdie paradigma
te steun nie—dit sou immers self reeds die voortbou langs ideologiese lyne op ’n
herkenbaar historiese gegewe wees (’n aspek wat Pretorius nie erken nie aangesien hy
hierdie paradigma as norm aanvaar en alternatiewe daartoe as ideologies.)
Sy opmerking tussen hakies, is baie interessant. Waarom sou die “samevoegings
van bestaande historiese figure” vir die historikus “irriterend” wees? Die enigste rede
waarom dit irriterend sou kon wees, is omdat dit nie aan die verwagtings van die
historikus voldoen nie. Die historikus vir wie hierdie samevoegings irriteer, lees met
die verwagting om die verlede uitgebeeld te hê in ooreenstemming met beskikbare
feite (en wat vir die historikus ’n aanvaarbare ideologiese voortbou op die bekende
gegewe is).
Pretorius wys ook tereg daarop dat die twee karakters stuurloos heen en weer
geslinger word deur magte buite hulle beheer en hy vind dit onakkuraat omdat
Boerehelde, volgens hom, in beheer van hulle eie harte en lot behoort te wees. Hiermee
mis Pretorius weer eens dat die roman nie soseer ’n representasie van die AngloBoereoorlog is as wat dit ’n reaksie op die moderne samelewing is nie.
Pretorius kan kwalik sy ergerlikheid bedek met die feit dat Winterbach sy eie werk
en ook ander historiese bronne benut het, maar dit nie noukeurig genoeg gedoen het
nie en daarvan afwyk. Die karakters probeer om ’n houvas op hulle werklikheid te kry
deur onder meer die wetenskap in te span, deur die landskap se geologie en fauna en
flora in fyn besonderhede te beskryf, om deur middel van beskrywing, deur taal, en
rasionaliteit begrip te vind. Ook die bo-natuurlike, die irrasionele (dink aan hulle
pogings om die siener te raadpleeg), word deur die karakters ondersoek ten einde tot
begrip van hulle wêreld te kom. Al hulle pogings om die wêreld en hul plek daarin te
begryp, blyk egter futiel te wees. Hierdie is ’n aspek van bestaan waarmee karakters in
Winterbach se ander romans (byvoorbeeld in Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat en Die
aanspraak van lewende wesens) deurgaans worstel. In die geval van Niggie vind hierdie
worsteling van karakters wat nie tuis in die wêreld is nie, teen ’n herkenbare historiese
agtergrond plaas. Maar dit gaan nie oor ’n representasie van daardie historiese
agtergrond nie, die fokus val op ’n verkenning van die mens se ontuisheid in ’n wêreld
wat begrip en beheer ontglip en wat hoogstens as onbegrypbaar aanvaar kan word.
In sy geskiedenisteks skryf Pretorius oor die kommandolewe van Boere in die
oorlog. In haar roman skryf Winterbach oor menslike bestaan as nuttelose slingertogte.
Ten spyte van karakters se pogings om sin te vind (of te gee) oorheers die ervaring dat
daar te veel toevallighede, onbeheerbare en veral onverstaanbare gebeurtenisse is.
Die karakters kan nóg hulle eie harte, nóg hul historiese omstandighede begryp.
96
Gevolgtrekking
Bogenoemde voorbeelde laat duidelik blyk dat Pretorius se benadering tot historiese
fiksie getuig van ’n beperkte opvatting van wat historiese fiksie kan wees. Dit is
duidelik dat ’n neutrale aanduiding van afwykings van die aanvaarde geskiedenis
nie sy enigste doelwit was nie, maar dat daar ’n normatiewe oordeel hieragter skuil:
waarom anders sal fiksie wat afwyk van die geskiedenis vir hom “geen sin maak nie”
en “irriteer ”?
Die doel van hierdie artikel was egter nie om slegs Pretorius se onuitgesproke
beskouings bloot te lê nie, maar om oor die komplekse verhouding tussen fiksie en
geskiedenis na te dink en aan te dui hoedat historiese fiksie dikwels bydra tot die
herinnering dat die verlede altyd kultureel gemedieerd is, en dat die romankuns by
uitstek gemoeid is met die ondersoek van menslike bestaan. Gevolglik is die vergelyking van fiksie met geskiedenis eerder interessant as wat dit normatief aangewend kan word.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Aantekeninge
Volgens neurologiese navorsing is daar blyke dat ’n mens se brein inderdaad baie meer aktief is
wanneer fiksie gelees word as wanneer byvoorbeeld na ’n TV-verhaal gekyk word (kyk Mar et.al.).
In Schoeman se Verliesfontein word hierdie proses doelbewus aangedui deur die beeld van ’n
legkaart waarvan slegs enkele stukkies behoue gebly het. Die geskiedskrywer kan die volooide
prent slegs verbeel.
In ’n poging om weg te kom van referensie as die enigste onderskeid tussen fiksie en geskiedenis,
redeneer Ricoeur (Time and Narrative 1 185 e.v.) dat geskiedenis ’n verhaal is wat “in die plek” van die
(altyd onbereikbare en afwesige) verlede staan, terwyl fiksie nie in die plek van iets anders staan
nie, maar ’n eie plek is. Hy vermy referensie as kriterium omdat dit nie moontlik is om die referent
van geskiedenis, naamlik die verlede, ooit te ken nie—die geskiedenis is op teenstrydige wyse self
daardie referent.
Pavel (“Borders” 86) wys op die problematiese onderskeid wat Bertrand Russell tref tussen stellings
wat referente het en stellings wat nie referente het nie en John Searle wat onderskei tussen
“ernstige” en “fiktiewe” stellings op grond van illokusie. Ook Ricoeur (185 e.v.) soos hierbo aangedui,
verwerp referensie as basis vir onderskeid tussen fiksie en geskiedenis.
In Afrikaans sou mens kon sê hulle is boerseuns, afstammelinge van die Trekkers met die pioniersgees,
gerig deur eenvoud en onkorrupte, landelike waardes, hardwerkendheid, taaiheid as gevolg van
die worsteling met die land en sy ongediertes en vyande, en vertroue op God en die streng reëls
van die Bybel.
Coetzee, Christoffel. Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz. Kaapstad: Queillerie, 1998.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. Londen, New York: Routledge, 1989.
Jenkins, K. Rethinking History. Londen: Routledge, 1991.
Klauk, Tobias en Köppe, Tilmann. “Showing vs. Telling.” The Living Handbook of Narratology. Reds. Peter
Hühn, et al. Hamburg: Hamburg University. 16 Jan. 2014. 30 Apr. 2015. < http://www.lhn.unihamburg.de/article/telling-vs-showing>.
Kundera, Milan. Testaments Betrayed. Londen: Faber & Faber, 1996.
_____. The Art of the Novel. Londen: Faber & Faber, 1988.
97
Mar, Raymond, Keith Oatley, Jacob Hirsh, Jennifer dela Paz en Jordan B. Peterson. “Bookworms versus
nerds: Exposure to Fiction versus Non-Fiction, Divergent Associations with Social Ability, and the
Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds.” Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006): 694–712.
Pavel, Thomas. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: Havard UP, 1986.
_____. “The Borders of Fiction”. Poetics Today 4.1 (1983): 83–88.
_____. The Lives of the Novel. A History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2013.
Pretorius, Fransjohan. “Historisiteit van resente historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog in Afrikaans.”
Prince, Gerald. Dictionary of Narratology. Revised Edition. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Ricoeur, Paul. Oneself as Another. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992.
_____. Time and Narrative. Vol I. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984.
_____. Time and Narrative Vol 3. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990.
Schoeman, Karel. Verliesfontein. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 1998.
Ulaby, Neda. “The Man Who Gets The Science Right On ‘The Big Bang Theory.” 23 Sept. 2013. 30 Apr.
2015. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/09/23/224404260/the-man-who-gets-the-scienceright-on-the-big-bang-theory>.
White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” W. J. T. Mitchell, On
Narrative. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. 1–23.
_____. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P. 1978.
Winterbach, Ingrid. Die aanspraak van lewende wesens. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2012.
_____. Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2006.
_____. Niggie. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2002.
Wolf, Werner. “Illusion (Aesthetic).” The Living Handbook of Narratology. Reds. Peter Hühn, et al. Hamburg:
Hamburg University. 17 Jan. 2014. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/illusionaesthetic>.
Wolfe, Tom. Hooking Up. Londen: Jonathan Cape, 2000.
Wood, James. How Fiction Works. Londen: Picador, 2009.
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Fransjohan Pretorius
Fransjohan Pretorius is emeritusprofessor in die Dept. Historiese en
Erfenisstudies, Universiteit van
Pretoria.
E-pos: fransjohan.pretorius@up.ac.za
Historisiteit en historiese fiksie
—’n repliek
In sy respons op my artikel “Die historisiteit van resente Afrikaanse historiese fiksie
oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog” in Tydskrif vir letterkunde gee Willie Burger indrukwekkende verwysings na die teorie van historiese fiksie. Ongelukkig bied die literatore
wat hy aanhaal slegs ’n letterkundige perspektief. Hulle neem nie die historikus se
hoek in ag nie.
Volgens Burger (92–3) verwys Milan Kundera na twee soorte historiese fiksie. Die
een ondersoek die historiese dimensie van die mens en die ander maak van ’n historiese
situasie ’n romantiese verhaal. Laasgenoemde is nie vir Kundera werklik ’n roman
nie, want dit bring geen verandering aan ons verstaan van die mens nie—dis fiksie
wat bloot die geskiedenis op ’n romanmatige wyse weergee. Vir hom is die taak van
die letterkunde nie om geskiedskrywing te wees nie, maar om die ongekaarte terrein
van ons bestaan te ondersoek.
Ek stem saam met Kundera as byvoorbeeld generaal De Wet se optrede tydens die
Anglo-Boereoorlog op romanmatige wyse beskryf sou word. Vir my is dit egter
aanvaarbaar as die skrywer insidente uit die oorlog as deel van sy verhaal aanwend.
Dit kan stééds goeie letterkunde wees. Soos Karel Schoeman in Verliesfontein vertel
hoe ’n Boerekommando ’n bruin man, Adam Balie, dood martel. Dit is gebaseer op die
ware verhaal van Abraham Esau in Nieuwoudtville. Maar vir my as historikus kan
die skrywer steeds sy eie verhale opmaak, mits dit binne die betrokke tydsgees
moontlik en billik is.
Wat betref Kundera se keuse vir die historiese roman—’n ondersoek na die historiese
dimensie van die mens en sy donker psige—wonder ek: hoe dra foutiewe historiese
inligting of ’n onverifieerbare uitbeelding van die verlede by tot begrip van die donker
psige van die mens? Waarom ’n historiese onderwerp kies as jy nie by die histories
moontlike en verifieerbare wil bly nie?
Christoffel Coetzee het in Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz (1998) die donker
psige van die mens ondersoek en nie noodwendig oor “die Boere” geskryf nie. Maar
waarom ’n historiese roman skryf as daar geen historiese gegewens is wat die bestaan
van so ’n bose kommando bewys nie? Dit sou ’n ander saak gewees het as Coetzee
byvoorbeeld vertel het hoe ’n Boerekommando ’n swart nedersetting byna uitwis
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omdat dié hulle teen die Boere verset het—want daar was sulke voorbeelde, soos
Maritz se aanval op die Basters op Leliefontein. Burger (94–6) beweer my negatiewe
oordeel oor Mannetjies Mentz dui op ’n misverstaan van die doel van historiese fiksie.
Ek vra nie om verskoning dat ek vanuit ’n historiese hoek beoordeel nie.
Burger se etikette om my nek is onvanpas. Hy beweer historiese fiksie is vir my ’n
soort “verlenging” van geskiedskrywing wat die verlede verlewendig deur ’n verhaal
wat die leser emosioneel kan aangryp (79). Hy gee my bespreking van Fado vir ’n
vreemdeling as voorbeeld.
Geensins. In Fado het Margaret Bakkes één bladsy uit O.J.O. Ferreira se geskiedeniswerk oor Boere-geïnterneerdes in Portugal geneem en daarvan ’n aangrypende
verhaal gemaak. Ek reken sulke gebeure kan (nie móét nie) deur historiese fiksieskrywers gebruik word in hul verhale. Burger (79) beweer dat historiese fiksie geen
ander moontlikhede vir my inhou nie. Hy verstaan my verkeerd. Ek is minder opgewonde as die skrywer van historiese fiksie iets wat nie op kommando kon gebeur het
nie, in sy verhaal opneem. Is die verskil dus dat die historikus aandring op verantwoordelike historiese fiksie, en die literator nie?
Vir Burger (91–2) lyk dit of ek die moontlikheid van fiksie om ’n estetiese illusie te
bewerkstellig, slegs waardeer indien dit aansluit by my eie visie van hoe die verlede
weergegee behoort te word. Geensins—nie my visie nie, maar volgens verifieerbare
feite en moontlikhede.
In historiografiese metafiksie, sê Burger (88), waar die grense tussen feite en fiksie
vervaag, word die “aanvaarde geskiedenis” uitgedaag. Ongemaklike vrae word geopper, soos in Verliesfontein en Mannetjies Mentz. Burger besluit ek het probleme
daarmee. Met die “ongemaklike vrae” in Verliesfontein het ek geen probleme nie, want
dit klop met verifieerbare feite. Nie in Mannetjies Mentz nie.
Nog ’n etiket om my nek: Burger (94) oordeel dat die Afrikanernasionalistiese
benadering vir my “eintlik die wenslikste benadering” is. Fout. Dis nêrens in my
artikel te bespeur nie. Ek stel “alternatiewe historiese fiksie” as reaksie op die vorige
benadering in Afrikanernasionale historiese fiksie, waar die Boer vaderlandsliefde
voorop gestel het, kuis en godsdienstig was, in beheer van sy hoof en sy hart was, en
waar die Brit veroordeel is en die hendsopper en joiner verag is. Dit het tot die 1970’s
voortgeduur, deur skrywers soos Van Bruggen en H. S. van Blerk. Dit staan ek beslis
nie voor nie.
Met die afname in Afrikanernasionalisme het demitologisering en die
“alternatiewe” historiese fiksie (met die antiheld) ingetree, soos Van Wyk Louw met
Die pluimsaad waai ver, Leroux met Magersfontein o Magersfontein, en Coetzee se
Mannetjies Mentz in die naweë van 1994, die Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie en
die Herdenking van die Anglo-Boereoorlog (Pretorius 63–5).
My argument is dat ook Bakkes se Fado, P.G. se Fees van die ongenooides en Sonja
Loots se Sirkusboere “alternatiewe” historiese fiksie is of sterk alternatiewe elemente
100
bevat. Fado, omdat die hoofkarakter ’n antiheld is, ’n bywoner, ’n geïnterneerde
sukkelaar. Sirkusboere is “alternatief ” omdat die verhaal ondenkbaar sou wees binne
die Afrikanernasionale paradigma—Cronjé sou vir sy “verraad” geïgnoreer word, en
Viljoen vir sy flambojantheid en versaking van Afrikanernasionale waardes. In Fees
van die ongenooides vertoon almal met uitsondering van Martie anti-nasionale (en dus
“alternatiewe”) optrede—Oupa Daniël raak godsdienstig afvallig oor die baie dooies
wat hy moet begrawe; Daantjie is ’n papbroek en verkrag ook anoniem sy vrou;
Soldaat, die swart agterryer, neem téén die gebruik namens Daantjie aan gevegte deel;
Magrieta knoop ’n vriendskap met ’n Britse offisier aan; en Gertruida ervaar sluimerende homoseksuele gevoelens. “Alternatiewe” historiese fiksie is vir my volkome
aanvaarbaar—mits die gebeure histories verantwoordbaar is. En in hierdie werke is
dit so.
Kundera en Burger se historiese fiksie, waarin die gebeure nie histories moontlik
hoef te wees nie, het natuurlik ’n plek. Maar die invalshoek van die historikus verseker
dat hy na die verifieerbaar moontlike kyk. En dit het óók ’n plek. Moenie vergeet nie:
ook die intellektuele leser wat belangstel in die menslike psige, vra die historikus:
“Het dit wèrklik gebeur?”
Burger, Willie. “Historiese korrektheid en historiese fiksie: ’n respons.” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 52.2
(2015): 78–98.
Pretorius, Fransjohan. “Historisiteit van resente historiese fiksie oor die Anglo-Boereoorlog in Afrikaans.”
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Susan Meyer
Susan Meyer is ’n senior lektor verbonde aan die Fakulteit Opvoedingswetenskappe, Noordwes-Universiteit,
Potchefstroom.
E-pos: meyer.susan@nwu.ac.za
’n Alternatiewe beskouing van die
natuur se andersheid in E. Kotze
se kortverhaal ‘Halfkrone vir die
Nagmaal’
An alternative view of nature’s otherness in E.
Kotze’s short story ‘Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal’
Diepsee: ’n Keur uit die verhale van E. Kotze (2014) refocuses our attention on Kotze’s short story collections which immortalised
the sea and the littoral spaces of the West Coast in Afrikaans literature. This study comprises an ecocriticial investigation of the
title story in Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal (1982), with attention to the manner in which distancing takes place from the
conventional Western way of thinking by which is presumed that human-nature differences may serve to vindicate human
domination of, or misconstrue the relationship with, the natural world. Differences between human and nonhuman nature in this
narrative is integrated with details which clearly bring the human-nature relationship to light, as well as ideas of connectedness
with nature. This leads me to an exploration of the representation of the sea and the natural sea environment as a literary
demonstration of an alternative view of nature as the Other. The investigation centres on the discovery of characteristics of
anotherness—characteristics in contrast to those of the Other in the dualistic human-nature view in which the key concepts of
alienation and objectification still function to defend Western hierarchical power relationships. The alternative model of otherness,
with anotherness as key concept, has its origins in Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory concerning the term “relational otherness”. This model
has been applied to the field of ecocriticism by Patrick Murphy who describes anotherness as a perception of otherness that respects
difference without using it to justify domination or prohibit connection. Murphy emphasises that anotherness proceeds from a
heterarchichal—that is, a non-hierarchical—sense of difference. The application of this alternative model of otherness, in the
ecocritical context, to “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” leads to the discovery of a respectful approach to human-nature differences,
where principles of domination or distancing do not apply, but rather those of relations and human-nature interaction. In voicing
another nature, Kotze’s acts as “I-for-another” (Bakhtin’s expression) for the earth; her narrative becomes an act of responsibility
towards a coastal strip that nowhere else in Afrikaans literature is captured so expansively and poignantly as in her work.
Keywords: alternative model of otherness, anotherness, E. Kotze, “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal”, human-nature relationship,
Mikhail Bakhtin, nature as another, Patrick Murphy.
Inleidend
Met Diepsee: ’n Keur uit die verhale van E. Kotze (2014) bring die samesteller, Suzette
Kotzé-Myburgh, verhale uit vyf van Kotzé se bundels byeen: uit Halfkrone vir die
Nagmaal (1982), Silt van die aarde (1986), Halwe hemel (1992), Waterwyfie en ander
woestynverhale (1997) en Die wind staan oos (2007). Die titel en voorbladfoto— meeue
wat ’n visskuit voortuitvlieg—vestig dadelik die aandag op die vervloë Weskusruimte
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waarin Kotze se verhale meestal afspeel, die strook land aangrensend aan die see
noord van Kaapstad tot aan die Oranjerivier. In die voorwoord van Diepsee neem die
leser kennis dat Kotze se skryfwerk toegespits is op ’n spesifieke deel van die Weskus:
die omgewing van Velddrif en Laaiplek, ook noordwaarts verby Lambertsbaai tot by
Doringbaai en Strandfontein.
“Haar seeverhale is Sussie (Kotze) se belangrikste bydrae tot die Afrikaanse
letterkunde”, sê Kotzé-Myburgh in die voorwoord van die versamelbundel. Die leser
word herinner aan Kotze se debuutroman, Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal, wat in 1983 bekroon
is met die SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns se Eugène Marais-prys. Die Weskuswêreld, waarmee sy ’n unieke plek oopgeskryf het in die Afrikaanse letterkunde, volgens
die oordeel van Abrham H. de Vries (13) en Fanie Olivier (24), is ook te vind in albei
haar romans, Toring se baai (2009) en Hoogty (2011). In haar outobiografiese vertelling,
Die slag van die breekbrander (2000), staan die lewe saam met Willie Kotze, haar skipper
van Lambertsbaai, en hulle verblyf op verskeie Weskusdorpe weer sentraal.
Kotzé-Myburgh stem saam met Petra Müller dat Kotze “omtrent eiehandig gesorg
het dat ’n seewoordeskat in Afrikaans behoue bly”—’n belangrike bydrae, in ag genome
dat ons taal uit dié van ’n seevarende nasie stam (Kotzé-Myburg se voorwoord in
Kotze, “Diepsee” 8). Hennie Aucamp (11) beaam in sy bespreking van Halfkrone vir die
Nagmaal ’n waardering vir dieselfde saak, hy verwys na “die prosesbeskrywings, met
al die gereedskap daarby”, in verband met die seun wat hom in die titelverhaal
gereed kry om ’n paar dae op die see uit te vaar, en na hoe meesterlik die “feitelikheid”
omtrent die ekspedisie vasgevang word in seemanstaal. André P. Brink vind dieselfde
aspek van hierdie verhaal treffend: “Dis ’n gewone vistog, ja—maar Afrikaans, oerAfrikaans.” (“Kotze se boek” 12)
“Die Weskus is nie voor óf ná die verskyning van Kotze se debuutbundel al weer
so akkuraat en aangrypend weergegee nie”, oordeel J. B. Roux (7) wanneer hy, met die
verskyning van Diepsee, terugkyk oor die Afrikaanse letterkunde van die afgelope
dekades. Hiermee word verwys na die uitbeelding van die spesifieke stuk seeomgewing “tussen die bek van die Berg- en Grootrivier”, soos in die voorwoord van
Waterwyfie en ander woestynverhale gesê word, sowel as na die bewoners daarvan. Dit
gaan oor “die souterigheid van menswees en van die seelug en soutpanne”, sê Olivier
(24); wat Kotze uitbeeld, is “die simbiose van taai mense in ’n veeleisende, bar landskap” (Brink, “Verhale” 13).
Die see, waarop vele karakters in Kotze se verhale ’n verdienste vind, skep die
konteks vir hulle lewe. Die see en natuuromgewing vind dikwels in hierdie verhale
literêre gestalte as ’n ruimtelike karakter of mag waarteen die karakters hulle vasloop,
veral in die verhale waarin vis-ekspedisies op die diepsee skeefloop, soos in “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” (uit die gelyknamige bundel) en “Mantel” (uit Waterwyfie en
ander woestynverhale)—verhale waarin die vissers “flaiings” en ontnugter uit die stryd
tree (Kotze, “Waterwyfie” 83).
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Uit die gegewe van konflik tussen die mens en die see sou assosiasies van verwydering en vervreemding ten opsigte van die natuur kon ontstaan, asook die idee
van die natuur as die Ander volgens die Westerse dualistiese beskouing van objektivering en distansiëring. In hierdie ondersoek word egter ’n indringende verhaalanalise onderneem om nuwe insigte te probeer vind ten opsigte van die self/
Ander-verhouding in ’n verhaal waar die natuur in die rol van die Ander staan as
gevolg van die basis van onderliggende verskille. Die motivering vir hierdie benadering is die ooglopende teenstrydighede in hierdie verhaal waarvan die leser
bewus word. Mens-natuurverskille en gebeure van konflik, as gevolg waarvan die
assosiasie met die historiese self/Ander-dualisme ontstaan, word verhaalmatig geïntegreer met besonderhede omtrent mens-natuurverbintenisse asook met idees van
samehang en skakeling met die omringende natuurruimte, waardeur die aard van
die konvensionele self/Ander-verhouding uitgedaag word.
Die wyse waarop magsverhoudings deur Kotze uitgebeeld word, bied verdere
motivering om haar werk krities te beskou ten opsigte van die mens-natuuraspekte
daarin. Uit die gebeure van die duidelike beïnvloeding van die visserkarakters deur
die see en die groter natuuromgewing spruit indringende vrae oor die Westerse
beskouing van die self/Ander-konsep waarin idees oor die objektivering van en die
dominansie oor die Ander oorheers. Die kwessie van beïnvloeding deur die natuur
en die opvatting dat die natuuromgewing wesentlik bydra tot aspekte van die mens
se identiteit, sy leefwyse en lewensomstandighede word wyd erken.1 Reinhardt Fourie
meen dat dit ook toenemend die fokus is van die ekokritiek binne die Suid-Afrikaanse
literatuurstudies.
Ekokritiek is, kortliks gestel, “an earth-centred approach to literary studies”
(Glotfelty xix). Die term word in The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms in breër
besonderhede deur Childs en Fowler (65) omskryf as “[t]he study of literary texts with
reference to the interaction between human activity and the vast range of ’natural’ or
non-human phenomena which bears upon human experience—encompassing
(among many things) issues concerning fauna, flora, landscape, environment and
weather”. Glotfelty (xix) verduidelik dat, ondanks die verskeidenheid van teorieë en
uitgangspunte wat ingesluit word in die ekokritiek, “all ecological criticism shares
the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world,
affecting it and affected by it. Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections
between nature and culture, specifically the cultural artefacts of language and
literature.”
Ten opsigte van my ekokritiese benadering in hierdie studie is pas gemotiveer dat
daar ’n teoretiese raamwerk benodig word met behulp waarvan wegbeweeg kan
word van die tweeledigheid tradisioneel geassosieer met die konsep van die Ander—
ten einde die mens-natuurverhouding in die geselekteerde teks krities te kan analiseer en volledig te kan begryp.
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My doelstelling is ’n ondersoek na die wyse waarop die natuur en die natuurlike
see-omgewing uitgebeeld word as literêre demonstrasie van ’n alternatiewe beskouing
van die natuur as die Ander. Die ondersoek is toegespits op die ontdekking van
eienskappe van anotherness—eienskappe in teenstelling met dié van die Ander in die
digotomiese mens-natuurbeskouing wat tradisioneel uitdrukking vind in sienswyses
soos dié van onversoenbare vervreemding tussen die mens en die natuur as die Ander,
of dié van totale ontkenning van verskille (in effek die verswelging van die “Ander”
en die absorpsie van enige onderskeidende kenmerke).
Vir die konsepte another en anotherness, asook die problematiek rondom die
vertaling daarvan, word in die volgende afdeling die nodige teoretiese begronding
gebied. Vervolgens word ’n spesifieke verhaal dan bestudeer om die uitbeelding van
die natuur binne die konteks van anotherness te analiseer. Die aandag sal gerig wees
op die literêre vergestalting van ’n mens-natuurverhouding waarbinne verskille
gerespekteer word, sonder dat hierdie verskille gebruik word om enige vorm van
dominansie te regverdig en sonder om kontak of verbintenis met die Ander te misken.
Aspekte van die konsep van anotherness word, soms prominent en soms minder
duidelik, in verskeie verhale in Kotze se oeuvre aangetref. ’n Enkele verhaal waarin
vele aspekte daarvan saamgetrek word en waarin die idee van die natuur as another
kragtig gedemonstreer word, is “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” uit haar eerste bundel.
Die literêre verdienstelikheid van hierdie verhaal is wyd erken: binne die geheel van
die bekroonde bundel het dit beïndruk as “verrassend goed” (Aucamp 11), selfs as die
beste verhaal in die bundel (Venter 8; Brink, “Kotze se boek” 12). Waardering is
uitgespreek vir die tegniese vernuf daarvan, die “instinktiewe begrip vir die kortverhaal as vorm en die vermoë om lewe en swaarkry met min woorde omvattend
weer te gee” (Roux 7), ook vir die feit dat met eenvoudige maar suiwer epiese middele
gewerk word (Brink, “Kotze se boek” 12). E. C. Britz (7) sê: “Kotze kyk nugter en
geensins nostalgies-verheerlikend nie na haar tuiswêreld. Daarbenewens is haar
skryfstyl voortreflik: sober, eenvoudig, volmaak aangepas by haar stof.” Louise Viljoen (6) beskou Kotze as “een van die geseëndes wat die vermoë het om die eenheid
van die streek op onsentimentele wyse te deurskou en ’n sintuig het vir die buitengewone en die wonderbaarlike wat deel is van die alledaagse.”
In die volgende afdeling word daar ’n teoretiese konteks vir die studie verskaf
deur ’n bondige bespreking van die konsep van die Ander, en spesifiek ook die
natuur as die Ander, naas dié van another.
Die Ander en ’n alternatiewe beskouing daarvan
Die konsep van die Ander, gebaseer op idees van permanente onvolledigheid en
onvolwassenheid, dien steeds ter beskerming van Westerse hiërargiese magsverhoudings (Murpy, “Anotherness” 40). Histories word die self/Ander-beskouing verwoord
105
in die binêre konstruksiereeks gees/liggaam, man/vrou, mens/natuur, met die vrou en
die natuur albei as beliggaming van die teengesteldes van gees, intellek en kultuur. Al
hierdie digotomiese vergestaltings dra die kernelement van vervreemding van die
Absolute Ander, die objektivering en distansiëring van die Ander in diens van een of
ander vorm van dominansie (Ortner 69). In hierdie verband kan byvoorbeeld gedink
word aan die wyse waarop Foucault die Ander verbind met die magsverhoudings
tussen oorheersers en onderdruktes in ’n gemeenskap (sien McNay 6–7), of die koloniale interpretasie van die konsep van die Ander (sien Boehmer 21).
In ekokritiese besinnings word reeds vir die afgelope sowat drie dekades vrae
gevra oor die idee van absolute vervreemding tussen die mens en die res van die
natuur, waar sodanige vervreemding impliseer dat laasgenoemde beskou word as
identiteitlose entiteit, gereduseer tot objekstatus. Vroeg in die 1990’s vra Patrick D.
Murphy: “What if instead of alienation we posit relation as the primary mode of
human-human and human-nature interaction without conflating difference,
particularity, and other specificities? What if we worked from a concept of relational
difference and anotherness rather that Otherness?” (“Voicing” 63) Murphy se
vertrekpunt word duidelik geformuleer: “Anotherness proceeds from a hierarchical—
that is, a nonhierarchical—sense of difference.” (63)
Die term anotherness is moeilik vertaalbaar. “Another” dui op “nog een/iets” (Pharos
Afrikaans-Engels Woordeboek 772), dus iets of iemand wat bykomend geag moet word,
sonder dat daar sprake van assimilasie of van die negering van verskille is. Murphy
doen geensins weg met die realiteit van andersheid en die kwessie van verskille in sy
mens-natuurbeskouing nie, maar bied ’n alternatiewe, relasionele model van andersheid. Die relasionele aard van die model, die idee van verwantskappe en die
wedersydse beïnvloeding wat binne verwantskappe geïmpliseer word, is duidelik
wanneer Murphy motiveer dat, “if […] the notion of ‘anotherness’, being another for
others, is not recognized, then the ecological processes of interanimation—the ways
in which humans and other entities develop, change, and learn through mutually
influencing each other day to day, age by age—will go unacknowledged” (“Voicing”
63). Dit ontbreek dus voorlopig aan ’n term waarmee another vertaal kan word sonder
om iets van die betekenisinhoud daarvan prys te gee. Voortaan sal na die konsep van
anotherness verwys word as deel van die alternatiewe model van andersheid.
Murphy se gedagtes oor anotherness het ontwikkel uit Mikhail Bakhtin se idees
omtrent die drie basiese argitektoniese momente van menslike bestaan: “I-for-myself,
the other-for-me, and I-for-the-other ” (Bakhtin, “Philosophy of Act” 54). Bakhtin
onderskei tussen twee tipes ander op grond van die aspekte van onderskeidelik
relasionaliteit en vervreemding wat die onderskeie tipes kenmerk. Om te demonstreer
wat hy met “relational otherness”, oftewel “anotherness”, bedoel, verwys Bakhtin na
Russies, waarin op duidelike wyse onderskeid getref word tussen twee terme: drugoi
(“another, other person”) en chuzhoi (“alien”; “strange”; also, the other”) (“Problems”
106
302). Die Engelse woordpaar “I/other”, met die konnotasies van vervreemding en
opposisie, word spesifiek vermy. Die “another ” wat Bakhtin in gedagte het, is nie
vyandig teenoor die self nie, maar ’n noodsaaklike komponent daarvan—another is “a
friendly other, al living factor in the attempts of the I toward self-definition”
(“Problems” 302).
Laasgenoemde gedagte word beaam deur verskillende navorsers. Stuart Hall (5)
steun op die sienswyse van Jacques Derrida dat “it is only through the relation to the
Other […] that identity can be constructed”. Ook D. C. Martin (7) volg die uitgangspunt dat die self juis die Ander nodig het om bewus te word van sy eie, unieke bestaan.
Martin steun op die teorie van Mannoni en Landowski, waarvolgens die Ander die
self openbaar asook die werklikheid van die vele fasette van die self. Volgens Martin
(7) vereis die lewe van enige individu die teenwoordigheid van die Ander, “that is,
the perception of someone different and the establishment of a relationship with
him/her/them”.
In my vorige poging om ’n teoretiese raamwerk vir die kwessie van die natuur as
die Ander te skep (Meyer 328), word verwys na die filosofiese gebied waar hierdie
kwessie gereeld ter sprake kom, naamlik waar gedebatteer word oor die vraag watter
moreel-filosofiese raamwerk(e) die grondslag kan vorm vir die normatiewe aandrang
om die natuur te bewaar. Die konsep van geregtigheid is, in die meeste van die
tradisionele Westerse morele filosofieë, gebaseer op idees van eendersheid en op die
kwaliteite wat ons as mens en in die hoedanigheid van ons menswees deel (Meyer
328). Hier word gedink aan die begeerte na lewensgehalte, die kwaliteit van die rede
uitgedruk in die vermoë om te besin en te beplan, die vermoë om lief te hê—alles
eienskappe wat na bewering juis die mens skei van die lewende en nielewende
natuur, wat ons “anders” maak as die natuur of wat van die natuur ons “Ander”
maak.2 In hierdie betoog (Meyer 328) word erkenning gegee aan verskeie benaderings
binne die ekokritiek wat erns maak met denkpogings om die grense en gapings tussen
die mens en die niemenslike “Ander” te verklein of uit die weg te ruim—’n aandrang
gegrond op beskouings van relasionaliteit, wedersydse afhanklikheid, wisselwerking
en die gedeelde eienskappe van bewussyn en lyding—en wat as doel het om
gemeenskaplike terrein te vind om die voorskrif van bewaring op te baseer. Daar
word gesteun op die oordeel van kenners van die omgewingsetiek dat dit weinig sin
het om hierdie andersheid te probeer wegredeneer, aangesien die pogings om ’n etiek
aangaande die niemenslike te bedink, gekoppel is aan die dilemma: “Hoe kan ons ’n
vorm van etiek uitbrei na die natuur as ’n gebied waar die waardes en norme wat so
’n etiek begrond, nie bestaan nie; waar geen konsep van menslike reg of enige ander
etiese konsepte hoegenaamd bestaan nie?” (Meyer 328)
Ter aanvulling van bogenoemde teoretisering oor die niemenslike Ander in die
omgewingsetiekdebat behoort ook van Emmanuel Levinas se “Ethics of Otherness”
kennis geneem te word. Sy etiek is gebaseer op die veronderstelling dat ons, in die
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toepassing van ons eie, beperkte en subjektiewe kategorieë van kennis of ondervinding
op die Ander, ’n daad van geweld teenoor die Ander pleeg, “an imperialism of the
same” (Levinas 87). Levinas ontwikkel ’n besonder verwikkelde en hoogs gekompliseerde argument hier rondom in sy boeke Totality and Infinity (1969) en Otherwise
Than Being (1981). Thomas Claviez doen egter ’n deeglike samevatting van die kernaspekte van hierdie “Ethics of Otherness” in Gersdorf en Mayer se Nature in Literary
and Cultural Studies. Claviez (441) beklemtoon Levinas se standpunt dat, wanneer ons
die “andersheid” wat ten opsigte van die Ander bestaan, reduseer tot dit wat ons
aanneem die Ander met ons mag deel, ons die Ander onderwerp aan ons eie organisasie van kategorieë. By implikasie word die Ander gereduseer tot versoenbaarheid
en verenigbaarheid met die self, en in die proses word die uniekheid, onvergelykbaarheid
en die uitsonderlikheid van die Ander vernietig. Dus bied Levinas se etiek van
Andersheid die omgewingsetiekdebat die moontlikheid om aan die dilemma van die
oënskynlik onlosmaaklike verband van etiek met eendersheid te ontkom. Dit bied
ons die keuse om etiese verhoudings te bedink wat nie steun op kennis of idees van
gelyk(waardig)heid nie.3
David Barnhill beskou die alternatiewe model van andersheid, soos dit ontwikkel
het uit Bakhtin se gedagtes en toegepas word in die veld van die ekokritiek deur
Patrick Murphy, as ’n sinvolle hanteringswyse van die onontkombaarheid aan mensnatuurverskille wat tradisioneel uitdrukking vind in twee ekstreme hanteringswyses:
die uitgangspunt van onversoenbare vervreemding en opposisie tussen mens en
natuur, of die totale ontkenning van verskille wat neerkom op die verswelging van
die Ander en van enige onderskeidende kenmerke. Bakhtin motiveer die denkskuif
wat die alternatiewe model van andersheid van ons vereis deur te verklaar: “An
indifference or hostile reaction is always a reaction that impoverishes its object: it
seeks to pass over the object in all its manifoldness, to ignore it or to overcome it.”
(“Philosophy of Act” 64)
Barnhill voorsien besondere moontlikhede vir die bestudering van mensnatuurverhoudings aan die hand van hierdie alternatiewe model waarbinne verskille
gerespekteer word, sonder dat die verskille gebruik word om enige vorm van dominansie te regverdig en sonder om kontak of verbintenis met die Ander te misken. Hy
skep ’n praktiese gebruiksraamwerk vir die alternatiewe model, wat anotherness as
kernkonsep het, deur ’n lys eienskappe daarvan te bied. Die eienskappe van anotherness
word belig deur dit teenoor die eienskappe van “otherness” te plaas. Barnhill se
raamwerk vorm ’n nuttige vertrekpunt wanneer “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” bestudeer word om die uitbeelding van die natuur binne die konteks van anotherness te
analiseer.
Vervolgens word die hand gewaag aan ’n eerste en eksperimentele toepassing van
die ekokritiese teorie gekoppel aan die alternatiewe model van andersheid op ’n
Afrikaanse literêre teks. Wat hiermee beoog word, is om vanuit ’n ruimer denk-
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raamwerk die betekenismoontlikhede in die unieke uitbeelding van die mensnatuur-verbintenis in Kotze se Weskusverhaal te ontgin.
‘Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal’: die uitbeelding van aspekte van anotherness
Volgens die konvensionele beskouing van die Ander word die kwessie van skeiding
as gevolg van verskille sentraal gestel; Barnhill verwys na ’n onvermoë of weiering
om enige vorm van ooreenkoms of samehang te herken. Terwyl die alternatiewe
model van andersheid ruimte bied vir verskille, geld die siening dat daar geen absolute
skeiding of wesentlike vervreemding met another bestaan nie; eerder samehang en
skakeling, “some kind of continuity with Another” wat impliseer dat “Another is in
some way like us even while it is different” (Barnhill).
Toegepas op die mens-natuurbeskouing bring die alternatiewe model van
andersheid dus die perspektief dat die mens nie in essensiële opsig vervreem is van
die natuur as die Ander nie. Murphy verwys na “an interaction between people’s
inner and outer realities” en sê: “Our physical make-up and the nature of our psyche
are formed in direct ways by the distinct climate, soil, geography, and living things of
a place.” (“Anotherness” 42) Hy gebruik die term “geopsyche” om die idee van die
skakeling van die mens met die natuuromgewing, op geestelike en liggaamlike vlakke,
tuis te bring. Ter verheldering van hierdie idee sê hy: “Kept in its environmental
context, our humanity is not absolutely ‘in’ us, but is rather ‘in’ our world dialogue.
That is to say, in order to be fully human, we need to have a healthy geopsyche.”
(Murphy, “Anotherness” 42)
In “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” is die geïntegreerde aard van menslike bedrywighede in die vissermansomgewing met die natuurruimte en -elemente reeds vroeg
opvallend. Daar is ’n aardegerigtheid, die ingesteldheid wat Murphy met die konsep
van die geopsige assosieer, in die aanpak van daaglikse aktiwiteite. Die jong hoofkarakter, Frits, wat met ’n verdienste op die see sy gesin help onderhou, beskou die
interaktiewe samehang van sy lewe met verskeie natuuraspekte binne ’n breë verband:
Die volgende oggend is hy af strand toe waar hy die lyn ’n paar maal deur die nat
seesand sleep om die wollerigheid wat ’n nuwe lyn aan hom het, af te maak. […]
Die lyn gaan span hy tussen die pale van die bokkamp. Toe druk hy ’n stuk ou
lap in die dik dooiebloed en met die bloedlap bewerk hy die lyn, smeer hy die
bloed goed in totdat die vesels deurtrek is daarvan. (1)
Die sand van die see en die bloed van die bok word wesentlik deel van die menslike
werktuig, die sterk lyn waarmee sy taak verrig moet word. Die besonderhede omtrent
dié lyn, dat dit ’n besondere kwaliteit kry as die sand die wollerigheid daarvan
verwyder het en die bloed die vesels daarvan versterk het, bevestig vir die leser Frits
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se intuïtiewe bewustheid van die aard van die samehang wat tussen die mens, sy
lewensaktiwiteite en die groter natuurgeheel bestaan.
Dit gaan in hierdie vissersverhaal oor veel meer as die benutting van die natuur
vir eie gewin of die devaluering daarvan tot blote objek. ’n Belangrike kenmerk van
anotherness is afsonderlikheid, ’n eienskap waarmee nie vervreemding of verwyderdheid geïmpliseer word nie, maar op grond waarvan die Ander beskou word as subjek
wat oor ’n eie integriteit en afsonderlike aard beskik in die interaktiewe prosesse
daarmee (Barnhill). Deurgaans, in die interaktiewe betrokkenheid by die see en die
seelewe waaruit die vissermanne hulle bestaan put, verraai die karakters in “Halfkrone
vir die Nagmaal” ’n bewustheid dat die see ’n onaantasbare entiteit is, eiesoortig in
aard, onregeerbaar deur menslike aansprake.
Gelok deur die tyding van goeie vangste in die “Suidweswaters”, en ná twee dae
noordwaarts per boot, begin vang die manne bokant die Oranje, in waters wat wemel
van die kreef. Skaars ’n halfdag later, op die middag, “slaan” die see “om” in ’n
“kwaaisee” wat, saam met die suidwestewind, hulle dwarsdeur die nag laat spartel
met die dekpomp wat die water uit die ruim en masjienkamer moet hou (9–10). Alles
is deurnat, die skimmel “staan blou” op die stukkies brood wat hulle nog te ete het en
die vangs vrot totaal. Uit die krewe waarvan hulle sakke vol kon uittrek—”sterte so
lank soos sy voorarm en knypers dié dikte” (9)—trek die “rook” teen die tyd dat hulle
weer in die baai aankom (11). Wat hier bevestig word, is dat die see- en weerpatrone
nie reduseerbaar is tot menslik voorspelbare toestande nie en nie die mens ter wille is
nie. Dit beskik oor ’n afsonderlikheid, ’n volledigheid in sigself wat die mens uitsluit
en met ’n belewenis van irrelevansie laat, soos wat die vissers ervaar met die wegry van
die “yslike dekvrag kreef ” na buite die dorp, “waar die brommers daarop pak” (11).
Dit gaan weliswaar nie hier oor ’n rasionele uitpluis van bogenoemde kwessie
nie, maar oor die waarnemings en ervarings van die visserkarakters wat op die
inhoudelike vlak in die verhaal blootgelê word. Hoewel ‘n rasionele bewustheid ten
opsigte van die see se onaantasbare en afsonderlike aard nie noodwendig uit die
verhaalgegewens bevestig kan word nie, word die aanvoeling en intuïtiewe bewustheid van hierdie saak duidelik gereflekteer deur die waarnemings en belewings in
die interaktiewe prosesse tussen die karakters en die oseaan.
’n Verdere aspek van die alternatiewe model van andersheid wat aandag afdwing,
is die eienskap van aktiewe optrede en die mag van beïnvloeding (“agency”) waaroor
another beskik. Volgens konvensionele beskouings word aan die Ander passiwiteit
toegeken en beskik slegs die dominante groep oor die eienskap van aktiewe
werksaamheid. Binne ekokritiese konteks word die mens dus beskou as die bewerker
van impak op die passiewe natuur en kan beïnvloeding slegs in een rigting plaasvind
(Barnhill). Murphy meen egter: “If the possibility of the condition of ‘anotherness’,
being another for others, is recognized, then the ecological processes of
interanimation—the ways in which humans and other entities develop, change and
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learn through mutually influencing each other day to day—can be emphasized in
constructing models of viable human/ rest-of-nature interaction.” (“Anotherness” 42)
In “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” word die rol van aktiewe handeling en beïnvloeding, ook ten opsigte van menslike lewe, deurgaans en op duidelike wyse aan
die see toegeken. Vroeg in die verhaal, as die skuite moet uitgaan om aas te vang vóór
die vertrek na die noordelike kreefwaters, word hulle planne omvergewerp deur
stormweer. Met die bamboes wat hoog teen die strand opgespoel lê, besef Frits dat
hulle ’n ander plan sal moet maak om aas in die hande te kry. Hierdie krisis lei daartoe
dat Frits hom teësinnig wend tot die “ongeregtigheid” van voëls te gaan doodslaan
op die eiland, aangesien dit al is wat nou as aas gebruik kan word. Dis die eerste maal
dat Frits hom skuldig maak aan ’n magsvergryp van hierdie aard teen die natuur, dit
strook nie met die norm van respek waarvolgens hy leef nie en bring ambivalente
emosies mee: “Hy is bang. Maar hy moet ook lewe.” (7)
Die handelingskrag van die natuur strek dus verder as die beïnvloeding van
uiterlike omstandighede en die verydeling van die manne se hoop op dringend
nodige vangste in die waters noord van die Grootrivier. Die natuur kry gestalte as
vitale krag deur die omstandighede wat reeds vroeër in die verhaal geskep word en
die geestelike uitdagings daaraan verbonde. Vir die jong seun behels dit die uitdaag
van sy waardesisteem, maar ook die ontnugtering wat aan die einde van die verhaal
oorbly. Daar is by Frits ’n gevoel van naarheid, geassosieer met gedwonge en verkeerde
gewetensbesluite, die “seesiekknop waarteen hy heelweek gesluk het”, asook die
moegheid wat “pyn deur sy lyf ” (13).
Barnhill verduidelik dat anotherness gekenmerk word deur sigbare herkenbaarheid, konkrete en spesifieke besonderhede en deur kompleksiteit in aard en
samestelling. Word die alternatiewe model van andersheid die lens waardeur die
natuur waargeneem word, sien ons nie meer slegs die paaie en staatsgrense wat op ’n
gebied gekarteer nie, maar die tipografiese detail van ’n natuurstreek met sy plantegroei
en watervloei. Só beskou is die natuur nie meer die blote agtergrond, ontneem van ’n
eie aard wat in die besonderhede en diversiteit daarvan geopenbaar word nie. Dit
word ook nie verder tot abstraksie gemaak deur die ontkenning van enige vorm van
verwantskap met die mens as dominante groep nie.
“Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” beeld die mens uit as noulettend en sintuiglik skerp
ingestel teenoor die natuur as another. Frits word geboei deur die geografiese detail van
die natuuromgewing: “’n Gebroke rotsrif loop ’n ent weg die see in en dan weer
binnetoe. Dit lyk of ’n groot hand die rif gevat het soos ’n mens ’n stuk deeg sal vat en
afknyp en eenkant toe stoot.” (6) Hy neem spesifieke besonderhede waar omtrent die
wit gousblomme langs die voetpad wat hom na die see toe neem; hoe die blare begin
toevou in fassinerende samehang met temperatuursverandering en die gang van die
dag: “As die son eers loop draai het, kom daar ’n klimaat oor die duine wat die blomme
laat toetrek.” (4) Uit sy waarneming blyk ook ’n fyn ingesteldheid op die effek van
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seisoene en op die mens se bestaansverbintenis met die natuur: “’n Mens proe dié tyd
van die jaar die bittergousblom in die melk, in die botter op jou brood.” (4)
Die verhaal bied oortuigende bewyse van die erkenning van die diversiteit wat
natuurlewe kenmerk, veral in Frits se waarneming van die voëls. Daar is dié wat met
sononder uit alle rigtings eiland toe kom, “die malgasse en pikkewyne, swartvoëls en
seeduikers” (6), en dié wat vir die vissers die teenwoordigheid van snoek in die
diepsee aandui: die malmokkies wat saam met die malbare en sterlinkies op die water
sit om te aas, die malgasse wat uit die lugruim bokant die skool snoek “val” (8). Frits is
ook daagliks bewus van die uniekheid van verskillende seespesies: “Kreef byt nie aan
enigiets nie. Hy byt aan hotnosvis en snoek en aan masbanker.” (5) Hy weet om die
verskille in die sintuiglike vermoëns van visspesies te respekteer en om vir die vang
van snoek eerder ’n lyn te gebruik wat ge-”bloed” is, omdat hierdie vis in staat is om
’n wit lyn in die water te onderskei en die aas daaraan te vermy (1).
’n Skerp bewustheid van die kompleksiteit en moeilik begrypbare aard van
natuurverskynsels vind in die verhaal uitdrukking wanneer die vissermanne ’n drastiese en onvoorsiene weerverandering begin vermoed uit tekens van verandering by
die kreef. Dampies waarsku: “As ’n kreef se bek so skuim, gaan dit kwaaisee word.” (9)
Dieselfde ontsag wat Frits het vir die komplekse en onverklaarbare skakels van
beïnvloeding tussen natuurelemente onderling, soos wanneer seeveranderinge
voorafgegaan word deur intuïtiewe gedrag by krewe, vorm deel van sy beskouings
van die skakels tussen menslike en niemenslike natuur. Hy toon groot respek vir die
belangrike biologiese veranderinge wat die seisoene se kringloop in die natuur kenmerk, wetend dat die mens se bestaan met dié van die natuur verknoop is. Daarom let
hy op wanneer die snoek se kuite bebroeid raak en die wyfiekreef eiers het; daarom
word sy aktiwiteite aangepas in erkenning van die kwesbaarheid van die ekosisteem:
“In dié tyd het hy geleer om kreefnetsakke te brei en om nette te bas, hy het geleer om
’n netsak hoepel om te sit […] en die skuit help regmaak.” (10)
Die Ander het, konvensioneel beskou, geen stem nie. Hierdie stemloosheid
impliseer die afwesigheid van mag, maar ook die onvermoë om aan kwessies rakende
eie regte en welstand uitdrukking te gee (Barnhill). Die alternatiewe model van
andersheid bied aan another egter ’n stem en ’n geleentheid om gehoor te word. “If it
does not have a human voice (in the case of nonhuman nature), somehow its voice is
given representation; somehow we ‘hear’ the voice of animals, plants and ecosystems,”
sê Barnhill. In “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” word ’n voëlkolonie op ’n nabygeleë
eiland bedreig, omdat die vissers dit in noodtoestande as aas gebruik. Die verhaal
demonstreer die unieke wyse waarop daar juis stem gegee word aan hierdie
niemenslike stemloses en bedreigdes.
Die kompleksiteit van die situasie van bedreiging word duidelik soos wat die
spanningslyn, geskep deur die toenemende visskaarste en dringender wordende nood,
na ’n hoogtepunt gevoer word. Die tog na die waters “bokant die Grootrivier”, wat
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twee dae en twee nagte se bootvaart noord lê, is van oorlewingsbelang vir die vissers
wat geen ander bron van inkomste het nie (8). Aangesien stormweer hulle verhoed om
vis as kreefaas in die hande te kry, word twee manne na die voëleiland gedwing:
Dampies, wat die eiland ken, en Frits, wat “knaphandig” met die kierie kan gooi.
Frits deins terug van dié “ongeregtigheid” waarmee hy nog nooit gemoeid was
nie, maar: “Hy moet geld verdien […] halfkrone wat hy in sy pa se hand kan gee …”
(7) Die “wreedaardigheid” van praktyke soos die uitroei van voëls of robbe in sy
omgewing skep weersin by Frits. Op die eiland reageer hy blindweg op Dampies se
bevele: “Voor die hele kaboedel opvlieg. Slat!” Sy arm lig, maar hy slaan sonder plan
of oortuiging, “wild in die bondel”. In sy belewing lê daar duidelike afkeer en die
besef van die erbarmlike lot van die voëls wat vasgekeer word deur die onverwagte
aanval: “[…] ’n swartvoël skreeu, spartel. […] Dis soos ’n hoenderkamp waarin die
muishonde gekom het.” (7)
Die karakters sien egter geen ander oplossing vir hulle probleem nie. By “die
Twins” kan hulle probeer vang vir aas, maar “dan lê daar nog ’n dag en ’n half se loop
oor voordat hulle by die Wes se kreef uitkom. Dis ’n vraag of die vis so lank goed sal
hou.” (8)
Met Frits se terugkeer, ná ’n week van ontbering in “die Wes”, sien hy uit na die
Nagmaalnaweek en die sosiale interaksie op die dorp. Sy pa gee hom egter ’n enkele
sjieling, skaars genoeg vir iets te eet en te drink, daarom saal hy weer sy perd af met
die gedagte: “Dis nie reg nie.” (13). Op sy bed kry swaarmoedigheid en die skuldgevoel
hom beet “soos ’n toemis wat oor hom rol” (14). Aan sy “boerseep-hande” ruik hy
meteens weer die swartvoëls wat met sy kierie afgemaai is, hy hoor hulle skreeu. Ook
die snoek wat hulle gevang het, “by die driehonderd, […] maar oneetbaar maer” (9),
spook by hom, omdat die vissers eintlik net die koppe wou hê met die bloederigheid
daaraan wat die kreef moes lok. Met afkeer in sy gedagtes beleef hy “die meeue wat op
die weggooisnoek toesak, hy sien hulle ruk en pluk aan dieselfde tros derms” (14).
Wanneer sy gedagtes ook by die kreef uitkom, by die “dekvrag mannetjiekrewe” wat
“skuim en stink” (14), is die skuldgevoel oorweldigend. “Dit was nie reg nie, dink hy.
Ek moes geweet het dis verkeerd. Dis nie soos my pa my geleer het nie.” (14)
Hierdie introspektiewe proses, geïnisieer deur die pa se daad wat Frits as “nie reg”
teenoor hom—as seun—beleef nie, bring Frits te staan voor die etiese aspek van sy eie
optrede. Deur die erkenning van die magsvergrype teenoor die see- en dierelewe
word stem gegee aan die stemloses. Die bedreiging wat die mens vir hierdie vorms
van lewe inhou, word onder woorde gebring. Dat die verhaal die laaste woord aan
Frits se pa gee, is betekenisvol. Wanneer sy pa teenoor sy ma te kenne gee dat hy
doelbewus vir Frits verhinder het om na die dorp te gaan omdat hy gedink het “hy
(Frits) het die rus nodiger” as die opwinding van die gebeure op die dorp (14), kan dit
geïnterpreteer word as ’n daad van oormeestering, soortgelyk aan die oormeestering
van die natuur waarvan Frits bewus raak deur sy pa se optrede.
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“Halfkrone vir die nagmaal” vestig die aandag op die konsep van ekologies
volhoubare bewoning, ’n beginsel wat Murphy in sy ekokritiese toepassing van die
teorie van anotherness betrek en wat hy koppel aan die gedagte dat verhale wesentlik
’n daad van verantwoording is, ’n aksie wat aan die idee van “I-for-another” uiting
gee (“Anotherness” 46). In hierdie “I-for-another”-konsep word Bakhtin se fokus op
verantwoordbaarheid herken: “To live from within oneself does not mean to live for
oneself, but means to be an answerable participant from within oneself, to affirm
one’s non-alibi in Being.” (Bakhtin, “Philosophy of Act” 49) Wanneer Murphy die
kwessie van ekologies volhoubare bewoning met narratiewe uitdrukkings in verband
bring, praat hy van “a way of living that requires knowing intimately the place one
calls home and then inviting others to hear the stories in order to find their own ways
towards answerable inhabitation” (“Anotherness” 45).
Met “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal”, eerste geplaas in Kotze se debuutbundel, vestig
sy haarself as “I-for-another” vir ’n strook Weskusaarde wat sy self beskryf as “baie
lank swak bekend en grootliks misprese”, terwyl dit uitgelewer is aan menslike
ontginning op verskeie vlakke (Kotze, “Waterwyfie” voorwoord).
Ten slotte
Deur die toepassing van die alternatiewe model van andersheid in ekokritiese verband op die verhaal waarmee Kotze haarself aan die Afrikaanse literêre gehoor bekend
gestel het, is daarin geslaag om ruimer betekenismoontlikhede ten opsigte van die
mens-natuurverbintenis in die verhaal te ontsluit. Die nuut ontdekte betekenispotensiaal, gevind in die soektog na aspekte van anotherness in die uitbeelding van die
natuurruimte en -elemente van die Weskus, dui op ’n respekvolle benadering tot die
verskille tussen mens en natuur waarin beginsels van hiërargie of vervreemding nie
geld nie, maar gefokus word op verwantskapsbeginsels en op menslike-niemenslikeinteraksie.
“Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” demonstreer op oortuigende wyse dat, en ook op
watter wyse, afstand gedoen word van die konvensionele siening dat mens-natuurverskille mag dien ter regverdiging van menslike dominansie of om die
verbintenis met die natuurwêreld te misken of gering te ag.
In die ekokritiese besinning oor “Halfkrone vir die nagmaal” is verrykende perspektief gevind by Murphy se idee van anotherness as “a position of recognition and
responsibility” (“Anotherness” 51), waaruit die gedagte voortvloei dat narratiewe
uitdrukkings ’n vorm van verantwoording teenoor die omgewing kan wees. “Through
encouraging the voicing of another nature, and learning the means by which to
generate the literary criticism and analysis of such voicing, we can help to […] develop
another mode of human behavior, one founded on relational anotherness rather than
alienational otherness.” (Murphy, “Voicing” 79)
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Met die herlees van Kotze se debuutwerk verras dit opnuut—en hierdie keer is nie
slegs die gehalte daarvan ter sprake nie, maar ook die relevansie wat die verhaal
steeds vir ons tyd het. “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal” beliggaam op ’n uitnemende
literêre wyse die boodskap dat ons, synde deel van die aarde, nie langer kan vermy
om die wyses waarop ons uitdrukking aan die aarde gee, op watter skeppende gebied
ook al, deel te maak van ons pogings van sorg en beskerming nie.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Aantekeninge
Donelle Dreese (1) spreek die oortuiging uit dat, “whether we are cognizant of their influences or
not, environmental factors play a crucial role in the physical, emotional, and even spiritual
configurations that determine our ideas of who we are.” Nicole Boivin (75) ondersteun hierdie
sienswyse deur te verduidelik dat die menslike gees en sy funksionering nie begryp kan word
onafhanklik van die natuurlike omgewing nie, want die feit dat ons liggame in voortdurende
fisieke wisselwerking met die omgewing verkeer, beïnvloed hoe ons waarneem en dink. Christopher
Tilley (22) formuleer dieselfde oortuiging só: “Identities have their basis in the multiple ways in
which we perceive and receive the world through all our senses. Embodiment is thus an existential
precondition for any sense of identity. How we relate to other humans, the more-than-human
world, and not least to ourselves, is thus to a large degree dependent on our embodied experiences
of the world.”
In hierdie redenasie word daarop gewys dat die aandrang ten opsigte van die andersheid van die
mens in teenstelling met die natuur geensins algemeen vanselfsprekend of histories universeel is
nie (Meyer 340). Sekere kulture, vroeër en hedendaags, ondersteun of verkondig nie so ywerig
hierdie tweedeling tussen mens en natuur nie. Thomas Claviez (437) wys op sogenaamde
“primitiewe” gemeenskappe, geïnspireer deur mitiese of mitevormende wêreldbeskouings, wat
eerder aspekte beklemtoon wat die menslike en niemenslike verbind in ’n holistiese, hoewel
hiërargies georganiseerde kosmologie. Die mitologieë van Boeddhisme en die Amerikaanse Indiaanstamme word as ’n voorbeeld gebruik.
Die idee van “andersheid”, op hierdie manier beskou, word deur Claviez (443) erken as ’n lastige
of problematiese konsep, aangesien “andersheid” juis dit is wat nie net die morele filosofie nie,
maar ook die wetenskap streef om te oorkom en uit te skakel in die proses van dinge tot
verstaanbaarheid te bring of kennis te verwerf.
Claviez (444) beskou Levinas se etiek as ’n “eerste filosofie” aangesien Levinas argumenteer dat die
etiese moment noodwendig alle aspekte en sisteme van kennis en wetenskaplike waarneming en
berekening vooraf moet gaan.
Aucamp, H. “Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal: E. Kotze is ’n wonderlike en geseënde skryfster.” Die Vaderland
28 Jan 1983. 11.
Bakhtin, M. M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Vert en red. C. Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 1984.
_____. Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Vert. V. Liapunov. Reds. V. Liapunov en M. Holquist. Austin: U of
Texas P, 1993.
Barnhill, D. L. “Otherness and Anotherness.” 20 Sept 2010. 25 Jan 2015. <http://www.uwosh.edu/
facstaff/barnhill/490-docs/thinking/other.>
Boehmer, E. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant metaphors. Oxford: OUP, 1995.
Boivin, N. Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society and Evolution.
Cambridge en New York: CUP, 2008.
Brink, A. P. “E. Kotze se mooi boek vol diep genot.” Rapport 19 Des. 1982. 12.
_____. “Verhale vir louter plesier”. Rapport 14 Des. 1986. 13.
Britz, E. C. “Kortverhale oor lewe aan Weskus.” Beeld 27 Apr. 1983. 7.
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Childs, P. en R. Fowler, The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Londen, New York: Routledge, 2009.
Claviez, C. “Ecology as Moral Stand(s): Environmental Ethics, Western Moral Philosophy, and the
Problem of the Other”. Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism.
Reds. C. Gersdorf en S. Mayer. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2006. 435–54.
De Vries, A. H. “E. Kotze se Silt van die aarde. Jy kry g’n niks beters vir dié prys nie.” Die Burger 10 Des.
1986. 13.
Dreese, D. N. Ecocriticism: Creating Self and Place in American Indian Literatures. New York: Peter Lang,
2002.
Fourie, R. “Is ekokritiek die moeite werd?” LitNet Webseminare. 22 Feb. 2013. 10 Feb. 2014.<http://
www.litnet.co.za/Article/is-ekokritiek-die-moeite-werd>.
Glotfelty, C. “Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis.” The Ecocriticism Reader:
Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Reds. C. Glotfelty en H. Fromm. Athene: U of Georgia P, 1996. i–xxi.
Hall, S. 1996. “Introduction: Who needs ‘Identity’?” Questions of Cultural Identity. Reds. S Hall en P. du
Gay. Londen: SAGE Publications, 1996. 1–13.
Kotze, E. Halfkrone vir die Nagmaal. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 1982.
_____. Waterwyfie en ander woestynverhale. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 1997.
_____. Diepsee: ’n Keur uit die verhale van E. Kotze. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2014.
Levinas, E. Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1969.
Martin, D. C. “The Choices of Identity”. Social Identities 1.1(1995): 5–21.
McNay, L. Foucault: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994.
Meyer, S. “Wat oor is, is die Self: verblyf in ’n boomholte in Wilma Stockenström se Die kremetartekspedisie.”
Litnet Akademies 10.1 (2013): 310–40.
Murphy, P. D. “Voicing another Nature.” A Dialogue of Voices: Feminist Literary Theory and Bakhtin. Reds.
K Hohne en H. Wussow. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994. 59–82.
_____. “Anotherness and Inhabitation in Recent Multicultural American Literature.” Writing the
Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature. Reds. R. Kerridge en N. Sammels. Londen, New York: Zed
Books, 1998. 40–52.
Olivier, F. “Fyn deernis roer in nege verhale”. Die Transvaler 9 Des. 1986. 24.
Ortner, S. B. “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” Woman, Culture and Society. Reds. M. Rosaldo
en L. Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1974. 67–87.
Pharos Afrikaans-Engels Woordeboek. Red. M. Du Plessis. Kaapstad: NB Uitgewers, 2005.
Roux, J. B. “Huldebundel vir Kotze slaag pragtig”. Die Volksblad 1 Sept. 2014: 7.
Tilley, C. “Introduction: Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage.” Journal of Material Culture 11.1–2
(2006): 7–32.
Venter, L. “Kotze se Halfkrone is koningskos.” Die Volksblad 21 Mei 2013. 8.
Viljoen, L. “Besonderse Waterwyfie is subtiel en nie sentimenteel.” Die Volksblad 1 Jun. 1998. 6.
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Ogaga Okuyade
Ogaga Okuyade teaches popular/folk
culture, African literature and culture,
African American and African
Diasporic Studies, and the English
Novel in the Department of English
and Literary Studies, Niger Delta
University, Wilberforce Island, Nigeria.
Email: evba25@gmail.com
Negotiating growth in turbulentscapes: Violence, secrecy and
growth in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s
Secrets No More
Negotiating growth in turbulentscapes:
Violence, secrecy and growth in Goretti
Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More
The traditional Western variant of the Bildungsroman explores the dialectic of growth and change in the developmental process
of the protagonist and how he is socialized into the society. However, most of the criticism on the form hardly explores the growth
process of a child who suffers partial dementia as a result of human evil and sadism. This essay therefore, examines how a
partially demented child-protagonist negotiates her identity in the absence of her parents and the comfort zone of a nuclear
family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More. The protagonist negotiates the growth process around the turbulent national
space, a trans-ethnic community of orphans and provincial subjects and the heavily patriarchal familial base where she struggles
for self-assertion through a kind of voicing which is not associated with speech. In order to understand the developmental or
growth process of the child-protagonist, I organize my argument around the possible violence of varied kinds performed on the
body of the girl-child and the family and how she constructs identity from the limited choices she is offered in a turbulent African
space where parental agency and guidance are unavailable for the child to emulate models in order to construct her own identity.
Applying some of the theoretical positions of some Bildungsroman scholars, I will demonstrate through close reading, how Secrets
No More aptly articulates some of the fundamental features of the narrative of growth. Keywords: African child-figure,
Bildungsroman, dementia, Goretti Kyomuhendo, identity.
Fifty years after most African countries celebrated independence, the continent still
remains a violent landscape for contestations of varied kinds. Invariably, the attainment
of independence appears to have ushered in new kinds of struggles which have
continued to foreground how the African peoples negotiate and (re)construct identity.
Post-independence struggles for political and economic reconstruction in Africa are
most times negotiated through the politics of ethnicity, which has in turn resulted in
violent clashes and civil wars thereby making the continent look like a “site of perennial
political and humanitarian emergencies” (Adesokan 3).
Since the idea of the universality of human rights continues to be undermined by
most African governments, thereby creating room for strategic violence orchestrated
against the postcolonial African person, African cultural art forms continue to function
as vibrant tools for countering and containing these institutional failures. This constant
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interrogation of the human condition in the African novel, which possibly aligns the
writer to “the cause of the people” (Emenyonu x) may make one to hastily remark that
African literature is constantly backward looking (see Nnolim). But the fact remains
that, African literature has continued to programmatically enunciate the duplicity of
African post-independence political arrangements and interrogate the idea of human
existence and progress for the African person. Quite a number of recent African
narratives feature children as protagonists. Some of these new African narratives—
especially the debut novels—often exhibit traits associated with the Bildungsroman, a
form which evolved from Germany and became popular in most Western countries
in the nineteenth century. Considering the narrative structure of some of these African
novels, Tanure Ojaide (33) notes that: “Most of the novels of the younger African
immigrant writers often deal with the themes of coming of age”. Ebele Eko equally
suggests in her essay on the new generation of Nigerian novelists that “these younger
writers use their narratives to interpret their growing up experiences […]” (emphasis
mine 43).
The preponderance of the child-figure in recent African narratives is by no means
fortuitous. The child-figure has artistically become a metaphor for calibrating the
development of the continent as the development of the child is structurally
constructed to metaphorically parallel that of the nation.1 The child-figure in African
literature has become an eloquent marker that writers deploy in order to appraise
pressing postcolonial concerns like violence, identity politics and migration.
The child-figure in postcolonial Africa hardly goes through the normal
developmental pattern associated with the African people before the incursion of
Europe into Africa. I make this assertion because the impact of global challenges on,
the bureaucratic repression and the failure of postcolonial African leadership,
unequivocally transform the African child into an adult during the prime of their
adolescence. Since the child continues to be estranged from childhood s/he apparently
becomes an adult in childhood. Madelaine Hron (29) suggests that:
The child in African literature is always intrinsically enmeshed in a cultural and
social community, and thus must somehow negotiate ethnic identity or social status
in the course of the narrative. […], it becomes apparent that the child’s quest for a
sociocultural identity is inextricably linked to issues arising from postcolonialism
and globalization, often manifested in the context of repression, violence or
exploitation.
The subject of this essay does not specifically anchor on the dialectic of violence and
politics in Africa, but it provides a conceptual grid to assess the question of identity
and the child-figure in African narratives. The essay therefore, examines how a partially
demented child-protagonist negotiates her identity in the absence of her parents and
the comfort zone of a nuclear family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More. This
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will in turn bring to the fore how Secrets No More falls within the latitude of the
Bildungsroman.
Andrew Armstrong asserts that “Kyomuhendo adopts the form of the
Bildungsroman” but does not extrapolate the distinguishing features that bequeath
the narrative the nomenclature besides the fact that it begins “with the protagonist
Marina as a baby and [ends] with her second marriage”. The Bildungsroman as a
narrative form spans beyond the protagonist being a baby and eventually getting
married twice. Thus, to achieve my aim in this essay, I organized my argument around
the possible violence of varied kinds performed on the body of the child and the
family. I equally appraise how Marina constructs identity from the limited choices
she is offered in a turbulent African space where parental agency and guidance are
unavailable for the child to emulate models in order to construct her own identity.
The Bildungsroman as a narrative form evolved in Germany; it is traditionally
regarded as “the novel of the development of a young, white, European man” (Caton
126). The English variant of the Bildungsroman connects moral, spiritual, and
psychological maturation with the individual’s economic and social advancement,
and imparts the lesson that finding a proper vocation is the path to upward mobility
(Feng 4). Nadal M. Al-Mousa’s definition of the form is not far from the descriptions
above. However, he suggests that the Bildungsroman is a type of novel in which action
hinges on the fortunes of an ambitious young hero who struggles to live up to his
goals against the negative forces of his environment. The typical hero in the novels of
development is a male who “grows up in a humble family in the provinces, but,
endowed with an adventurous spirit, leaves home to seek his fortune and realizes his
ambitions” (223). From these definitions, it becomes glaring that the end point of the
protagonist’s journey in the traditional form of the genre is harmonious. Interestingly,
therefore, emphasis is placed on the primacy of a harmonious reconciliation and
integration of the protagonist to his society.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–96) is generally
acknowledged as the prototypical example and model of the form. However, Jerome
Buckley’s Season of Youth (17–8) provides a “broad outline” of “a typical (Victorian)
Bildungsroman plot”:
A child of some sensibility grows up in the country or in a provincial town, where
he finds constraints, social and intellectual, placed upon the free imagination. His
family, especially his father, proves doggedly hostile to his creative instincts […]
ambitions […] and new ideas […]. He therefore, sometimes at a quite early age,
leaves the repressive atmosphere of home (and also the relative innocence) to
make his way independently in the city. There his real “education” begins, not only
his preparation for a career but also and often more importantly—his direct
experience of urban life. The latter involves at least two love affairs or sexual
encounters, one debasing, one exalting, and demands that in this respect and others
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the hero reappraise his values. By the time he has decided, after painful soulsearching, the sort of accommodation to the modern world he can honestly make,
he has left his adolescence behind and entered upon his maturity. His initiation
complete, he may then visit his old home, to demonstrate by his presence the
degree of his success or the wisdom of his choice.
In a perceptive essay Tobias Boes conceptually broadens the latitude of the
Bildungsroman when he argues that the form has primarily been regarded as a
phenomenon of the 19th century, but that “[t]he rise of feminist, post-colonial and
minority studies during the 1980s and 90s led to an expansion of the traditional
Bildungsroman definition” (231). Boes’ description becomes a far cry from traditional
definitions which exclusively focuses on the development of the male hero. Invariably,
from Boes’ suggestion the Bildungsroman genre has expanded to include the
development of, first the white (Western) female protagonist, and then also nonwhite ones. Boes argues further that in the 21st century the focus of studies in the 20th
century novel of development has been geared toward minority and post-colonial
literatures. Given that the Bildungsroman continues to flourish in minority and postcolonial writing on a global scale, “critics have begun to reconceptualize the modernist
era as a period of transition from metropolitan-nationalist discourses to post-colonial
and post-imperial ones” (Boes 240). Nadia Avendaño (67) equally suggests that the
“Bildungsroman itself, in recent decades, has been transformed and resuscitated, not
by males of the dominant culture in the West but by subaltern groups, thus functioning
as the most salient genre for the literature of social outsiders, primarily women and
minority groups.”
Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More therefore, constitutes part of the expansion of the
Bildungsroman within a postcolonial African context.
Secrets No More is set in both Rwanda and Uganda; two turbulent spaces in Africa’s
recent history, the latter still grappling with the crisis of leadership and problem of
insurgency, and the former a space where one of the most barbarous acts of savagery
was enacted in the last decade of the twentieth century—the Rwandan genocide. The
narrative begins with a flashback released through the prologue to specifically
configure a genial ambience in the Bizimana family. The first child of the family has
just arrived after a couple of years of waiting. Bizimana, a Hutu and serving Minister
in the administration of President Juvenal Habyarimana; a Hutu, and his wife;
Mukundane, could not hide their joy over the birth of their first child, Marina.
Mukundane is permanently grief stricken before the birth of Marina. She hardly talks
especially as she has once experienced a brutal ethnic clash which claimed all her
siblings. What is left of her entire family now lives in Uganda as refugees. To ensure
that his wife is psychologically and emotionally stable, Bizimana employs Chantal to
keep her company. Chantal is more of a spy than a companion—a lady who is
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consumed by the rage of ethnic intolerance and greed. Chantal’s character
appropriately matches that of the villain as Kyomuhendo uses her not just to
foreground the ‘logic of the enemy within or the worm in the nut’,2 but to reiterate
that “What happened in Rwanda was not, as the Western media repeatedly suggested,
a case of ethnic conflict; it was an organized attempt to eliminate an entire group of
people” (Hitchcott 54). Hitchcott’s assertion becomes very relevant if one considers
the pains Chantal goes through just to have access to the Bizimanas. Kyomuhendo
uses the Bizimana family as a narrative vent to demonstrate the magnitude and impact
of the Rwandan genocide on the familial base; the smallest and most important unit
of any society. The vivid description of how the soldiers destroy the Bizimana family
and the corpses littering the streets and roads as Marina struggles to avoid being
captured and killed by the soldiers, eloquently enunciate the inconsequentiality of
human evil and sadism and the extent of damage done to the Rwandan nation. Having
closely witnessed the gruesome murder of her family, Marina’s psychological balance
and mental development as a child become altered by violence.
The performance of violence on the bodies of Marina’s parents and siblings
reverberates in her subconscious and as such, life for her becomes a permanent present.3
Seeing beyond these murders becomes a daunting challenge for Marina considering
her age when she experiences the psychological pains inflicted on her by the Hutu
soldiers. Consequently, the only way to construct an identity for herself is to see
beyond and overcome the memory of the carnage. More so, the violent assault on her
mother by Hutu soldiers has conditioned or confined her psyche to the present. The
rape of her mother constantly configures in her psyche each time she struggles to
move on. The narrator explicitly describes the scene of the rape, thereby establishing
an immediacy which unambiguously becomes a permanent mental filmic reenactment of the incidence in her psychological networking:
Marina felt a horrible nausea sweep over her. She wanted to rush to her mother
and save her but her legs were cold and felt like logs of wood. She could not move
them. As she watched, the Colonel struggled out of his trousers and stood there
naked, his manhood obscenely pointing in front of him. In one swift movement,
he was on top of Mukundane. She put up a feeble resistance but she might as well
have reserved her energy. The two soldiers holding her down were too strong for
her. Marina closed her eyes. She willed herself to move but her legs let her down.
She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. She heard the fabric of
her mothers (sic) night gown ripping and her eyes involuntarily flew open. She
watched as the Colonel, with a vicious thrust of his body, entered her mother.
Nausea rose to her throat like bile and she knew she was going to throw up any
minute. Mukundane tried to push the Colonel away but only succeeded in igniting
him the more. Like a possessed man, he began pounding at her. He slowed down
briefly and looked in Bizimana’s direction. Once you tell us where those guns are,
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I will stop doing this to your wife,’ he said breathlessly. But Bizimana’s eyes were
swollen—shut against the horrible scene in front of him. With renewed energy, the
Colonel resumed the pounding. Mukundane curled her fingers into claws and
lashed out at him. Marina heard him curse under his breath but he did not slow
down. Mukundane screamed out as the Colonel seemed to tear at her insides.
(Secrets 17)
The performance of the act of rape on her mother ’s body becomes the only visible
picture that continues to configure in her psyche.
Rape is associated with male superiority over their female victims as “it is the
quintessential act by which a male demonstrates to a female that she is conquered”
(Brownmiller 49). Secrets No More amplifies the above assertion that the rape of Tutsi
women by Hutu men is an eloquent statement of the insignificance of the Tutsi.
Furthermore, the act of performing the rape with the husbands of the Tutsi women as
witnesses signifies the marginal position of Tutsis within the Rwandan nation.
Thus rape becomes not just a “weapon of war and suppression” (Armstrong 266),
it is equally an instrument for derogation and the insistence of the unacceptability of
the humanity of the Tutsi and their total rejection as humans equal to any Hutu. The
act of violent rape in the presence of the helpless husband makes the violated mere
abject items or objects in the society.
Kyomuhendo’s subversion of the traditional Bildungsroman amplifies Joanna
Sullivan’s assertion that the twentieth-century African novel differs from the “Western
novel” in part because its central focus is the community rather than a “heroic
individual” (182). More so, it equally amplifies the “slipperiness of identity”
(Nwakanma 10) in postcolonial African society. This is so if one considers the fact that
the protagonist begins as a child struggling to come to terms with the existential crises
of sustaining a psychological balance and moral sanity after witnessing the brutal
murder of her entire family and the mutual violence enacted on her body by a trusted
friend. The traditional form of the Bildungsroman focuses on a sane male protagonist
and his struggle for identity. The plot structure of Secrets No More is not far from the
Western variant, but Kyomuhendo uses a female protagonist who is partially demented
to explore the politics of identity. Through this subversive rhetorical strategy, the
child becomes an important locus to determine how the African person accesses the
facilities of rights which make him/her human. Significantly, therefore, Secrets No
More is a quintessential narrative that embodies how injuries are (un)consciously
inflicted on the self by the self and others and how literary texts “negotiate the issues
of violence and of remembering as a reconciliatory process” (Eke, Kruger and Mortimer
67). Pamela Reynolds (83) suggests that “children in Southern Africa often live on the
edge of dreadful things—community violence, state oppression, warfare, family
disintegration and extreme poverty”. Although Reynolds is particular about a specific
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sub-region within the African continent, her observation captures the question of
existence when one considers how the African child negotiates life in the entire
continent. The issues she highlights—community violence, state oppression, warfare,
family disintegration and extreme poverty—are conditions that characterize the ugly
realities of not only being a child in the postcolonial African context, but they touch
upon the human condition. If children as Alcinda Honwana and Filip De Boeck (1)
assert in their study constitute the majority of Africa‘s population the politics of
national growth and development can be interrogated from the eyes of the child (see
Okuyade).
The traditional Bildungsroman emphasizes the change the protagonist experiences
as he is eventually reconciled to a society whose moral and ethical standards become
the barometer with which to measure the success of the growth process or bildung.
Change therefore, becomes the measure for determining a successful bildung. Change
in this context is a dual phenomenon—first, as a healthy developmental process
which can only be realized through a balancing of both biological development
(physical development) and secondly, as psychological growth. Although the
Bildungsroman has over time, become so lithe that most narratives that feature a growing
child can easily be incorporated into the tradition, there are certain definite markers
one can easily deploy to gauge the form. I suggest that Kyomuhendo’s Secrets no More
is problematic not only in the sense that it incorporates forms that address the
complexities of ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality in a contemporary postcolonial
African society plagued by human evil and sadism (Rwanda and Uganda), but also
because it equally explores the development of a character who is suffering from
partial dementia as a result of human bestiality provoked by the inability of humanity
to recognize the dynamics of “difference” (Chakrabarty 20). Thus, this ethnic refusal
to come to terms with the humanity of the other, creates room for hate, greed, the
ideology of ethnic superiority and premeditation. The narrator makes this point very
explicit at the end of the first phase of Marina’s, growth process: “The girl was not
only sick but also deranged. “What horrors has the poor girl been subjected to?”
Father Marcel wondered” (27). Consequently, one of the primary issues that make
Secrets No More subversive and a little problematic with regard to the concepts of
acculturation and socialization is: in which society would a character suffering from
psychosis be incorporated? The above question becomes fundamental especially as
the protagonist has lost the gift of speech as a result of the traumatic experience of the
murder of her entire family, orchestrated by an individual the family trusted. More
so, the traditional form of the Bildungsroman engenders reconciliation, integration
and socialization as essential features at the end point of the developmental process.
Apollo Amoko remarks that “Like its European counterpart, the African Bildungsroman focuses on the formation of young protagonists in an uncertain world”
(200). However, the postcolonial variants of the Bildungsroman differ from the
123
traditional Western forms—the German and the Victorian English. The African
coming-of-age narrative does not emphasize self-realization and the harmonious
reconciliation between the protagonist and his society, as the prototypical Western
Bildungsroman does. Instead, it “expresses a variety of forces that inhibit or prevent the
protagonist from achieving self-realization. These forces include exile or dislocation,
problems of transcultural interaction, war, violence, poverty, and the difficulties of
preserving personal, familial, and cultural memories” (Okuyade 12).
˜ ˜
Compared to the protagonists of some female African Bildungsroman like Ngugi
wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross, Tsitsi Dagarembga’s Nervous Conditions and
Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus to mention a few, Marina’s chances of survival
are slim, given the fact that she is only a child when she loses everything associated
with home and family, coupled with her state of mental instability. Furthermore, she
has an even less advantageous starting point due to her having had to struggle against
a double existential crisis; not only being a girl-child, but a Tutsi child; a target group
viewed as viral or cancerous, hence the label inyenzi / inyenzikazi.4 Consequently,
Marina the protagonist of the narrative has an even tougher starting point, unlike the
protagonists in most female Bildungsroman. Being an African girl-child from an
unwanted ethnic minority group thus makes her subject even more disadvantageous.
Her being a poor black targeted orphan is in fact the very opposite of a desirable
starting point. From the very beginning, Marina becomes a victim of physical abuse as
well as mental cruelty, and begins her development against all odds, as “Development
is a relative concept colored by many interrelated factors, including class, history and
gender” (Abel 4). Although most narratives on the Rwandan genocide rely on
“documentary realism” and sociological witnessing (Applegate 76) in order to align
the plot structure with the facticity or exactitude of history, Secrets No More does not
wholly fall within such a tradition, considering the function of characterization in
the narrative. The deployment of real names associated with the genocide like
“Augustin Bizimana”, Minister of Defence under Habyarimana and “Tharcisse
Renzaho”, Colonel in the Forces Armées Rwandaises adds a documentary dimension to
the narrative. However, Kyomuhendo is concerned more with the complex issue of
identity construction and reconciliation in Rwanda and then Uganda through the
growth process of Marina. Both issues are foregrounded in the narrative through the
protagonist; a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and a victim of mutual assault in
Uganda, who struggles to reconcile herself to her traumatic past by her eventual
integration into the society and family.
Marina fits vibrantly into the portrait of a Bildungsroman protagonist if one considers
Buckley’s assertion on the place of the father in the form: “[t]he growing child, as he
appears in these novels, more often than not will be orphaned or at least fatherless”.
Invariably, if the father is not dead, like Adichie’s Protagonist in Purple Hibiscus or
Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, he will presumably be repelling and trying to
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“thwart” the child’s “strongest drives and fondest desires” (19). She is an orphan who
has been rejected and banished from the space she calls home and the need to find the
self becomes urgent. The quest for self-realization usually begins with a journey,
which is both psychological and physical. It is like a border crossing from childhood
to adulthood. Marina’s crossing is psychophysical, especially because besides her
mental development, she ends up in a camp in Uganda. Journeying therefore becomes
an important motif in the narrative of growth since “[o]ne of the ways we experience
the individuation process is as a hero journey” in which we may find ourselves
directly or indirectly “winding our way toward maturity” (Evans Smith qtd in Doub
455). Rita Fielski amplifies the above claim when she argues that “a shift in physical
space can be central to the process of self-discovery” (134). However, Marina is
compelled to journey out of the comfort zone of her home to no specific destination
because of ethnic intolerance and greed and the vagaries of human existence.
Consequently, Secrets No More explores what Franco Moretti (15) describes in The
Way of the World as “the conflict between the ideal of self-determination and the equally
imperious demands of socialization”. As noted earlier, the concepts of socialization
and integration become a little problematic in this narrative as Marina has suffered
partial dementia as a result of the loss of her entire family. At the camp, her mouth
hardly functions, just like Kambili in Purple Hibiscus and Zhizha in Yvonne Vera’s
Under the Tongue.5 She is equally unwilling to share the narrative of the brutal murder
of her family with any one, not even Father Marcel, the kind-hearted priest who did
not only bring her to the camp en-route to the orphanage, but took the responsibility
of nursing her back to normalcy. The total refusal to share her traumatic experience
on the Rwandan genocide complicates the possibility of a successful rehabilitation
for Marina. For the greater part of the narrative, the narrator highlights the
inconsistencies in Marina’s psychological networking as she struggles to disgorge
her feelings. Thus, what Kyomuhendo does is to visibly make the psychological
wounds incurred from the brutal murder of Marina’s family occupy a large chunk of
the protagonist’s psychic networking, which explains Marina’s taciturnity. Marina
evaluates everything around her through her mental crisis and as such the human
world for her becomes empty. This constant return to the haunting past aptly captures
Alexandre Dauge-Roth’s assertion which explains how “survivors embody a
disturbing memory, which revives a chapter of Rwanda’s history that most people
will like to see closed, while its aftermath still constitutes an open wound for those
who have survived” (8).
Another factor that silences her is the issue of survival guilt. She wishes she died
along with the rest of the family especially as she only helplessly witnessed the act
and did not attempt to do anything to rescue her mother during the rape scene—as if
she had the energy to take on armed soldiers. Escaping from the systematic slaughter
at home gets her mired in the brutal past as she is unable to disconnect herself from
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the haunting memories of the past. Invariably, Kyomuhendo’s major concern is to
make glaring the dire consequences of her female protagonist’s bizarre experience;
that is, the complexity of the way her mind, her whole being reacts to this unwholesome
experience. In the exploration of her dilemma, the writer plumbs into the depths of
the victim’s traumatized psyche in order to expose her inner turmoil. Hence, she lays
bare Marina’s thought processes; this is a technique Carolyn Martin Shaw designates
as “exteriorization of internal monologues” (25).
As already noted, Marina’s psychic networking has been altered by the total
annihilation of her family coupled with the genocide, as she equally notices that
besides the murder of her family, corpses litter the streets and roads as she struggles to
flee the enchanted space which was once her home but now contoured with aftermath
of the carnage. Usually, the female protagonist of the female Bildungsroman leaves the
primordial base to a temporary habitation where she learns the act of becoming a
woman. While at the temporary base, the protagonist works out modalities to reconcile
her experience at the primordial base and those of her encounters at the new site,
with emphasis on what is learned at the familial base as the yardstick to measure
every other encounter. The primordial base offers her an identity that is naturally
transient. Thus the home becomes the first site where identity begins to form. This is
what gives the home the representation of the site where “one’s inner spiritual self,
one’s true identity” (Chatterjee 624), begins its formation. Since the outside world is
characterized by the struggle for survival and unmitigated desperation to entrench
ones position regardless of the consequences of hurting others in the bid to stay alive,
the primordial base becomes the site where the facilities for growth and the formation
of identity are acquired. Chatterjee further conceptualizes the dialectic between the
home and the outside world and their implication for identity construction when he
asserts that, “The world is a treacherous terrain of the pursuit of material interests,
where practical considerations reign supreme” (624). For Marina the institutions of
home and family are threatened because of her recent traumatic experience. One will
easily notice this when she rejects the product of her rape by Matayo. Marina’s
daughter, Rosaria is by no means evil, but the process of her conception is for Marina,
because it parallels the rape of Mukundane and the death of the Bizimanas in the
hands of the Hutu soldiers
Marina’s inability to live beyond the psychic wounds inflicted upon her through
the brutal murder of her family becomes the most daunting challenge to her struggle
to reconstruct a new identity in the new space where she lives alongside other
children with similar experiences. Physically she has achieved a separation,
considering the fact that she has been removed from the space or site of the violence.
However, her struggle to disconnect with the psychology of the memory of the crisis
itself is partially inhibited by her refusal to erase the actual violence from her bruised
memory. The traumatized need not struggle to run away from the object of the trauma
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since it embodies “an impossible history within them or they become themselves the
symptom of a history that they cannot entirely possess” (Caruth 5). Total separation
must be achieved for an initiatee to get incorporated into a new society. Furthermore,
Marina’s biological development helps her overcome her stagnation in the in-between
space—the violence of loss which cuts off Marina from the real world and the physical
separation from the scene of the genocide. Both crises are articulated in her inability
to move beyond the continuous present. This action of disconnection from the real
world is enhanced by the regular snapshot of the trauma reconfiguring in her psyche
through mares and dreams. In the novel, Marina has been brutally wounded
psychologically and as a result suffers compulsion to communicate coherently or to
deploy non-verbal strategies to testify to the violence she has suffered. At this point
she is at the threshold, or what Stephen Bigger describes as the “limen, […] the key to
their passage or transition from one room [state] to another” (emphasis in the original,
2). However, her physical growth unconsciously incorporates her into her new society.
Over a year after her arrival at the orphanage, Marina still keeps to herself, refusing to
let anyone have access to her past, until “She woke up to find her dress marked with
blood drops. When she attempted to walk, more blood oozed from her private parts
and trickled down her thighs. It was warm and dark red. Marina screamed out aloud
and some girls came to see what had happened to her.” (41) The ritual that accompanies
Marina’s initiation from girlhood to womanhood signified by her experiencing
menstrual flow becomes a powerful propeller for her transformation:
Sister Bernadette cut the metre into small pieces which she folded neatly. She placed
one piece under Marina’s private parts and told her to keep the rest and change the
clothes whenever she bathed. […] When Marina took the first piece of cloth Sister
Bernadette had inserted in her, she was surprised when she was told to hand it over
to an older girl who was seated on a chair. “But sister, it is all soaked in blood and it
… it … smells awful,” Marina said, shocked. “I know that Marina. Here, give it to
me”. Marina unwrapped the piece of cloth from a polythene bag and gave it to
Sister Bernadette. “Remove your blouse,” Sister Bernadette told the girl seated on
the chair. The girl did as she was told. Sister Bernadette began rubbing the bloodsoaked cloth on the girl’s back, then under her breasts. Some of the blood trickled
onto her stomach. Sister Bernadette explained that the girl had ringworm and the
used pad was the only medicine which could cure her (42–3).
This feminine ritual of incorporation into the community of sisterhood through the
monthly flow is very significant in the growth process of Marina. The ritual
essentialises the importance of a coalition of individuals who struggle to overcome
similar challenges. Marina eventually realizes that it is imperative for her to share her
fears and anxieties with the other girls. Through this realization, she hopes to be
restored to the peace she once enjoyed with her family before the genocide. She
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eventually opens up when she understands the fact that she need not hide any longer.
If the waste from her body becomes a curative lotion for a fellow girl in the orphanage,
it therefore means there was nothing to hide. The narrator vividly captures the above
assertion when observing the dual purification ritual, where the rag which drenches
Marina’s blood from the menstrual flow is used to cure another girl of ringworm:
“With all the rituals completed, Marina was initiated into the club of women. […]
And with that, and perhaps the strong relationship which was growing between her
and Stella Maris, Marina seemed to have shed some of her inhibitions.” (44)
Marina has tremendously learned about the anatomy of the female body and the
process of socialization without attending a formal school system. She becomes totally
involved at the orphanage with different forms of duties like reading Bible lessons
during church services. Her development becomes visible, as she puts her pains
behind her; everybody at the orphanage easily notices that she has transformed
suddenly. As she achieves mental balance by gradually associating with the other
girls, her elegance and beauty become exceptional too. Her gradual understanding of
her new home coupled with some of the familial lessons she learned at home before
the genocide enables Marina to perform a minor miracle by rescuing a calf from jaws
of death. This is another aspect of her informal learning that she displays at the
orphanage. Jerome Buckley makes emphatic the significance of the school without
walls in his study and suggests that an individual can grow up and gradually discover
who he or she is through experience. The informal form of education maybe acquired
through experience that affords the individual the opportunity to be engaged in
communal exercises like work or play, travel, nature, adolescent romance (Buckley
viii, 232). Communal engagements are vital tools that facilitate bonding; hence Marina
recounts the pains and injuries inflicted on her by the gruesome murder of her family:
Marina blew her nose, not knowing where and how to start. It had been a year
now since she had been at the orphanage; such a long time, yet in a way it seemed
just like yesterday when she had stood in their sitting room in Rwanda staring at
her family lying dead. “My parents, brother and sister were all killed,” she began.
At first, they were inane disjointed words that just spilled from her lips, but after a
few sentences, she gained confidence and spoke more firmly. She told Matayo
everything she could remember and he did not once interrupt her. When she had
finished, she felt like a heavy load had been lifted from her shoulder. (Secrets 50–1)
At this point, Marina has unconsciously released herself from the cataclysm associated
with the genocide and the slaughter of her family by Hutu soldiers. The act of narrating
her pains is a potent tonic for psychological restoration and cathartic release for an
identity constructed from a traumatic experience. At this point she attains
psychological liberation. However, her new state of internal peace is short lived, as
Matayo fails to function as a trusted confidant. For the developing girl-child, her
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choices are usually limited as her development is circumscribed within the grand
narrative of the patriarchal order. Invariably, one will notice that when it comes to
issues bordering on education and choices of occupation, the women in Secrets No
More have no room to choose between profession and domesticity, where men do not
need to make any choice at all. I make this point because it also influences the idea of
sexuality. There are remarkable distinctions between the novel of development in
both male and female texts. For a male, sexual experience is something positive, that is
“another step toward maturity” whereas for a female “the move makes a complete
change of status […]. Losing one’s virginity unwisely seldom determines the eventual
life of the male protagonist; it is the stuff of ostracism, madness, and suicide for a
female, however” (Wagner 65–6). Consequently, journeys and isolation for the girlchild are frequently internal as they face the personal tragedy of being different,
while the conflicts faced by young men are most often physical ones. The intimacy
Marina begins to share with Matayo is betrayed almost immediately:
Her fingers felt soft on Matayo’s bare skin and they had a soothing effect on him.
He did not want her to stop. He closed his eyes and something seemed to snap in
his head. He felt his body go on fire and a blinding urge to make love to Marina
took hold of him. The wine he had taken, coupled with the long day’s excitement
had taken their toll. He was like a person in a trance and some devil seemed to have
entered him and was now responsible for his feelings. His manhood began to
harden. He grabbed Marina and clasped her to his chest then pressed her body to
his aroused manhood [….] she tried to struggle out of his arms, but he was too
strong for her. He pinned her to the ground, then with one arm, he began unzipping
his trousers. In one swift movement, Matayo has removed the trousers and was
trying to part Marina’s thighs using his legs [….]. Matayo was holding his elongated
stiff manhood in one hand, while he used the other hand to keep Marina pinned to
the ground. He began forcing himself inside her. Marina’s feeble resistance only
managed to ignite Matayo the more. Marina felt an excruciating pain tear through
her body as Matayo entered her. He pumped at her and probed inside her with his
enormous manhood. (Secrets 58–9)
After the incidence of the rape she returns to the initial melancholic state of emptiness.
This is because the rape invariably becomes a blockade to her new found inner peace
and an inhibition for a symbiotic bonding process. The rape is a symbolization of
intimate tyranny orchestrated by the patriarchy to keep women in a leash and contain
their growth and freedom. This act makes her regress into silence and accelerates her
relapse into psychological strain once again. This is so because all through the moment
of the rape it is only the cinematographic recurrence of her mother’s rape that ironically
configures in her psyche: her mother “spread-eagled on the floor and the Colonel on
top of her […] along with the agony-filled sounds her mother had made” (Secrets 58).
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Matayo’s sexual assault on Marina is a betrayal of trust, considering the fact that
Marina’s act of narrating the catastrophic experience of her past is geared towards
freeing herself from the shattering history of the brutal loss of her family. Essentially,
it is the pain or rather, the feeling of relief from pain that pushes Marina to confide
such traumatic memories to Matayo. This intimate betrayal demolishes Marina’s sense
of self-worth which she has been constructing for herself over time in her stay at the
orphanage. Consequently, the rape re-scars her memory, weakens her ego and selfesteem, and above all, it depersonalizes her. Abasi Kiyimba observes that Matayo’s
rape of Marina, more of a “response to a spontaneous sexual urge under the influence
of alcohol”, while that of her mother is more of “a tool of organised and systematic
torture and humiliation,” Kiyimba has moreover, suggested that the latter rape, when
dialectically appraised “in the broader framework of patriarchy as a system” is “a
symbolic demonstration of the extent of female vulnerability”. Marina’s rape by
Matayo traumatises her as she becomes doubly scarred. The double scar vibrantly
explains the nature of her trauma which Edgar Fred Nabutanyi describes thus: “The
trauma she experiences during both the genocide and her later rape scars Marina’s
adult life, rendering her incapable of establishing meaningful relationships with her
daughter and husband” (106).
In the female Bildungsroman, the girl has trouble finding a suitable mentor. Fraiman
states that the “mothers are usually either dead or deficient models, and the lessons of
older men are apt to have voluptuous overtones”. The female protagonist “may spend
the whole novel in search of a positive maternal figure” but in the end the only
person that will be her mentor is the man that will become her husband (6). Fraiman’s
assertion clearly captures the identity of the mothers in some recent female postcolonial
African narratives which fall within the tradition of the Bildungsroman. Examples of
such narratives include: Purple Hibiscus, Sky-High Flames, Nervous Conditions, Everything
Good Will Come and Skyline. The mother figures in these narratives are present but
docile as their inertia prevents their daughters from constructing an identity from the
personality of the mothers. However, the absence of a mother or mentor compounds
Marina’s grief as there is nobody that intimate with her to confide in.
Marina’s development is disturbingly cyclical, a constant return to the starting
point. Formal education for her is chaotic as she never completes schooling. She
becomes a student permanently. Her education is truncated by the genocide while
still in Rwanda. Her rape by Matayo diminishes her sense of self-worth and the
identity she had constructed for herself with her own bricks. Her only option to
survive the new injury inflicted on her by the rape is to move on. Thus when Father
Marcel fulfils his promise by sending her to Hoima to continue her education, she
jumps at the offer not minding the fact that she was going to start afresh. Marina’s
growth process especially the aspect of schooling is marked by itineration and
continual journeying rather than by stable academic resident studentship. As a
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student, Marina is trapped in the threshold because of her inability to cross the
borderline between classes in school.
Considering the issue of sexuality, male heterosexual adventures are privileged
and seen as something positive which gives them agency that enhances their growth
process. Fraiman referring to Buckley (17) who opines that “at least two love affairs or
sexual encounters, one debasing, one exalting” are potent markers of male
Bildungsromane. For the female, however, “sex plays a less positive role”, because if it
is sometimes performed outside wedlock, it may eventually create a sense of discontent
˜ ˜ female protagonist in Devil on the Cross
for the female if the union turns sour. Ngugi’s
and Abani’s in Becoming Abigail easily come to mind here. Marina’s rape therefore,
reinforces this position.
Unaware of the dire consequences of the act of rape, she manages to settle into her
new space at the community school at Hoima. By the end of the second term it
becomes clear that she is pregnant— a situation which compels her to abandon school
yet again. Marina becomes disenchanted after the birth of her child. Father Marcel
and Sister Bernadette decide to keep news of Marina’s pregnancy and delivery secret
in order not to compound her grief at the orphanage on the one hand and to shield
themselves from possibility of being identified as failures on the other hand. This is
because Marina’s pregnancy occurred at the orphanage. As guardians to the orphans
and other children at the orphanage and Catholic representatives of the church,
Father Marcel and Sister Bernadette are supposed to be responsible for the moral
development of the children and the pregnancy of a teenage girl is by no means
celebratory for the church. The pregnancy is without doubt a major moral-religious
catastrophe capable of attracting derisive responses from the church and the village.
Consequently Father Marcel intensifies his search for a guardian for Marina outside
the orphanage. He successfully convinces the Magezis to take Marina with them as
they prepare to return to the city. Once again Marina is on the road. The road for
Marina becomes a metaphor for new beginnings and endless journeys. Although she
always ends up being trapped in the in-between space, the road offers her an escape
and facilitates a transient identity through which she expresses and experiences
freedom from a dominant society that constantly truncates her development.
Changing base for Marina becomes therapeutic for her development. After the
birth of Rosaria, Marina becomes grief stricken. However when Sister Bernadette
recounts her own travails as a young woman, a little load of pain is lifted from Marina’s
shoulder. Narrating her pains makes Marina realize that human suffering is a universal
phenomenon. The act of narration by Sister Bernadette equally “reflects the ambiguous
relationship between survivors and their memories: they need to tell their stories in
order to come to terms with what has happened” (Hitchcott 82). Hence when the
offer to go start afresh with the Magezis is presented to her, she takes it without
questioning the rationale behind the decision. For most heroes of the Bildungsroman,
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the city plays a double role in the protagonist’s life: “it is both the agent of liberation
and a source of corruption” (Morreti 20). For Marina, the city is very different from the
orphanage at the country side. She is constantly indoors until she is introduced to
George who eventually marries her. The secret of the existence of her child and
George’s philandering escapades with other women incontrovertibly magnify her
silence as she becomes estranged in matrimony. Marriage fails to provide her with the
security and mental stability and agency she seeks badly.
George’s infidelity makes marriage disenchanting for Marina. However, Dee’s
sexual encounters with Marina expose her to new discoveries—her sexuality and the
importance of asserting the self. Fraiman suggests that female protagonist in the
narrative of growth avoids sex outside matrimony (until the twentieth century) in
order to prevent “things” from happening to her. The woman’s “paradoxical task is to
see the world while avoiding the world’s gaze” (Fraiman 6, 7). Fraiman’s assertion
aptly captures the liberatory quality sex outside marriage provides a completely
domesticated wife. Although she refuses to elope with or marry Dee when George
discovers her infidelity, Marina’s sexual escapades with him liberates her from her
initial sexual frigidity and introduces her to the mutual respect derivable from the
man-woman relationship.
Marina’s pilgrimage, however, is individually focused: she moves toward the self
that continues to elude her and finally achieves individuation through autonomy
and independence. As the novel reaches its denouement, Marina experiences a kind
of inner love. The love for the self which is made bold by the zeal to help other
individuals who may have suffered one form of trauma or the other survive their
bruised identity and cushion the overbearing force of their scared memory. This new
feeling is characterized by an aura of epiphany which is not borne out of pity and the
agony of Magezi’s impotence, or the helplessness of Rosaria who lacks normal
parenting for a healthy development. Marina’s choice to start all over is predicated on
the importance of the family as a counter-psycho mechanism for overcoming emotional
and psychological stressor. Rather than eloping with Dee, Marina settles for Mr Magezi,
a far older man who needs the energy and compassion of Marina, having suffered a
terrible betrayal in the hands of his late wife through her act of infidelity coupled
with his inability to procreate. Although, Magezi is as vulnerable as Marina, becoming
a couple will afford both characters the possibility of renegotiating their identities.
Consequently, marriage offers them another opportunity for a fresh start, and enough
yardage to purge themselves of their pains tucked away in their bruised memories.
This is where the title of the novel is derived—laying bare the secrets tearing the
mental fabric of both characters.
Learning to love again, an emotion she lost as a child with the gruesome murder
of her family, becomes the most potent marker of her development as a woman. The
family she once lost is now resurrected through her marriage to a father-figure, Magezi,
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the head of the new family like her father Bizimana, and her acceptance of Rosaria;
her daughter who she once loathed because of the mode of her conception. Rosaria
offers Marina the opportunity of playing the mother-figure, a trait she exhibits while
still a child when nursing her younger siblings before the genocide. Without doubt,
Marina grows in the course of the story from the pitiful orphan of the opening pages
to the sensible happy woman of the epilogue. Though vulnerable, she is steadfast;
willing to share her love with her new family.
After leaving George shortly before he commits suicide as a result of his
incapacitation from the auto-crash, Marina develops the strength to love compulsively.
When the opportunity to begin a new family stares at her in the face, she seizes it
completely. Her decision to marry Magezi and be responsible for Rosaria opens the
floodgate for the discovery of her other self, her portrait as a woman and mother. At
the end of the novel, Marina is older and wiser than she was at the beginning. Marina
finally reaches the pinnacle of her development because she does not act or pretend
to be stable; she has achieved stability. She has developed from a weak, vulnerable
and empty girl and a voiceless submissive wife into a strong woman who controls her
own life. Marina’s ability to develop in spite of being subject to a double existential
crisis of being an African girl-child from a target group in a society where the phallic
dictates of the patriarchy determine how the female child constructs her identity,
makes Secrets No More a bold example of the African Female Bildungsroman. At the end
of the novel, Marina has become not only a woman, she has developed so much that
she exhibits signs of all the criteria for having achieved womanhood. She has grown
up tremendously (not just acting as though she has), she is in charge of a new family,
she has a home, and above all, she achieves a new self and the gift of love. She loves
her new family, she loves the world, she loves her daughter, Rosaria and, ultimately,
she loves herself.
The thrust of this essay has been to demonstrate how Secrets No More falls within
the tradition of the Bildungsroman or a novel that chronicles the process by which
characters enter the adult world regardless of the problematic of the protagonist’s
childhood derangement occasioned by the loss of the idea of home. Although the
novel offers a microcosmic examination of that point where gender, sexual experience,
ethnic experience, and self-image intersect, the grand narrative centres on the transition
process of the protagonist and how the process is negotiated. In sum, what makes the
protagonists of the Bildungsroman stand out is the eventual discovery of the self,
which creates room for independent decision making and the choices they make to
sustain their new identity. For Buckley, the crucial task for the hero is to come to terms
with himself or herself. Marina at the end achieves independence and self-knowledge.
These are the basic assets that bequeath her the strength of choice and decision making
and how to uphold the choices and decisions she makes—the choice to love, remarry and settle as a wife and mother.
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Usually the primary goal of the protagonist in the Bildungsroman is not only to
reach a desired destination. The destination is most times not physical (since it straddles
the sacred and the profane), but the need to come to terms with the self. The import of
reaching the destination is that in the end the protagonist’s initiation becomes whole;
s/he achieves independence and a measure of self-knowledge and can return home to
where it all began. The return to the primordial base offers the protagonist an
opportunity to re-evaluate the self. For Marina, her familial or primordial base is the
orphanage.
Narratives of growth essentially give expression to how the child-figure who
functions as protagonist discovers the self through identity negotiations encapsulated
within a broader frame work of a society where s/he engages in the process of
transcending childhood or crossing the border between childhood and adolescence
and adolescence and adulthood. The process of transition is not only arduous; it is
sometimes negotiated outside the security of family and the airy enchantment of the
primordial base. Ultimately, development is not only negotiated in phases, it is a
continuous transitional process. However, Marina’s development peaks at the point
where she does not only rediscover herself—a discovery reinforced in her ability to
decide how she hopes to assert her femininity, since her identity from birth has all
along been sharpened and regulated by others. She reconciles herself to her
circumstances as she assumes new responsibilities. At the end she is no longer
influenced by others, but influences the identity of the people around her, more
importantly, Magezi who eventually becomes her husband. At the end the reader
who has accompanied the protagonist from the very beginning of her turbulent
voyage eventually comes to terms with the fact that it is not reaching the destination
that counts for the protagonist, but the lessons learned in the process of journeying.
This is so because it is not only the education of the protagonist that is vital; that of the
reader is equally crucial, because it is a novel of education. The traditional plot of the
Bildungsroman gives expression to how a young, white, male hero achieves
reconciliation and integration into the society. However, Secrets No More revises the
genre by addressing the multiple layers of oppression and crises confronting the
protagonist. Kyomuhendo creates a character that is female and suffers partial dementia
from childhood, as a result of genocide and sexual assault. By doing so, she extends
the frontiers of the form to reiterate the fact that the African template of the coming-ofage narrative does not emphasize self-realization and the harmonious reconciliation
between the protagonist and his society as the traditional Bildungsroman does. Instead,
it expresses a variety of forces that inhibit or prevent the protagonist from achieving
self-realization.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for providing the grant used
in conducting research on this article as a Fellow of the African Humanities Program (AHP) and
Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape (South Africa) for the convivial
ambiance for research.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Notes
National development and growth may not only be determined by infrastructural developments,
but by human access to such infrastructures.
Among the Urhobo of Nigeria, misfortunes within the family or the home are usually associated
with internal factors or forces within. It is believed that whenever anything goes wrong in the
familial or primordial base, somebody within must have given vital information to the enemy
outside which eventually facilitates the crisis within. Thus a damaged nut does not get rotten
from the outside, but from the insidious parasitic worm lodged inside the nut. This equally
parallels the fact that when rats invade a home, it is the rats within that cartelize the process of the
invasion. This is so because the rat outside has no possible knowledge of the abundance or absence
of food in a particular home, it is the rat within that provides the vital information and invitation
for the one outside on when and how to strike. This dialogical metaphor aptly captures the
relationship between Chantal and the Bizimanas and the eventual destruction of the family, with
emphasis on the fact that the genocide was by no means a coincidence, but a well thought-out
scheme geared towards destroying a perceived enemy.
By “permanent present” I mean the clock of her life stopped ticking as a result of the gruesome
murder of her family. For Marina the future becomes inconsequential, the world ended with the
elimination of her family. Thus her biggest burden is to move on with her life. Like Miss Havisham
in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Marina becomes psychologically confined to that moment
of grief.
During the period of the genocide, the radio programmes frequently referred to the Tutsi as
Inyenzi, (male), Inyenkazi (female) a Kinyarwanda word meaning cockroach. Although the word
is derogatorily used by the Hutus during the genocide, as a marker for othering or demonizing the
Tutsis, A. J. Kuperman remarks that “The Inyanzi, cockroaches in Rwanda was used by the Tutsi
refugees who tried to take power in 1961 when they launched attacks in Uganda and Burundi and
they earned the name for their propensity to return repeatedly at night despite attempts to stamp
them out. The name carried disrespect when used by the Hutu rebels in 1994. The name cockroach
was adapted by the rebels themselves “as a symbol of their relentlessness” (7).
The pressures and the overbearing nature of the familial base regulated by the phallocentric order
of the patriarchy depersonalize and reduce the voices of the female characters (Daughters) to
whispers, stutters and silence.
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Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega
Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega (Ph.D)
teaches in the Department of English
and Literary Studies, Delta State
University, Abraka, Nigeria.
Email: enajiteojas@yahoo.com
The place of Urhobo folklore in
Tanure Ojaide’s poetry
The place of Urhobo folklore in Tanure Ojaide’s
poetry
While some notable studies have been done on Tanure Ojaide and his coevals on their “Alter/Native” tradition of modern African
poetry that gained inspiration from indigenous African oral literature and folklore, there has been no focused study on the place
of folklore in his writing, especially his poetry. Ojaide’s writing is deeply steeped in Urhobo folklore, which his upbringing and later
study and research in Udje have brought about. Though this is not an essentialist reading of his work, I intend to use his specific
cultural background to do a reading of his poetry in order to show the depth, breadth, and complexity of his themes and the
sophistication of his art, all of which are infused with his native Urhobo folklore. From legendary personages such as Ogiso,
Arhuaran, Aminogbe, Ayayughe, Ogidigbo through the fauna and flora of the iroko, akpobrisi, uwara, eyareya, to the
incorporation of folk songs and modelling of poems on the udje genre, Ojaide uses orature to establish a cultural identity and a
common humanity for his work. Through local folklore and a style borrowed from the oral tradition he deploys folkloric resources
as style and form to advance his themes. My study thus illuminates the deep meaning of the writer’s thoughts and the effective
use of oral poetic performance style. This conscious effort of the writer appears to have yielded poetic dividends in the relevance
of his work and the literary reputation he has gained through his consistency despite innovations now and then. Keywords:
cultural identity, Tanure Ojaide, oral tradition, Urhobo folklore.
Introduction
Tanure Ojaide is a renowned scholar-poet whose works have been subjected to a lot
of scholarly interpretations. His over seventeen collections of poetry, seven works of
prose fiction, two memoirs, and impressive number of scholarly books and critical
essays on a wide range of subjects focusing on various issues in African literature are
huge sources of academic references. Many of the academic researches carried out on
his poetry tend to focus on his role as an environmental-cum-activist writer or one
engaged in eco or Green Wave poetics. Speaking on his art, Enajite Ojaruega (93)
observes:
He is one writer who through his art has been able to bring to public attention the
level of environmental degradation going on in the Niger Delta region for several
decades. By extension, he also reveals the plight of the people whose lives and
livelihoods have been greatly compromised as a result of the negative consequences
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of oil exploitation in that region. Much of Ojaide’s poetry consistently dwells on the
paradox of an oil wealth that is a blessing turned doom, a curse rather than a source
of joy for his people and region. Strong strains of lamentation and nostalgic evocation
for what was once an idyllic environment, but now greatly damaged, are also
found in his poetry.
In this light, Uzoechi Nwagbara describes the poet as using “literature for environmentalist purposes” as “he places premium on the biotic community—its
sustainability and preservation” (18). Some other notable studies have been done on
him and his coevals on their “Alter/Native” tradition of modern African poetry that
gained inspiration from indigenous African oral literature and folklore. This is
probably what Tijan M. Sallah alludes to when he says that Ojaide’s poetry is made
more appealing because it possesses “cultural integrity” (20). Funso Ayejina comes
close to the subject area of this article when he classifies this style of writing as an
“Alter-Native tradition” which basically signifies “the return to roots” as Ojaide “uses
traditional forms to achieve poetic vitality, intensity and relevance.” He believes:
“His philosophical musings look backward to tradition as well as inward to the
present such that the poems exhibit a deeper interiorization which, while drawing
primarily on the poet’s personal experience, does not inhibit the general slant of his
vision” (Ayejina 125). However, in spite of the views represented above, there has
been no focused study on the place of folklore in his writings, especially his poetry. A
closer look at Ojaide’s writings shows it is deeply steeped in Urhobo folklore which
his upbringing and later study and research in Udje poetic performance tradition
have brought about. This essay therefore seeks to interpret the subtext of the Urhobo
folkloric content embedded in his poetry which includes his use of folksongs, folktales,
legends, myths, Udje tradition, proverbs, riddles, worldview, philosophy, and other
folkloric tropes of Urhobo culture.
Aspects of Urhobo cultural background and folklore
Before I go on to discuss in detail the place of Urhobo folklore in Ojaide’s poetry, it is
only pertinent that I explain a little of the Urhobo cultural background which has
greatly influenced this modern day poet. Ojaide now lives in and continues to write
mostly from the United States of America, yet he maintains close connections with his
traditional cultural heritage as shown in much of his poetry. The poet himself has in
several oral interviews and critical essays focusing on his art made references to his
indebtedness to the rich reservoir of his Urhobo traditional folklore and culture. In a
particular instance, he explains the relationship between a creative writer and his
birthplace by recommending that a writer should identify with a specific place or his
nativity since he/she is not just an air plant (Ojaide, “The Niger Delta” 233–4):
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Every writer’s roots are very important in understanding his or her work. […]
Nativity has so much to do with creating literature, especially poetry. The writer
tends to exploit memory to garner images to clarify his or her vision. This memory
might be of the writer ’s birthplace or of the place he or she has lived in and
associates with. I may have travelled extensively all over the world, I may have
lived in different parts of my country, Nigeria; I may be currently living and working
in the United States, but my native home is the Niger Delta […] the constant
backdrop to my inspiration […] Nativity […] means birthplace and/or the place
where one grows up to imbibe its worldview. Generally, where one is born or lives
the formative years of childhood defines one’s nativity. Nativity is some specific
place whose air, water, crops, folklore and other produce nourish the individual.
(Ojaide, “The Niger Delta” 233–4)
Ojaide belongs to the Urhobo ethnic group that lives mainly in Delta State of Nigeria,
West Africa. The Urhobo people, who currently number about five million, are the
most predominant ethnic group in Nigeria’s Delta State and the fifth largest ethnic
group in Nigeria. They occupy about eight of the twenty five local government areas
in Delta State. There are many versions of their migration story including ones related
to the idea of having come from outside present-day Nigeria (Egypt, Sudan, Yemen,
etc.) to finally settling in their current location. However, the most commonly accepted
account traces their immediate origins to Aka or Udo, now called Edo, during the
middle part of the Benin Empire. They were said to have left the eponymous Aka
because of their gross mistreatment and oppression during the tyrannical Ogiso
dynasty. They left in different groups and at different times in search of more peaceful
territories to settle in.
The Urhobos share similar linguistic and cultural features with the people of Edo
hence they are regarded as being part of the Pan-Edo or Edoid group. Farming and
fishing as well as small scale trading are the main traditional occupations of the
Urhobo people. As part of the geographical entity referred to as the Niger Delta
region, the people possess large expanses of land and water masses, rich in flora and
fauna as well as aquatic life. Underneath their land and water spaces can be found
rich deposits of petroleum which till today contributes over seventy-five percent of
Nigeria’s gross domestic earnings. As in other areas of the Niger Delta region where
oil exploitation is carried out, the poet’s homeland suffers from a gradual but steady
despoliation and degradation of the ecosystem. This is as a result of the negative
fallout of constantly drilling for crude oil on land and water and the consequences of
the oil exploitation industry.
It is significant to note here that the Urhobo people traditionally have belief systems
that are unique to them. For instance, they believe that every individual, before birth,
makes a choice at Urhoro of what type of life he or she wants to live before being born.
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Urhoro in Urhobo folklore designates a spiritual stage in a child’s life before it is born
or, as the Urhobo people would say, comes to the earth. To them, thus, there is
predestination. However, it is believed that if one has a bad choice, the person can
through sacrifices and good work on earth change the “choice” to a positive one. In
this regard, one’s head guides one’s destiny and the hand is fated to either succeed or
fail. A very spiritual people, the Urhobo people believe in reincarnation and the
cyclical nature of life. They serve family ancestors and gods who are expected to
guide and guard the living. A benevolent ancestor receives abundant sacrifice during
festive occasions to show appreciation for the care towards the devotees.
The Urhobo also believe in the supernatural. For example, that witches operate in
their coven world to cause mischief or harm to those they are envious of. However,
they can be countered by acts of good living or traditional medicines prepared to
fortify one mystically. There are traditional values such as kindness, honesty,
truthfulness that the average person aspires to uphold. At the same time, the culture
forbids certain things such as incest, stealing, lying, dubious lifestyle, adultery, and
other acts that would adversely affect the corporate existence of the community. They
also believe that the good will be rewarded in this world and also be better human
beings in their next incarnation or the next world, while evil ones will suffer not only
in their lifetimes but also in their next incarnation.
There is belief in the binary nature of phenomena. If there is evil, there is good. If
there is poison, there is an antidote. This important aspect of Urhobo belief system
even has symbolic representations in their vegetation specifically through two trees:
the akpobrisi (a giant tree like the iroko) which is male and tyrannical and uwara (an
elegant and seemingly fragile plant), which is female, tall, beautiful, and soothing.
Another point that is significant for one who is familiar with the people’s folklore is
that art is close to religion. Sculptures/figures and songs/music are closely related to
religion. For instance, the udje performance is closely related to the tutelary god for
whom the songs are performed with dance to cleanse the land of spiritual impurities
so that the people could be blessed with a good harvest in farming and fishing. The
soothing female principle counters the harsh male principle. Thus, living in a typical
traditional society as in the village where Ojaide was raised endows one with the
values the Urhobo society promotes.
As will be expatiated upon later, it is quite noticeable that as part of the originality
of his poetic oeuvre, Ojaide taps deeply into the cosmology, ontology, and epistemology embedded in the folklore of his people. The poet grew up in a rural environment and continues to consider himself privileged to have enjoyed a pristine
environment then. As he reveals in his memoir, Great Boys: An African Childhood (1998)
he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Amreghe, in the small village of Ibada. He
followed his uncles to fish and farm until he was old enough to accompany his agemates on such jaunts. Through his association with his grandfather and uncles, Ojaide
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familiarized himself with the landscape of his nativity which will later be the source
of reference for many of his poems and stories. He recalls the Edenic atmosphere with
the lush green vegetation and rivers and creeks in the area. The landscape teemed
with “bush” animals, anthills, butterflies, reptiles, and other non-human population
that co-existed with the villagers. It was a life of abundance and fulfilment and nobody
complained of hunger.
In his memoir, Ojaide recalls how the peaceful quiet rural environment was
suddenly broken with the coming of prospectors out to seek oil, different from the
palm oil that he knew. There were promises by the oil prospectors of a better life for
the people whom they paid meagre compensations for the lands they prospected on.
With time as Ojaide grew up, the boom expected turned to gloom with the pollution
of the land and rivers as well as gas flaring that would pose health hazards to the
people. As at the time the poet started writing, the fishing and farming of the rural
population had been adversely affected by the oil exploitation. The damage to the
people’s well-being affected other endeavours of life.
It is therefore often with a tone of nostalgia that he recalls this bygone era in most
of his poems. Little wonder his poetry, nay work, constantly protests against those
human agents that have continued to perpetrate the pillage of his beloved birthplace
and are oblivious to the detrimental effect their activities have on the people and
environment. The blame for the change he places squarely on the multinational oil
corporations who came to the Niger Delta to explore and exploit petroleum. G.G.
Darah (12) confirms this view of the nature of his poetry: “The poetry of Tanure
Ojaide […] fits into the tradition of outrage against political injustice, exploitation
and environmental disasters.” The poet’s angst mostly stems from the paradox inherent
in an oil wealth that has greatly impoverished rather than enriched the people who
own the land. The people suffer untold hardships as a result of the multinational oil
company’s greed and the government’s insensitivity to their plight. In one of Ojaide’s
early poems titled “Ughelli” (74) in Labyrinths of the Delta (1986), he describes the irony
of Ughelli, the foremost Urhobo city, having a power station that supplies light to the
rest of the country but is left in perpetual darkness. The poet’s themes persistently
focus on the issues of exploitation, tyranny, and official complicity even as he makes
a strong case for the revitalization of this impoverished region and its people.
Subtexts of Urhobo folkloric content in Ojaide’s poetry
The aim of the detailed background is to situate Ojaide as an eco-writer and also
contextualize his artistic style for a better understanding of various aspects of his
writings that include thematic preoccupations, poetic techniques, style, and form he
adopts in his poetry. However, the focus of the essay is to discuss how the use of the
folklore of his specific cultural background can be deployed to interrogate his poetry
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in order to show the depth, breadth, and complexity of his themes and the
sophistication of his art, all of which are infused with his native Urhobo folklore.
Many of my poetic references would be taken from three of his collections: Labyrinths
of the Delta (1986), Delta Blues and Home Songs (1997), and Waiting for the Hatching of a
Cockerel (2008). The idea behind the selection is to show that the poet has been consistent
with this art form under focus all through his writing career, from his earlier work in
the first two collections through to his later work in the latter collection. It will be
observed that there is a growing sophistication in the use of Urhobo folklore in the
poetry collections. From a sampling of some poems in the aforementioned volumes of
poetry, it is apparent that Ojaide uses orature to establish not only a cultural identity
for his work but also organize style and form to effectively express his themes. In
doing so, the poet also gives the present generation and readers an idea of their
traditional heritage and how it can be used to express current and enduring thoughts
and feelings.
Within Ojaide’s poetry, contemporary issues are sometimes reconstructed through
similar episodes and events found in past Urhobo traditional oral history and folkloric
heritage. This art of imagining back provides the writer with the opportunity of
using symbols, images, and techniques, as well as themes at a more public and postcolonial level. Ojaide infuses his poetic writings with references to his people’s
mythical and historical characters that have parallels with contemporary events.
Mythical figures such as Ogiso, Ogidigbo, Aminogbe, Arhuaran, and Uvo have their
modern-day equivalents in many of Ojaide’s poems. Hence, we notice that within his
poetry, whenever he examines some of the nefarious activities of some modern African
leaders, he invariably finds their parallels in the character of traditional rulers of the
past. As recounted earlier, an aspect of Urhobo mythology has it that in times past, the
Urhobo people, then dwelling among the Bini people, were subjected to untold
cruelty by the ruling Ogiso dynasty. As a result of the abuse they suffered they fled
southwards in search of a safe refuge to what is today Urhobo land. In the title poem
of Labyrinths of the Delta, the poet replicates this migration story of his Urhobo people.
He identifies some of the activities of the wicked Ogiso which were responsible for
the people’s hurried flight from their former place of abode which he refers to as
“suffocating shrines” (23) to include:
Ogiso choked flaming faggots into men’s throats
Castrated the manly among us, and
Fell on anybody he loved or scorned.
We wept at night
Since we could not deny our blood in him;
But could not wash the blood with tears.
We knew we had not come to our own home.
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Through a poetic recall of oral history, the poet vividly re-creates the cruelties his
people suffered at the hands of a tyrannical monarch. Their plight was further
exacerbated by a sense of alienation which ultimately provided them with the impetus
needed to free themselves from this stranglehold and discover “the virgin beauty of
the Delta” where they later settled.
Similarly, in the course of decrying the different levels of socio-economic
exploitation and political tyranny going on in his oil-rich Niger Delta region, the
poet describes some of the activities of those behind these injustices in folkloric imagery.
On several occasions within his poetry, he draws up a connection between the
character and activities of the much despised legendary Ogiso in Urhobo folklore
and the modern-day military leaders. Ojaide thus sees similarities between the reigns
of these traditional rulers and those of some contemporary Nigerian military Heads
of State. This notion is derived from both sets of leaders’ determined efforts to brutally
crush dissident voices during their respective oppressive rules.
In fact, Ojaide strongly believes such tyrants share a common ancestry as seen in
their style of leadership. “Elegy for Nine Warriors” (Delta Blues) is a dirge which
mourns the brutal killing of the writer and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa
and eight other Ogoni activists on the orders of the then military Head of State,
General Sani Abacha. Here, the poet observes that:
The butcher of Abuja
dances with skulls
Ogiso’s grandchild by incest
digs his macabre steps
in the womb of Aso rock.
To get to his castle,
you would stumble over skulls,
stumble over jawbones (26).
Clearly he sees close parallels between the character traits of a despot Ogiso who
locks up perceived enemies, revelling in their sufferings, and this particular Nigerian
military leader (whom he refers to as Ogiso’s grandchild) who carries out secret
executions and is so obsessed with remaining in power that he summarily incarcerates
or executes those he regards as threats to his ambition. Related to the issue of tyranny
is the impervious attitude of the rulers to the terror and carnage they unleash all in
their bid to continue to rule over their subjects.
Ojaide’s “In the Castle of Faith” (Waiting) also condemns some unsavoury activities
of the tyrannical Ogiso and other leaders of his type when he alludes to such men as
presiding over “a cemetery of a capital city” since many of their subjects would “risk
flights rather than wait for death” at their hands. However, the poet introduces an
element of defiance when he observes that “Ogiso drove his victims to grow a third
144
eye; / Agokoli, his comrade, gave a seventh sense; / the Butcher of Abuja bent his
people into steel” (19). Agokoli is the Ewe, Ghana equivalent of Ogiso, and there are
myths of both groups coming from Ife. The above lines suggest some collective
consciousness and will-power to act in order to change their condition. Thus there is
the hint of a possible rebellion carried out by the people who muster the courage to
plot to overthrow their cruel leaders. The people seek freedom from the despotic grip
of such leaders and device various means of getting rid of them.
One of such efforts at seeking their freedom from despotic rulers in Urhobo folklore
as cited in the earlier mentioned poem was through the assistance of one of the wives
of a despot who
[…] cast her lot with the victims
and rid the world of a plaguing spouse;
today praised, she as the first liberator.
And so often womenfolk disarmed executives
dancing naked over disappeared sons and men. (20)
The story here is that the people of Okpe kingdom were once ruled by a tyrannical
king called Eseze. Several attempts at getting rid of him in order to end his brutish
reign were unsuccessful until the people enlisted the assistance of his favourite wife.
It was she who was able to lure him to fall into a mat-covered pit after which boiling
palm oil was poured on him and he died, thus allowing the people respite from
suffering. For those people who are forcefully incarcerated by military rulers under
oppressive edicts, the poet tells us that they
[…] knew death only came once and so resisted it—
they poured laundry and dishwater at the wall;
at night scouted for the soft spot of the fence
to perforate with water and prayers
and in the dark broke through, once wave
setting pigeons after corn to cover their trail.
Going further, the poet declares that:
As long as the fence kept folks for execution, so
would they contrive to break out of the prison-houseclay or stone erected by one could be undone by other
Ojaide thus uses Urhobo historical, legendary, and mythological figures to reflect on
the contemporary situation in Nigeria and Africa in general and his society in
particular. Since he subscribes to redemptive or activist poetry, a deeper implication
of the above depiction translates into the fact that the flight from Ogiso indicates that
there is refuge from tyranny. In other words, people, whether in traditional or modern
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times, do not just submit themselves to oppression or other forms of cruelty but resist
it by any means possible to attain peace and freedom. This is why part of the Urhobo
migration myth as poetically reconstructed in his works also strategically presents
the people’s various attempts at overcoming their underdog position.
However, while Ogiso is an example of cruelty, there are other legendary figures
that the poet also mentions to inspire his people and readers. In Waiting for the Hatching
of a Cockerel he mentions the courage of Ogidigbo, who sometimes exhibits Ogunian
traits by falling on his people whom he sometimes protects. Nevertheless, Urhobo
mythology depicts him as more of a source of positive inspiration to the people.
Specifically, the poem, “The Ant Dances on the Elephant” (Waiting 47) makes an allusion
to the colonial history of the Urhobos during a period of exploitation. Ogidigbo, as
one of the leaders of the Urhobos, boldly tells his people and emissaries of the colonial
authorities that “It was senseless to pay a tax, head, poll or in whatever guise” and for
this he was arrested and “wouldn’t recant under the threat of death.” At the end, he
commits suicide rather than allow himself to be humiliated by his captors and “be
delivered as a prisoner / to ensure the officer’s sadistic success”. This and other acts of
bravery shown by this legendary figure in defence of his people are regarded as worthy
of emulation. Ogidigbo has since remained the symbol of heroism amongst his people
and occupies the position of sainthood in Urhobo traditional folklore.
Likewise we find from Ojaide’s In the Kingdom of Songs (2002) an eponymous poem
full of praises for one of the foremost leaders of the Urhobo people called Mukoro
Mowoe. Within this poem, the poet cites this historical character as an example of a
selfless community leader. He was known for uniting the Urhobo people into a
cohesive group. An indefatigable figure, he was courageous in helping to fight for his
people’s rights. The patriotism of this historical figure served as a rallying point for
his people. That is why the poet graphically presents the people’s palpable grief at
the news of his sudden death thus:
“Mowoe’s gone, who’ll stand for us?” they queried
their dumbfounded fate. Yours the only grief
that ever befuddled the entire people, even fishes
in water caught cold, in August the earliest
harmattan to rob the harvest of forest crops.
You were the Olotu, in constant pain and still
wielding a steadfast smile for everybody to follow (80).
Again, as a parallel observation, such reactions on the death of a favoured leader can
be contrasted with what happens when a tyrant ruler meets his end. The death of
Ogiso was met with internal joy at being relieved of an oppressor and murderer.
Arhuaran is another mythical hero from traditional Urhobo history who defended
his people against the whiplash of oppressive rulers like Ogiso in the olden days. He
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is sometimes called Uvo or even Ogidigbo. Arhuaran is presented as a liberator, who
led his people from the stranglehold of Ogiso. He is often portrayed as a giant figure
in Urhobo folklore. The poem “He Rode an Elephant” (Waiting 36) celebrates a man
whose name we are told became synonymous with ‘arms against victimization’ and
some of whose valiant activities include covering “the entire population with his
body”, “whose body enemy weapons / bounced back to destroy their throwers; one
who “threw a rag at Ogiso’s severe face” and dug a wall of protection (a moat) around
the city to prevent the invasion of enemies. Thus, Ogidigbo (also called Uvo or
Arhuanran) and Ogiso are antithetical figures from Urhobo folklore whose different
roles in the lives of the people have been recalled by Ojaide in some of his poems.
Close to these historical and legendary Urhobo figures are other groups the poet
depicts as worthy of acknowledgement because of their laudable contributions towards
the progress of their society. Hence, Ojaide’s poetry also calls to mind the role of
women in Urhobo folklore. The Urhobo culture places much premium on the contributions of women, especially in traditional societies where they are regarded as
nurturers of different generations. Little wonder then that Ojaide’s poetry is replete
with images of the industrious, long-suffering, devoted, virtuous and brave Urhobo
woman. The folkloric woman of iconic stature is referred to as “Ayayughe”. In Urhobo
culture and as expressed by the poet, Ayayughe is the mother figure who makes great
sacrifices for the sake of her children and by extension her society. The poet devotes
an eponymous poem to this female figure in the second section of Delta Blues where
he sings her praises in superlative terms for her devotion to the survival and progress
of her family. The poem ends with the declaration: “And for you, Ayayughe, / let
motherhood be daily blessed” (58). Other instances of the woman’s admirable selfless
role abound in some lines of “In the Castle of Faith” (Waiting) where she is presented
as the people’s last hope in gaining freedom from oppressive leaders. Ojaide tells us:
Eseze’s wife cast her lot with victims
And rid the world of a plaguing spouse;
today praised, she is the first liberator.
And so often womenfolk disarmed executives
dancing naked over disappeared sons and men.
There is no limit to where victims go for power.
She is often portrayed as selfless to remind modern and contemporary career-oriented
women that they could play their roles effectively both as professional workers and
great mothers.
Ojaide’s use of Urhobo folkloric women in his poetry is extensive and done in a
positive or redemptive light. Hence we see that a woman is responsible for perfecting
the plot that helped get rid of a wicked Ogiso-like traditional ruler. This is what the
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poet refers to when he makes allusion to the fate of one of the earliest Orodjes of
Okpe. As revealed in an earlier section of this essay, Eseze I was a tyrant whose wife
participated in the successful plot to get rid of him. She was helpful in luring the king
to fall into a mat-covered pit before boiled oil was poured over him to end his tyrannical
rule. This brave action by women is replicated in modern times and expressed in
Ojaide’s novel The Activist (2006) and the poem “In the Castle of Faith” through the
Niger Delta women’s recourse to the nude protest march. This exercise is a last resort
meant to force oil multinationals operating in the area to yield to the people’s basic
demands for improved welfare and the release of their incarcerated male folk.
Women therefore do not only nurture life through caring for children and their
husbands but also contribute to the ending of tyranny. The poet through this manner
of characterization emphasizes that women are powerful and should not remain
passive but be active when faced with different conditions of tyranny and oppression.
Later in this discussion, we will see where women openly express their displeasure
with their male folk over some domestic conflicts. It is worth noting that in his memoir,
Great Boys, Ojaide mentioned being raised by his maternal grandmother, Amreghe,
and his positive experience in being raised by a woman whom he calls “Mother Hen”
must have influenced his portrayal of female characters. The consistent image of the
female characters we find in Ojaide’s writings depicts them as protectors, nurturers,
and harbingers of good luck in life.
On the whole, it is significant to observe that Ojaide’s concept of history, as reflected
in the historical and legendary figures in Urhobo folklore, is cyclical. In a way, history
tends to repeat itself at different times in the rules of oppression and exploitation that
the people have to confront. However, people learn lessons from the past to confront
contemporary problems. As a result, some historical and legendary figures also have
their modern-day equivalents. Ojaide wants people to learn from the past and use
such lessons gained to their advantage in freeing themselves from unwholesome
tutelage, exploitation, and oppression at any point in time. History may repeat itself,
the poet seems to be saying, but there is a gradual improvement in lives as there are
newer ways to fight recurring problems. At the same time, the poet presents legendary
figures to instil confidence in the contemporary generation to emulate the heroic
qualities and actions of their forebears.
Ojaide’s use of folklore in his poetry does not end with the use of past figures
alone. He also incorporates into his poetry aspects of the oral literature in the forms of
songs, folktales, and proverbs, verbal rhetoric to enrich the bases of his poetic style,
form, and thematic expression. Some examples of these will be examined next. Certain
elements of Urhobo traditional folktales are sometimes fused into the poet’s work in
order to underscore particular themes. The poem “When Green was the Lingua
Franca” (Delta Blues 12) is one of his eco-wave poems. In it, he bemoans the negative
effects of oil exploration activities on the lush vegetation and pristine waters of the
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Niger Delta of his childhood. In one of the stanzas of the poem, the poet persona
emphasizes the culpability of those he regards as culprits in this matter through the
use of a folkloric device—a particular folktale. Artfully, he enjoins people to hold
Shell, one of the major multinationals, drilling oil in the region, and not women, as
responsible for the fabled distance between God and man. An Urhobo folktale has it
that once, long ago, God and the sky were quite close and God was in very close
communion with man until the ruckus and smoke from women’s cooking activities
caused God and the sky to relocate to where they are now so far away from humans.
That withdrawal of God and the sky therefore created a rift between God and man.
Through a folkloric medium, the poet exonerates women while indicting Shell thus:
Then Shell broke the bond
with quakes and a hell
of flares. Stoking a hearth
under God’s very behind!
Stop perjuring women for
their industry, none of them
drove God to the sky’s height;
it wasn’t the pestle’s thrust,
that mock love game,
that caused the eternal rift.
There are also other instances of Ojaide’s subtle blending of elements of Urhobo
folktales to underscore some of his poetic themes. These include the myth of an
antelope that transforms into a beautiful woman and sorceress mentioned in the
poem “Agbogidi” which chronicles the feats of a great warrior (Delta Blue 81); the
irony of a king who claims he wears invisible robes and was ridiculed rather than
sympathized with because of his arrogance in “Wanted: Disrespect”. This depicts the
poet’s impression of the ultimate fate of tyrannical rulers (Labyrinths 12). Here he calls
for bad rulers to be challenged and wants the practice of praise-singing of rulers to be
stopped. Praise-singing gives the rulers the false impression that they are doing well
when in fact they are disastrously destroying their nation and people.
The poet’s use of folkloric materials is extensive. He highlights the consequences
of the greed inherent in man’s nature by sharing an anecdote from the fable of the
greedy tortoise and a pot of flavoured beans in “The League of Heroes” (Waiting 76).
Ojaide also incorporates the use of the opening formula found in traditional tales. In
Urhobo culture, storytellers are known to begin their narration with the opening
phrase, “Iku yegbe!” to which the audience responds/chorus “Yegbe!” Roughly
translated, “iku yegbe” means “a weighty or interesting story”. This chorus is meant to
capture the attention of the listener and ensure active participation in the narrative
that would follow. It also signifies the speaker’s (here the poet’s) desire to communicate
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to his listeners an important subject which he wants them to treat seriously. Thus we
find this folkloric device in the form of a recurring refrain in the poem “Poachers”
(Delta Blues 70) where the poet bemoans the erosion of traditional values and practices
due to negative incursions in the guise of modernity. “Ita ye-e! / Ye-e!” is another
version of this folktale opening formula he uses in the poem “Good or Bad” where he
philosophically dwells on the duality inherent in nature (Waiting 11–2).
Similarly, songs from folktales are sometimes embedded in some of these poems.
He skilfully incorporates this folkloric art form when he presents an existential
philosophy. This is embedded in what the poet refers to as the endless possibilities of
hope. This matrix allows for the oppressed or victim, no matter how small or weak, to
exercise the human and basic right to life and existence by overthrowing the oppressor
or predator and marching on to victory. This theme is expressed in the poem “Victory
Song” (Waiting 91–4) where the poet charges his people to:
Overturn the history of pain
with an era of well-being.
It so seldom happens, but it happens—
the swordfish gores the crocodile.
Blow loud the ivory trumpet,
Dance to the exceptional victory:
Onwa whe edjere:
pupu puu, pupu puu.
Onwa whe edjere:
pupu puu, pupu puu
Onwa whe edjere:
pupu puu, pupu puu.
(The swordfish gores the crocodile:
let’s celebrate the rare victory.
The swordfish gores the crocodile:
let’s celebrate the rare victory
The swordfish gores the crocodile:
let’s celebrate the rare victory.)
Another example of the integration of a folksong within a poem is seen in “Climbing
the Family Tree” (Delta Blues 56). Here, the poet adopts the expression “Otie mre ovwata
ko she,” a phrase from a popular Urhobo folksong to express the concept of luck as
bestowed on a favourite by benevolent forces.
By way of a summary, these two folksongs illustrate the use the poet makes of the
Urhobo worldview in his poetic mission. The Urhobo believe in destiny and it is held
that every human makes a selection of his or her fate at Urhoro (the passageway to life
and at death) and once this has been done, one lives out one’s choice. By “otie mre
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ovwata ko she” (the cherry fruit sees its favourite and it falls), the poet is speaking of
one’s destiny. To the poet, therefore, life is luck but a preordained luck that follows
one. An Urhobo saying that what is really one’s cannot be taken away relates to the
concept of the ripe cherry fruit (otie) falling when the favourite is close enough to
snatch it.
On the other hand, “omwa whe edjere” (the swordfish kills the crocodile)
exemplifies how the small or the innocent overcomes great odds. Of course, the
swordfish is very small but it is armed with spikes and when swallowed by the big
crocodile, it gets stuck to its throat and kills the powerful crocodile. There is also the
underlying meaning that every creature, including humans, is naturally endowed to
defend itself against powerful ones. Ojaide recalls this Urhobo trope to show justice
or to make the point that evil ones are ultimately consumed in their acts of wickedness;
and that is to say that the oppressed will be given the opportunity to fight back with
their naturally endowed powers. So, the small swordfish killing the powerful
crocodile whose “dominion” is also waters implies succeeding against all odds and it
is an epic victory that the gods assist the weak, innocent, and seemingly powerless to
win.
Women’s interests are also not left out in this particular poetic inventiveness. A
short folksong in the form of a lullaby in “Noble Inheritance” (Waiting 87) succinctly
sums up the extent and depth of a mother ’s unflagging commitment towards the
well-being of her children. In an attempt to soothe her crying child, the mother sings:
Mi kpe eki-i, mi rovwo,
mi kpe aghwa-a mi rovwo;
omo me na je vwe no.
(I mind not missing the market,
I mind not missing farm work,
to take care of my lovely baby.)
The above resonates with the spirit of total devotion to the well-being of her family
and by extension, society which the Urhobo woman, popularly referred to as Ayayughe
is known for. It also replicates the contemporary image of a sweet mother who places
above everything else the love for her child.
On the other hand, the fact that women are accommodating and tolerant in filial
relationships does not mean they do not have their own personal aspirations or
outlooks which they expect others to be sensitive to. Section IV of the poem “When a
War Song is a Love Song” (Waiting 67–8) contains two folksongs through which
women vent out their pent-up frustrations at being short-changed by their male
partners. The first song describes a women’s call for assistance from her spouse in
domesticity with the charge being:
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If you prepare the starch
as I grind the pepper,
in no time will food be served.
You’ve just returned from tapping rubber,
I’ve just returned from weeding the farm;
I am as worn out and hungry as you are.
If you prepare the starch
as I grind the pepper,
in no time will food be served.
The appeal here is for sensitivity to each other’s feelings as well as complimentarity
between man and woman in order to promote gender harmony at home and in the
society at large. The second song is a woman’s lament at the injustice of being further
oppressed by a spouse after a rival wife steals from her. The woman sings:
My rival stole my cassava
yet my husband doesn’t want the world to know
After I expose her, he wants me
to beg for forgiveness for embarrassing her.
Therefore, rather than succumb to this double standards, she threatens “to go back to
Okpara, / go back to my parents’ home”. The poet thus deploys Urhobo folksongs
wherever necessary to express some aspects of Urhobo philosophical worldviews
and to reinforce his call for justice the world over.
While the poet makes use of different types of folklore found in the Urhobo orature,
he has also consciously studied a poetic tradition of his people which he adopts in
many of his poems. This is closely tied to Urhobo cultural perception of the place of
honour and shame in evaluating human living and relationships. Udje is a unique
type of Urhobo oral poetic songs composed by a community from often exaggerated
and sometimes fictional materials about a rival community. In other words, it is a
verbal form of satire rendered in song. Its performance involves music and dance and
is held on an appointed day during a festival, usually in front of large audiences. The
rival groups perform in alternate years. In one year, one side sings about the other
using materials it gathered to compose songs that exaggerate the other side’s foibles
and frailties; and the following year, the side that sang the previous year listens to and
watches the response of the opposing side. Foremost a form of entertainment, this
tradition uses the poetic composition as ammunition in a type of battle, aimed at
“wounding” and even destroying its rival. Expatiating further on this, Darah writes,
“Indeed, the whole business of Udje was conducted as a kind of verbal warfare,
battles of songs” (vii). Elsewhere, he also points out that: “The spirit that animates
satire (Udje, in this case) is that of criticism, a criticism so vigorous enough to make
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culpable actions and injustices appear reprehensible and repulsive. It is this attitude
of censure that informs all satirical song-poetry in Urhobo.” (Darah 21)
Major features of this traditional song poetry include its derisive nature, use of
invectives, the desire to shame through ridicule or to disparage, and witty comments.
It is noteworthy that Ojaide received the National Endowment for the Humanities
grant in 1999/2000 to collect, translate, and discuss udje dance songs in the Urhobo
area of Nigeria. This research has resulted in two books and a series of articles published
in peer-reviewed journals. Thus, having lived with Udje and researched into the oral
poetic performance tradition, Ojaide uses the tradition as a formal and technical
model to express his views on the Nigerian society which he satirizes as he makes his
own recommendations as to how the socio-political problems of the nation can be
solved. The poet believes, as expounded in the udje tradition that laughter helps to
regulate behaviour in society. By embarrassing leaders or other violators of sociopolitical values, the poet is using his poetry to laugh at such folks towards deterring
them from such negative practices. This objective of the poet is one reason why T. C.
Maduka is of the view that for: “Most African writers […] there is a direct relationship
between literature and social institutions. The principal function of literature is to
criticise these institutions and eventually bring about desirable changes in the
society”. (11)
In the “Home Songs” section of Delta Blues and Home Songs, Ojaide specifically
modelled several poems on the udje oral poetic form. The poems “Professor Kuta” (76),
“Odebala,” (78) and “My Townsman in the Army” (74) contain several elements in
them that call to question the social image or honour of the subject under attack. For
example, through a derisive description of the character of Professor Kuta, the speaker
attacks the scandalous relationship of university teachers and their students, the
corruption in promotion procedures, the sales of learning materials which the lecturers
force the students to pay exorbitantly for, sexual harassment of female students, as
well as other ills within the university system. As a member of the academia and
familiar with its internal workings, the poet highlights some of the ills perpetrated by
some members in order to shame them and also with the hope that some moral and
ethical rectitude would take place. Thus, of the university don who falls into the
category described in the poem, the poet has this to say:
He professes poverty, professes robbery of young ones;
professes nothing scholarly—no book to his credit;
of the articles he cites in his CV, three appeared
in the Nigerian Observer and The Daily Times;
the other two paid for and printed in street tabloids.
Students have discovered his handouts are lifted
from his undergraduate notebooks wholesale.
If one’s mouth conferred authority, Kuta would be a professor.
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I heard from his colleagues that he has no Ph.D.
but an ABD, he thrice flunked his Ed.D defence.
Who doesn’t know some doctors are imposters?
Tell Professor Kuta to bring his transcripts for all to see.
The sort of Professor Kuta would be better off trading
Than robbing students in the mantle of a don.
Similarly, in satirizing a major-general in the Nigerian army of the 1980s, the poet
exposes the murky dealings in the armed forces. The poet’s opening statement prepares
the reader for the disagreeable character traits to expect from a top officer in the army
whose ways are crooked. Everything about Udi, the major-general calls to question
the positive ethics and values such a public figure ought to uphold and represent. As
is the practice of the udje tradition of the Urhobo people, the speakers of these poems
want to embarrass the subjects of the songs, university professor or army major-general,
towards good professional behaviour.
In addition to the specific udje form that Ojaide models his poems on, he adopts
udje techniques such as the use of strong epithets, repetition, refrains, performance
features, and formulas associated with the oral poetic tradition. These features occur
in the works of the poet. The udje song/poem relies on the use of descriptive epithets,
caricature, repetition, refrain, and other devices that satire needs to be pungent. There
is barely any collection of Ojaide’s poems without copious use of repetition or/and
refrain that is a major feature of udje to both emphasize a point and also bring about
musicality. Descriptive epithets are used in poems condemning tyrants like Ogiso or
military dictators and sometimes in a positive manner to describe the poet’s love for
other subjects he admires. The udje character of some of Ojaide’s poetry reinforces
their satirical edges. At the same time, it establishes the poet as a satirist out to expose
the ills of the society towards their replacement with positive moral and ethical values
for a harmonious society.
Ojaide goes on to acquaint his readers with the order of the pantheon of Urhobo
gods. In his essay “The Niger Delta, Nativity and My Writing” Ojaide writes at length
about his nativity and writings. He alludes to the inter-connectedness between man
and gods with the latter seen as being in control of and overseeing human affairs.
This religious worldview stretches to accommodate the likelihood of a communion
between the human and the spirit worlds. The implication, as gleaned from the place
of some deities featured in Ojaide’s poetry, is that gods are apotheosizing people’s
beliefs, values and desires. It is quite commendable that the poet sheds the use of
Greco-Roman or European classical gods and in order to be true to his nativity, adopts
gods whose festivals and presence were common occurrences in the land in which
he was raised. For instance, a reader familiar with Ojaide’s poetry collections notices
that some of these works have an opening poem that reads like the poet’s invocation
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to a muse. The muse here is usually a god or deity of sorts. Specifically, the poet
ascribes a very important position to a deity like Aridon, the Urhobo god of memory
and remembrance, whom he depends on for inspiration and the extra edge needed to
perfect his art. Thus, an invocatory poem becomes one of the hallmarks of Ojaide’s
poetry through which he situates and pays tribute to his main source of poetic
inspiration.
Uhaghwa serves as the poet’s god of effortless performance since poetry is not
complete traditionally until it is performed. Sometimes, Aridon and Uhaghwa are
used interchangeably to denote the god of memory or flawless performance. The poet
also assumes different personas in his works, chief of which is that of a minstrel who
practises and hones his art as he travels from one place to another. In traditional
Urhobo folklore, such a character is called Aminogbe. Ojaide’s minstrel figure serves
as his protagonist who under the divine mentorship of his muse, Aridon, ranges on
the side of good as he makes pertinent comments on human existence especially as it
concerns the fate of his people. Many of the experiences he recounts in Waiting for the
Hatching of a Cockerel are told through the voice of the itinerant Aminogbe. While
Aridon and Uhaghwa appear to be foremost on the poet’s mind as he needs their
respective inspiration and craft for his poetic mission, he acknowledges other members
of the Urhobo pantheon in his poetry. There are prayers to Osonobrughwe, the
Supreme God, in collections ranging from Labyrinths of the Delta through Waiting for
the Hatching of a Cockerel.
Irrespective of his current religious affiliation, the poet no doubt still believes in
the Supreme God of his people to whom he addresses his prayers for the good of
society, the nation, and self. It appears from Ojaide’s poetry that he identifies with the
series of rituals and festivals performed for different Urhobo deities. He highlights
the idea that despite the multiplicity of deities, Osonobrughwe is the Almighty and is
also addressed as Oromowho, the Great Creator in most of his poems.
Other deities that pre-occupy the poet include Eni, the god of truth; Ivwri (also
spelled Iphri) is the god of restitution; and Mami Wata, used interchangeably with
Olokun (bestows good fortune, wealth and beauty to devotees). The poet persona
refers to Eni when one is in a position of double bind or in a cliché expression being
between the devil and the deep sea. In ancient times, this tutelary god of truth named
after a lake in Urhere or Uzeri in Isoko area of Delta State was where the complicity or
purity of people was settled. The accused person was thrown into the lake and if he
or she swam to safety the person would be declared innocent. However, if the accused
drowned, then he or she would be taken as guilty. Eni and actions around it affords
the poet with issues of truth, dilemma, and of course the subtle criticism of a kind of
trial by ordeal.
Ivwri is the god of restitution that was created during the slave-raiding days. The
poet often invokes the god for what he, his people, or the exploited are denied. Mami
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Wata (Mammy Water) and Olokun are used interchangeably even though Mami Wata
is postcolonial in her presence in Urhobo folklore while Olokun appears to precede
her. Mami Wata is used to connote beauty among women but also (like Olokun) is a
benevolent goddess that blesses her devotees. Ojaide uses these gods or deities from
the folklore of his people to better represent the reality of the people whose
contemporary experience he expresses. In The Tale of the Harmattan, the poem, “At the
Kaiama Bridge” (33) expresses the poet’s deep reflections on the irreparable loss caused
by the encroachment and activities of oil prospectors on the aquatic environment of
the Niger Delta region. Amongst others, the poet bemoans the retreat of “flotillas of
river spirits”, “the oil-blackened current suffocating / Mami Wata and her retinue of
water maids”, the absence for over three decades now of a regatta and “the island’s
boat of songs” with its ritual paddle raised “in salute to high gods” as well as the
preponderance of water hyacinths caused by oil spillage which has made “Refugee
gods […] taking the last route / before the entire waterway is clogged.” Underscored
within the above lamentation is the fact that both physical and non-physical aspects
of the people’s living have been adversely affected by oil exploration. Hence, even the
spiritual elements whose abode is the water and that were before now within the
people’s easy reach seem to have all been forced to relocate by the series of pollution
engendered by oil excavation. This portends a rupture in the hitherto closely-knit
relationship between the people and their gods whom they depend upon for sundry
favours to help make their lives more comfortable.
Urhobo flora and fauna, animal life and cosmic nature (sun, moon, stars, wind,
rain, etc.) all play prominent roles in Ojaide’s poetry. Basically, he uses them to express
some natural phenomena and to help the reader through his poetic mind see life as
natural. Known for his deep concern for the on-going devastation of the bio-diversity
in his oil-rich Niger Delta, the poet in “When Green was the Lingua Franca” nostalgically takes the reader on a poetic excursion of the ecology of his birthplace as he
knew it while growing up, contrasting it with what it is today as a result of oil
exploitation activities. He recalls the abundance of fishes like “erhuvwudjayorho […] a
glamorous fish / but denied growing big”. Elsewhere he mentions forays into the
dense forests of his youth to scour for snails and koto, the prevalence of froglets called
“ikere,” the uwara and akpobrisi plants, the latter oppressive and symbolic of tyranny
yet succumbs to the charm of the former, indulging in a diet of wild fruits like urhurhu
grapes, owe apple, cherries and breadfruits. He mentions the iroko and uloho, gigantic
trees that have spiritual, albeit mystical, connotations.
Such was the total harmony existing between different elements of nature that
there was what he tagged “the delta alliance of big and small, / markets of needs, arena
/ of compensation for all”. In some of his other poems, we find metaphorical use of
animals like the sunbird, boa constrictor, swordfish, and crocodile to underscore
some themes related to environmental issues that his poems deal with.
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Conclusion
It has been established that Tanure Ojaide has deployed the folklore of his people in
his poetry as a strategy to achieve poetic success. Whether consciously as through the
udje tradition or unconsciously as imbibed through nativity, Urhobo folklore is
integrated into the entire fabric of his poetic creation in the diction, images, techniques,
references, allusions, form, and meaning of the poems. The folklore brings in layers of
meaning that make the poetry more profound because of the comparison and the
parallelization of the past and the present towards a future. There seems to be a cyclic
movement of progression with the present learning from the past and getting wiser.
The thematic meaning is reinforced by parallels of figures or other tropes to deepen
and strengthen the poetic viewpoint.
Furthermore, as has already been said, the folklore gives a cultural identity to
Ojaide’s poetry. He has deployed Urhobo tropes to express himself in English and
thus indigenized the English language at least in a modest way. Urhobo folklore and
experience become the subtext that gives a vital force to his poetic expression. His use
of folklore affects the outcome of his poetry in a multi-dimensional manner. The
language is simple but poignant in the poetic expression with images carrying folkloric
meaning that balance and stress out the regular conventional English. He gives variety
to the poetic form in the use of udje satirical form as well as other modes of orature. The
poetic vision is borne out by the subtle use of Urhobo ontology and worldview. As a
postcolonial poet, Ojaide deploys Urhobo folklore as one of his weapons to wrest
English out of its conventional comfort into an angst that reflects the contemporary
African and human conditions that the poet expresses. Finally, no research into a
prolific writer ’s use of his or her people’s folklore can be finite but this effort and the
exposition of the intricately woven aspects of Urhobo folklore will undoubtedly
make his poetry to receive the serious study it surely deserves.
Finally, the local folklore is deployed to tackle global issues such as that of climate
change and environmental pollution and degradation. The same is done of universal
and human issues and problems. In his use of Urhobo folklore, Ojaide as a poet seems
to be saying that the small groups of the world have their own knowledge to contribute
in the cultural discourse of poetry to make life better than it is. He has succeeded in
his own way to make the local global and the global expressible in the local.
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Nwagbara, Uzoechi. “Poetics of Resistance: An Ecocritical Reading of Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Home
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Solomon Awuzie
Solomon Awuzie is affiliated to the
Department of English at the University of Port Harcourt, Chioba, Nigeria.
Email: sonsawuzie@yahoo.com
Didacticism and the Third
Generation of African Writers:
Chukwuma Ibezute’s The Temporal
Gods and Goddess in the Cathedral
Didacticism and the Third Generation of
African Writers
This article argues that African literature is a didactic literature. It points out that even though African literature has borrowed
so much from European literary culture, especially in the areas of form and language; didacticism is not one of those concepts that
African literature inherited from the European literary culture. By didacticism, it is implied that African literature is aimed at
correcting, informing and educating its readers. These functions of didacticism are inherent in African oral traditional storytelling
and are carried over to the written literature. It is further argued in the article that of the three generations that now make up
African literature, the third generation of African writers are accused of not making their stories didactic and that only a selected
few of them remain true to making their stories didactic. Among these few writers is Chukwuma Ibezute. Using Chukwuma
Ibezute’s two novels, The Temporal Gods (1998) and Goddess in the Cathedral (2003) the didactic nature of African literature
as contained in the works of a writer of the third generation is demonstrated. In The Temporal Gods the reality of the consequences
of greed and envy are revealed. It is further argued through the novel that the afflictions of evil spirits on their victims are
temporal. In Goddess in the Cathedral we are presented with another educating story of the activities of evil spirits and their
agents. Through the novel, we are warned against some pastors who are agents of evil spirits but who claim to be working for
the almighty God. Using examples from the two novels, ways on how to know a pastor who is working for God and the one who
is working for evil spirits are further revealed. Keywords: African literature, Generations, Chukwuma Ibezute, didacticism, oral
storytelling.
Introduction
One of the most fascinating debates over the years in the criticism of African literature
is the argument that it is a literature of didacticism. This is because, like Chinese
literature and some indigenous Indian literatures, African literature aims at informing
and correcting some of the ills facing the African society. Even though African literature
has been said to have borrowed so much from European literary culture, especially in
the areas of form and language; didacticism cannot be said to be one of those concepts
that African literature inherited from the European literary culture. It is important to
note, therefore, that didacticism in African literature is rather a concept that has its
root in African oral tradition and is employed in the written African literature. Francis
E. Ngwaba’s assertion in his essay “The English Novel and the Novel in English:
Points of Contact and Departure” further explains the point of departure between the
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forms which the African literature borrowed from the European literary culture and
the ones the African literature picked from the African oral tradition:
Most western critics accused African writers of too great a preoccupation with a
social message at the expense of drawing convincing portraits of real human figures.
African critics in reply argued that traditional African ways of life are clearly different
from European ways that an African writer needs to domesticate the novel culturally
so as to convey African concepts of man and the universe while at the same time
exploring the thematic issues which ignite his creative sensibility. (Ngwaba 6)
This idea of “domesticating” literature, as Ngwaba would rather say it, is what creates
the aura of African in the writings of writers from African soil. Without this the
literature could as well be termed European literature—since the form and the
language of most African literature are European. If this is to happen, the arguments
of the different European scholars that Africa has no literature prior to the advent of
its colonialism—an argument that many of African scholars have made different frantic
efforts to debunk in their literatures and essays—would hold sway. With the
“domestication” of our literature, the value of the African oral tradition is hence
evoked. The question here is: How has the African writer been domesticating his
literature? Pius Olusegun Dada attempted to answer this question in his essay, when
he writes that the African writer employs African oral traditional form in his writing—
which, as a matter of fact, includes didacticism. This is because when a story is to be
told in a traditional African society, a lot of traditional African oral “ingredients”,
such as proverbs, songs, symbols etc., come to play but these are not usually left loose
as individual concepts; they are usually tied together with another of African oral
form, didacticism.
This does not in any way place the concept of didacticism above the story itself; it
only helps to emphasize the importance of storytelling and helps to make it a tool for
socio change and development because as Chris Ngozi Nkoro rightly observes, it is
“the drive to make a literary work of art grow from social experience” that “literature
offers itself as an ally of society” (68). In African traditional society, it is not heard of
that stories devoured of lessons are told. Little wonder, they are usually told by adults
while the children listen. Stories are told to either teach or inform or educate children,
and sometimes adults, on some of the values of the society. This is, most times, done
through either using animal characters together with rural symbols or through using
human characters together with rural symbols—symbols that would spur questions
from the audience as to why they were used and really get them thinking. And
usually, at the end of the story, the storyteller or even a member of the audience, in
order that the lessons in the story may be made known, makes one or two statements
as it concerns the lessons that are learnt from the story. Now in its written form, this is
what African literature seems to be doing.
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As Michel Foucault would say, the artist is something of a maintained deviant
who expects to live by society without being a parasite on it. In his attempts at
domesticating his literature, African writer now seems to nose around for what is
going out of hand in the society and when he/she finds one, he/she then recreates it
in the form of a story—with some solutions in-view. This is the reason, in his book The
Colonial Experience and African Literature (2003), Chris Osuafor describes African
literature as a functional literature. According to him, African literature “must speak
of a particular place, evolve out of the necessities of its history, past and current, and
the aspiration and destiny of its people” (21). To Okonkwo in his essay entitled “The
African Writer as a Teacher,” the African writer imbues his work with themes that
addresses socio-political and economic exigencies of the African society. The African
writer confers relevance and truth on his/her work by sourcing data from an authentic
African experience and also makes teaching Africans “the meaning of colonialism
(whether it is internal or external)”the major concern of his writing (78). Writing on
the functionality of African writer and his literature, Wole Soyinka asserts that “the
exercise of the literary function may serve the writer-and-followers to keep in view
what the ends of humanity are. They may eventually be spurned to action in defense
of those ends” (qtd in Osuafor, 21). In his own essay, Ezejideaku reiterates the similar
views expressed by these scholars thus, “when the writer ceases to function as the
conscience of his society, his relevance to that society comes seriously into question.
Thus, the writer must call into use all resources available to him, not only to sensitize
his community but also to proffer to them ways by which they can make their overall
conditions better” (48).
However, this view has been earlier associated with Achebe, when he refers to
African writing as a socially conscious art and equates the role of the writer with that
of a teacher in his book of essays entitled Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975). According
to him, artistic fidelity in an African writer lies in his ability to recreate an authentic
African experience (with all its imperfections) in the social, cultural and political
spheres. He argues that African writer has the sacred duty to help the African society
regain faith in itself and to recover from the traumatic effects of colonial subjugation
and slavery; to re-educate and regenerate his people into putting away “the complexes
of the years of denigration and self-abasement” (38). Since it is a common knowledge
that teachers design society’s attitude, ideas, hopes and aspirations, African writer as
a teacher cannot be excused from the task of re-educating and regenerating African
values. This is also the reason why Ngugi
˜ ˜ writes that the African writer not only
represents social ills but also seeks “out the sources, the causes and the trends of a
revolutionary struggle which has already destroyed the traditional power—map
drawn by the colonialist nations” (65-6).
Though it seems it is not all African writers pattern their works to carry the burden
of African experience in the manner that these African scholars have explained. Some
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African writers, over the years, would rather depict the travails of the society in their
works and leave them at that—without including in their stories some likely solutions
to the problems that are captured. This does not mean that any writer who only
reproduces the ills of his society is a bad writer of African literature—because even
sometimes in African traditional society, stories can be told in this manner, in order to
challenge the audience to brainstorm on the reason for such story and to provoke
them to fathom the possible solutions to the societal problems raised in the story. This
does not also mean that a story told in this manner is not didactic. Didacticism takes
different forms and can easily be contained in a story irrespective of the nature of
problem the writer aims at correcting through his story and irrespective of the kind of
European form the writer imports to tell his story. The problem is that some writers
just decide to ignore this part of African literary form. This then brings us to another
interesting debate that has been going round the African literary terrain—that the
African writers of the postmodern generation1 are the more accomplished “practioners” of this vice of not seeking out didacticism in their stories. In his essay entitled
“The Contemporary Nigerian Fiction”, Nnolim points out that it is in seeking out
didacticism in their storytelling that is the point of divergence between the writers of
the modern generation, the writers of the ideological generation and the writers of
the postmodern generation. According to him, unlike the other two generations of
African writers, the writers of the postmodern generation “lack a clearly defined
thematic focus. If anything, they have depicted a people adrift, hedonistic, cowed
finally by the long incursion of the military in the body politic” (229).
For instance, most works written in the modern generation seem to be teaching
and educating their readers about African life and culture and challenging the
European scholars and critics that had argued that African people are not capable of
thinking hence they cannot produce literature. In explaining Chinua Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart (a writer of the modern generation), Killam and Kerfoot say, “Achebe uses
the story of the novel’s hero, Okonkwo, to demonstrate how British colonial
Christianity destroyed traditional Igbo society in Eastern Nigeria at the turn of the
twentieth century. The steadfastness of the religious beliefs of the Igbo community
are represented in Okonkwo, who stays true to his culture’s values and is killed as a
result” (297). The works of the writers of ideological generation seem to be committed
to the argument that most of the ideologies which the Europeans claim to have
originated were not totally alien to Africans prior to the advent of colonialism. For
example, in explaining Festus Iyayi’s Violence (a writer of the ideological generation),
Oguzie posits that “the post-civil-war Nigerian writing has witnessed shifting trends
in themes; thus justifying Achebe’s contention that an African creative writer who
tries to avoid the big social and political issues of contemporary Africa society will
end up being completely irrelevant” (247). In his same essay, therefore, Nnolim says,
one cannot attribute a clearly defined literary engagement to the African writers of
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the postmodern generation. The reason for this is linked to the background of the
majority of the writers of this generation. They are said to have come from a background
that exposes them to European forms over the African ones and that promotes these
forms to the detriment of the African ones. Hence, as they begin to write, they seek
after European literary models which they are more conversant with and then jettison
African literary forms and models that they are called to build. It is only a few of them,
who might have had rural upbringing that have continued on this tradition of making
their stories didactic and have succeeded in closing the gap that time brings by bending
their literature to carry the burden of the experience of their immediate generation.
Among such writers of the postmodern generation is Chukwuma Ibezute.
In his novels, The Temporal Gods and Goddess in the Cathedral, Chukwuma Ibezute
seems to have employed what we earlier referred to as the “ingredients” of African
folklore—proverbs, and the rest of others. One other fascinating thing about the two
novels is that the stories and all the “ingredients” with which they were created are
made whole through the use of didacticism. The sense in which we regard the two
novels as didactic may be slightly different from the popular meaning of the term.
This is because, for instance, what an European critic may call “realism”—a literary
ideology popularized by the French writer, Emile Zola, in his essay, “The Experimental
Novel”—an African critic may see as didactic. In African traditional society, there is
no concept as realism (or naturalism—a concept which is developed from realism—
or any other); a story can only be didactic or would not be regarded as story
(Chinweizu, Jemie & Madubuike 246). When Pooley et al. say that realism is “the
tendency to emphasize the limitations that real life imposes on humanity, and to
show how those limitations affect life” (788), for instance, we are convinced that
African traditional stories, from where the written ones take their lives, are also about
the “limitations that real life imposes on humanity”— even though there could have
been no defined terms for them. It is the same with the fact that the English language
does not have terms to describe some concepts in African traditional literature.
Before now some African scholars are already looking for a way of transmuting
some of the terms that could best explain some concepts in African traditional oral
stories which are not in the conventional form. In a recent study, it has been disclosed
that the African concept of didacticism is all encompassing (Akporobaro 21). This is
because they are of the view that African stories would have nothing to teach, educate
or inform the reader if the stories do not pick from the realities of the African society
or if it does not draw from its environment. This is what even Ibezute’s novels have
demonstrated. Like most writers of the generations before his, who have anchored
their stories on African society, Ibezute through the use of a narrator who is kin on
capturing life in its totality, paints the true picture of a contemporary African society
where everything is not just rosy: A society where good exists with bad; where bad
triumphs over good most of the time and good manages to triumph over bad by the
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grace of God. In his novel The Temporal Gods, the narrator deconstructs the popular
fantasy, which we can even see in John Hagee’s statements, that “True love doesn’t
have a happy ending; true love doesn’t have an ending.”(86) and that “Every marriage
is an effort to find love” (85)—instead, the narrator seems to be saying that life and
marriage are not geared towards finding love but towards finding individual gain.
In the novel, we are made to contemplate the reality that is in the extent a woman
can go to maintain her position as the only wife. In the attempt to capture Akudi in
the struggle to maintain her position as the only wife of George Okonta, the novel is
divided into two parts while the women characters in the novel are also divided into
two kinds. The first part of the novel is about how Akudi tries to frustrate her husband’s
effort to take a second wife. The second part is about how Akudi tries to frustrate
Ogonna, the son of her co-wife, in order that her own son might be more successful
than him. On the other hand, through the women characters in the novel, an
impression is created in us that women are the brains behind every problem that
threatens most polygamous homes and secondly, they are also the victims of the
rivalry that polygamy brings. The division of women characters in the novel into two
kinds can however be said to make up what constitutes the first part of the novel. It is
important that we begin by looking at how the narrator succeeds in dividing the
women characters into two kinds—starting with the character of Akudi. What first
confronts us, as we read the novel, is the fact of the story that a woman would always
behave like her mother; a bad woman would take after her mother’s badness and a
good woman would take after her mother’s goodness:
With her fine features which included a beautiful face and bouncing hips when she
walked, George had told his people that if he failed to marry her, nobody should
ever talk to him about marriage. Other members of George Okonta’s family who
disagreed with George over his marriage with Akudi were of the opinion that
Akudi was not only older than George but might behave like her mother. They had
told the young man not to ignore the belief among the people that female children
took more of their attitude from their mothers. In this regard, they argued:
“Anybody who wishes to have a good wife and sees a girl he loves to marry
should first of all ascertain the girl’s mother ’s way of life.”
Truly, Akudi’s mother was notorious for her constant engagement of the services
of great medicine men and hostility to her husband. (16)
We are made to realise that such a woman could be peaceful and good at the time of
marriage but would definitely turn to do the things she once saw her mother do at the
long run. So it is what happened immediately Akudi’s husband, George, chose to
marry more wives. The novel seems to suggest that a woman can only be adjudged to
be good and peaceful when she finds herself married to a man with other wives and
still conducts herself in a peaceful and good manner. Using the character of Akudi
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Okonta, the novel demonstrates how a good, loving and understanding wife could
turn into a villain, all in a bit to defend her position as the only wife: “Before he
became a polygamist, George Okonta had lived with Akudi his wife for eight years
without a child. They loved each other and did things together, with love and
understanding. It was rare to see one of them having a meal without the other.” (2)
Akudi though had been an understanding wife; she refused to understand when
her husband, George Okonta, decided to marry another wife because of their inability
to bear children after several years. This calls to mind the fact that it is not only for the
sake of love and companionship that the African man marries, it is also for the sake of
children. This position recalls the proverb of the Igbo society, ma o boghi maka nwa,
gini ka mmadu choga na otele mmadu ibe ya (If it is not for children, what does a human
being seek in the bosom of his fellow human being). The novel capitalizes on the
complication that results from George Okonta’s resolve to have children through
other women since his wife cannot give him children and later on Akudi’s insistence
that “she still had the hope to bear children” (2). The novel is actually about how
George Okonta and Akudi Okonta struggle to hold onto their individual stands till
the end. While George Okonta went ahead to marry even when his beloved wife said
no, Akudi also went ahead to fight to truncate her husband’s resolve to have other
wives. In the novel, George Okonta proved himself the head of the family by pressing
his decision on his wife, Akudi. Akudi, on the other hand, resisted her husband’s
decision through secretly involving herself in the use of charms. Since the story is set
in an imaginary Igbo society of “Abanja village by the creek of the River Niger,” and
since among the Igbo people, it is a man who makes decisions for his family, the novel
leaves the reader with the impression that Akudi should have accepted her husband’s
decision. But if Akudi had accepted her husband’s decision, there would not have
been this story. There came to be this story because Akudi refused her husband’s
decision and fought against it. This goes a long way to prove Northrop Frye’s assertion,
especially when he says, creative material, “like the poet, is born and not made”
(506)—hence, so we can say of the novel and the circumstance that surround Akudi as
a character.
In the novel a situation is created where the plans of George Okonta worked, even
though there were initial attempts by Akudi to truncate it. With Akudi’s initial attempt
to make sure that her husband did not marry another woman, her helplessness is
revealed and this shows up her resistance in two stages. The first stage is the stage of
tricks. The second stage is that of charms. In her first stage, Akudi resolves to steal from
her own husband. However, this did not yield needed result. Having stolen the
money with which her husband planned to marry another woman and having made
it look as if the house was invaded by thieves, she had returned to the farm and
pretended as if she did not know anything about how the money got missing. When
she noticed that her husband was convinced that she was behind the missing money
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and as a matter of fact had threatened to send her parking, she decided to achieve her
plan another way. This brings us to the second stage where she finds for herself a
native doctor who helped her achieve her plan half way. In this stage, Akudi became
the source of George Okonta and her fellow wives miseries. In this stage, through the
help of the native doctor, she succeeded in putting George Okonta through the misery
of not having his other wives bear him children: The same reason he ventured into
polygamy. She also made sure Nwaku and Adaeze, her co-wives suffered the pains of
not bearing children for their husband and later succeeded in frustrating them out of
George Okonta’s house. This is evident in the story:
Among these women, Nwaku and Adaeze who did not have any child for him
were never known to have participated in, or taken sides with anybody in the
quarrels which cropped up at random in the family. They lived with George for
only a few years and after a severe quarrel one day between two of them and
Akudi who referred to them as men, the two women left George Okonta for their
own good. It was later known that they married two different non-polygamists
and were wedded in their churches. Nwaku was said to be [the] happy mother of
three children while Adaeze bore four children for her husband. The two women
maintained [a] good relationship and once in a while when they met, they dramatized
and cracked jokes about their experiences at the house of George Okonta. (18)
Here, the novel reveals a salient thing about African women who find themselves in
this kind of situation. An African woman is only bold in her husband’s house when
she is able to bear him children. We see this first with the relationship between Akudi
and George at the beginning of the novel. After several years of childlessness, Akudi
could not press George to marry her in the church as he initially promised because of
the guilt that she had been unable to bear him a child. This scenario is also repeated
with Nwaku and Adaeze. They were unable to freely participate in any important
conversation in the family. Talking about their inability to participate in the family
matters, the narrator observes: “Their behaviour of quietness and non-participation
in family matters then portrayed them as believing that in a polygamous home, any
woman who has no child has no ground or base” (18).
It is when Akudi now became the mother of “a boy named Nwokeji and a daughter”
that she regained her lost voice. With her regained voice, she perpetrated more evil
on the last wife who is fortunate to bear children for George despite Akudi’s plan,
through the native doctor’s charm, that none of George’s wives would bear him
children. This is also to prove that charms do not work on everybody. Nwakego
represents the few people who defile the charm that has caused havoc and have
resulted in the death of many people. The charm that had effect on Nwaku and
Adaeze did not work on her. When Akudi tormented her son, Ogonna, she could not
do anything to her. The narrator, though did not tell us why Akudi’s charm did not
166
work on Nwakego. Instead he says “it was not known why she decided to leave
Nwakego, the fourth and last wife of her husband out of the vendetta” (11). With this
statement however, the narrator does not mean that Akudi left Nwakego because she
decided to play down on her plan to frustrate the plan of her husband, George. The
narrator’s use of such expression is aimed at revealing or sharing in the people’s view.
Akudi, who has earlier vowed “that any new wife brought in by her husband would
not get pregnant let alone bearing children”(10), would not have changed her decision
on seeing Nwakego being married into the family of George Okonta. This is evident
in Akudi’s later efforts to frustrate Ogonna which however leads us to the second part
of the novel. The second part of the novel is enshrined in irony. Akudi, who was so
keen on how to make sure her son became the head in everything, lose out. Though
the narrator creates a situation where Akudi succeeded in having her own son become
the “first son” of George Okonta, her son only remained a ceremonial “first son—
while Nwakego’s son, Ogonna, became the bread winner of the family and eventually
took care of Nwokeji when her mother, Akudi, was no more present to wreak havoc.
Central in the second part of the novel is the struggle between good and evil spirit
forces. When Ogonna returned home one Christmas, a successful man, with a
“motorcycle and plenty of money” (64) and was caged spiritually, it was Nwakego,
through the help of a friend, who sought for the help of a spiritualist that eventually
helped to free Ogonna from Akudi’s spiritual cage. Using the character of Ije Odum,
in the novel, the narrator seems to want us to believe that in the course of their evil
charm preparations, native doctors usually try to exonerate themselves—Perhaps, to
free themselves from its karma.
The narrator later makes us to realize that that does not still make them good
personalities. In order to prove this, he sees to it that Ije Odum, who thought he
would not die, dies shamefully at the mockery of all and sundry and Akudi who
believed in Ije Odum’s charm got missing. This reaffirms the Biblical saying that the
righteous will be exalted, while the wicked will fall into his very pit. The narrator
presents Nwakego as a very good wife; an exact contrast to Akudi. She did not know
the way to a native doctor’s house. It was on the direction of one of her friends that
she went seeking the assistance of a native doctor. When Akudi stuck Ogonna the
second time with her secret charm and succeeded in caging him again, Nwakego
went back in search of the native doctor she once visited but was disappointed when
she was told that the native doctor had become a born-again Christian. Unlike Akudi
who would have gone in search of another native doctor, Nwakego resigned to fate
and lift everything in the hands of God. However, God did not abandon Nwakego
and her son Ogonna—he answered them in his own time. Hence, acknowledging
the statement contained in the notice written and posted on the door of the native
doctor who became a born-again, “THE POWERS OF IDOLS ARE TEMPORAL
WHILE THOSE OF GOD ARE EVERLASTING” (106).
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As if this statement contained in the notice also pertained to Ibezute’s Goddess in
the Cathedral, we were taken through another mind bugging story of the activities of
some spirit beings and their agents. Like Ibezute’s The Temporal Gods whose theme is
summarized on the message posted on the door of the native doctor who became
born-again, his Goddess in the Cathedral seems to be written with the same theme in
mind. Unlike in The Temporal Gods where God intervened, through Pastor Duke, and
ended the suffering of Ogonna and brought peace and happiness to his mother
Nwakago, in Goddess in the Cathedral the narrator presents us with different kinds of
spiritual activities. Through the novel (Goddess in the Cathedral) it is revealed that God
intervenes only when the people under spiritual oppression are upright and when
they are directly or indirectly not involved in spiritual wickedness. This could be the
reason the narrator did not bother to make Mary-Ann’s husband, Jamie Boha, go in
seek of the services of a pastor as one would expect of a character in a contemporary
African story. This also depicts the narrator ’s awareness of the fact that some
communities in contemporary African society still believe in traditional worship,
hence Jamie Boha went in search of the monstrous native doctor who lived in the
forest to deliver them from the menace of the ghost of Mary-Ann. It is also through
delivering the entire community of Mary-Ann’s menace that Jehan Victor Boha was
delivered from his spiritual bondage.
It is important to point out also that because of the structure and style of Goddess in
the Cathedral it is difficult to decide who the protagonist of the novel is. This is because
the novel seems to actually pertain to the life and characters of Mary-Ann and her
foster son, Jehan Victor Boha. As we all know, it is problematic to identify two different
developed characters in a novel as the protagonists, especially when both are mother
and child. The one thing that helped in determining the protagonist of the novel is
the fact that one is presented to be good and the other is made to play a villain. We
decided on Jehan Victor Boha as the protagonist because of his innocence and his
travails in the society of the novel. Aside that, we would have, as well, say that MaryAnn is the protagonist because the story is about her life and her role in the upbringing
of her foster son, Jehan Victor Boha. The fact that Mary-Ann had to die while Jehan
Victor Boha continued to live and to run the affairs of the church after her death,
would not have matter so much because even at her death she remained powerful
and active.
Using the character of Jehan Victor Boha, the narrator makes us to contemplate life
in Africa as one determined and controlled by the spirits. It seems the novel aims at
saying that in Africa it is not how much a man struggles; it is how much the spirits
allow one to prosper. It is not all about what one wants to do; it is all about what the
spirits want one to do. Though as we have said before and as we have seen in The
Temporal Gods, the manipulations and controls over one’s destiny and life by these
spirits could only be temporal. This is evident in the story where having forced Jehan
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Victor Boha out of the university where he worked as a scholar with the help of her
queen mother, Mary-Ann told him to open a church. This is not because Jahan Victor
Boha was not doing well as a scholar; contrary to that speculation, Jehan was
“performing creditably in his career” and in fact “had bought his personal car” (68)
while working in the university. Mary-Ann only wanted him to become a pastor in
order to fulfil the demands of her spiritual kingdom. The demands of her spiritual
kingdom are evident in the novel, thus:
One night, Mary-Ann while asleep, went to their usual marine meeting. At the
meeting, the marine Queen crowned Mary-Ann the Goddess of the Earth, and
instructed her to build a church from where they would be having human blood,
flesh and soul, at will. Mary-Ann accepted with joy the crown of Goddess of the
Earth. But she suggested to the Queen that building a church where people would
be dying at random won’t benefit the marine authority. She argued that the church
would close-down the moment people observed constant deaths among the
congregation. Marine Queen laughed. She told Mary-Ann not to worry because
the marine spirits know the system with which to hurt people and turn round to
soothe them. It wouldn’t be instantaneous and constant deaths of people per se.
Any man or woman needed could be going about his normal business but his mind
and sense of reasoning would be made use of. Then, out of about one thousand
seven hundred and fifty members, dangle a carrot of wealthiness to ten members.
Even if it happened to be that thirty percent of what would have been the total
success of all the members were given out to the ten, thirty percent distributed to
a few among the remaining members, while the balance of forty percent went to
the marine, the less successful ones would see the church as an epitome of hope for
the people in difficulty and invite their brothers, sisters and friends. (68)
It was not, however, easy for Mary-Ann to come by this. Having noticed that persuasion
alone would not make Jehan Boha, who was at that time an Associate Professor at
Odigan State University, change his mind, she reported back to the Queen of the
marines but pleaded that “under no circumstance should the life” of Jehan be tampered
with. And “the Queen assured Mary-Ann that nothing bad would ever happen to
Jehan, but she knew how to whip an erring son into line” (71). According to the
novel, it was not long, “Jehan was accused of backing cultists at Odigan State University
and was dismissed with ignominy from his job” (71). Jehan Boha least expected that
and still refused to succumb to his foster mother’s lure to start a church. “After a few
months in fruitless search for a new job”, “he resorted to the use of his car as taxi at
Port Harcourt” (71). It was in the course of his taxi driving that one “afternoon”, he
“suddenly went into a trance”. In the trance, “he saw himself in a big cathedral with
a multitude of adherents” and he was busy “preaching as the officiating minister”
(72). When he narrated his experience to his foster mother, Mary-Ann, she “said it was
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a manifestation of God’s call and signs of hope and wonders” (72). Through the novel,
the narrator seems to be saying that most pastors, who claim to have been called into
ministry, may not have been called by Almighty God—it is possible that they are
called by some evil spirits under the cloak of the Almighty God. Of course, the Bible
has prophesied this before now, especially where it is written:
Now concerning the coming of our lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet
him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by
spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of
the lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come,
unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of
perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of
worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be
God. (2 Thessalonians 2–5)
In accordance with the demands of the queen mother of the marine world, the church
is opened at Port Harcourt with the name: “Lonely Path to the River of Greatness
Church”. Jehan Victor Boha became the officiating pastor and he was now being
referred to as Reverend Prophet Jehan Boha. The population of the church increased
at an unprecedented rate because the miracles, signs and wonders “never witnessed
since after the days of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s ministry on earth were randomly
testified to by adherents” (95). However, the Bible has already made it known that
“the lawless one’s presence is according to the operation of Satan with every powerful
work and lying signs and portents” (2 Thessalonians 9). These miracles, signs and
wonders are without their bad sides. For example, “those who went to the church for
wealth had it in abundance” but “road side gossips said many promising youths
around them became useless and rolling stones”. While “those who went for fruit of
the womb had many children, though it was said that most of the children never
grew to be somebody. Some died before the age of ten, while many others grew up to
be imbeciles” (95).
The novel, Goddess in the Cathedral presents to us a protagonist, who unlike the
characters of Ibezute’s other novels, is a victim of life. From the beginning of the novel
to its end, Jehan proves to be a character who suffered greatly in the hands of spirits
and spiritual human beings. Though the narrator did not tell us if the spirits are
responsible for the death of his biological parents; the way his parents died while he
was still a boy is suspicious. We cannot say anything about the death of Jehan’s
biological mother because the narrator provided us with no details. But with a close
reading of the novel, we cannot but say that the mysterious death of Jehan’s father is
linked with some spirit activities. How else can one interpret the death of a man who
after being informed of his wife’s death, cried and lamented “and a few minutes later
slumped”? (14)
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The death of Jehan’s sister is also of great concern because of the way she died. It is
believed among the Igbo that “when a large ball of breadfruit” falls on someone’s
head, as was the case with her “as she walked on a village path” (15), the spirits are at
work. However, the mysteries of his parents’ death, his sister’s death and his mother’s
sister, Clara’s children’s death were later linked to Jahan when Clara’s husband
consulted different oracles:
Baffled at this development, Clara’s husband decided it was necessary he discovered
why the sudden deaths of the children. The first and second men he consulted
warned, as if in agreement, of an impending calamity, unless the orphan staying
with them was separated from the family. They warned that it was the forces
which made Jehan orphan that were still at work. The third seer Clara’s husband
consulted said something equivalent, but added that Jehan wouldn’t be affected
because he had many gods fighting for the safety of his life. Thus, a bullet aimed at
Jehan could strike and kill somebody nearby, while Jehan would go unscathed, the
seer emphasized. (15)
When her husband returned home and presented Clara with the options of either
killing him or leading him into the forest to be eaten up by wild animals, she chose
the latter. Having escaped death in the forest, he was rescued and picked up by MaryAnn, another spiritual human being—though Mary-Ann treated him as her child
and trained him into somebody of repute. It is until Mary-Ann’s death and her
subsequent exhumation by the monstrous native doctor that Jehan Boha regained his
spiritual freedom.
In the novel, the narrator creates a dynamic character in Mary-Ann. He presents
her as a character that could be good or bad at will. She is a character of unpredictable
personality—not even the reader could predict her. When it comes to fighting for
other individual’s just course, she does so as if the fight is hers. At other times in the
novel, she is presented to be very bad. That is why her neighbours and her husband
fear her. We would have said her unpredictable nature is as a result of her spiritual
involvement but at the beginning of the story the narrator made us to realize that
Mary-Ann is such a personality from birth and that it is as a result of her
unpredictability and stubbornness that she went to the stream to fetch water at a time
that was exclusively meant for the spirits. Hence, the spirit of the Queen mother
possessed her and got her physically barren but spiritually fertile. It is in the novel
that such issue as the possibility of someone being fertile in the spirit realm and then
barren in the physical realm is revealed. Mary-Ann, who is though barren throughout
the novel, has many children in the marine world. The peaceful marriage which she
could not have in the physical, she had in the marine world. Though, she would
have had a successful marriage in the physical realm, if not for the interference of her
spirit husband in her physical marriage. This is evident in the story thus:
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As regards her first marriage, on two different occasions, a strange man confronted
Mary-Ann’s former husband. One was in a dream. The other was physical, by
daylight. That morning, the Sunday mass just ended. Out of the church building,
the strange man asked Mary-Ann’s former husband whether it was right and
proper for he who claimed to be a Christian to take as a wife a woman already
married by another man. Mary-Ann’s former husband looked flabbergasted, and
ignored his questioner because he was quite sure that his wife was a spinster at the
time he met her. If not that Mary-Ann’s husband was prayerful and strong in spirit,
he would have died while asleep as a result of constant fighting in dreams with that
strange man who asked him the questions. […] But the man decided to call it quit
with the marriage when this particular man he encountered in dreams took a
bolder step, and visited and confronted him in his home. (34–5)
The narrator did not also tell us why the spirit of Mary-Ann’s marine husband did not
disturb Jamie Boha, Mary-Ann’s last husband. Perhaps, it could be because Jamie
Boha is faced with a problem that is as serious as the experiences of Mary-Ann’s
former husbands. Unlike Mary-Ann’s former husbands that were constantly tormented
by Mary-Ann’s spiritual husband, Mary-Ann was always frightening Jamie Boha.
One thing that gets the reader wondering is the fact that despite all her threats at
Jamie Boha, she does not harm him. When Jamie Boha took another wife, one expects
Mary-Ann to possibly kill Jamie Boha but is disappointed—she though threatened
him but stopped at that. Instead of now troubling Jamie Boha, she transferred her
troubles onto the new wife, Florence. When finally she felt hurt because of Jamie’s
decision and his marriage to Florence, she taught Jamie some lessons by also
threatening him with her spiritual powers. After being spiritually harassed, “Jamie
took Florence to another part of the village” (9) abandoning his family house for
Mary-Ann. When people now ask Jamie why he left his family house, he told them
that “Mary-Ann was a witch who loved to inflict pains and injury on people around
her”(9). With a close reading of the novel one can tell that Mary-Ann loved Jamie
Boha and had speared him because of that. Where she would had harmed him out of
anger, as some other persons possessed by marine spirits in contemporary African
society would do, she chose to harass him spiritually. Her love for Jamie Boha was
further expressed when Clara came seeking to claim Jehan Victor Boha. She quickly
ran to Jamie for assistance and together they resisted Clara and maintained that Jehan
Victor Boha was their adopted son. Jamie Boha supported Mary-Ann in making sure
Jehan Boha was not taken away by Clara, but when later Mary-Ann manipulated
Jehan into becoming a pastor, Jamie ceased to have anything to do with them. This is
simply because he seems to know that Mary-Ann is behind all that and that her
powers are not genuine. It seems it is with the establishment of the church, “Lonely
Path to the River of Greatness Church”, that her assignment on earth (as a living
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human being) is sealed as completed. The queen mother then gave her another
assignment which required her “transformation” through death. Though she
protested, the queen mother assures her, thus: “No protests, my daughter. Who in his
or her right senses refuses a promotion? After the transformation, you will be allowed
to live in the two worlds. Over here, you will see that there is no enjoyment on earth.”
(82–3) With her death, however, she became a problem to her husband and the people
of her community. Her subsequent exhumation brought peace to the community and
freedom to Jehan Boha. This is what makes Jehan Boha’s sermon after his spiritual
freedom a remarkable one, especially when he says:
Thus, dear brethren, beware of the preachers you follow, the type of church you
go to, and the type of god some of the so-called men of God ask you to worship.
Beware of fake and dubious prophets and messengers of doom! Most importantly,
beware of those agents of uncertain gods who may increase your troubles by
clandestinely initiating you into a group where you would lose your spiritual freedom
and be in bondage. Today, Jehan Victor Boha is freed from the clutches of mermaids.
For all of you who have witnesses it all, if only you will make use of the lessons
derived from the experiences of Jehan Boha, you will not fall into their trap. (6)
However, after Mary-Ann’s exhumation, Jehan Boha’s life returned to normal. He was
called back to the university and paid for all the years in which his unemployment
lasted. This also applied to the community where Mary-Ann lived. The community
that had not experienced peace for a long time now started experiencing it.
In conclusion, Ibezute’s The Temporal Gods and Goddess in the Cathedral, can be said
to have been created using what we earlier referred to as the “ingredients” of African
folklore—proverbs, and the rest of others. One other fascinating thing about the two
novels is that the stories and all the “ingredients” with which they were created are
made whole through the use of didacticism. This is because in telling African story, a
lot of traditional African oral “ingredients”, such as proverbs, songs, symbols etc.,
cannot be disassociated from it and in other to achieve a creative whole, the writer
blends the whole of these “ingredients” together with the help of didacticism.
However, through telling stories that are didactic, the writer has succeeded in
“domesticating” his stories so that they also carry in them the African contemporary
experience. For instance, through the story we have come to know that people can be
spiritually caged (or be made to be in spiritual bondage) in Africa. It is possible to
argue that Ogonna in The Temporal Gods and Jehan in Goddess in the Cathedral represent
individuals in different spiritual bondages in Africa. Using the stories in the novels,
the narrator seems to be saying that, though these spiritual bondages are only temporal,
they usually act as setbacks in the lives of these persons. And that in Africa of this
postmodern generation the survival of any promising individual is by the grace of
God. The reason for this is not unconnected to the existence of the two different
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warring religions, traditional worship and Christianity, that are evident in the societies
of the two novels. While traditional worship is the inherited religion of Africans of
the postmodern generation, Christianity is a religion that though is brought to us,
that we have come to embrace. Just that as Jung rightly observed “the invasion of evil
signifies that something previously good has turned into something harmful” (qtd in
Spiegelman 1): the coming of Christianity to Africa is with its two sides: good and
bad. The good side of it is that it brought the direct worship of God through his son,
Jesus Christ. The bad side of it is that some individuals now use it as a means to exploit
people and to get themselves rich. As if realising this all of a sudden, after being freed
from his spiritual bondage, Jehan Boha confessed and at the same time lamented,
thus:
The pulpit has been taken over by medicine men exhibiting their voodoos and
drug addiction in the name of preaching the gospel; and by men of incantations
who engage in modernized ancient oracles in the name of prophecy. As a matter of
fact, men who are in contact with mermaids, gods and goddesses are now involved
in preaching the gospel and winning converts among today’s clergymen. (6)
Through the use of Jehan Boha’s confessions and lamentations the narrator emphasizes
the didacticism that is inherent in the story. We know that a story can be didactic and
then not carry the burden of the generational experience. For example, it is common
to see in the work of a writer of postmodern generation, a story that though teaches
but is set in Europe with characters that have European names and experience that is
exclusively European— a version of didacticism that is popular among the writers of
this generation. The beauty of Ibezute’s The Temporal Gods and Goddess in the Cathedral
is that we learnt the lessons of the story through the beauty of African life and experience—the kind of didacticism which African literature emphasizes.
In The Temporal Gods, we also learnt a number of these. Among them is how to
recognize a genuine pastor. This is achieved in the novel by narrating how each one
of the pastors carry on with the activities of his church. While one is so much interested
in money and would go out of his way to prescribe things that are “more than what
it cost to make sacrifice after consulting a native doctor”, (78) the other “conducted
his affairs with total dedication to God in accordance with the principles of the first
apostles of Jesus Christ. He preached the salvation of the soul and not of the body”
and his “principle was to win more souls for Jesus Christ and not to amass wealth”
(88). All these and more are the things the novels aim at informing or educating his
readers on. And among the things that helped these lessons to come alive is the fact
that the writer captures the realities of contemporary African life in such a way that
the aura of African reality is felt in a way that we can associate ourselves with them as
stories from African soil—as our own very story.
174
1.
Note
I have written somewhere that “the postmodern generation” is the third generation of African
writers. It was Donatus Nwoga in his West African Verse (1967) who described the writers of the first
generation as “the modernist”, while Charles Nnolim described the writers of the second generation,
in his essay “Contemporary Nigerian Fiction,” as “the ideological generation”.
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Patricia Waugh, eds. New York: Arnold; OUP, 2001. 210–21.
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New York: St Martin’s Press, 1986. 501–31.
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_____. Goddess in the Cathedral. Owerri: Cel-Bez Publishing Co Ltd, 2003.
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Press, 2008.
˜ ˜ wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind. London: Heinemann, 1986.
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2009. 227–39.
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African Publishers, 1986. 246–58.
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University 1 (2002): 75–84.
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and Practice 8.1 (2006): 1.
175
F. F. Moolla
F. F. Moolla (Ph.D, UCT) specializes in
African literature and orature and
teaches in the Department of English,
University of the Western Cape,
Bellville, South Africa.
Email: fmoolla@uwc.ac.za
Desert ethics, myths of nature and
novel form in the narratives of
Ibrahim al-Koni
Desert ethics, myths of nature and novel form
in the narratives of Ibrahim al-Koni
This broadly comparative essay contrasts environmentalism in the fiction in English translation of the Libyan writer, Ibrahim alKoni, with dominant trends in contemporary environmentalism. An analysis of three of the most ecocritically pertinent of the novels
in English translation suggests that the natural world is viewed through the lens of the mythical, encompassing the religious
worlds of both Tuareg animism, as well as monotheism represented by Islam and early Christianity. The novels to be considered
are The Seven Veils of Seth, Anubis and The Bleeding of the Stone. Unlike environmental approaches which derive from the
European Enlightenment of procedural rational disenchantment, human beings in Al-Koni’s work are accorded a place in the
sacred order which allows non-parasitic modes of existence within the framework of a sacred law. This conviction is articulated most
powerfully through the symbol of the desert which inspires all of Al-Koni’s work. The social and sacred desert ethic out of which
Al-Koni’s fiction is forged, strains at the form of the novel, the genre which constitutes and is constituted by an immanent,
individual vision of the world. As a consequence, Al-Koni’s narratives tend towards allegorical modes which highlight the radical
complexity and simplicity of allegory. Keywords: allegory, comparative literature, desert ethics, environmentalism, Ibrahim alKoni, Libyan literature.
Ibrahim al-Koni needs no introduction in the world of Arabic letters, even though he
himself is not an Arab. A Tamasheq speaking Tuareg, born in 1948 in the southern
Libyan deserts, he learnt Arabic at the age of twelve and, after a brief career as a
journalist in Libya, established himself as an Arabic fiction writer while still a student
in Moscow in 1974. In a literary career which has spanned almost four decades, AlKoni has published more novels and anthologies of stories than one could conveniently
list and has garnered virtually all the major Arabic literature awards, as well as a state
art award in Libya, the country of his birth, and a number of awards in his adopted
homeland of Switzerland where he has lived since 1993. Translation into English of
key works in the past few years and, more significantly, Al-Koni’s shortlisting on the
highly prestigious 2015 Man Booker International Prize suggests a presence in world
literature in English which soon will rival his reputation in Arabic letters.1 Al-Koni’s
literary imagination has been sparked both by the cultures of his origins and the
cultures of his artistic, intellectual, spiritual and actual travels. His writing is informed
by Tuareg culture with its roots in ancient Egyptian religion, by the early Christianity
176
of North Africa, by Arab-Islamic oral and literary tradition and spirituality, the
Romanticism of Europe and its offshoots in American Transcendentalism, and Russian
literature. While his work has been translated into more than 30 world languages, the
first English translations of two of his novels Anubis (2002) and Nazif al-Hajar (1990)
were published only in 2002 as Anubis: A Desert Novel and The Bleeding of the Stone.
Since 2002, four other novels have appeared in English translation, namely, al-Tibr
(1990, translated as Gold Dust, 2008) and al Bahth ‘An al-Makan al-Da’i‘ (2003, translated
as The Seven Veils of Seth, 2008), al-Dumya (1998, translated as The Puppet, 2010), and New
Waw: Saharan Oasis in 2014. The study presented here is based only on the novels in
English translation and Al-Koni scholarship available in English.
As Al-Koni’s work becomes more accessible to a broader English-language
readership, the salience of his ideas to continental African and global conversations is
becoming apparent. While Al-Koni’s network of influences in the world of Arabic
letters is often alluded to, the comparison with African novelists writing in other
world languages like English and French have not been made. Like most Arabic
novelists of his generation, Al-Koni has been influenced by Naguib Mahfouz, the
doyen of the novel in Arabic. In the context of the concerns of this essay, which
highlight the densely allusive style of Al-Koni’s novels, the strongly allegorical and
mythical approach of Mahfouz in The Children of Gebelawi comes to mind which more
than likely was an influence on Al-Koni. But to return to translinguistic comparisons,
like most of the other African writers born roughly in the 1930s and 1940s, Al-Koni
writes in what is his second language but, given the historical legacy of Libya, his
second international language is Arabic, rather than English or French. Like Chinua
Achebe, the doyen of the African novel, Al-Koni is concerned with the effects of early
20th century colonialism on his culture and the lifeways of his tribe. Like Tayyib Salih
(who, unlike the other writers highlighted here, writes in his first language) Al-Koni
is concerned with the deeper philosophical impact of modernity on non-modern
social forms. Although the motivation and effect of the use of mythology is different,
Al-Koni’s novels and stories, like those of Wole Soyinka, are saturated with allusions
to myth, in this case, however, the mythology of the Tuareg, with its roots in the
ancient civilisations of Egypt, and the mythological world of Islam. Like the Somali
writer, Nuruddin Farah, Al-Koni’s cultural formation is nomadic pastoral, in a
continental African context, and itinerant in a contemporary transnational context.
In the work of both these writers the ideas of nomadism and exile are tropes which
acquire, in the case of Farah, modernist overtones, while in the work of Al-Koni,
nomadism exists as a metaphysical concept. Unlike Ngugi
˜ ˜ wa Thiong’o, Al-Koni
writes fairly unselfconsciously in his second language, modern standard Arabic, which
offers him a degree of internationalism. Al-Koni also draws on the classical Arabic
heritage in respect of genre, style and symbolism, both in oral and textual cultural
forms. In some respects, Al-Koni’s work is dissimilar from the work of other African
177
writers of his generation because of a penetrating focus on the natural world and
animals, which, in the work of the other writers referred to, forms part of a somewhat
transparent background to seemingly more immediate social, political and literary
questions. In Al-Koni’s fictional world, nature is central. Furthermore, nature in AlKoni’s fiction is not scientifically represented as environment; nor is it the sentimental
source of a unique self; nor is it a landscape whose mode of representation betrays the
assumptions, the desires and fears of the linguistic subject. Instead, nature is sacralised
not as a god or goddess unto itself, but as one dimension of a larger sacred scheme
whose laws, if observed by human beings, make people part of rather than parasites
in the cosmic order.
Al-Koni’s desert in comparative focus
Al-Koni’s oeuvre seems to collapse in challenging and complex ways the racial and
geographical divide between Africa south of the Sahara and Africa north of the Sahara,
revealing the desert to be a zone of continuous and mutually transforming traffic,
both between Arab and Tuareg culture, and Tuareg culture and the other cultures of
the Sahel. As a geographic feature, the Sahara for the Tuareg does not exist as a single
undifferentiated entity. True to the fine discriminations made by those who inhabit
and know a space intimately, the Tuareg Sahara does not exist as “The Desert” but is
referred to in Tamasheq in the plural as tinariwen or “the deserts”. For Elliott Colla, the
translator of a number of Al-Koni’s works, the author forces us to recognise a “radically
redrawn map of the world [and of Africa]—one in which the Sahara is a full, rather
than empty space; one in which the Tuareg lie not at the edges, but the centre of
history” (Colla, “Al-Koni’s homes”). In terms of the coordinates of Al-Koni’s
cartography, the Sahara is the point of contact:
between two sharply opposing world forces. To the South lies a world of myth,
magic and superstition. It is a place where the caravans carrying blue cloth, slaves
and gold originate. It is a place of cyclical time—the rising and falling of dynasties
and the ebb and flow of Islam […] To the North lie the distant Arab cities of the
coast and after that the sea. It is a place associated with mechanized technology and
warfare, the direction from which come the ceaseless French and Italian onslaughts.
It is a place of permanent habitation, whose calendar is linear. (Colla, “Atlas” 191–2)
Colla suggests that in Al-Koni’s fictional world the Saharan abode of the Tuareg comes
to be identified with the richly allusive Qur’anic term al-barzakh, which is frequently
translated as “obstacle or “separation” (Colla, “Atlas “ 194). The state of barzakh represents
an intermediate zone where the deceased is held lying between earthly existence and
the resurrection. Barzakh is an obstacle since there is no turning back to the physical
world; neither can the deceased hasten on the resurrection and judgment, which
178
brings with it the certainty of heaven or hell. It is also a separation in two senses since
in the state of barzakh body and soul are split, separated both from each other and from
this world and the hereafter (Zaki 204–6). Colla proposes that in Al-Koni’s vision, the
idea of the interregnum of barzakh, which is a wholly Islamic concept (Zaki 207),
captures the state of “in betweenness” which is the Tuareg Sahara. The desert in this
conception is a threshold zone between nomadism and sedentarism, Islam and
animism, the physical and spiritual worlds, and the opposing worldviews of north
and south (Colla, “Atlas” 195).
However, I would like to suggest that the Saharan desert as figured in the three
novels in English translation being studied here comes to represent an idea rather
more challenging than the indeterminacy of a liminal third space which collapses
binaries, but which itself remains ethereal and evanescent. The Sahara, by contrast, is
the geographical name for the desert as symbol, which is the conscious animating
inspiration of Al-Koni’s fiction. It is almost impossible to discuss Al-Koni’s work
without engaging the trope of the desert as the recent articles by Susan McHugh,
Sharif S. Elmusa and Jehan Farouk Fouad and Saeed Alwakeel attest. The centrality of
the desert in Al-Koni’s vision right at the outset of his career is made evident by Stefan
Sperl who quotes an early short story which identifies the Sahara as “God’s regent on
this earth who carries out His edicts and commands in harsh totality” (237). Al-Koni
highlights this idea in an interview with Hartmut Fähndrich: “My starting point is
the desert. As is inevitable with one’s birthplace, the desert buries enigmatic signs in
the souls of its natives that slumber deep within and one day must awake. The signs
that my Great Desert planted within me have made a poet of me, and a seeker after the
truth of this world.” Rather than shuttling between binaries, desert symbolism reveals
a world in which the polarities of man and nature, body and spirit, linear and cyclical
time, human and animal, monotheism and animism, reason and magic disappear in
the context of a sacred order. The desert as symbol, furthermore, stands in clear contrast
with the related but starkly opposed idea of desertification. The worldviews
represented by these differing conceptions create a tension in Al-Koni’s fiction which
strains at the form of the novel, shifting the problematically and paradoxically “open”
form of the novel into the mode of allegory.
Allegorical forms of representation are near universal with allegory often
originating in narratives shaped by religious mythologies. Allegory most generally
refers to a narrative which operates in parallel at a number of levels. The simple
surface story, employing characters and motifs easily recognisable from the quotidian
round, opens up, given the interpretative key, to more profound parallel narrative(s)
which intimate(s) ultimate truths. The allegorical mode was fundamental in ancient
Mediterranean civilisations, variously taken up by Judeo-Christianity and the
European cultural and literary tradition (MacQueen). In the Islamic literary tradition,
according to Peter Heath in “Allegory in Islamic Literatures”, allegory as a “developed
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literary practice begins at the turn of the eleventh century” (83). In Heath’s analysis,
allegory in the Islamic tradition emerges out of five major sources, The Qur ’an,
anecdotes, the interpretational contexts created by major cultural codes, philosophical
allegory and mystical allegory (83–100). In the context of North-Atlantic postmodernity,
represented most cogently by Paul de Man’s essay, “Pascal’s Allegory of Persuasion”,
the access to ontological truth to which allegory traditionally opens up is understood
as hinting at the fundamental abyss of signification which makes language possible.
Allegory here does not reveal essential truths, but the aporias upon which signification
plays. Al-Koni does not, however, seem to be tapping into allegory as reconceptualised
in postmodern thought, but draws on “classical” views of allegory as they emerge in
ancient Mediterranean, Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. Allegory, in these
perspectives, is revelatory of fundamental apprehensions of the human being’s
relationships with the world and cosmos. Al-Koni’s use of allegory in the novels
under discussion will be analysed in more detail towards the end of the essay.
A broad overview of the significance of deserts to the religious cultures which
inform Al-Koni’s imagination suggests the ambivalence with which the desert is almost
universally regarded, but also the final indispensability of the idea of the desert to a
social moral order. The desert features prominently in the mythology of ancient Egypt
to which Tuareg animist beliefs are linked. In ancient Egyptian mythology, desert
symbolism is embodied in the ambiguous trickster god, Seth, who represents the
forces of both creativity and destruction. In Tuareg animism, the desert is the primal
home. But the desert is also a space of fear because of the threat of malevolent forces
which also find their abode in the desert. Susan Rasmussen, a leading scholar of
Tuareg society and culture, notes that the term for those who are possessed by jinn is
kel essuf which translates literally as “people of solitude or the bush”, which, in the
case of the nomadic pastoralist Tuareg, refers to the desert (131). In a short story which
has not been translated into English, Al-Koni emphasises this idea in the affirmation
that “the desert is the motherland of jinn and mystery” (Machut-Mendecka 236).
The developing tradition of the three monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, originates in the arid belt which runs from North Africa through the Arabian
Peninsula to the Sinai. In this tradition also the desert ambiguously is the locus for the
vision of the transcendent and the space of abandonment and evil. The desert in the
monotheisms is a wilderness untouched by human habitation, but which is the
dwelling place instead of demons, the devil or jinn. In the Abrahamic monotheisms
thus, since the desert is a locus of uncertainty and danger, the desert is the primal
space of exclusion, exile and banishment, most prominently of Cain, the agriculturalist,
who murdered his nomadic pastoralist brother, Abel. The desert also is a space of trial,
most significantly of Hagar, the African slave wife of Abraham, and Ishmael, their son,
mythical root of the line of the Arabs. But there are also positive connotations to the
desert in the monotheisms. The desert is an environment where the air is considered
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to be purer, lighter and healthier and where solitude outside of the city allows selfrealisation through connection with the divine. This is a theme strongly developed
in the monasticism of the 4th century Desert Fathers who withdrew into the deserts
around Alexandria in Egypt. It is also a theme continued in the early history of Islam
where the Prophet Muhammad’s meditations in a cave in the desert outside of the
city of Mecca provided the spiritual preparation for the first revelations. The history,
metaphors and symbols associated with Islam are the most significant influences in
the novels by Al-Koni under consideration. There is, however, a strong undercurrent
represented by early Christianity.
Of the three Abrahamic traditions, Islam is also the faith most obdurately viewed
as the religion of the desert, even though cities are the location for the major part of its
history. In its revelatory expression through the Arabic language, Islam cannot be
dissociated from Arab culture more broadly. Sharif S. Elmusa goes so far as to suggest
that the desert is to Arab culture what the forest is to European culture, a zone of
intimate alterity which allows cultural definition. It is revealing also that even though
Islam is considered the religion of the desert, its sacred text, The Qur ’an, is replete
with references to human community and exchange, especially in the context of
markets and trade, rather than desert isolation. Furthermore, the sacred scripture is
dominated by imagery of the fruitfulness of the earth rather than desert paucity.
Angelika Neuwirth (302) describes this dimension of the Qur’an with the observation
that: “the early qur’ânic revelations present earthly space as particularly inspiring of
confidence. They present it as a locus of pleasure and enjoyment, as a venue for the
reception of divine bounty and as a site of ethically charged social interaction.”
Among Al-Koni’s wide-ranging literary influences are included the 19th century
North American Romantics/Transcendentalists. While the desert does not figure
prominently in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, the
key figures of these related nature movements, deserts are important in the work of
some of the twentieth-century heirs of this legacy, most notably Edward Abbey, author
of Desert Solitaire. In the three novels studied in detail here, the influence of the 19th
century American nature artists is not clearly apparent, and, I would like to suggest,
that the trend of the development of Al-Koni’s thought expressed through the desert
in fundamental ways is different from North American nature writing as it has evolved
into the contemporary period. American desert writing displays a strong anti-humanist
strand where Man as God is replaced by Nature as God. Paradoxically the deification
of Nature and the forms of religious worship which emerge around it develop out of
the humanist philosophical individualism, with its objectification of nature, which
“Dark Green” religions superficially reject (Taylor). The differences between Al-Koni’s
understanding and the implicit assumptions of much contemporary nature writing
will emerge more fully in the analysis of the novels. Deserts also feature quite
prominently in European and American travel writing from the 19th century onward.
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Desert travel writing picks up on many of the themes identified in the Judeo-Christian
tradition and American Romanticism/Transcendentalism and its contemporary
permutations, with a tangential interest in Bedouins, in the case of travel in the Arabian
Peninsula, who are either idealised or racially denigrated depending on the traveller’s
attitude vis-à-vis Victorian racial hierarchies (Melman). Since deserts in AngloAmerican travel writing do not really inflect Al-Koni’s novels, these ideas will not be
developed further. However, the religious cultural imaginary identified above in
which deserts have significance is extensively developed in the five novels which
have been translated into English, three of which are particularly germane to the
ideas explored in this essay.
Pastoral paradoxes: Gardens of Eden and fallen oases in The Seven Veils of Seth
In The Seven Veils of Seth, in particular, the syncretism of Tuareg animist and ancient
Egyptian religion is explored; and, furthermore, the most significant elements of
these mythologies are refracted through Christianity and Islam. Al-Koni is gripped
by the figure of Seth, a god of Upper Egypt, whose ambiguity as a force of creativity
and destruction is embodied in his pictorial representation as a composite humananimal figure where even the animal part is subject to uncertainty. Seth is variously
represented with the features of an antelope or a pig or an aardvark or an ass, among
other animals (Britannica Online). Seth was the god of the desert and also storms,
disorder and warfare. Most notably in the context of the symbolic value of this figure,
Seth murdered his brother Osiris, the god associated with the fecundity and abundance
of the flooding of the Nile (White 92–105).
The Seven Veils of Seth is a densely allusive novel which operates at a number of
levels of interpretation. It tells the story of the arrival of a mysterious stranger to an
unnamed oasis who stirs the curiosity of the oasis dwellers since he, unusually and
quite unacceptably, refuses the traditional hospitality extended to guests. The stranger
also provokes the ridicule of the inhabitants since he arrives on the back of a she-ass,
rather than the customary camel. The arrival of the stranger, who is variously referred
to as “Isan”, “the strategist”, “the jenny master” and “Wantahet”, coincides with a
drought in the oasis. Although the stranger ushers in drought, one of the first things
he does is to seek out a spring. As the incarnation of Seth, the stranger embodies the
paradoxes of the creative-destructive force of the trickster god. Seth, the primordial
wanderer of the dry deserts, at the outset and repeatedly throughout the novel is
associated with water. Quite outrageously for a Tuareg man, Isan divests himself of
his clothes and the accoutrement of his veil where he is seen by six women, the wives
of prominent oasis men.
Al-Koni, following Tuareg belief, identifies the mouth with shame; hence explaining
the necessity of the veil (for men). The women at the spring chastise Isan for exposing
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his mouth, in particular, rather than his body. The mouth, it is suggested, is “the weak
spot that led to our expulsion from the orchard and turned our world into a desert”
(Seven Veils 15). After the women, who may also be jinn, vanish as suddenly as they
appear, Isan contaminates the water with a mysterious herb which subsequently causes
the miscarriages of the pregnant women of the oasis. Isan is even more strongly
identified with death since he takes up residence in a burial vault which borders the
city. Isan becomes more intimately tied to the women since only he can restore their
fertility. He impregnates each one of them with his six amulets which are also his
fateful names and his seed. But Seth’s contamination of the water is seen by the oasis
fool and— in the tradition of the “wise” fool which is strongly developed in Arab
culture— is the only one who suspects that Isan’s cure for the women’s sterility involves
carnal rather than herbal/spiritual cure. The woman the fool desires also happens to
be one of those who remain barren. Spurred by jealousy, the fool stabs Isan who
metamorphoses into a snake and finally into Temarit, the sweetheart of the fool. The
fool, it is finally revealed, is also Isan’s son. At the time of the fool’s execution for the
murder of his beloved, Seth/Isan, who is also the god of tempests, sends a sandstorm to
the oasis which wreaks havoc and causes the fool to disappear in the dust.
The outline of the plot begins to suggest some of the interpretive density of the text.
Isan/Seth, the inveterate desert nomad and murderer of his brother, the god of cultivation,
is the necessary harbinger of destruction in order to highlight to the oasis dwellers the
proclivity towards evil of their sedentary, agricultural and, ultimately, commercial
way of life. He poisons the water of the oasis, which causes the miscarriage and
barrenness of the oasis women, to highlight the fact that the literal water, which makes
the oasis fertile, is metaphorically contaminated since it causes the moral and spiritual
infertility or barrenness of the sedentary oasis inhabitants. Isan’s actions cause a group
of citizens to abandon the oasis for the desert since the contamination is too threatening.
The merchant, who in some ways is the lifeblood of the oasis, comes to report to Isan the
people’s motivation for decamping. They feel that, “life in a land without water [that is,
the desert] is easier than life in a land where the water’s contaminated” (Seven Veils 255).
Isan counters that: “[the desert] always bestows water generously. The desert is never
stingy with its water for the faithful. The proof is that we have never heard of a nomad
dying of thirst unless this thirst was a punishment for an unknown offense or unless a
nomad has stopped migrating.” (Seven Veils 256) Thus the desert is not parsimonious
with life-giving water, provided that the nomad reads its signs and respects its law.
Paradoxically, the oasis of virtue is formed around the “water” of the law of the desert.
Furthermore, the novel proposes that the notion that water creates an oasis is
illusory. What creates an oasis is not water, but commerce. Commerce is a “stanza” in
the “long epic” of the “physical world” which is able to “call forth civilization from
a void” (Seven Veils 150). Trade creates the sedentary life which brings in its wake
physical and moral corruption, decay and, finally, death. Ewar, the oasis chief, is
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literally infected with the disease of smallpox which is a clue to his spiritual illness.
The disease is a product of the oasis. Over the years, nomads have, “avoid[ed] the
manacles of sedentary life within the walls of oases […] [for] fear of infection associated
with house walls, foul air and virulent diseases” (Seven Veils 174). Isan brings his
antagonist back to life from a slow, painful and repulsive death using a desert remedy
which, like fire, burns the infection out of him. Furthermore, the walls which
conventionally are considered to protect the oasis or city, in Al-Koni’s novel are exposed
as the symbolic site of the fatalistic decay and destruction of the city. In their ignorance,
the oasis dwellers think that the raised earth on the outskirts of the oasis is their
“wall”. When Isan takes as his home a tomb, the “city wall” is revealed to be the
centuries’ long accretion of charnel house upon charnel house and lost city upon lost
city. The Seven Veils of Seth creates a sharp distinction between the virtues of the
metaphorical desert and the vices of the metaphorical oasis.
In Al-Koni’s worldview, contrary to recent conceptualisations which tend to
polarise animism and the Abrahamic faiths, the monotheisms productively realign
but essentially perpetuate the fundamental relationship with self, other and world
created by animism. The complex interrelationship between good and evil, represented
by Seth, out of whom the spiritual oasis is created, is foreshadowed in the epigraphs
taken from the writings of the North African theologian, St Augustine, and the Italian
Dominican priest, Thomas Aquinas. The quotations from Augustine’s Enchiridion and
Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, attest the subtle but also clear interplay of the ideas of
good and evil in the early Christian tradition. The epigraph from Augustine’s City of
God identifies the city of Seth, thus the metaphorical desert, as the “city” which brings
the lineaments of the heavenly city down to earth and the city of Cain, the oasis of
luxury and corruption, as the city which consumes itself in its own materialism. The
novel itself overlays and intertwines Islamic symbolism and mythology so
comprehensively with Tuareg symbolism and mythology that to tease them apart is
an exercise in futility.
The Seven Veils of Seth in some ways imitates the quality of sacred scripture which
allows literal, allegorical and anagogical interpretations. It is at one and the same time
at its different hermeneutic levels the story of the stranger, Isan, who comes to a city
and causes havoc among its inhabitants. It is also an exploration of the Ancient Egyptian
and Tuareg myths of the desert god, Seth; and at the final level it is a metaphysical
intimation of ultimate human destiny. At all these levels, the desert is the interpretive
key.
Desert lore in Anubis
Anubis may be considered a companion novel to The Seven Veils of Seth. Anubis is the
ancient Egyptian, jackal-headed funerary god (Sykes 13), who gets inherited in the
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Tuareg pantheon. William Hutchins, who is the translator of this novel also, suggests
in the introduction that “In Tuareg lore, Anubi is the archetype for sons of unknown
fathers. Anubi’s search for his father is legendary among the Tuareg, as is his marriage
to Tin Hinan, the founding matriarch of the Tuareg people” (Hutchins citing J.
Nicolaisen and I. Nicolaisen vii). In some ways the novel as a whole may be considered
a Tuareg epic myth since it accounts for the origins of the Tuareg as a tribe in the lost
oasis of Targa, from which the Tuareg also derive their name, and for the origin of
many distinctive Tuareg customs. The final section of the novel consists of a series of
aphorisms attributed to Anubis, which in some ways represents the philosophical
outlook upon which the lost Tuareg Law may be based. In the latter half of the novel,
the oasis of Targa is shown to develop around the temple Anubis constructs for himself
around the water source which attracts commerce in the form of passing caravans. In
this respect, Anubis is an epic hero, much like Odysseus or Aeneas, whose actions
and endeavours lead to the foundation of the Tuareg as a “race”. The caravans exchange
goods, in particular, the “vile” (Anubis 100) gold dust for water. Gold, as a commodity,
in this novel, as in all the others, is also the ominous portent of the destruction of the
oasis owing to greed and corruption.
Anubi’s search for the father is represented in the novel at many different levels. It
represents the search for the biological father, the search for self-realisation and the
search for God. In respect of the search at all these different levels, the desert is vital.
The protagonist of the novel, given the name “Wa” by his mother, but who remains
for most of the novel a nameless hero, like Anubi, whom he seems simultaneously to
embody, is obsessed with the search for his father or “Ba” as his mother refers to the
“ghostly apparition” of the protagonist’s infancy (Anubis 13). The protagonist is drawn
in his childhood anxieties regarding paternity to the solitude of the desert. Despite
the warnings of his mother couched in a metaphysically coded message and the more
explicit caution of an elderly shepherd, both of whom articulate the inherited wisdom
of tribal law, Anubi sets off on a journey into the desert to find his father. This journey
is one of three desert quests on which the protagonist sets off, the next two of which
are undertaken in response to a traumatic discovery. Anubi is lured into the most arid
desert wastes by a hare which leads him to drink gazelle urine to quell his thirst. As a
consequence, he metamorphoses into a hybrid creature which crosses the species
boundary—he retains his human head, but he now has the body of a gazelle. This is
one of two occasions where he enters a primal mythological time which is also a prelinguistic, pre-rational state where human and animal have not yet become distinctly
different.
He is brought back to the human world by a priest who also burdens him with the
guilty knowledge that his mother committed suicide in horror at his fate, indirectly
making him a matricide. This version of events is challenged by a girl who reveals
that the mother ’s life was the price the priest demanded for the restoration of the
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hero. His mother’s sacrifice and the priest’s deceit spur Anubi on to search for the
villain in the oasis of Targa. He finds the priest and slays him. To his most profound
and devastating confusion, the girl then says to him that he has murdered his father.
Since the priest is the real embodiment of the absent presence of the Father through
the prophetic function required by his religious office, in killing the priest, Anubi
has killed the Father both in a biological and divine sense. Anubi thus is both a
parricide and deicide.
For a second time Anubi flees into the desert which becomes a bounteous garden
where he metamorphoses, this time into a creature with the head of a Barbary ram and
the body of a gazelle. His edenic existence, whose life principles reflect in many ways
the Doctrines of Pythagoras, is destroyed indirectly by Seth, the trickster desert god
who is also the god of storms. When an electric storm kills a ewe whose body is also
roasted by the lightning, his gluttony leads him to feast on her remains. This act of
betrayal of the animal world leads him to regain his human form and simultaneously
lose Eden. At the end of this second life journey, close to death, he is visited by
another emissary who enlightens him thus: “You should not search for anything you
do not find in your heart. You are beauty. You are your father. You are prophecy. You
are the treasure” (Anubis 79). In his semi-conscious state, the last words the emissary is
heard to utter are “I’m you!” (Anubis 81). Reconciled, to his fate, Anubi then founds
the oasis which, somewhat ambivalently, may be the legendary Targa. Anubi marries,
fathers a child and establishes himself as leader of the oasis.
Later betrayed by his wife and by the nobles of Targa, he is exiled to the desert,
forced to live apart from his son. From various sources he hears about the waning
fortunes of Targa, of the political intrigue, corruption and wars which destroy the
oasis. He also hears that his son is his heir in the sense that he too is a seeker after the
father. He is summoned back by the people but prefers the solitude of the desert.
Finally, he is visited by a young man to whom he reveals himself as his father. The
young man, thinking him a duplicitous charlatan, stabs him, just as Anubi stabbed
his father. The father ’s dying act is to trace on a piece of leather the wisdom which
constitutes the aphorisms of Anubis.
The plot outline above indicates some of the deeper philosophical ideas associated
by the novel with the motif of the search for the father. At the end of each of his desert
quests, Anubi in one form or another meets his father. He meets his father in the priest,
the master of prophecy, but his reunion with the father also is the catalyst for the
death of the father. Similarly, when he meets the god-like emissary at the end of his
second desert journey, he locates and again loses the father in the recognition that the
father is within—”I’m you!” At the end of his third desert hermitage, Anubi, who in
this case is the father, is found and then lost by his own son who stabs him. Clearly,
the search for the father is the search for ultimate truth and the search for God, whose
value lies in striving rather than achieving. Anubi’s mystical unions, described above,
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which transform the desert into an oasis exist in the necessary and fateful knowledge
that Eden contains the serpent of its opposite, namely hell. So too, the father can exist
only in his material non-existence. The existence of the father is not subject to empirical
proof, but is the precondition for empiricism. As with The Seven Veils of Seth, this novel
also overlays animism with the symbolism and mythology of the monotheisms in
presenting the worldview to which the desert is central. There are epigraphs from the
books of Genesis and Ecclesiastes, as well as other allusions to Christianity. Allusions
to Islam are mainly related to the similarity between the divine father figure presented
in the novel with Islamic conceptions of God, as embodied especially in the sufi
concept of fanâ, the “I am you motif ” or metaphorical union with or annihilation in
God (McGinn 6334–41) and the significance of the heart as the seat of spiritual
knowledge.
The trend in this novel also, as in The Seven Veils of Seth, is a form of representation
which leads to myth and allegory, rather than realism and the various reactions to
realism in (post)modernism and magic realism. Anubis, as has been stated earlier, may
be read as an epic myth, explaining the origins of the Tuareg world and Tuareg customs.
But Anubis may also be read as a form of scripture whose exegesis reveals literal,
allegorical and anagogical interpretations. The novel is at one and the same time the
account of an ordinary Tuareg man’s hopeless search for his father, the story of the
mythical Anubis’s futile search for his desert god father, Seth, and, finally, the quest of
all human beings for the truth of their existence in a world where they are not the
only forms of life on an earth out of which they are both constituted and to which
they are fated to return. The key to the novel (and to life) again is the Law which
originates in the desert. Like the father who has disappeared, the fact that the body of
the sacred Law of the Tuareg is lost in both oral and textual traditions, does not mean
that the Law does not continue to be normatively applied and embodied in the
practice of Tuareg lifeways. The fact that custom or the Law cannot be known and
applied with the monologic rigor of a strict procedural rationalism, does not mean
that it does not inspire and direct Tuareg self-formation.
Carnivory and consumption in The Bleeding of the Stone
In the next novel to be analysed, namely, The Bleeding of the Stone, the Laws are broken
with devastating effect. The tensions between sedentarism and the nomadism of the
desert are explored through the myth of Cain and Abel, which forms part of the
imaginative history of all three of the Abrahamic faiths. Cain and Abel, the offspring
of the former denizens of the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, are the monotheistic
counterparts of the ancient Egyptian and Tuareg Osiris and Seth, with a significant
difference. In this story, Cain, the brother who tills the soil, kills Abel, the shepherd.
Villain and victim are far more clearly delineated in this myth as opposed to the
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animist myth where it is the god of the desert, Seth, who murders Osiris, the god of
fertility and the soil. Seth, as we have seen, is a far more ambiguous figure than his
monotheistic counterpart, the nomadic pastoralist, Abel. Cain, the cultivator, is exiled
by God to the wilderness to become himself an unhappy wanderer: “When thou
tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and
a vagabond shall thou be in the earth.” (Genesis 4:8–12) This quotation forms part of
a larger extract which is one of the epigraphs which introduce The Bleeding of the
Stone.
Abel and Cain are represented in the novel by the two characters Asouf and Cain
Adam, who in this case are not brothers. Asouf is the shepherd who is identified with
the desert which in this story is differentiated into sandy desert and mountain desert.
In the novel, Asouf ’s father relates to him the myth of origin in which the incessant
enmity and war between the sandy desert and mountain desert led the gods to descend
from on high to freeze the opponents in their tracks. Somehow the spirit of the sandy
desert entered the gazelle, which henceforth was identified with this terrain, and the
spirit of the mountain desert entered the Barbary ram, variously referred to as the
moufflon or waddan; and the disturbances to the gods continued unabated in the
clashes of the two species of animals. The gods then decided to punish the enemies by
creating “a devil called man” (Bleeding 11), who as enemy of both the gazelle and the
waddan ensured the peace of the gods. Both these animals are highly symbolic in AlKoni’s vision and never more so than in The Bleeding of the Stone.
The epigraph to Chapter 6 of the novel is taken from Herodotus’s Histories in
which an account is given of a southern Libyan tribe whose territory is “rich with
beasts”, who use no weapons and who “have no knowledge of how to defend
themselves.” They are also “a people who shun others, fearing to speak with them”
(Bleeding 27). Asouf and his father appear to be descendants of this tribe. The father
avoids the social intercourse of the towns, believing people to be the source of evil
and hangs onto the solitude and the serenity of soul offered by the sandy and mountain
deserts. The father and later the son draw consolation from the poem of the sufi
shaykhs extolling the virtues of wilderness retreat: “The desert is a true treasure / for
him who seeks refuge / from men and the evil of men. / In it is contentment, / in it is
death and all you seek.” (Bleeding 18) In the son, Asouf, the fear of the threat of human
civilisation is so pronounced that he is unable even to barter with a trade caravan
when sent by his mother. Instead, he ties a little bag of barley and a little bag of wheat
around the necks of two goats which he tethers in the path of the caravan. The
members of the caravan clearly are amused by the fearful young man hiding behind
the rocks, but leave sacks of grain in lieu of the goats nevertheless.
Both the father and the son in The Bleeding of the Stone have sacred relationships
with the animals of the deserts. In this novel, the closeness between humans and
animals is revealed. But more significantly in this context, the ways are traced whereby
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animals seem to lead human beings to return to the desert ethic. In The Bleeding of the
Stone the links are clear. The souls of the father and the son appear finally to be
incarnated in the highly symbolic figure of the waddan which itself embodies the
spirit of the desert. It is the image of the waddan also which is inscribed in the prehistoric
rock paintings which are the focal point of Asouf ’s existence. Asouf ’s father once
hunted a waddan with which he finally had to enter into a kind of hand-to-hand
combat. Aware that he stood no chance against the fury of the waddan, concentrated in
the butting of its horns, the father resorts to the use of his rifle. The waddan, possessed
of a preternatural intelligence, prefers suicide to the injustice of unequal competition.
The creature flees to a rocky hilltop from which it plunges to its death. As if in an act
of divine retribution, Asouf ’s father shortly thereafter is pursued to his death off a
mountaintop by the possessed waddan. Despite the warning contained in the
circumstances of his father’s death, Asouf, in a moment of recklessness, attempts to
lasso a waddan. He is dragged by the animal until he plummets off the side of a
mountain, fortunately still tied to the rope he had used. After a trial by hanging, as it
were, which could also be interpreted as a mystical journey of self-realisation which
follows the stations of spiritual development as charted in sufi practice, Asouf finally
is saved by being hoisted to safety by the same waddan he had tried to kill. In the
waddan, Asouf sees the spirit of his biological father, and the Father in the sense of
God. After this incident, Asouf is nauseated and repulsed by meat. He becomes a
vegetarian, which, in the context of his desert existence, presents a number of problems,
as will be identified later.
The first epigraph to the novel is a quotation from the Qur ’an: “There are no
animals on land or birds flying on their wings, but are communities like your own.”
(6: 38) The fundamental similarity between humans and animals is that they are all
God’s creations and that they are all social beings who, as the sacred scripture indicates
elsewhere, all worship God. This creates a divine order in which humans and animals
have their place. The only thing which distinguishes human beings in this conception
is a limited free will which gives humans certain rights over but also certain obligations
in respect of animals within the framework of a revealed law. The divine order is an
order which human beings betray at their peril.
Asouf ’s intimate knowledge of the land and of the prehistoric rock art makes him
a highly suitable guardian of the desert and its treasures. A representative of the
Archeological Department of the Italian colonial government of the 1930s appoints
Asouf as a tour guide:
“From now on,” the department official told him, “you’re the guardian of the Wadi
Matkhandoush. You’ll be our eyes here. A lot of people will come from all races and
religions, to look at these ancient things. You must watch them. Don’t let them steal
the stones. See they don’t spoil the rocks. These rocks are a great treasure and
these paintings are our country’s pride. Keep your eyes open. People are greedy,
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ready to grab anything. If they can, they’ll steal our rocks to sell them in their own
country, for thousands or millions even. Keep your eyes peeled! You’re the guardian.”
(Bleeding 8)
The novel presciently foreshadows the dynamic which would be expanded and
institutionalised generally in the Saharan region by postcolonial national governments. Keenan, in the Lesser Gods of the Sahara, tracks the development of the tourism
industry in the Tuareg territories from the mid-20th century to the first decade of the
21st century. The pressures and gradual collapse of nomadic pastoralism through the
mapping of national boundaries, enforced schooling of nomadic children and other
policies of postcolonial governments has led to the breakdown of the Tuareg way of
life. Paradoxically, the very forces which have destroyed nomadic pastoralism,
presently extend its only lifeline. Many Tuareg have entered the cash economy through
being appointed guardians of national parks, and act as tour guides for 4x4 desert
treks. Keenan captures the Tuareg awareness of their dagger tip political powerlessness
and power in the saying among the people that “without tourism there is no
nomadism; and without nomadism there is no tourism” (Keenan 230). Keenan also
outlines what has been termed tourisme sauvage where European, mainly German
tourists, enter the desert regions entirely independently with no benefit whatsoever
to the desert dwellers. Mass destruction of prehistoric sites and looting has been
associated with this form of tourism (Keenan 242).
Asouf in the novel resists entrapment in the money economy since he rejects the
10 pound salary offered him by the official. He does, however, accept the tinned food
which is given to him. An irony which the novel does not explore is the fact that
Asouf’s vegetarianism in the context of a desert habitat means that increasingly Asouf
has to rely on the products of “oasis” cultivation and commerce, in the form of tinned
foods, and the products of cultivation in the sacks of barley and wheat traded by the
caravans from Kano in present day northern Nigeria.
Asouf ’s “brother” and alter ego, Cain Adam, arrives ominously at twilight, a time
at which the menace of the jinn is at its most threatening. But, while the veil, amulets
of the soothsayers of Kano, the verses of the Qur’an and the incantations of sages may
offer some protection from the jinn, they appear to be no defence to the danger Cain
Adam represents. Cain was thought to be cursed since both his parents die at around
the time of his birth, as do his uncle and aunt, who act as his guardians, later in life.
Cain is adopted by a caravan leader who has no inkling of the disaster he will bring
upon himself. He loses his caravan to robbers and suspects the malediction brought
by the child when he finds the boy “eating raw meat from a plate, the blood dripping
from his teeth” (Bleeding 82). A Hausa soothsayer reveals to him that: “The one weaned
on gazelle blood will never know the straight path until, as a man, he has his fill of the
flesh of Adam.” (Bleeding 82) Cain’s carnivory (and what it represents) results in the
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destruction of all of the gazelle herds of the sandy deserts. The Barbary ram, extinct in
Europe in the 17th century, is also faced with destruction.
Cain lights upon Asouf to track for him the last of the waddan since, having once
tasted its flesh, he becomes addicted to its meat. Cain’s hunting of these animals
which embody the spirits of the two deserts is quantitatively and qualitatively different
from earlier forms of hunting. The effect of the symbols of modernity in the novel,
namely the automobile, but also the rapid firing gun and the helicopter, are what
allow the destruction of desert life embodied in these two desert creatures. Van
Leeuwen, cited above, expresses eloquently and succinctly the threat posed by these
forces:
It is the car which enables Kâyn to overthrow the age-old pact between man and
nature, a pact inscribed in the space of the desert and in the souls of the animals and
nomads, and to eradicate the bonds which have preserved the balance of survival.
All previous breaches of these pacts have been punished by death, but Kâyn is able
to execute his fateful schemes without being harmed. The car is a monstrosity,
which violates the integrity and serenity of the desert, which symbolizes man’s
treachery to nature and the neglect of the natural laws for a dignified struggle to
survive. (Van Leeuwen 64)
Cain thus symbolises the limitless consumption associated with modern forms of life
in which land and animals are conceptualised as infinite resources whose exploitation
finally is curtailed only rationally under threat of depletion, but cannot be bounded
or controlled by a mythical and traditional order. Cain represents the unlimited
consumption of the “affluent society” so memorably described by John Kenneth
Galbraith, which in its arrogant sense of mastery of the world and its creatures, has
bumped up against the limits of the world as resource. When Asouf refuses to betray
the waddan, Cain tortures and kills Asouf, in a manner which recollects the crucifixion.
Although Cain’s cannibalism is not portrayed, it is implied at the end of the novel.
The drama of the two “brothers” is set against the backdrop of the Italian invasion
of coastal Libya in the 1930s. The period of the Italian invasion also ushers in
unprecedented flooding and drought. A flash flood takes the desert dwellers by
surprise and also takes the life of Asouf ’s mother, whose body is quite literally torn
apart and washed up on the desert plains. The nature of the mother ’s death, in
particular, symbolises the tearing apart of the Tuareg ways of life given that the Tuareg
trace descent matrilineally. Her memorial stones are like signposts, “condemning the
unknown transgressor ” (Bleeding 68). Without his mother, Asouf lives the life of a
hermit for some time at ease since water turns the desert into an oasis for a short while.
Thereafter a drought sets in, which is unlike other droughts in living memory.
“Drought” in desert parlance refers to seasonal water shortages in response to which
the Bedouin move to other water sources. The drought after the flood which kills
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Asouf ’s mother lasts 3 years and results in the death of all his goats. With nothing to
barter with the passing caravans, Asouf is forced to abandon the desert for the oasis
where he is seized and incarcerated by the Italian army, along with other Bedouin in
a similar position, to be trained for the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. In an ambiguously
narrated episode which leaves the details of events cloudy, Asouf appears to transform
into a waddan to escape Italian captivity. Again, Al-Koni’s novel foreshadows the way
in which changing weather patterns in the mid-20th century have led to the collapse
of modes of existence which have survived millennia. The 20th century has seen the
increased sedentarisation of the Algerian Tuareg in response to, among other causes,
increased periods of drought. The apocalyptic vision which has shaped the discourse
of environmentalists is echoed by the desert dwellers in the novel. Around their cups
of green tea they surmise that “Surely the end of time has come” and the narrator
reinforces the accuracy of this idea with the observation that, “[n]o one sees into
things as desert people do” since desert dwellers more than any other people need to
read the signs in their world in order to survive (Bleeding 91).
In this novel also animism, Islam and Christianity again are layered and interwoven.
Asouf in one of his five daily prayers inadvertently orients himself in the direction of
the great stone with its paintings of the priest and the waddan rather than in the
direction of the Kaaba, as Muslims are required to do. The epigraphs are drawn from
both Islamic and Christian scriptural sources. Asouf notices in his role as guardian of
the rock art that Christians also “prostrate” themselves like Muslims in holy awe at
the paintings as the desert dwellers do. The break in the order of things, signalled by
transformations in the world view of human beings and cataclysmic changes to climate
patterns which have endured for countless generations, seems to come with Cain
Adam and what he represents. The novel acknowledges prehistoric environmental
shifts in the course of which the Sahara may once have been more fertile. But while
these climate changes were caused by supra-human alterations in cosmic patterns,
the climate shifts of the 20th century are suggested to be the consequence of human
intervention.
Sacred environmentalism
Al-Koni’s “environmentalism” thus is an appreciation of animals and the natural
world which expresses itself through the desert as symbol, drawing on all the sacred
traditions which have shaped the interlinked North African, Mediterranean and
Saharan regions. Al-Koni’s fiction confirms in narrative form the insights of scholars
of these traditions. Seyyid Hossein Nasr in Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of
Modern Man (1997), highlights the fundamentally similar approaches of ancient Greek
cosmologies, early and non-Occidental Christianity and Islam to the inherent
sacredness of nature and the inter-connectedness of human beings, the non-human
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world and the divine. Exploring Christianity in more detail, Susan P. Bratton shows
through an analysis of particular Biblical narratives, among them the stories of the
Garden of Eden, the Egyptian exodus and Jonah and the whale, the theocentric
linking and significance of wilderness and animals to the development of a Christian
ethic. Ernst Conradie, by contrast, surveys typologies of approaches to nature-human
relationships in contemporary Western Christianity. Conradie identifies an
environmental ethic in core Christian ideas like “the classic Christian virtue of
voluntary poverty that finds joy in the simple life” (33), stewardship (81) and
sacramentalism which highlights “communion within the earth community” (95).
The retrieval of these ideas he proposes will absolve the “burden of guilt” created by
the ways in which the “dominion of nature” interpretation of scripture has reinforced
Enlightenment utilitarianism. The connection between Latin Christendom and
Enlightenment disenchantment of nature is a point made by Nasr above also. Although
no scholarship exists which considers the specific place of nature in Tuareg animism,
one may extrapolate from the insights of Al-Koni’s novels and studies of animism
more generally. Tuareg animism is closer to ancient North Egyptian animism than
Sub-Saharan African animisms where spirit quite literally resides in the non-human
form of existence—the river or rock or mountain. In Tuareg animism, like ancient
Egyptian animism, deities are strongly linked with elements of nature, for example,
Seth’s link with the desert in the analysis of Al-Koni’s novels above, but are not
embodied in the elements of nature.
The overview of Al-Koni’s novels translated into English reveal some of the
significances of the desert in Al-Koni’s worldview and the deeper philosophical
substratum suggested by the ways desert symbolism operates. As in the Christian,
Muslim and animist cultural and religious traditions upon which Al-Koni draws, the
desert is shown to be a highly ambivalent locale which paradoxically collapses the
oppositions which constitute human beings as parasites in a disenchanted world.
The desert is destructive in its dangers, its harshness and the rigours it imposes upon
the body, but it is also creative in the productive liberation of the soul it seems to
engender. The desert in this regard may be contrasted with the oasis, which cossets
the body but corrupts the soul. In Al-Koni’s terms, the desert is the “motherland” of
“mystery”, but the desert sun is also the fatherland of the most lucid vision of truth.
The nomad is the being who incessantly searches for the lost father or the truth of
existence in the desert. The novels reveal that to find truth in oneself, or more correctly,
the self, is to kill the father. Simultaneously, it is only in literal death that the seeker
may find the father, the one exception being in the union represented by the epiphany
or fanâ’ of the mystics. This is the life-giving truth which the desert offers. The desert
thus is the space of both life and death. The desert is both wilderness to which a
number of characters are exiled, but it is a wilderness which reveals itself as a homeland
when the character accurately reads its signs and finds his place in the desert order. At
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this point, the human melds with the non-human and the desert becomes the oasis or
paradise. But, in every case, the paradise is lost and may be glimpsed only through
the code represented by the Law of the desert. Paradoxically, the solitude of the desert,
anti-society, opens up alternative relations across species and across zones of reality.
The desert thus represents a curious pastoral which promises not a life of ease and
plenty, a lifestyle of abundance, a society of affluence, but the rather more challenging
pastoral of a life lived by the precepts of the moral Law of the desert which is both lost,
but also intimately known in the social codes within which one is formed.
Violating the Law of the desert which prescribes the terms of ethical relationships
thus opened up between the human and non-human world produces not desert, but
desertification. In terms of the processes which subject the world to desertification,
the human being is first lord and then parasite. As lord, the human being constructs
a law of his/her own; as parasite, the human being is subject to no law. The antihumanist trend in much recent ecocritical writing is subsumed in Al-Koni’s vision of
a sacred order in which human beings have a place if they live by desert Law.
Al-Koni’s vision strains at the form of the novel, a tension which becomes more
evident in English translation, given the networks of circulation into which the texts
enter. A number of the English titles are given the subtitle, “a novel”, as if to persuade
the reader against her/his literary instinct. The generic affiliation of all of the
translations except The Bleeding of the Stone is indicated in the form of a subtitle: Gold
Dust: An Arabia Books Novel from Libya, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel
from Libya, The Puppet: A Novel, Anubis: A Desert Novel. In the original Arabic titles, no
such anxiety seems to be displayed. The novel, as the form born with modernity and
simultaneous with modernity’s liberation from traditional and transcendental orders
locates its “oasis”, if you will, in the apparent openness of irony and metatextuality.
Glimpses of the “oasis” in Al-Koni’s narratives derive not so much from irony and the
formal freedom of metatextuality as they do from the fluid layering of allegorical
modes which allow epiphanic moments to pierce through the narrative levels. The
trend towards allegory in Al-Koni’s work where surface narratives illuminate deeper
understandings is an effect specifically of the desert ethic which locates the vanishing
oasis in the idea of a sacred order. As such, Al-Koni’s intervention is a salutary African
voice in the global environmental conversation about a threat which may not have
been globally caused, but is global in its consequences.
1.
Note
The 2015 Man Booker International Prize finally went to the Hungarian writer, László Kraznahorkai.
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_____. The Bleeding of the Stone. Trans. May Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley. New York: Interlink, 2002.
_____. Gold Dust. Trans. Elliot Colla. London: Arabia Books, 2008.
_____. New Waw: Saharan Oasis. Trans. William M. Hutchins. Austin, TX: Centre for Middle Eastern
Studies, U of Texas, 2014.
_____. The Puppet: A Novel. Trans. William M. Hutchins. Austin, TX: Centre for Middle Eastern Studies
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_____. The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya. Trans. William M. Hutchins. Reading,
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_____. A Sleepless Eye: Aphorisms from the Sahara. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2014.
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Isidore Diala
Taurus
Isidore Diala is Professor of African
literature in the Department of
English and Literary Studies at Imo
State University, Owerri, Nigeria.
Email: isidorediala@yahoo.com
Tribute
André Brink: In defiance
of boundaries
With the death of the South African novelist, playwright,
literary critic, translator and scholar, André Brink, on 6
February 2015, just seven months after Nadine Gordimer’s
on 13 July 2014, a crucial epoch of South African literature
and history inexorably moves to a close. Like Gordimer,
Brink had been among the few particularly distinguished
white South African writers whose denunciation of white
privilege and enunciation of enlightened humane values
potentially applicable to all humankind did not only
become the presiding concern of their art but was also expressed in their “heretical”
association with the ANC (that is, rather than the National Party or better still the
Broederbond). Brink apparently suffered an aneurism over Brazzaville on a KLM
flight from Europe to South Africa. Perhaps, there could not have been a more emblematic way to die for a writer who envisaged all his life as a symbolic crossing of
frontiers and saw the negotiation of the cultural and intellectual distance between
Europe and Africa as the core of his life-long endeavour.
Born on 29 May 1935 in Vrede, South Africa, Brink attended Potchefstroom
University where he earned an MA in Afrikaans in 1958 and another MA in English in
1959. He was at the Sorbonne, University of Paris, between 1959 and 1961 for a postgraduate research in comparative literature. Brink’s emergence as a writer was as a
prominent member of the Sestigers—writers of the 60s—and his earliest writing was
in Afrikaans until his 1973 novel Kennis van die aand earned the reputation of being the
first Afrikaans work to be banned by the apartheid establishment. That experience
had a twofold momentous impact on his career: the strengthening of the compact
between art and politics in his work, and his tradition of self-translation into English
which had the ultimate impact of enhancing his commitment to his international
audience.
Brink’s work is monumental: well over twenty-five novels, more than twelve
plays, and volumes of critical and scholarly material, in addition to numerous
translations. And the many literary prizes that he won or was nominated for testify to
the high regard in which his work is held. However, his reputation is especially
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peerless as an internationally renowned commentator on the aberrations and
enormities of the apartheid state. Brink easily recognised that political ideologies
typically assume religious appurtenances to insulate themselves against interrogation,
and play out at the deepest threshold of human consciousness and imagination
through myth-making. His signal insight was his recognition of apartheid’s
desperation to create a doctrinal self-validating image for itself by appropriating realms
of human value other than the overtly political, especially religion. Like
historiography and cartography, theology became a species of polemic myth-making
and the Bible was reduced to a white mythology that justified a racist ideology.
Where, however, it was Brink’s cardinal goal to have political relevance in South
Africa’s state of moral siege, he was equally passionate to remain central in the larger
human context. His fiction reveals an obsession with abiding experiences that are
typically human: the tragic miscarriage of energy and ambition, and existential human
isolation and insecurity. In the face of the sober realities of the human estate like
aloneness, defeat, and death, the discriminations of race are revealed to be hollow as
all humans, in their full variegated complexions, men and women, are shown to be
kindred sufferers. Brink’s forte was his unusual power to transform political facts
into enduring insights into the human condition. However, that fixation with
‘universalist humanist’ denominators often seemed to interrogate his politics in
apartheid South Africa. For example, his treatment of institutionalised racial
discrimination by the apartheid establishment as a metaphor of humans’ existential
loneliness or even mythical primordial human orphaning, and his theologising of
torture as redemptive purgatorial fire virtually endowed an obnoxious regime with
mystical divine grace and thus complicated the categories and procedures of the
activist. For while Brink’s political position in his nonfictional writing and interviews
was characteristically impeccable, his fiction is always invariably replete with
paradoxes.
Brink’s poetics did not only separate politics from literature but actually privileged
the latter: “My stated conviction is that literature should never descend to the level of
politics; it is rather a matter of elevating and refining politics so as to be worthy of
literature.” He abjured self-incarceration in any particular school of thought, even if
he demonstrated an obvious admiration for the French existentialist novelists, Spanish
writers of the seventeenth century, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. His aim was always to
get an imaginative grasp of history with all its enduring mythic substance; and at
different periods in his career, realism, postmodernism, magical realism, and mythmaking were among the modes through which he sought to mediate the historical.
Equally, renouncing orthodox religious faith, Brink exulted in the freedom to
interrogate the apparently sacred and the dogmatic as well as the time-honoured
conventional reflexes of the human herd in order to make new discoveries,
unencumbered by sterile traditional obligations.
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Brink’s presiding image of the mortal condition is Shakespeare’s “forked animal”,
Poor Tom O’Bedlam in King Lear, tattered, traumatised, beleaguered not only by the
hostility of the elements but especially by his kinsman’s lust for the power and the
glory, yet embodying redemptive human compassion. Brink’s fixation with that image
is evident enough in his recurring citations and allusions to it. But he also replicates
and appropriates it in endless variations in his fiction. In Brink’s interpretation of the
image in political terms as the Fanonian wretched of the earth, it is often conflated
with the image of Sisyphus, irrepressibly rebellious in his servitude; in literary terms,
it is cast in the figure of the doomed but defiant tragic protagonist; its theological and
philosophical countenance is the threadbare ascetic, contemptuous of fleshly tinsel,
labouring at his/her Stations of the Cross in his/her will to martyrdom; in myth, it is
emblematised as the archetypal wayfarer, shedding not clothes alone but also human
flesh, a bone-creature, trudging through the valley of the shadow of death (memorably
portrayed in the image of Elisabeth at the end of her pilgrimage across the Karoo in
An Instant in the Wind). In probably his most fascinating incarnation as the weird
Xhosa bogeyman in Rumours of Rain who dares Martin Mynhardt to murder his
father in order to have the Momlambo, ragged Tom is transformed into a hybrid figure,
exemplifying cultures in a dialogue. Transcultural and timeless, rooted as much in
the present as in history and in myth and, moreover, dyed in the hue of the ash and
breath of human life itself, his fate continues to haunt human imagination and
awareness as will indeed Brink’s work.
We mourn André Phillipus Brink (1935–2015)—but with exultation.
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Henning Pieterse
SAUK
Henning Pieterse is Professor in
Creative Writing, Department of
Afrikaans, University of Pretoria.
Email: henning.pieterse@up.ac.za
Tribute
Birthing me: André P. Brink
(1935–2015)
All human beings are born; that is a biological given. Some
have the great fortune to be reborn on various other levels
during their lifetime—philosophical, religious, political,
creative and many other levels of consciousness. If you
believe in reincarnation, there are, of course, many births
and rebirths—as one wag said: I didn’t believe in reincarnation the last time around either.
“I was born on a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens in
Paris, in the early spring of 1960.”
We all know these now iconic words regarding the political and social rebirth of
André P. Brink, fuelled by Camus and the classic French—often very romantic—
tradition of investigating social injustices in a certain revolutionary fashion. Following
his death tributes have poured in to honour Brink, rightly showcasing his extraordinary talents: as writer, master storyteller, teacher, critic, erudite scholar, intellectual giant, authority on world literatures, connoisseur, fine reader of poetry, life artist
and fearless opponent of apartheid and censorship.
What follows, is a brief personal account of how he touched and shaped my life
and thinking in a very specific way.
At the age of 22 I was a perfect product of white apartheid schooling and militarised
thinking. The school system from which I came had not taught me to think critically,
to question authority or the social order, au contraire. Two years in the army—into
which I entered unquestioningly and unthinkingly—merely reinforced uncritical,
herd thinking.
My first political rebirth happened on a bench in a lecture hall of the Humanities
Building during my Honours year at the University of Pretoria in 1983. The father to
this birth was André P. Brink; the symbolic nurturing mother was my mentor and
dear friend Professor Piet Roodt; the seed: Kennis van die aand (Looking on Darkness,
which had just been unbanned), Gerugte van reën (Rumours of Rain) and ’n Droë wit
seisoen (A Dry White Season). I remember asking Prof Roodt, in a dumbstruck manner,
if the scenarios sketched by Brink in these books—abduction, torture and murder of
political opponents by the Security Police (especially the so-called Special Branch)—
200
were really true. He patiently explained that, under the legislation of the time, the
Special Branch could really break your house down to the very last brick if they
suspected you of any “subversive activities”. And this was a few years before the
various states of emergency. Of course, all of these descriptions—and many more—
were borne out by testimonies before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and
confessions by operatives, among them the Vlakplaas operators.
Impassioned and angered by these books, I wrote my first essay of literary criticism,
“Braam Fischer en Bernard Franken: die figuur en die dokument” (“Braam Fischer
and Bernard Franken: the figure and the document”)—a comparison between the
fictional character of Bernard Franken in Gerugte van reën and the real-life figure of
Bram Fischer and his last speech from the dock. Advocate Johan Kruger SC (now
Chairman of the Council of Northwest University) took me under his wing and into
the archives of the Supreme Court underneath Church Square, where he asked one of
the clerks lazing about for the relevant Fischer documents. The clerk came back after
a short “search” and declared that the file was “missing”. I won’t repeat Advocate
Kruger’s response to the clerk verbatim, but the documentation—banned at the time,
of course—was delivered to us within seconds.
The year after that, I embarked upon my MA degree, “Die betekenis en funksie van
die verwysings in Die ambassadeur van André P. Brink, met toespitsing op die Divina
Commedia van Dante Alighieri” (“The meaning and function of the allusions in The
Ambassador by André P. Brink, with special reference to the Divina Commedia by
Dante Alighieri”). I read Die ambassadeur again a few years ago—the text still retains
the freshness of more than fifty years ago when Brink wrote it at the age of 28.
We all know the histories of texts like States of Emergency. We all know or have
heard stories of how the Security Police hounded and harassed Brink and his family
over many years.
The 1980s rolled by in flames, Brink is vilified by his “own” people and the Afrikaans
press, states of emergency are declared and, eventually, a new socio-political dispensation is born: 1994. Visionary writer and person that he was, Brink did not let
himself be deluded by the new breed of politicians, albeit at quite a late stage in his
life. He knew that the old dictum still holds true: Two wrongs do not make a right.
Brink did have more of a romantic notion of the liberation movement than Breyten
Breytenbach. This, I believe, can be explained by the fact that Breyten had looked
directly into the heart of the whore earlier than Brink. Which explains the first sentence
of a lecture entitled “Die hond se been” (“The dog’s bone”) that Breyten delivered at
the University of South Africa in 1990, and I quote: “Enigiets wat die Nasionale Party
van kon droom om te doen, kan en gaan die ANC tien keer erger doen” (“Anything
that the National Party could dream of doing, the ANC can and will do ten times
worse”.) Why? Breyten had looked into the essence of power and the fact that power
always corrupts.
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Brink touched upon this truth in ’n Droë wit seisoen (the protagonist, Ben du Toit,
is in conversation with Professor Bruwer):
“Nou wat verwag jy dan anders?”[…] “Verstaan jy nie, Ben?—’n gesprek, ’n dialoog
is die een ding wat hulle nie mag toelaat nie. Want as hulle jou toelaat om vrae te
stel, dan erken hulle die bestaansreg van twyfel; en daardie blote moontlikheid
moet hulle uitsluit.”
“Dit hoef tog nie noodwendig so te wees nie!”
“Wat kan hulle anders doen, as jy dit eerlik bekyk? Kwessie van mag. Kale mag,
niks anders nie. Dis wat hulle daar gebring het; dis wat hulle daar hou. En mag is ’n
ding wat sy eie houvas op jou kry.” […] “As mens eers jou bankrekening in
Switserland het, en jou grondjie in Paraguay, en jou villa’tjie [sic] in Frankryk, en
jou sakekontakte in Hamburg of Bonn, en met ’n handomdraai kan besluit of
ander mense mag lewe of sterwe—dan moet jy ’n baie, baie aktiewe gewete hê as
jy teen jou eie mag ’n koevoet wil inslaan. En ’n gewete is ’n ding wat nie sommer
son of ryp verdra nie, hy ’t sorg nodig.” (203)1
The parallels with certain Southern African leaders are obvious. The current
corruption by and of power hit Brink hard by way of reports on endemic corruption
and simple statistics like more deaths in police custody in one post-1994 year than
during any single year of apartheid (Bruce). His cynicism was further strengthened
by the hijacking of his daughter and the murder of his nephew in Pretoria. During
one of his last interviews in Beeld, he referred to these murderers as barbare (“savages”)—
a term rarely found in the Brink lexicon. When asked who he does not like, he very
simply replied: “Jacob Zuma”.
Was he disillusioned? To a certain extent, I believe, yes. He was witnessing how a
democracy is sliding into a kleptocracy, how the stereotypical African “Big Man
Syndrome” was and is being played out again, how a previous gang of criminals are
being replaced by, as someone said, the current crop of criminals nominally governing
this country (see de Kock).
Ultimately, Brink always had a prophetic vision of and on the tension between
state and author/artist, between raw power and those that defied it creatively by
word and/or deed. He had to witness as, just as the apartheid state lumped its opponents
together under the blanket term kommuniste, the new regime does exactly the same:
critics and dissidents are simply labelled “counter-revolutionary”, or the race card is
played.
The warning that Brink signals at the end of ’n Droë wit seisoen still holds true. This
is a warning that expands into the realisation that political freedoms and an end to
censorship can never be taken for granted, but have to be constantly protected and
struggled for. The new government has already shown its teeth against freedom of
speech and especially media freedom—see the Protection of Information Bill (cheered
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on by buffoons in the National Assembly, not realising that they are signing away the
very hard-won freedoms and civil liberties that they and others had struggled for);
the on-going onslaught against the free media—see the blocking of telephone signals
on 12 February 2015 in the circus called the National Assembly—an onslaught against
which Brink vociferously protested and demonstrated.
One is reminded of the Dutch poet Lucebert’s words: “Voor je het weet, is het
weer zover, draagt de een een zweep, de ander een jodenster” (“Before you know it,
it is that far again; the one carries a whip, the other a Jewish star”).
But here is the news: just as the apartheid state failed to silence so-called dissident
writers like Brink, the current state will also fail to silence critical writers of any race,
colour or creed. For being consistent in his view on state oppression and continuing
onslaughts against human rights and civil liberties, I salute and respect Brink, as well
as for the various facets of his being that I mentioned at the outset. And, of course,
despite his human flaws (human, all too human, as Nietzsche said), for being the
eternal gentleman, always ready to answer queries of the common person.
I thank André Brink—as many other readers and writers have and will continue
to do—for birthing me and others into power-political consciousness and I end by
quoting the last few paragraphs of ‘n Droë wit seisoen (261), words that chillingly echo
the Nuremberg trials:
Is dit dan uit perverse moedswilligheid dat ek dit alles nogtans hier opgeteken het?
Of uit sentimentele lojaliteit teenoor ‘n vriend van wie ek oor die jare vervreem
geraak het? Of dalk selfs om iets van ‘n lawwe soort “ereskuld” te betaal aan Susan?
Miskien is dit beter om nie te diep in mens se eie beweegredes in te grawe nie.
En begin alles dan nou inderdaad van voor af? Weer die sirkel. Tot waar? Hoe
breek mens eendag daaruit? Of maak dit nie regtig saak nie? Gaan dit regtig net
om aanhou? Met, miskien, ’n dowwe, skuldige verpligting teenoor iets waaraan
Ben sou geglo het: iets wat die mens kan wees en wat hy nie dikwels toegelaat word
om te wees nie?
Ek weet nie.
Miskien is die meeste waarop mens mag hoop, die meeste wat ek my mag
aanmatig, presies net dit: om op te teken. Net om verslag te lewer. Sodat dit onmoontlik sal wees dat enigiemand ooit hierná durf sê: “Ek het nie geweet nie.”
(261)2
Selah, André P. Brink.
1.
Notes
“What else did you expect?” […] Don’t you realise?—discussion, dialogue, call it what you will, is
the one thing they dare not allow. For once they start allowing you to ask questions they’re forced
to admit the very possibility of doubt. And their raîson d’être derives from the exclusion of that
possibility.”
203
2.
“Why must it be so?” I asked.
“Because it’s a matter of power. Naked power. That’s what brought them there and keeps them
there. And power has a way of becoming an end in itself.” […] “Once you have your bank account
in Switzerland, and your farm in Paraguay, and your villa in France, and your contacts in Hamburg
and Bonn and Tokyo—once a flick of your wrist can decide the fate of others—you need a very
active conscience to start acting against your own interests. And a conscience doesn’t stand up to
much heat or cold, it’s a delicate sort of plant.” (Brink, Season 244)
“Then why did I go ahead by writing it all down here? Purely from sentimental loyalty to a friend
I had neglected for years? Or to pay some form of conscience money to Susan? It is better not to
pry too deeply into one’s own motives.
Is everything really beginning anew with me? And if so: how far to go? Will one ever succeed
in breaking the vicious circle? Or isn’t that so important? Is it really just a matter of going on,
purely and simply? Prodded, possibly, by some dull, guilty feeling of responsibility towards
something Ben might have believed in: something man is capable of being but which he isn’t very
often allowed to be?
I don’t know.
Perhaps all one can really hope for, all I am entitled to, is no more than this: to write it down. To
report what I know. So that it will not be possible for any man ever to say again: I knew nothing
about it.” (Brink, Season 315–16)
Works Cited
Brink, André P. ‘n Droë wit seisoen. Bramley: Taurus, 1979
Brink, André. A Dry White Season. Second impression. London: Flamingo, an imprint of Fontana
Paperbacks, 1988.
Bruce, David. “Interpreting the Body Count: South African Statistics on Lethal Police Violence”. South
African Review of Sociology 36.2 (2005): 141–59.
De Kock, Leon. “After Brink.” 10 Febr 2015 12 Febr 2015. <http://www.litnet.co.za/Article/after-brink>.
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Willie Burger
B. Aubert
Willie Burger teaches Afrikaans
Literature and is Head of the
Department of Afrikaans at the
University of Pretoria.
Email: willie.burger@up.ac.za
Tribute
Reading can be disturbing: a tribute
to André Brink
Following his death a high number of tributes to André
Brink had been published. A common denominator that
ran through these tributes was the mention time and again
of the life-changing effect his work had on people’s lives.
The remark that such-and-such book had changed one’s
life is often made frivolously, but that it was made so
consistently often with so much conviction about Brink’s
novels, makes one think that his work had a major impact
on many readers’ lives.
In primary school I was already an avid reader. I remember winter holidays when
I cycled down to the public library daily because I had finished reading all the books
I was allowed to take out the previous day. First I steadily read my way through all the
children’s books and later I used my mother’s library cards to take out books from the
“adult section”: from Karel Kielblock and Kas van den Bergh to Heinz G. Konsalik.
Louis L’Amour’s westerns bought from the “Book Exchange” was my introduction to
fiction in English.
In my standard 8 year, an exceptional teacher, Miss Oelofse, introduced me to
Afrikaans literature. First she gave me some of Chris Barnard’s short stories, which
made me curious enough to search for his novel Mahala in the library. Thus I was
introduced to the work of ‘Die Sestigers’ and later during my standard 8 year ‘n Droë
wit seisoen (A Dry White Season) was published and I immediately read it. At that stage
I was fifteen years old and therefore very impressionable. But I can state without
trepidation that that reading experience changed my life.
This novel not only formed my political consciousness—as many others attested
about reading A Dry White Season during the past weeks—it radically changed the
way I looked at fiction and the reasons why people read books at all. A Dry White
Season made me realize that reading is not simply a pastime, not merely about the
enjoyment of being drawn into a fictional world. Reading is not only about
entertainment, experiencing different emotions, about escapism or a pleasurable way
of spending leisure time. Reading does not merely provide interesting characters that
experience exciting adventures in exotic places…
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Reading can be disturbing.
The “lies” of a fictional story can upset and annoy and confront the reader with
truth. Since then, I’ve started to read differently, with an altered expectation.
In a sense, A Dry White Season determined my career.
Throughout my career, Brink’s novels provided a kind of guideline and I continue
to set one of Brink’s novels for first year students, often against resistance. Each year I
face all the objections about swear words, graphic sex and alleged blasphemy in these
novels. Often I have to face parents (and once even a student’s dominee) who are
upset about the disturbing effect of Brink’s novels on their children. Once I even had
to defend my decision to set Duiwelskloof / Devil’s Valley to the dean, when students
complained higher up about the atrocious Brink novel set for them. Nonetheless, I
continue to set a Brink novel for the first year students, because every year there are
many students who are excited, who are deeply moved, and whose lives are influenced
by their confrontation with a Brink novel. This effect can obviously not be described
as an “outcome”, verifiable by “data based research”, but it is this effect on students
that I regard as the most important aim of teaching literature.
During the past 15 years I had the privilege of getting to know André personally.
At our first meeting I was a bit awe-struck and told him about my first experience of
reading A Dry White Season. He gracefully listened to what must have been an
embarrassing tale and then told me about a man who wrote to him from India, shortly
after A Dry white Season was published, stating that the novel actually told hís story.
Indeed Brink not only had a changing effect on me, a number of my students and
other South Africans, but on readers from across the world. After he had been forced
by the ban on Kennis van die aand to write in English as well, his antithetical ideas, his
questioning of the status quo, his undaunted challenging of injustice could touch
many people’s lives across the world, like he touched mine.
The title of Brink’s 1992 novel, On the Contrary, could well serve as a motto for his
oeuvre, and in fact, for his whole life. But saying “on the contrary” for Brink implied
a principled opposition to all forms of repression, to every denial of freedom. But it
also meant responding to repression by imagining alternatives.
Brink’s contrarianism was supported by his discovery of Camus during his years
in Paris. In his memoir, A Fork in the Road, he writes about the influence that French
writers and poets had on him and he mentions Montaigne, Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac,
Sartre and Baudelaire. But he writes about Camus like this:
And then there was Camus. Who promptly became, and still is, one of the
Baudelairean phares of my life. I do not merely admire Camus, I love him. [...]
Camus: the indefatigable persistence of Sisyphus, the revolt-without-end, the
struggle, literally to death, against injustice, against the lie, against unfreedom. He
provided not only a map for my explorations of Paris, of France, but a blueprint for
the rest of my life.
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This “revolt-without-end” against injustice, against the lie, against all that threatens
freedom, ran through Brink’s whole life.
In his last novel, Philida, a young slave and her master ’s son are caught up in an
impossible doomed love affair. Brink of course often used the absolute private and
individual experience of love to probe collective norms. He fearlessly interrogated
the postcolonial situation by focussing on love between colonized and colonizer,
between slave and master, between black and white, European and African (An Instant
in the Wind, On the Contrary, A Chain of Voices. Looking on Darkness was banned partly
due to the portrayal of love “across the colour bar”).
These impossible loves often end tragically when the lovers are forced to betray
their love to fit societal norms. In Philida the young white man, Frans, promises the
slave girl that he loves her, will marry her and grant her freedom, but eventually he
lacks the courage to challenge his father’s patriarchal authority. She insists that he
should deliver on his promise and has to enter her name in the Family Bible:
The more I told her it was a book for white people only, the more she kept on: It’s
just a lot of names, Frans, it says nothing of white people and slaves.
Philida, it doesn’t work like that, there’s nothing you or I can change about it,
this is just the way the world is.
Then we got to change the way of the world, Frans, she goes on nagging,
otherwise it will always stay the same.
No, I keep telling her, some things just cannot be changed from the way the
LordGod made them.
Then we got to start changing the LordGod, she says.
You don’t know that man, I warn her. He’s a real bastard when it comes to
making trouble.
I tell you that I want to be in that Book, she goes on.
I’m telling you, Philida, I keep insisting, it can’t be done and it won’t be done,
and that’s the way it is.
Then give the pen to me, she says in a temper one morning, when all the house
people are busy outside, it is only her and me in the voorhuis. If you can’t or won’t
do it, I’ll do it myself. And she grabs the pen out of my hand (Philida 37—8).
Protagonists like Philida who say “on the contrary”, who refuse to accept “the way
the world is”, are a constant feature of Brink’s novels. In his early novels like Lobola vir
die lewe (1962) and The Ambassador (1963) characters resist meaning forced on them on
an existential level. (Camus’s influence is evident in these novels, but Camus remained
a central guide for Brink throughout his life.) From the 1970’s onwards they refused
the unjust political situation.
Like Philida, Brink refused to accept the status quo and grabbed his pen to start
changing things. Kennis van die aand (1973) became the first Afrikaans novel to be
207
banned, but Brink refused to be silenced and rewrote the novel in English in order to
be heard.
In one novel after the other Brink demonstrated that the way things are, is not a
natural given but a construct, that can and should be challenged—even if it implied
changing the LordGod himself. And in all these novels he exposed the lies that were
needed to keep the world like it is. That is why the words of Ben du Toit at the end of
A Dry White Season (1979) is also true of Brink: “Perhaps all one can really hope for, all
that I am entitled to, is no more than this: to write it down. To report what I know. So
that it will not be possible for any man, ever again, to say: I knew nothing about it.”
Creating an awareness of injustice was only one part of saying on the contrary, an
ability to imagine a different world is the other part. Brink attained both due to his
exceptional skill as narrator. He is often lauded as a master storyteller, his teeming
imagination has been compared to Marquez and Borges and this probably explains
his wide readership—in more than 30 languages all over the world.
Brink could conjure up a magic fictional world in a few sentences, whether in
banal small town toilet humour (his Kootjie Emmer-stories), or experiments with
complex modernist forms (Orgie, 1965) or in the unravelling and re-telling of stories
in a self-reflexive postmodernist way.
Storytelling is also an important theme in his novels. Many of Brink’s characters
are storytellers: Ma-Roos in Chain of Voices, Rosette in On the Contrary, Ouma Kristina
in Imaginings of Sand, Cupido Cockroach’s mother in Praying Mantis. These stories
show an awareness of our world as language, as story. It becomes clear that any
understanding of the world as it is, is only one story. There are always other
possibilities, other stories to tell. Lacking the creativity to imagine different stories
leads to violent behaviour, because it causes a defence of that single story, as the old
Seer Lermiet realizes in Devil’s Valley: “Look man, there’s nothing you can do about
tomorrow. It comes as it must. All you can do something about is yesterday. But the
problem with yesterday is it never stays down, you got to keep stamping on it.”
Blindly defending a single “truth”, a single story, is the uncreative response of
patriarchy, traditionalism, nostalgia, nationalism and fundamentalism. In reaction to
the Seer’s words, Flip Lochner thinks:
In spite of my suspicion and resentment, I felt moved by something in the old
fucker, perhaps in all his breed. With the lies of stories—all the lies, all the stories—
we shape ourselves the way the first person was shaped from the dust of the earth.
That is our first and ultimate dust. Who knows, if we understood what was happening to us, we might not have needed stories in the first place. We fabricate
yesterdays for ourselves which we can live with, which make the future possible,
even if it remains infinitely variable and vulnerable, a whole bloody network of
flickerings, an intimate lightning to illuminate the darkness inside. (Devil’s Valley,
287)
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Stories are our ultimate dust and we need them to understand ourselves and the
world. We need these fabrications, but they should remain infinitely variable.
Accepting a single yesterday means that one has to keep stamping it down, forcing it
on others.
Philida, like the other storytellers in Brink’s novels, is imaginative, and dares to
grab Frans’s pen. Frans, like his father and so many patriarchs and administrators in
Brink’s novels, lacks the imagination to tell a new story, to make a future possible
(even when he realizes that the fabrications of yesterday are no longer valid).
By telling stories we make the world human. By allowing a single story to become
tantamount the way the world is, would be inhuman. Brink grabbed his pen and
used his imagination to resist the inhumanity of single oppressive narratives. He
made our world more human by saying on the contrary, and by constantly reimagining the world, he made a more human future possible.
Works Cited
Brink, André. A Dry White Season. London: Flamingo, 1979.
——. A Fork in the Road. London: Vintage, 2010.
——. Devil’s Valley. London: Secker & Warburg, 1998.
——. Philida. Cape Town: Random House Struik, 2012.
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Hein Willemse
Media24
Hein Willemse is ’n
letterkundeprofessor in die
van Pretoria.
E-pos: hein.willemse@up.ac.za
Huldeblyk
André P. Brink se bevrydende woord
en dissidensie
Ek het die opdrag om oor André P. Brink en ideologie te
praat.1 Met ideologie verstaan ons gewoonlik die idees, of
die belange en waardes waarmee elkeen van ons, of die
groepe waarin ons ons bevind, ons wêreld beding. Ons
waardeoordele en oortuiginge is nie uitermate individueel
nie; in ’n sin is daar ’n historiese bepaaldheid vir hoe ons
dink en waarom ons juis só dink. Hoe byvoorbeeld staan
ons tot die ekonomiese magsverhoudinge in ons samelewing? Is ons in stryd met ’n bepaalde magsomgewing of
reproduseer ons daardie ekonomiese, politieke en sosiale magsverhoudinge? Waarom dink ons soos ons dink? Waarom dink ons nie anders nie? En waar kom al die
waardes wat ons so verdedig of teenstaan dan vandaan? Dié opvatting van ideologie
beteken egter nie ’n predeterminasie wat vóórkom dat die individuele skrywer nie
téén sy omgewing, téén sy historiese agtergrond en téén ’n magstruktuur kan inskryf
nie.
Tog, kan ek nie aan ’n meer siellose onderwerp vir ’n openbare seminaar dink as
juis só ’n teoretiese opgaaf nie. Die tydsbeperking laat my in elk geval nie toe om
enigsins die onderwerp in diepte of volledig te bespreek nie, daarom sal ek slegs
enkele hoofelemente aanraak. In die loop van die voordrag sal my interpretasie van
die ideologiese onderbou van Brink se skryfwerk duidelik word. Ek sal hopelik die
organiseerders ook tevrede kan hou. Van die aspekte—individueel en gesamentlik—
wat ek hier bespreek, vorm deel van “die ideologie van André P. Brink”.
Gereduseer tot sy mees fundamentele—sy ideologeem—is die uitstaande ideologiese faset in Brink se werk sy geloof in die woord, miskien selfs in byna religieuse
terme, die reddende krag van die woord. Daarom is die skrywer, die skrywer in stryd
met sy omgewing, die skrywer as optekenaar, die skrywer as historikus, maar ook die
skryfaksie en die woord as omvatbare waarheid so ’n kernkode in sy werk. In soveel
van sy romans, byvoorbeeld, is juis ’n skrywer of optekenaar aan die woord. Selfs al
word die skryfaksie en die skryfsel as vernietigbaar beleef soos in Kennis van die aand
waar Josef Malan sy herinneringe opskryf en telkens in die toilet afspoel, oorleef die
woord uiteindelik.
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In sy eerste belangrike werk, die eksperimente wat in Lobola vir die lewe, Die
ambassadeur, Orgie en tot ’n mindere mate Miskien nooit beslag kry, is dit die estetiese
woord—literatuur as spel—wat vooropstaan. Terwyl hy in latere werk juis die waarde
van daardie woord telkens onder die loep neem. Selfs in sy vroeë werk is daar ’n
soortgelyke proses van ontdekking van die seksuele onaantasbare, die religieuse
onkenbare en dikwels die plooibaarheid en herontdekking van die gewone woord.
Dit is by Brink ’n sentrale impuls om te vernuwe, om die oue te herinterpreteer en
nuwe grense te formuleer. Dit is dié ingesteldheid wat in die verdere verloop van sy
skrywersloopbaan voortdurend in nuwe gedaantes opduik en in veranderde omstandighede aangepas word.
Maar die woord bly nie ongekontamineerd nie. Hierdie sentrale draer van betekenis, is konstant onderworpe aan distorsie. So is dit juis die verdraaide woord wat
die leuen moontlik maak. Net so is dit die demagogiese woord wat verdrukking
aanvaarbaarder maak. Daarom moet Brink sy geloof in ’n spesifieke soort woord, die
skrywerswoord bely. Hierdie skeppende, waardedraende en vrygestelde woord, noem
hy dit in Mapmakers, dra, wanneer dit waarheidsoekend gespreek word, sy eie bevryding met hom mee.
Nie alle skrywers glo noodwendig in die beïnvloedende impak van literatuur nie
soos die deurlopende debatte in die Afrikaanse letterkunde maar te goed getuig. Ook
’n eietydse skrywer soos J. M. Coetzee verwerp in geheel die konstruksie van die
dissidente rol van literatuur of die skrywer. Maar juis Brink se beskouing oor die aard
van die bevrydende woord maak dit vir hom moontlik om vir die grootste deel van sy
loopbaan as dissidente skrywer op te tree. Dit is as dissident dat hy menslike waardes—dit waarvan apartheid so die absolute teendeel was—kon óópskryf en in elke
roman van hom kon herbevestig.
Van sy indrukwekkendste demonstrasies van die rol en plek van hierdie skrywerswoord is ’n Oomblik in die wind, ’n Droë wit seisoen en Houd-den-bek waar hy nie
net téén ’n bestel ínskryf nie, maar ook die konstituerende waardes wat sosiale onreg
en onverskilligheid teenoor mense moontlik maak, ontbloot. In die lig hiervan is dit
nie ’n verrassing dat die digter, Vincent Oliphant (82) tydens die eerste Swart Afrikaanse
Skrywerssimposium getuig dat selfs Brink se eerste eksperimentele werk ’n
deurslaggewende rol in sy intellektuele ontwaking gespeel het:
Die eerste Afrikaanse skrywer wie se werk ek uit eie belangstelling begin gelees
het, is André P. Brink. Hier verwys ek nie eens na Brink se latere “betrokke” werk
nie, maar wel na sy vroeëre romans soos Die ambassadeur. Die invloed van Brink se
werk op my was veral groot as gevolg van die wyse waarop ek op my plattelandse
dorp opgegroei het. Hier het ’n mens slegs in ’n baas-klong-verhouding ten opsigte
van blankes gestaan. Jy is dan ook deur hierdie lewenspatroon gekondisioneer tot
’n verhewe siening van Wittes. Deur die lees van Brink se boeke het ek vir die
eerste keer besef dat Witmense mense is soos ek, dat daar nie sekere swakhede is
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waarbo hulle op grond van hul velkleur verhewe is nie. Ek is, met ander woorde,
op só ’n wyse bevry van ’n stereotipe siening van my medemens.
Van die Suid-Afrikaanse skrywers is Brink, naas Nadine Gordimer, miskien die een
wat die konstantste die geslagtelike, politiese en sosiale Ander óópskryf. In byvoorbeeld
Kennis, Oomblik en Houd-den-bek skryf hy uit die ervaring en hoek van die swart
politieke verdrukte; terwyl in Oomblik, Muur van die pes, States of Emergency, Sandkastele
en Donkermaan die belewing van die vrou verwoord word. Vir die skrywer om ’n
keuse te maak om die ander se ervaringe te beskryf, is nie eenvoudig nie, omdat die
belewing van die Ander deur die skrywende ander tot sy/haar eie voordeel
geappropieer kan word.
Die keuse is inderdaad nie maklik nie. As voorbeeld: my eerste reaksie met die
lees van die toe verbode Kennis, as ’n student in die jare sewentig, was verwondering
oor die enorme worp van sosiale geskiedenis, die ongebreidelde seksualiteit, maar
veral die volwaardig-belewende karakterisering van Josef Malan. Met ’n latere
herlees—in ’n sin die leser se “herskryf ” van die teks—sou ek my oordeel hersien,
omdat Josef so ’n ideëel-tipe is wat nie die werklike diepgang van die bruin of swart
ervaring in Suid-Afrika kon verwoord nie. Selfs, al is dit ’n geldige oordeel, maak die
skepping van Josef dit vir latere geslagte skrywers moontlik om ’n karakter in
Afrikaans te skep wat die bruin of swart ervaring van binne-uit kan verwoord.
’n Belangrike deel van die samestel van ideologiese strominge in Brink se romans,
en skryfwerk in die algemeen, is sy verkenning van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap, sy
herinterpretasies van die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis en per geleentheid selfs iets
van sy ekonomiese relasies. Romans soos Oomblik, Gerugte van reën of Die kreef raak
gewoon daaraan is by uitstek voorbeelde van die wyse waarop ’n romansier sy land
verken, dikwels nie bloot as agtergrond nie, maar as deurleefde en ervaarde landskappe. Die volgende woorde wat Adam/Aob vir Elisabeth in Oomblik sê, is op ’n
groot deel van Brink se romanoeuvre van toepassing: “Ek dra nie papier met my saam
nie. Mý land het ek met my oë gekyk en met my ore gehoor en met my hande gevat. Ek
eet hom en ek drink hom. Ek weet hy’s nie ’n ding dáár nie: hy’s hier. Wat weet jý van
hom af?” (25). In menige van sy romans, en veral dié wat ek in die verband genoem
het, is by uitstek ’n romanmatige verkenning van hierdie land: die mense, die fauna
en flora, die landsvorme. My raad aan my buitelandse kennisse is dikwels: as jy ’n
perspektief op die multi-dimensionaliteit van hierdie land, as geografiese en fisiese
gegewe, wil hê, lees ’n Brink-roman. Meer as enige Suid-Afrikaanse skrywer probeer
Brink op verrassende en uiteenlopende wyses die vraag—Wat weet jý van die land
af—beantwoord.
In aansluiting hierby is ’n terugkerende Brink-procéde sy opdieping, omvorming
en herinterpretasies van die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis soos byvoorbeeld in Houdden-bek, Die eerste lewe van Adamastor en Inteendeel. In ’n land waar die skriftelike
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geskiedenis, die geskiedskrywing altyd ’n bron van kontestasie is, slaag hy daarin om
verby die bekende te kom en soms historiese (maar dikwels fiktiewe) terloopshede as
die basis vir sy romans te gebruik.
Een van die verreikendste gevolge van apartheid was, dat dit oënskynlik ’n eenheidsgevoel aan Afrikaners gegee het. Aan almal, ook aan Afrikaners, is apartheid
geproklameer as ’n beleid wat alle Afrikaners onder een kombers verenig het. Op die
oog af was elke Afrikaner—elke man, vrou en kind—’n voorstaander van apartheid.
Die alternatief—die liberale of radikale Afrikaner—was feitlik onbekend. Daar was
nie ’n herkenbare Afrikanerstem van opposisionaliteit nie.
Vir my was dit ’n verrassende ontdekking as ’n voorgraadse student om van Bettie
du Toit, die vakunieleier; óf van Bram Fischer óf Johan Degenaar te hoor óf Beyers
Naude se Pro Veritate-tydskrif te lees óf kennis te neem van Gregoire Boonzaaier se
linkse politieke tendense. In ’n wêreld waar Afrikaner-voorbeelde van verset teen
apartheid min en onbekend was, het Brink soos Breyten Breytenbach ’n wêreld oopgeskryf wat dit vir ons, die geslag van apartheid, moontlik gemaak het om genuanseerder met ons leefwêreld om te gaan: nie alle Afrikaners was verdrukkers nie,
nie alle Afrikaners het apartheid gesteun nie, nie alle Afrikaners het hulle rug op
swart mense gedraai nie.
Vandag in ’n tyd waarin die mantel van eertydse opposisionaliteit so maklik (en
goedkoop) opgeneem en verkondig word, is dit noodsaaklik om opnuut Brink se
bydrae tot die skepping van ’n opposisionele Afrikaans te onderstreep. In romans
soos ’n Droë wit seisoen, Gerugte van reën en Die kreef raak gewoon daaraan gee hy nie net
vorm aan sy opvatting van die krities, meelewende Afrikaner nie, maar help hy om ’n
intellektuele ruimte te skep wat dit moontlik gemaak het om ook in Afrikaans antiapartheid te wees. Die aard en funksie van die dissident wat hy in onder meer
Mapmakers en Reinventing a Continent verwoord, bly wesenlik gesetel in die literatuur.
In laasgenoemde bundel stel hy dit so: “I come from a literature that still has many
new words to learn: and with each new word new possibilities enter the realm of the
imagination and extend the prison-house of our language. They offer us new means
of contesting—of responding to—the challenges of the real.” (203)
En daarmee is ons terug by die begin: daardie woord waarmee die skrywer waarhede probeer ontdek of die onaantasbare, ongehoorde verken en uiteindelik teen ’n
bestel (en in Donkermaan werk téén die ouderdom) ínskryf. Dit is Brink se uiteindelike keuse, waarmee hy verkennend en verruimend die dissidente Afrikaanse woord
kon dien.
Aantekening
1. Hierdie voorheen ongepubliseerde voordrag met die destydse titel, “Gaan roep vir Karl Marx en ’n
verslete Kennis-fotokopie of die bevrydende woord en dissidensie”, is gelewer tydens die André P.
Brink-seminaar, Universiteit van die Vrystaat, Bloemfontein, 12 Julie 2002. Ek bedank Die Volksblad,
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sowel die Dept. Afrikaans en Nederlands, Duits en Frans as prof. H. P. van Coller vir die uitnodiging.
Ek bied hierdie effens aangepaste stuk aan as ’n huldeblyk vir ’n mens vir wie ek groot waardering
gehad het en wat ek altyd as tegemoetkomend en wellewend beleef het. Gegee die omstandighede
van sy dood het ’n Air France-vlug tussen Parys en Johannesburg in Desember 1989 toe ons meer
as twaalf uur in mekaar se geselskap deurgebring het, ’n kosbare herinnering geword.
Brink, André P. ’n Oomblik in die wind. Emmerentia: Taurus, 1975.
_____. Reinventing a Continent: Writing and Politics, 1982—1995. Londen: Secker & Warburg, 1996.
Oliphant, Vincent. “Swart Afrikaanse skrywers en hulle ambag.” Swart Afrikaanse Skrywers: verslag van
’n simposium gehou by die Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland, Bellville. Reds. Julian F. Smith, Julian, Alwyn
van Gensen, Hein Willemse. Bellville: Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland, 1986. 81—3.
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Johan Snyman
Marc Degenaar
Johan Snyman is emeritus-professor
verbonde aan die Departement
Filosofie, Universiteit van
Johannesburg.
E-pos: jsnyman@uj.ac.za
Huldeblyk
Johan Degenaar (1926–2015)
As ek aan Johan Degenaar (7 Maart 1926–22 Julie 2015) dink,
sien ek ’n man, nie rysig van gestalte nie, onopvallend maar
tog keurig geklee, ’n gesig met ’n hoë voorkop, die hare na
agter gekam, vriendelike gelaat, en as hy praat, is daar die
beduidenis van ’n aksent (van Hollands of van ’n streek?),
en woorde wat met ’n besondere intonasie uitgespreek word,
amper soos wat gedigte voorgedra of alleensprake in ’n
drama gelewer word. Daar is ’n beduidenis van ’n glimlag
om die lippe, die hande praat saam. Die gewigtigheid van
die saak waaroor gepraat word, kom oor as ’n uitnodiging om deel te neem aan die
fassinering van die spel van woorde en begrippe.
Marthinus Versfeld (4) se huldiging in die eerste feesbundel opgedra aan Degenaar
kom by my op:
In ’n wêreld wat met grootte besete is, is ons geneig om te vergeet dat small is
beautiful, dat dit Dawid se klippie is wat tref, en dat God nie met ’n luidspreker vir
Moses aangeroep het nie. Miskien kan ons hierdie feit ook oorweeg, dat in sekere
chemiese reaksies dit een deeltjie in ’n miljoen is wat die pot aan die kook hou, net
soos ’n stad op ’n onsigbare manier ter wille van een regverdige persoon behou sal
word.
Voeg hierby Nietzsche (168) se woorde uit Also sprach Zarathustra (vry vertaal): “Gedagtes
wat op duifvoete loop lei die wêreld.”
Johan Degenaar het konsekwent en oor baie jare met die oënskynlik niksbeduidende krag van woorde geduldig, bietjie vir bietjie, die “seile van die bewind”
(Versfeld weer eens) ’n ander koers laat inslaan. Kommissies, partye, hulle koerante en
hulle sinodes-op-sleeptou het stoom afgeblaas, in gemaak heilige verontwaardiging
gewaarsku teen die gevaar wat in die skaduwee van Degenaar se uitnodigings en
provokasie tot oop gesprek sit. En Degenaar het sonder die beskerming van die status
van voorsitter van kommissies, komitees of lid van hierdie en daardie belangrike
instelling ligvoets bly loop deur die mynvelde wat wagters op die mure van die
beleerde apartheidsamelewing gelê of gedink het hulle sien, en as skrapnel hom dalk
215
getref het, het ons net altyd die effense glimlag bly sien saam met die nooit vermoeide
Sokratiese vraag: “Wat bedoel jy as jy sê …?”
Op die kampusse van sommige voormalige Afrikaanse universiteite word daar
deesdae selfs seremonies gehou om die gedenkplakette wat die apartheidsbewind vir
homself aangebring het, te verwyder. Hoe vining het hierdie gewaande almagtigheid
tot niks verkrummel nie! Stellenbosch hoef nie ’n spesiale gedenkplaket vir Degenaar
êrens aan te bring nie. Die naam van Johan Degenaar is een van enkeles uit die jongste
verlede wat sinoniem met Stellenbosch geword het. Dit is nie iets waarmee ’n mens
kan smous in advertensiebiljette nie. Johan Degenaar se woordwerk is iets wat onuitwisbaar sal bly herinner aan die moed van die wil tot onbevange denkspel, die
gawe van kreatiewe uitbreek uit starheid en die altyd kollegiale samewerking vir
groter helderheid oor waarheen ons almal op pad is. Mag dit sy grootse en sy verdiende
nalatenskap—sy monument—in hierdie ikonoklastiese tyd bly. En hierna.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Vert. R.J. Hollingdale. Londen: Penguin, 1969.
Versfeld, Marthinus. “Hoekom filosowe nog steeds teen die wind spoeg”. In gesprek. Opstelle vir Johan
Degenaar. André du Toit, red. Stellenbosch: Die Suid-Afrikaan, 1986. 1–5.
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Willie Burger
Versindaba
Willie Burger is die hoof van die
van Pretoria.
E-pos: willie.burger@up.ac.za
Huldeblyk
T. T. Cloete (1924–2015)
Ek was in een van die laaste groepie honneursstudente
wat nog by prof. T.T. Cloete klas gekry het. Hy het teen
daardie tyd reeds moeisaam beweeg en ons het sommer
elke week na sy huis gegaan vir die lesings. Van daardie
honneursontmoetings om sy eetkamertafel het drie dinge
‘n blywende indruk op my gelaat: die eerste was sy vermoë
om lang dele uit die wêreldletterkunde aan te haal en te
verwys na skrywers en boeke waarvan ek nog nooit gehoor
het nie. Dikwels het my klasaantekeninge hoofsaaklik bestaan uit lyste van skrywers en digters waarmee ek dan in die daaropvolgende dae
biblioteek toe is. Sy indrukwekkende kennis van letterkunde—van die Egiptiese,
Hebreeuse, Griekse en Latynse letterkunde, deur die Middeleeuse, die Renaissance,
die Romantiek, tot die moderne literatuur was eenvoudig verstommend. Die rustige
gemak waarmee hy met al hierdie tekste omgegaan het en veral sy vermoë om
raakpunte te vind, sodat die een teks wat mens lees nooit net daardie en teks is nie
maar ‘n magdom van ander tekste, het my geïnspireer om te lees en te lees. Maar aan
die ander kant was hierdie verbysterende verwysingsraamwerk vir my ook so
intimiderend dat ek selde my mond in die klas oopgemaak het.
Die tweede aspek van daardie lesings in die rustige woonbuurt wat ‘n blywende
indruk gemaak het, was Cloete se vermoë om fyn te lees. Hy het geleidelik al meer
opgewonde geraak soos wat hy meer en meer aspekte van die die gedig aandui en
uitlig wat geeneen van ons naastenby raakgesien het nie. Oënskynlik eenvoudige
verse en die mees verwikkelde gedigte het, onder sy groeiende entoesiasme, al meer
geheime prysgegee. Dit was soos ‘n ontdekkingstog wanneer hy begin met ‘n klank of
met een woord se betekenis totdat hy uiteindelik op meesterlike wyse alles saamknoop
en terugsit op sy stoel met die glinstering van die ontdekker van Monomotapa in sy oë.
Dan het hy ons herinner aan die bewondering wat ons vir die gedig en vir taal moet hê.
Teen daardie tyd wás ek in verwondering oor die gedig, maar nóg meer verwonderd oor sy ontrafeling van die gedig. Een van die heel eerste lesings was oor
Louw se “Klipwerk”. Die twee, vir my heeltemal raaiselagtige reëls, “dat akkers op
die sinkdak val / en vye op die ringmuur breek”, het onder Cloete se leiding die
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v52i1.xx
217
ontdekking geword van ‘n katastrofale botsing tussen natuur en kultuur.
Die derde ding wat ‘n blywende indruk gelaat het was die verskyning, so halfpad
deur die lesing, van tannie Anna. Tannie Anna het dan vir ons in Royal Albert-koppies
tee bedien saam met Turkstra Bakkery se “hoefies”, sulke lekker soet, bros koekies. Daarna
het sy sommer in die klas bly sit en net soos ons aan professor Cloete se lippe gehang. En
as hy so triomfantlik al harder praat wanneer sy analise ‘n klimaks bereik, kyk sy na ons
met ‘n gesig wat van trots straal. Op my vraag (gretig om iets te hoor van resepsieteorie
en poststrukturalisme) oor wanneer ons by al die “nuwe” teorieë in die klas gaan uitkom
(ons was besig om sy Hoe om ‘n gedig te ontleed te behandel), was sy antwoord: “Teorie
kan julle in boeke gaan lees. Ek gee vir julle wat julle net by my kan kry.”
Getrou aan die tradisie van die New Critics, van aandag aan elke klein onderafdeling van ‘n gedig en die soeke na hoe alles saamwerk—”ko-kommunikeer”—om
een betekenis te kommunikeer, is ook sy eie gedigte slim gekonstrueer met verskeie
bindmiddels.
Maar poësie was nie vir hom bloot ‘n beroep of ‘n praktyk waaraan hy met ‘n
bepaalde talent deelgeneem het nie. Hy het gelééf in die poësie. Woorde, ingespan op
‘n baie spesifieke manier, was vir hom die vernaamste manier om te ontsnap van ‘n
mens se eie beperkings. Telkens, in bundel na bundel, kom hierdie tema weer voor:
dat ‘n mens deur woorde kan uitreik verby die self, verby die beperkings van die eie
liggaam, verby liggaamlike pyn en lyding (waarvan hy so intens bewus was sedert hy
as student polio opgedoen het). Hierdie transendering van die eie liggaam—
”oorlywing”—sien ‘n mens in die talle gedigte waarin liggaamlike genot gevier word,
maar die transendering strek verder, verby die beperkings die self se ervaring van
menswees tot ‘n ervaring van klip en plant en dier en die ganse kosmos.
Hoewel hierdie strewe na transendering van liggaamlike beperkings, van die
beperkings van die eie denke, uitgroei tot ‘n ekstatiese ervaring van die kosmos, is
daar ook in Cloete se lewe ‘n waarskuwing dat hierdie soort poëtiese ervaring nie
vanselfsprekend lei tot die transendering van alle groepsdenke nie—soos Cloete se
deelname aan die sensuurstelsel en sy teenkanting teen die betrokke literatuur van
Brink en Breytenbach getuig.
Nietemin het Cloete se bydraes as digter, as psalmberymer, as dosent, as kritikus
steeds meer mense geraak. En hoewel sy poësie deur sommige as baie “intellektueel”
beskou word, dat hy as ‘n “poet’s poet” beskryf word, is daar weinig gewone poësielesers
wat nie diep geroer word deur byvoorbeeld sy gedigte oor sy vrou se dood nie.
Met dieselfde borrelende genot waarmee hy gedigte kon bespreek, kon hy ook ‘n
lesing onderbreek om die suikerbekkies deur venster vir ons te wys en te vertel watter
plante aangeplant word om verskillende voëls te lok.
Saam met die dood van André P. Brink en Johan Degenaar hierdie jaar, is Cloete se
dood nóg ‘n brug na die verlede wat weg is. Hulle sterwe herinner ons aan die
verbygaan van ‘n era en aan ons almal se weerloosheid teen die verbygaan van dinge.
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Irikidzayi Manase
In2EastAfrica
Irikidzayi Manase is a senior lecturer in
the Department of English, University
of Free State, Bloemfontein.
Email: manaseI@ufs.ac.za
Tribute
Chenjerai Hove (1956–2015)
Chenjerai Hove died on 12 July 2015 in the Stavanger
University Hospital, Norway at the age of fifty nine (“Chenjerai Hove is dead”). Hove’s death from liver failure, a week
after the death of another renowned Zimbabwean poet,
Ms Freedom Tichaona Nyamubaya on 5 July 2015 (Arts
Correspondent) adds to the enormous loss that the
Zimbabwean and global literary community has suffered
in the month of July 2015. The death of Hove, born on
9 February 1956 in rural Mazvihwa outside the colonial
mining town now called Zvishavane, brought shock to many readers of his works of
poetry, creative fiction and the journalese, as well as global supporters and fellow
activists in the fight for writers’ freedoms and human rights.
Hove, a multi-talented writer, started off as a poet. His first poems appear in the
renowned and black nationalist anthology And Now the Poets Speak (ed. M. B. Zimunya
& M. Kadhani, 1981). Further single authored anthologies by Hove, which focused on
pertinent social and political issues affecting Zimbabweans at different historical
stages ranging from colonialism to the post-independence Zimbabwe African National
Union Patriotic front (ZANU-PF) dominated postcolonial space include Up in Arms
(1982), Rainbows in the Dust (1988) and Blind Moon (2003). Hove’s poetry did not receive
any major award but his deep mastery of the language and ability to speak intensely
about history, the everyday experiences and yearnings for freedom echoes throughout
his fictional and non-fictional work, as evident, for instance, in the rhyming and
poetic forms evident in the novel Bones (1988).
Hove is well remembered for his creative fiction and non-fiction works, some of
which won prestigious awards. Hove’s fictional works include the vernacular Shona
written Masimba Avanhu (1986), the Noma Award winning novel Bones, the novel
Shadows (1991) and Ancestors (1996), whose thematic focuses include the portrayal of
the ordinary black Zimbabweans as they attempt at living their lives meaningfully in
their mostly rural and ordinary settings at different historical moments in the nation’s
trajectories. The non-fiction works, mostly written in the journalese style, include
Shebeen Tales: Messages from Harare (1994), Palaver Finish (2002) and various other articles
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published in newspapers such as the South African Mail and Guardian, archived on
the its webpage as an author. Hove’s fiction and nonfiction oeuvre, thus speaks of a
versatile writer whose commitment to the trade and social commentary points to the
activist identity which however led to his collision with the Zimbabwean authorities.
His activism, described as the mark of his cultural politics (Grundy) is noted in his
work as the founding chairperson of the Zimbabwe Writers’ Union 1984–89 and
president of PEN Zimbabwe 1990–2007. During his tenures, he fought for writers’
rights and turned public critic of the ZANU-PF government’s post-1990s decline into
autocracy through his regular articles in independent newspaper The Standard—
some of the articles are in his collection Palaver Finish. He was subsequently awarded
the German Africa Literary prize for freedom of expression in 2001 (“Chenjerai Hove
is dead”). However, Hove suffered state secret police harassment which forced him
into exile in 2002. Thus from 2002, Hove like his war of independence traumatised
Marita in Bones who goes on the move in search of his son, embarks on his own travels
of a traumatised writer in exile. He was hosted first in France and later in Norway at
Stavanger 2005–07 and in the United States of America at Miami City 2010–12 by the
International Cities of Refuge Networks, which supports writers under threat and
living in exile (Grundy “Chenjerai Hove is dead”). He also held various positions as
a writer in residence, such as the International Writers Fellowship at Brown University
2007–8.
His post-independent travels are instructive. They add on to his early life which
saw him embark on educational travels to the Catholic Kutama College in Zvimba
outside Harare, Marist Brothers in Hwange, Gweru for teacher training, and workrelated travel as a teacher in rural Zimbabwe and a publishing editor in Harare.
Sadly, the post–2000 travels were dislocating as he was away from his beloved home
and family and ended with his death.
He was buried on his family farm in Gokwe, a reminder of his novel Ancestors, set
in a fictional Rhodesian Native Purchase Area probably Gokwe, and an invocation
that he has at last returned to the land of his ancestors. Nevertheless, Hove’s chief
writerly quality as a renowned poet and mentor of young writers was revealed at his
burial ceremony. The poets Albert Nyathi and Chirikure Chirikure both performed
the poem, “I will not Speak”, which forms part of the poetry lyrics of Nyathi’s popular
song “Senzenina”, and it was revealed for the first time to both the mourners and all
Zimbabweans that the poem held highly in the nation’s memory and popular culture
was written by Chenjerai Hove (Arts Reporter)—a profound reminder of the great
writer, mentor and lover of humanity that Hove has always been.
222
Works Cited
Arts Correspondent. “Remembering fighter-poet Freedom Nyamubaya”. Newsday, 8 Jul 2015. 5 Aug
2015. <https://www.newsday.co.zw/2015/07/08/remembering-fighter-poet-freedom-nyamubaya/>.
Arts Reporter. “Chenjerai hove laid to rest”. NewsDay, 28 Jul. 2015. 4 Aug 2015. <https://
www.newsday.co.zw/2015/07/28/chenjerai-hove-laid-to-rest/>.
“Chenjerai Hove is dead”. 13 Jul 2015. 6 Aug 2015.<http://icorn.org/article/chenjerai-hove-dead>.
Grundy, Trevor. “Chenjerai Hove: Novelist forced into exile from his native Zimbabwe who sought in
his work to give a voice to the voiceless of Africa”. The Independent 22 Jul 2015. 4 Aug 2015. <http:/
/www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/chenjerai-hove-novelist-forced-into-exile-from-hisnative-zimbabwe-who-sought-in-his-work-to-give-a-voice-to-the-voiceless-of-africa10405936.html>.
Hove, Chenjerai. Ancestors. London: Picador, 1996.
_____. Chenjerai Hove. Mail & Gaurdian. 5 Aug 2015. <http://mg.co.za/author/chenjerai-hove>.
_____. Blind Moon. Harare: Weaver Press, 2003.
_____. Bones. Harare: Baobab Books, 1988.
_____. Masimba Avanhu. Gweru: Mambo Press, 1986.
_____. Palaver Finish. Harare: Weaver Press, 2002.
_____. Rainbows in the Dust. Harare: Baobab Books, 1998.
_____. Shadows. Harare: Baobab Books, 1991.
_____. Shebeen Tales: Messages from Harare. Harare: Baobab, 1994.
_____. Up in Arms. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1982.
International Cities of Refuge Networks. 5 Aug 2015. <http://www.icorn.org>.
Khadhani, M. & Zimunya, M. B. And Now The Poets Speak. Gwelo: Mambo Press, 1981.
223
RESENSIES / REVIEWS
Resensie-artikel
225
Mede-wete (Antjie Krog) – Andries Visagie
Resensies / Reviews
224
235
Mede-wete (Antjie Krog) – Ihette Jacobs
237
Die stilte opgeskort (Heilna du Plooy) – Amanda Lourens
239
Narokkong (Riël Franzsen) – Mariska Coetzee
240
Stil punt van die aarde (Johann de Lange) – Neil Cochrane
242
Nomade (Johann Lodewyk Marais) – Susan Smith
244
Die vrou wat alleen bly (Karel Schoeman) – Jacomien van Niekerk
245
Die pad byster (Nicola Hanekom) – Jacomien van Niekerk
247
Buys: ’n Grensroman (Willem Anker) – Frederick J. Botha
250
Sonde van Lusinda (Anton Schoombee) – Peet van Aardt
252
The Road of Excess (Ingrid Winterbach) – Dawita Brits
253
Fragmente uit die Ilias (Homeros) – Johan Thom
255
in a burning sea (Marlise Joubert) – F. A. Vosloo
258
Die mond vol vuur (Louise Viljoen) – Reinhardt Fourie
260
Conversations of Motherhood (Ksenia Robbe) – Martina Vitackova
262
Outposts of Progress (Gail Fincham et al.) – Mara Kalnins
Resensieredakteur
Prof Andries Visagie
Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands
Universiteit van Stellenbosch
Matieland X1
Stellenbosch 7602
agvisagie@sun.ac.za
Review editor
Prof Andries Visagie
Department Afrikaans and Dutch
Stellenbosch University
Matieland X1
Stellenbosch 7602
agvisagie@sun.ac.za
Borg: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust
Sponsor: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust
Andries Visagie
Andries Visagie is ’n professor
verbonde aan die Departement
Afrikaans, Universiteit van
Stellenbosch.
E-pos: agvisagie@sun.ac.za
Resensie-artikel
Sinaps-opsporing tussen self en
ander in Antjie Krog se Mede-wete
(2014)
Review article: Synapse tracing between self
and other in Mede-wete by Antjie Krog (2014)
The poetry volume Mede-wete by Antjie Krog is a sustained questioning of ethical relations between self and other, an on-going
preoccupation of Krog in both her poetry and literary non-fiction works. This review article of Mede-wete (also available as Synapse
in translation from Afrikaans into English by Karen Press) traces four forms of interconnectedness or synapses that shed light on
Krog’s project to establish ethical connections between the self, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, both the human and
non-human other. Love and family bonds, reaching out to the cultural other, a sense of shared materiality with the environment,
and, consequently, a longing for mystical unity constitute four of the synapses as announced in the title of the volume of poetry.
The strength of the often challenging poetry emanates strongly from the daring use of language that includes syllable
disturbances and surprising compounds. In many respects, Krog’s impressive volume belies her apparent pessimism that
Afrikaans poets and writers today are little more than “thighshifters-in-flinching-language” (Synapse 113). Keywords:
Afrikaans poetry, Antjie Krog, ethics, Mede-wete, otherness.
Mede-wete.
Antjie Krog. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 120 pp.
ISBN 978-0-7981-6787-1, ISBN 978-0-7981-6788-8 (epub), ISBN 978-0-7981-6789-5
(mobi).
Met haar eerste Afrikaanse digbundel sedert die verskyning van Verweerskrif in 2006
bewys Antjie Krog dat sy haar tyd goed benut het om ’n digte en uitdagende bundel
te komponeer. Soos die titel, Mede-wete, asook die titel van die Engelse vertaling deur
Karen Press, Synapse, aandui, is haar projek hier gefokus op die uitreiking na en
kommunikasie met die ander, na dit wat buite die begrensings van die self bestaan.
Haar digterlike projek is dus sterk akademies en filosofies getint, maar dit is deur die
bewuste werksaamheid met die taal as medium dat hierdie soeke na onderlinge
verbondenheid met die ander veral op digterlike vlak ’n prestasie word.
Die Afrikaanse titel wat die leser met die invoeging van ’n koppelteken dwing om
aan die samestellende dele mede en wete aandag te skenk, lei tot ’n verskerpte oorweging
van die titel as ’n verwysing na die “[k]ennis wat ’n mens van iets het saam met (’n)
ander” (HAT 651). Die gedagte van gedeelde kennis is ook aanwesig in die Engelse
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titel Synapse wat verwys na die sinaps as die struktuur wat die oordrag van ’n sein
vanaf ’n senuweesel (neuron) na ander selle moontlik maak. Volgens die Online
Etymology Dictionary beteken die Griekse woord synapsis “konjunksie” en skakel dit
met die werkwoord synaptein wat “omvat”, “saamvoeg”, “saambind” of “verbind”
beteken. In die gedigte “sillabe-sinaps in die noord/suid-kompas” (114–15) en “ESSAYABSTRAKTE re: SINAPS” (116–7) in Mede-wete is die relevansie van die sinaptiese
gegewe duidelik aanwesig.
Die verkenning van onderlinge verbondenheid sluit aan by die hoë premie wat
Krog in haar werk heg aan etiese verantwoordelikheid teenoor die ander. Soos in ’n
Ander tongval gaan Krog in “ESSAY-ABSTRAKTE re: SINAPS” in op die rol wat
vertaling kan speel in die moeilike maar noodsaaklike oorbrugging van tale en kulture
wanneer sy skryf: “vertaling word ekstensie en radikale voorwaarde vir begrip lees is
om te vertaal? dit rus nooit maklik op die etiserende tong” (116). Vertaling is ook die
aktiwiteit van lees en dig en hierdie werksaamheid is “etiesentrifugaal” deurdat dit
die strewe na verbondenheid met ander mense binne die veeltalige Suid-Afrikaanse
konteks insluit, maar ook verder gaan om die self oop te stel aan invloede uit die
wêreldliteratuur, aan ’n bemoeienis met niemenslike vorme van lewe op aarde en
selfs die uitspansel van die sterre en die planete. Die gedigreeks “om te ver-jy” (46–51)
is juis Krog se verwerking van die siklus Waar ik jou word (2009) wat sy na aanleiding
van Govert Schilling se biografie van die kosmos Evoluerend heelal (2003) en die werk
van Paul Celan vir Gedichtendag 2009 geskryf het. In “om te ver-jy” is die sterre die
uiterste grens van die behoefte om ’n kreatiewe uitstraling te bereik wat ver buite die
self strek te midde van die wete (na aanleiding van Schilling) dat die atome in ons
liggame oorspronklik van die sterre afkomstig is:
[…] daar waar ek jy is
julle geword het
begin ek buite myself
ligte polsslae kwiksilwersingend
iets anderkant alle mensheid kaats (49)
Die etiese vraagstuk is in hoeverre die strewe na verbondenheid met die ander mag
strek sonder om ’n totaliserende projeksie, ’n magsgreep, van die self te word. Die
besef dat “waar ek anders as jy is / begin ek / dis waar” (48) is daarom die teenbeeld van
die oorskrydingsdrang wat die self buite die grense van die “ek” wil verplaas.
Die sinapsering van die self word in Mede-wete dus op verskillende maniere
voltrek: in die verhouding met geliefdes, in die verwerwing van begrip vir die
kulturele ander en uiteindelik ook in die strewe na groter eenheid met die natuur en
die heelal. Hierdie ekologiese bemoeienis met die natuur is verder die basis van ’n
natuurmistiek wat duidelike religieuse ondertone verkry. In my bespreking van die
verskillende maniere waarop die self met die menslike en niemenslike ander artikuleer,
226
verwys ek na die sinapse wat hierdie artikulasie oftewel sinapserings in die bundel
bevorder.
Eerste sinaps: familieliefde as uitreiking buite die self
In gedigte oor die ervaring van grootouerskap (byvoorbeeld “junior ”, “ek en my
kleindogter bou sandkastele” en “12 weke vier dae sonar”) is dit die voortsetting van
die self in die nageslag wat onder meer aandag geniet. Wanneer die spreker as ouma
na die sonarbeeld van die fetus van haar kleinkind staar, word haar verwondering
uiteindelik soos volg saamgevat:
hoe het iets iets wat ek self nie weet nie maar iets van my in daardie
frummelvormpie ’n miniskule kleim afgesteek sodat ek vanuit ’n
onvry gehamerde vaderland kan sê die vreemdvarinkie daar is my bloed? (40)
Ook in die gedeelde ervaring van liggaamlike aftakeling wat by die self en by die
geliefde waargeneem word, ontstaan ’n oorskryding van die beperkinge waaraan die
ek as potensieel outonome en eensame wese uitgelewer is soos byvoorbeeld in “retinaloslating” (94), “ontoombaar en terrestries” (95) en in “toe die jongste kind” (101). Die
erotiese liefde wat die spreker voorheen met gulsige verwagting aangegryp het, maak
in die ouderdom plek vir ’n ervaring “uit die breuk wat ek is” waaruit die vasstelling
voortvloei: “ons pruttel in / mekaar se arms omponsd van wonde” (“ontoombaar en
terrestries”, 95). Nog ’n sterk familiegedig, naamlik “ontwei” wat besliste weerklanke
van Krog se bekende gedig “Ma” uit Dogter van Jefta (1970) bevat, begin met ’n strofe
waarin die verbondenheid met die bejaarde moeder en literêre voorganger (Viljoen
6–11) opval:
jy gly onder my uit, Ma, in hierdie virulentgeurende lente
vanoggend toe ek jou groet, klamp jy aan my vas
en byna te buite hou ek jou (103)
Tweede sinaps: oorskryding van kulturele andersheid
Antjie Krog se gereelde besinning oor die etiese omgang met swart landgenote en
uiteindelik ook die oorweging van kulturele andersheid met nadruk op die tale en
kulture van Europa is onverminderd in Mede-wete aanwesig as deel van ’n meer
oorkoepelende en ambisieuse nadenke oor die skarniere en kontakpunte tussen self
en ander. Die gedig “hou jou oor teen die skeur van my land” (28–29) is ’n herbesoek
aan die Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie wat Krog in Country of My Skull in
groter besonderhede beskryf het. In die gedig word die getuienis van Cynthia Ngewu
oor die moord op haar seun Christopher Piet, leier van die sogenaamde Gugulethu
Sewe, in 1986 weergegee. Cynthia Ngewu het met haar vergifnis van die apartheids-
227
polisieman, adjudant-offisier Barnard, daarna gestreef om sy menslikheid te herstel.
Die slotstrofe van die gedig bevind egter: “hulle het vergeefs interverbondenheid
probeer inweef in / die concrete bunker wat in mnr. Barnard se witheid leef ” (29).
Swart konsepsies van ubuntu wat oor die kleurgrens heen gedeel word, stuit teen die
weiering van die wit polisieman om hom vir “interverweefdheid-tot-samehang” (28)
oop te stel. In die indrukwekkende “mirakel” verwoord die spreker soos in die
openingsiklus van die bundel “die werf” (9–25) haar verbondenheid met die land. Die
woorde “mateloos is my liefde vir die land / verwikkeld gehard en onomwonde” (30–
31) word in “mirakel” as refrein herhaal, en funksioneer as ’n kontrapunt tot die
teleurstelling oor die gebrek aan visie en die brutaliteit wat ’n skadu oor die wonder
van “die vreedsame vrymaking van my land” (31) werp.
In die eweneens indrukwekkende gedigreeks “Vrou Justitia geblinddoek” (32–
35) is die vertrekpunt kennelik Zapiro (2010) se omstrede reeks spotprente oor Jacob
Zuma wat gereed maak om die beeld van Geregtigheid as vrou met swaard en
weegskaal te verkrag ten aanskoue van ’n aantal medepligtiges wat haar teen die
grond vasdruk. In die gedigreeks is die klem op aandadigheid by die verkragting van
Vrou Geregtigheid wat nie net die misdaad van ’n enkeling of ’n enkele groep is nie.
In die slotgedig in die reeks word die verinniging van “mede-lug” as verweer teen
die korrupsie en brutaliteit voorgestel—die uitreiking na die gedeelde ruimte met die
ander word wederom die vertrekpunt van saambestaan met respek vir geregtigheid:
maar hoe hou ons mekaar se bloed in bewaring anders
as om vurig mede-lug en die sakrosante van alle liggame
te verinnig sodat die hartelose die barmhartigheidslose die
brutale die wrede die venyn nie al is wat ons het wanneer
ons teenoor mekaar staan nie, eindelik, waar jy ook al is, die
fondasies waarop alles rus bly korrupsie en aandadigheid
maar die gevaarlikste hiervan
is die skoon hande (35)
’n Selfbewuste besinning oor die etiese verantwoordelikheid van die digter in die
representasie van die ander se dikwels onbegryplike ellende begelei die tweetalige
weergawe in Afrikaans en Xhosa van ’n huishulp se stryd met armoede in die lang
gedig “bediendepraatjies” (60–74) wat ’n volle vyftien bladsye in beslag neem. Drucilla
Cornell se uitspraak dat “the noting of the failure of representation itself becomes a
form of listening” (60) annoteer die gedig. Hierdie mislukking van representasie word
in die ingevoegde fragment “(die slak as verbeelding op die slapende subaltern wang)”
opnuut na vore gebring wanneer die digterstem aanwesig gestel word as ’n
(parasiterende) slak met die uiteindelik gefnuikte intensie om aan die subaltern
uitdrukking te gee: “sy is een groot empaties- / smakkende skeur waardeur die wang weerklink
voor brandend / van menssweet als misluk en sy terug in haar wit windings slink” (66). In
Mede-wete is die versugting deurgaans aanwesig om vanuit die inkerkerende
228
slakkehuis van “wit windings” te kan uitreik na die ander van kleur al is die etiese
struikelblokke wat die nobele sinapserende intensies van die digter-spreker belemmer soms oorweldigend.
Derde sinaps: ’n gedeelde ekologiese materialiteit
Die gedig “connected in Berlyn” wat ingaan op die mens wat toenemend die
tegnologie benut om verbondenheid en skakeling te bewerkstellig eindig met ’n
koersveranderende uitwysing na ’n kraai buite die gewasemde ruit van die huislike
ruimte waar informasietegnologie die toon aangee. Die wens van die spreker is dan:
“o / om ooit te snoef deur sy snawel te straal met sy oog / sy brein glorieus uitspanselbindings te loof ” (55). Die gewaarwording van die spreker dat die informatika
inhou dat sy nie meer “’n noodwendigheid” vir haar familie is nie, laat haar smag na
andersoortige verbintenisse soos met die niemenslike dier wat potensieel bindings
en sinapse op ’n kosmiese skaal kan fasiliteer. Die vermoede is dat daar deur die medewetes van ander vorme van lewe op aarde uiteindelik fundamenteel groter ontdekkings mag wag as deur die blote illusie van ’n “bo-aardse gloed” wat van ’n
rekenaarskerm afkomstig is.
Vir ’n oomblik is dit in “om te ver-jy” (46–51) denkbaar om die gesig van die geliefde te sien “sterrefiseer”, “bomefiseer” en te “leeuefiseer” en daardeur iets van die
“bo-sinnelike” op te tel. Die organiese en anorganiese materialiteit van die heelal is die
poort tot groter artikulasies en transformasies wat begin by die wete dat die mens in sy
samestelling uit dieselfde materie as die res van die uitspansel bestaan en daarom juis
deur ’n bevestiging van hierdie gedeelde materialiteit die hulsel van beperkende
denkbeelde oor ’n afgebakende menslike self kan deurbreek. Hierdie bewussyn van
die aanliggendheid van materie wat byvoorbeeld in Krog se vroeër gedigte oor klippe
en rotse aanwesig was, verkry in haar jongste bundel ’n groter dringendheid en skep
haar werk, selfs meer as vantevore, die indruk van aansluiting by die nuwe materialisme.
Die vertrekpunt van die nuwe materialisme wat ook deeglik in die ekokritiek verreken
word, is dat mense in hul alledaagse lewe omring word deur materie en boonop self
ook uit materie saamgestel is. Ons ervaar die rusteloosheid en onomstootlikheid van
die materiële, ook terwyl ons dit verbruik en daardeur nuwe konfigurasies aanneem
(Coole en Frost 1). Aangesien ons soos Krog dit stel “meer mikroob as mens” is omdat
ons onder meer bestaan uit “90 triljoen naaiende onnoembares ’n kolonie juigendkompakterede kieme” (79) gebied hierdie interafhanklikheid en sinapse met die stoflike
dat ons ook materialisties oor die bestaan moet nadink.
In die oorrompelende “’n dogtertjie in die tuin” erken die spreker in die spel van
’n dogtertjie ’n intuïtiewe wete van intieme verbintenisse met die ander in die natuur
en met ander mense:
229
voor sy ’n melkhoutboom was, was sy ’n kraalogie
dit was nou nadat sy die wind was
haar haartjies is besig om vere te word
’n muggie trek haar snawel nader (52)
Ewe moeiteloos kan sy in haar spel haar inbeeld dat die arms van die spreker op wie
se skoot sy sit ook haar arms word en speels begin sy haar dan met die hand van die
spreker te voer.
In “as ek doodgaan” is dit die wens van die spreker dat ’n boom op haar graf
geplant moet word sodat die boom voeding kan haal uit haar ontbindende liggaam.
Sodoende sal sy as deel van die boom ná haar dood kan “tril as chlorofil” en kan
oopteug “in blare” om “die liewe son” te bejuig (102). Die ambisie in die gedigte is dus
om sowel die blik van ander lewende wesens te kan aanneem as om deur transformasie
ander synsvorme in die natuur te kan aanneem in ’n ontsnapping uit die beperkende
aard van menswees.
Onder die invloed van Emmanuel Levinas het die alteriteitsetiek (ook bekend as
responsetiek) ontwikkel wat die filosofiese aandag verskuif het van wette en beginsels
gebaseer op geïsoleerde nadenke of rasionele argumente na die gevoelsmatige appèl
van die weerlose vreemdeling. In die alteriteitsetiek is die aandag dus op die ander
wie se unieke identiteit die kennisverwerwende beperkinge van die taal en van
bestaande begrippe blootlê (Willett 9). Soos Antjie Krog se poësie onder meer deur
“sillabeversteuring” (118) en ander uitdagings van die taal demonstreer, is daar sedert
Levinas groeiende pogings om verbeterde etiese verhoudings met die menslike én
niemenslike ander te ontwikkel. Die koppeling van die strewe na betekenisvolle
uitwisseling in ons multispesie-gemeenskappe met die diepgesetelde kwasireligieuse ingesteldheid van die alteriteitsetiek (Willet 13) is in Mete-wete moontlik die basis
van die fokus op mistieke eenwording.
Vierde sinaps: mistieke eenwording as mede-wete
Die gedig “’n eland staan by ’n kuil” in Mede-wete illustreer goed die samehang tussen,
enersyds, die ekologiese sinaps in ’n gedeelde materialiteit en, andersyds, mistieke
eenwording. By die spreker is daar ’n behoefte om te “soek hoe / die eland die water
die berge deel is // van ’n geheue van oneindige voortglippendheid // hoe wéét hulle
van mekaar?” (54). Die spreker asook die ekologiese eksistensie buite haar is deel van
’n magtige beweging wat berus op ’n basis van ’n kontinue uitwisselbaarheid tussen
self en ander. Hierdie beweging het egter nie God as doel nie, maar kom eerder voor
as ’n nihilistiese natuurmistiek soos blyk uit die twee slotstrofes van die gedig:
230
[…] so niks
kan ek onthou van die ontniks waaruit ek kom
so niks verstaan ek van die niksheidsnoute waarheen
ek op pad is—haglik in hiernamaalsflardes krapkrap ek toevallende gaatjies na die Groot Goddelike Niets (54)
Normaalweg begin die mistisisme met die nihilistiese vernietiging van subjektiwiteit
en van die wêreld van die subjek. Daarvandaan beweeg dit dan na ’n uitreiking na
die oneindige sodat die oneindige waarna gestreef word en die leegte van waaruit dit
voortgekom het in werklikheid met mekaar saamval. In Krog se gedig begin die denke
egter juis by die ontkenning van niksheid, naamlik die materiële “ontniks waaruit ek
kom” en beweeg dit op ’n ontoereikende manier “in hiernamaalsflardes” (54) na die
niks wat weliswaar goddelik en groot is.
In die enigmatiese slotgedig van die bundel “tesis in gestapelde sillabeversteuring
oor ingebedheid” (118 20) word die wegstuur van God bepleit ten gunste van ’n
ligtheid gekoppel aan die natuur en die “groen” en die strewe na ’n skil wat saambind
en soomloosheid nastreef:
ons móét God ry tot hy mak is en ons weggee
as ademloos lig-wigtiges aan die tampende skyn
van wimpelvlerknaguile
skil wat ver-een
verru jou hare in die skokmat-sig van groen
om die geskiedenis van soomloses te vernu (119)
Simon Critchley wat in The Faith of the Faithless oor die (anargistiese) mistisisme skryf,
konkludeer dat mistici soos die Middeleeuse skrywer Marguerite Porete ’n poging
aanwend om nie ’n teofaniese (dit is iets met die aanskyn van ’n god) einddoel te
bereik nie, maar om eerder ’n daad van absolute waagmoed te onderneem wat uitmond
in ’n nagenoeg onsterflike dimensie van die subjek. Die punt is nie om ander uit die
weg te ruim nie, maar om die eie self te vernietig sodat ’n getransformeerde verhouding
met ander moontlik word, ’n nuwe manier om die gemeenskaplike en saambestaan
met ander te bedink (Critchley 152–3). By Krog word selfvermindering, maar weliswaar
geen selfverdwyning nie, bepleit in die natuurmistieke najaag van ’n niegodgerigte
gesamentlike bestaan wat die ander, wyd gekonsipieer as medemense én medewesens,
“ver-een” in ’n nuwe soomloosheid.
Die gedig “moniaal” (41), wat op die oog af as ’n soort omgekeerde Engelse sonnet
opgebou is, is die moeite werd om volledig aan te haal omdat dit ’n aangrypend
liriese gebed is wat die dilemma van ’n Godheid wat nou nog net deur die belewing
van die natuur ervaar kan word, ter sprake bring:
231
moniaal
by watter naam roep ons die universum aan
anders as die uitgediende naam God:
God sê ek as wintergras die vlaktes vlas in rypwit
en afgevrete pruim—kyk die speenkleur genaamd
God sê ek by die aandgloor van perlemoengehalmde lug
heilig
heilig
hef die heuwels hulle tulle blou asems
Maanheid fluister ek natgesweet as die grootse ding eindelik
liplaat
ek kniel voor die onuitspreekbare genade van
Boomheid: Allerhoogste Bergheid sien u gesant in Wolkheid
aan
u proseliet in Herfs
u ab van Water
ek strek
my in aanbidding neer O Somerappelkoosheid en smeek
laat u dienskneg nog ’n wyle sintuiglik besete word
in dié Bergheid
Uilheid
barmhartige Nierheid
die leefsuisende suurstofmantels van Sterlipsaligheid
In sommige afgeslote ordes van die Katolieke Kerk is die moniaal is ’n vroulike
kloosterling wat ná haar novisiaat ’n tydelike gelofte van drie jaar aflê waarmee sy
haar tot gehoorsaamheid, suiwerheid en armoede verbind. In hierdie gedig is die
moniaal “sintuiglik besete” deur die natuur en is die naam God uitgedien omdat dit
blykbaar nie voldoende die byna mistieke ervaring van die natuur kan vasvang nie.
Die naam God word dan vervang met woorde soos “Maanheid”, “Boomheid”,
“Bergheid”, “Somerappelkoosheid”, “Uilheid”, “Nierheid” en “Sterlipsaligheid”. Die
gedig “moniaal” gee iets weer van die aansluiting wat Krog in Mede-wete vind by
vroulike mistici soos die nonne en begyne soos Hadewijch (’n digter), skrywer
Marguerite Porete en Teresa van Avila.
Slot
In hierdie verkennende resensieartikel het ek probeer om soos in die manjifieke
slotverse in Mede-wete “vier pogings in linguistiese sinaps-opsporing” (111–20) op
soek te gaan na sommige van die sinapse oftewel onderlinge verbondenhede wat
deurlopend in die bundel voorkom. Hierdie sinaps-opsporing het my gelei na die
sinaps tussen die spreker en haar familie en geliefdes, die sinaps met die kulturele
ander, die sinaps van ’n gedeelde ekologiese materialiteit en daarmee gepaardgaande
ook die sinaps wat dui op ’n natuurmistieke oriëntasie.
232
Mede-wete is weens die sillabeversteurings en soms ondeurdringbare, hermetiese
aanbieding ’n uitdagende bundel. Die leser word verder aangemoedig om invloede
soos die Duitse poësie van Paul Celan en Ingeborg Bachmann, die verse van die
Kanadese digter Anne Carson, die prosa van J. M. Coetzee en die filosofie van
Emmanuel Levinas raak te lees. In onder meer Krog se talle neologismes, woordsamestellings en ontyking van idiome herken Louise Viljoen (14) byvoorbeeld die
neerslag van Paul Celan se pogings om Duits as taal te herskep en dat Krog eweneens
uitdrukking gee aan ’n behoefte om in Suid-Afrika (maar ook elders in ander wêrelddele) ’n nuwe taal te ontdek wat “mede-wete” sal bewerkstellig.
In Mede-wete is daar nietemin talle toeganklike gedigte sodat die bundel nooit in
’n hermetiese eenselwigheid verval nie. Die lys hoogtepunte in die bundel is lank en
sluit gedigte in soos die werf- en grondgedigte “leef die mite” (18) en “om soos vroeër”
(21), en dan verder “mirakel” (30), “Vrou Justitia geblinddoek” (32–35), “12 weke 4 dae
sonar” (40), “moniaal” (41), “om ’n mens kos te gee” (44), “om te ver-jy” (46–51), “’n
dogtertjie in die tuin” (52–3), “’n eland staan by ’n kuil” (54), die eksperimentele
“bediendepraatjies” (60–74), “kerssonnet” (75), die geheue-gedigte “buite skemer dit
koeëlgate spat êrens donker” (97) en “(probeerslag 5: grond)” (100) maar ook “ontwei”
(103) en al die gedigte in die reeks wat aan Jakes Gerwel opgedra is, naamlik “vier
pogings in linguistiese sinaps-opsporing” (111–20).
Met Mede-wete tree Antjie Krog op as ’n digterlike sintetiseerder, maar dit beteken
allermins dat daar nie ook talle tekens van ’n selfverruimende soeke en verbreding
van haar eie digterlike visie is nie. Hoewel brandpunte in die politieke diskoers in
Suid-Afrika, anders as wat Krog in Mede-wete en ook elders (“An Inappropriate Text”)
blykbaar te kenne gee, besig is om te verskuif van kleur na sosiale kwessies rakende
klasse-ongelykheid en xenofobie, lees sy nietemin die gees van die tyd baie fyn in die
gedigte waarin sy uiting gee aan ’n behoefte aan koppelings en saamwees tussen
mens en omgewing. ’n Mens staan nie soseer versteld oor nuwe vergesigte wat Krog
op ’n gedagtevlak oopmaak nie as oor die verbluffende omgang met die taal wat
geplet en getoets word vir wordings en vernuwings. Mede-wete is ’n digterlike kleinood
en ’n klinkende bewys dat die Afrikaanse poësie tans, anders as wat Krog self in ’n
skeptiese oomblik van selfondersoek beweer, veel meer is as die werk van ’n groepie
“bobeenversitters-in-krimpende-taal” (117).
Coole, D., en S. Frost. “Introducing the New Materialisms”. New Materialisms. Ontology, Agency and
Politics. Reds. D. Coole en S. Frost. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010. 1–43.
Critchley, S. The Faith of the Faithless. Experiments in Political Theology. Londen en New York: Verso, 2012.
HAT. Verklarende Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal. Midrand: Perskor, 1994.
Krog, A. ’n Ander tongval. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2005.
_____. “An Inappropriate Text for an Appropriate Evening—Read Antjie Krog’s Keynote Address
from the 2015 Sunday Times Literary Awards”. 29 Jun. 2015. 9 Jul. 2015. Books Live. <http://
233
bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/06/29/an-inappropriate-text-for-an-appropriate-evening-read-antjie-krogskeynote-address-from-the-2015-sunday-times-literary-awards/>.
_____. Country of My Skull. Johannesburg: Random House, 1998.
_____. Dogter van Jefta. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 1970.
_____. Mede-wete. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2014.
_____. Synapse. Vertaal uit Afrikaans deur Karen Press. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau, 2014.
_____. Waar ik jou word. Rotterdam: Poetry International; Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Podium, 2009.
Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001. 9 Jul. 2015. <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=synapse>.
Schilling, G. Evoluerend heelal; de biografie van de kosmos. Hilversum: Fontaine Uitgevers, 2003.
Viljoen, L. Ons ongehoorde soort. Beskouings oor die werk van Antjie Krog. Stellenbosch: SUN PReSS, 2009.
_____. “Baanbrekend, nuut vir Krog én taal”. Beeld (ByNaweek+). 13 Des. 2014. 14.
Willett, C. Interspecies Ethics. New York: Columbia University P.
Zapiro (ps. Jonathan Shapiro). “Jacob Zuma and Lady Justice”. 11 Sept. 2008. 9 Jul. 2015. < http://
www.zapiro.com/Slideshows/Lady-Justice-Jacob-Zuma>.
234
Mede-wete.
Antjie Krog. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau,
2014. 128 pp. ISBN: 978-0-798-16787-1.
Antjie Krog geniet as digter, skrywer, akademikus en verslaggewer oor die Waarheidsen Versoeningskommissie (WVK) wye bekendheid. Dié bekroonde digter het onlangs
haar nuutste digbundel Mede-wete (2014) die
lig laat sien.
Die flapteks van Mede-wete, ook uitgegee
in Engels as Synapse, stel dit soos volg bekend:
“Antjie Krog se digterskap het begin met verset
teen taal en gesag wat meer was as jeugdige
rebelsheid—dit was ’n begeerte om die taal
sélf los te maak van beperkinge. Kwessies
rondom gewete, geheue en taal word nou, in
haar eerste digbundel in agt jaar, tot ’n nuwe
intensiteit gevoer.”
Die titel en die motto’s voorin die bundel is
reeds sprekend van die spilpunte van Medewete. Die titel wys op ’n kollektiewe bewustheid en in baie gevalle ’n bewustheid van gedeelde Afrikanerskuld. Mede-wete, onkonvensioneel met ’n koppelteken geskryf, dwing die
leser om woorde soos medemens, medepligtige,
medemenslikheid op te roep en deurgaans neem
’n bewus wees van die Ander ’n prominente
posisie in. Die fokus op die verhouding tussen
Self, ’n eie identiteit, en ’n relasie tot die Ander
word in Mede-wete deur verskillende strategieë
deurgevoer. Daar word byvoorbeeld gebruik
gemaak van gesprekvoering in verskeie
vorme, wat onvermydelik die aandag vestig
op ’n Self-Ander-verhouding. Hiervan is
“bediendepraatjies” (60–74) ’n goeie voorbeeld—die leser word deur “bediendepraatjies”
bewus gemaak van die misverstande wat daar
bestaan tussen Self en Ander. Die mens se
relasionaliteit tot ’n Ander staan dus voorop,
maar die bundelmotto’s plaas ’n verdere klem
op die mens se relasie tot grond en grondbesit
en hoe dít identiteitsvorming beïnvloed.
Die openingsgedig, “’ek wil ’n graf hê om
van te draai’” (uit die eerste afdeling, naamlik
“die werf ”), illustreer reeds die twee genoemde temas. ’n Kollektiewe bewustheid en die
aard van grond en grondbesit blyk byvoorbeeld uit reëls soos “sy verwarde / nageslag
staan waar ons voel ons nie hoort nie / verduur
deur geboortegrond waaraan ons vir geslagte
/ bloei” en “in die snykoud Vrystaat skitterlig
is dit asof / iets sugtends van ons uitgaan van
ons / Afrikanergewete ons taalheid ons witheid”. Die gedig handel oor die begrafnis van
die digter-spreker se pa en is tekenend van ’n
deurwinterde skrywershand, dit is merkwaardig om iets so uitmuntend poëties te skep van
’n onderwerp wat dit maklik tot die sentimentele kan leen.
Een van die mees prysenswaardige aspekte van Antjie Krog se poëtika is haar vermoë
om ’n veelvuldige perspektief vreesloos en
eerlik te kan weergee. ’n Aspek hiervan is die
dualistiese voorouerliefde, ’n liefde vir grond
en die plaas, maar terselfdertyd ’n wete dat
daar hierin ’n onvermydelike bevoorregting
lê waarin sy as Afrikaner deel gehad het en
deur haar liefde vir haar Afrikanerfamilie en
herkoms, dalk steeds deel het. ’n Gedig wat
dié dualisme besonder goed illustreer is “om
soos vroeër” (21):
om soos vroeër die Kroonstad/Viljoenskroonpad te vat
en nader aan die afdraai te hoor hoe rits my gewrigte los
hoe sidder my vel as ek by die plaaspad-middelmannetjie
oorskakel na tweede rat vir die kyk die kruie tot waar
[…]
ag, ek verlang na my pa en my ma soos wat hulle was
daar aan die bopunt van die tafel voor in die kar
geselsend in die hoofslaapkamer en die wêreld deur hulle
in stand gehou volkoringheilsaam en onvernietigbaar
so het dit gevoel ek hardloop julle van agter-af in sit
my arms om julle skouers en loop in die warm wesendheid van julle knorrige gewetes loop liedswermend soos
ek eens geloop het as julle kind, julle wit batende kind
oor die uitgestrekte werf van leuens want kyk
’n heerskare was onder ons hak ’n gehaksel
wat bloei: ek dra met julle saam dit wat nou so
skeur uit ’n haag van bloed en bitter wraakgebroei
235
Die tematiese besinning oor die aard van
grond, grondbesit, mag, patriargie en die
verband tussen identiteit en grond, hoewel
tipiese postkoloniale temas, word nooit eentonig of clichématig aangebied nie. Die blik
op die patriargale word byvoorbeeld afgewissel met ’n matriargale perspektief wanneer
die digter-spreker vertel van sterk vroue uit
haar voorgeslagte, soos byvoorbeeld in
“[grond]—tussen hakies onvertaalbaar” waarin die digter-spreker se oumagrootjie die
grondbesitter is. Genderkwessies word ook
op ander maniere in die bundel getematiseer.
Die gedigte “junior” en “om in ’n dogtertjie se
kamer te slaap” word op bls. 36 en 37 teenoor
mekaar gestel en raak só heelwat van die stereotipiese sienings van genderrolle aan.
Nog ’n bekende Krog-tema is die verstrengelheid van verlede en hede, met die
skuldtema wat dikwels daarmee verband
hou. In “dis hy!” (22) sê die digter-spreker byvoorbeeld “vas / geheg bly ons hede aan die
verlede sterf ”. Vanselfsprekend bring hierdie
tematiek ook ander temas na vore, soos die
onbetroubaarheid van herinneringe en geheue (“geheue” 87), wat deurgaans in die bundel aangeraak word.
Mede-wete is ryk aan motiewe en tematiese
verskeidenheid. Behalwe vir grond, identiteit,
skuld, familiebande en kollektiewe bewustheid, is daar ook verwysings na die poëtikale,
die orale tradisie, die dood, geweld, eensaamheid en verganklikheid. Die pragtige “kerssonnet” (75) is ’n gedig wat laasgenoemde aangrypend uitbeeld.
’n Verdere kenmerk van Mede-wete is die
uiteenlopende style en eksperimentering met
tipografie, taal en neologismes. Daar is die
intertekstuele invloed van Paul Celan en verwysings na Spivak, J. M Coetzee, Carl Jung en
andere. Die poësie wissel tussen narratiewe
poësie, praatpoësie en suiwer beeldpoësie. Die
metaforiek wat byvoorbeeld in gedigte soos
“ongelowig is nie die regte woord nie” (86) en
“huisskoonmaak” (96) gebruik word, is tekenend van geslypte woordkuns.
236
Krog se oeuvre word deurlopend gekenmerk deur die outobiografiese en in Medewete is dit nie anders nie. In aansluiting by een
van die hooftemas is die outobiografiese verwysings merendeels na die digter-spreker se
verhouding met haar eie ouers, kinders, eggenoot, kleinkinders en herkoms. Die intieme
huweliksruimte word in “toe die jongste kind”
(101) betree en ’n gedig soos “as ek doodgaan”
(102) is een van die laatverse wat die digterspreker se eie dood aanraak. Dit is verder opvallend hoeveel ooreenkomste daar tussen
Mede-wete en Krog se outobiografiese ’n Ander
tongval (2005) bestaan. So is heelwat van die
vertellinge in laasgenoemde omgedig tot gedigte soos “’n verhaal” (16–7) en “voorverkiesingspraatjies” (20).
Menige resensente het al “by die dood van
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela” (107) as ’n kragtoer geprys, en daar is inderdaad vele hoogtepunte in hierdie bundel. Mede-wete is nie op
dieselfde literêre vlak as Lady Anne (1989) of
Kleur kom nooit alleen nie (2000), maar is steeds
’n indrukwekkende bundel wat as een van
die hoogtepunte in die Afrikaanse poësie van
die afgelope paar jaar gesien kan word. Ek
sluit af met ’n aanhaling uit die sikliese en
uitmuntende “mirakel” (30–1):
ek behoort aan hierdie land
dit het my gemaak
ek het geen ander land
as dié land nie
mateloos is my liefde vir die land
verwikkeld gehard en onomwonde
Ihette Jacobs
jacobsi@ufs.ac.za
Universiteit van die Vrystaat
Bloemfontein
Die stilte opgeskort.
Heilna du Plooy. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis,
2014. 82pp. ISBN: 978-1-4853-0130-1.
Die stilte opgeskort, die derde bundel uit die
pen van akademikus en digter Heilna du
Plooy, laat ’n indruk van ’n hoogs bevredigende ewewigtigheid. Afgesien van Du Plooy
se uitstekende beheersing van die taalmedium, dra haar verse die stempel van deeglike
afronding wat deur ’n fyn balans van emosie
en intellek gekenmerk word. Ewewig is egter
nie net ’n kenmerk van die konstruksie van
die verse in hierdie bundel nie, maar dit is ook
’n tema waarmee die digter bewus omgaan
en wat aan die hand van ’n uiteenlopende stel
spanninge uitgewerk word.
Die nagaan van die verskillende spanninge
waaruit daar uiteindelik na ’n balanspunt
beweeg word, is een moontlike strategie om
hierdie bundel te ontsluit, alhoewel dit sekerlik
nie die enigste moontlike strategie is nie.
Omdat die bundel nie spesifieke onderafdelings aanbied nie (en die enigste sigbare
aanduiding van ’n ordeningsmeganisme die
losse tipografiese groepering van gedigte in
die inhoudsopgawe aan die einde is), is dit die
leser se taak om die ryk inhoud van die bundel
te probeer orden. Die natrek van die belangrikste tematiese lyne in die bundel sou een
manier wees, en die lys sou kon insluit: kunstenaarskap; vrouwees; die eietydse Suid-Afrikaanse konteks; Afrikaanssprekendes se
herkoms; vriendskap, familiebande en die onvermydelikheid van verlies; die wese van onderskeidelik die jagter en die slagoffer (waarby ook die kwessie van skuld betrek word);
die verbruikerskultuur; die aardse; die verganklikheid en die oplaas die oorbrugging van
die tydelike.
Die nagaan van die verskillende teenstrydighede wat in die bundel ondersoek word
(en wat waarskynlik die belangrikste struktuurbeginsel is), sou ’n ander leesstrategie kon
wees. Dit kan uiteindelik groter winste inhou,
deurdat dit die leser deurentyd op die spoor
hou van die digter se soeke na ewewig en
sodoende kan help om die uiteindelike
digterlike visie in die bundel op te som.
Hoe belangrik die beginsel van ewewig
vir die bundel as geheel is, blyk uit die
openingsgedig, juis met die titel “Ewewig”.
Hier besin die digter oor die posisie van die
een wat skuld het teenoor die een aan wie iets
verskuldig is (’n kontras wat in nog veel fyner
besonderhede ondersoek word in “Die jag”,
’n reeks van beeldgedigte na aanleiding van
“The hunt” deur Maureen Quin). Hierdie gedig
is ’n belangrike ars poëtikale sleutel wanneer
daar deur die beeld van die natuur wat soms
sy eie reëls deurbreek, beweeg word na die
pen as beeld van digterskap wat die gevolglike wanbalans moet probeer herstel:
Die vlakte drink die afstromende lig
en kaats dit in die glinsterende grassaad terug.
Die rivier stoot sy loop waar die landskap vou
oop sodat bedding en oewers die water vashou.
Is ek iets verskuldig of is iets verskuldig aan my
as die vloed beddings oopkerf en oewers oorskry,
met die gras aan die brand en die rooi en die rook
wat uitsig en insig verwoed teen mekaar opstook?
Die punt van die pen
lê swaar op die blad
om in die opstuwende lyn
die las te versprei
tussen my
en die grein.
In “Die jag”, waar die teenstelling tussen jagter
en prooi die agtergrond vorm vir ’n besinning
oor die aard van konflik, vernietiging en skuld,
is die belangrike slotsom dat konflik ’n byna
instinktiewe meganisme is om die groter balans te behou: “Oorlog is ten slotte onnatuurlik natuurlik: / Met reëlmaat kry mense dit
broodnodig.”
237
Die kontras tussen “uitsig” en “insig”
(vergelyk “Ewewig”) is eweneens ’n belangrike sleutel tot die bundel. Waarneming van
buite, maar ook emosie wat na buite geprojekteer word (“uitsig”) word deurentyd teen
besinning (“insig”) opgeweeg. Dít word veral
gesien in ’n gedig soos “Vervreemding”, waar
die beredenerende persona van die spreker
telkens betyds genoeg ingryp om te sorg dat
’n emosioneel gelade gegewe ook intellektueel
hanteer word. ’n Verwante tegniek word gesien in “Uit ’n Leidse dagboek I” waar die skerp
waarneming van die gedoemde watervoëls
in die bevrore stad oorgaan in ’n netjiese
toepassing op menslike ondergang as noodwendigheid, innerlik na die patroon van die
Italiaanse sonnet, alhoewel die uiterlike bou
daarvan afwyk.
Die teenstrydighede wat verder die tekstuur van die bundel vorm, is ryk en uiteenlopend. Die belangrikste opposisies is waarskynlik dié van die oordaad van die populêre
kultuur teenoor omsigtigheid en ’n respek vir
gehalte (“Die pornografie van oordaad” en
“Korinna van Tanagra”); stilte teenoor beweging en reis (“Herfs”); verwoesting teenoor
behoud (“Ou geboue”); egoïsme en magsug
teenoor innerlike leegheid (“Segetog I”);
vervreemding teenoor outentisiteit (“Vervreemding”); natuur teenoor kultuur (“Leerskool”); verbeelding teenoor verstarring (“Die
donker binne en die donker buite”) asook
sosiale maskers teenoor individuele vryheid,
veral met betrekking tot die vrou se posisie in
ons samelewing (“Identiteit”). In die meeste
van hierdie gedigte kom die digter by ’n
bepaalde stellingname of oplossing van die
konflik uit—soos in “Identiteit” waar ’n psigiese uitreis na ’n domein sonder sosiale
rolverdelings verbeel word: “Sy duik / deur
die glas na ’n streek sonder lyne.” Daarmee
saam word transformasie geïmpliseer as
oplossing búite die digotomie van sosiale rolle
en individuele vryheid: “Saam met bont
vlinders wil sy / roekeloos stoei tussen rose: /
238
[…] / uiteindelik lustig omkom.” Hierdie slot
is dan ook ’n voorloper van een van die heel
belangrikste spanninge in die bundel, waarsonder die sintetiese visie van die geheel
onmoontlik is, naamlik die verhouding tussen
verganklikheid en oorbrugging en/of transformasie.
Die slotgedig wat ook die bundeltitel oproep, suggereer ’n outentieke volwasse digterlike bewussyn wat maar te deeglik bewus
is van die eie stoflikheid, maar wat die kortstondigheid van die aardse oorbrug of transformeer deur die produksie van kuns: “Vertel
dán, hart van vlees, die stilte opgeskort, / van
somergroei wat in die winter vrugte word”
(“Lemoene II”). Wanneer die bundel teen die
agtergrond van hierdie koeplet gelees word,
begryp die leser dat dit in Die stilte opgeskort
gaan oor ’n rykdom van stemme en betekenisse wat sigbaar word sodra die digter daarin
slaag om dít wat sy of haar digterskap inperk,
op te hef—hetsy sosiale inperkings of selfs
die vrees vir die dood en verlies.
Teen hierdie agtergrond behoort die volgende reëls uit “Ouhoutfluit” gelees te word:
Dan kan daar geluister word
na die geronde note, die verrykte
timbre, na die ongeveinsde geluid
wat soveel stemme, soveel toonaarde,
’n kaleidoskoop van menslikhede en verhale,
simfonies in wysies en in liedere in-sluit.
’n Toegeneë oor sal in die asemteue
deur die donker houtgeworde tyd
kan hoor hoe dit die note wel beskore is
om nader aan die ongekende te mag swewe.
Iets hiervan word ook gesuggereer in die
kunswerk op die voorblad (“Sacred Ibis” deur
Frederike Stokhuyzen): verby die kaal wintertakke reik die voëls op en uit om die hier en
nou te oorbrug.
Dit is seker moontlik om die strategie van
balansering as berekend te kritiseer, en daar
is die gevaar van voorspelbaarheid wanneer
dit herhaaldelik aangewend word. Tóg is die
effek wat Du Plooy telkens verkry een van
egtheid, dalk juis omdat opregte emosie
deurgaans onder die intellektuele oppervlak
gesuspendeer bly. Die uiteindelike indruk van
die bundel is dat dit die produk is van ’n
volwasse digterskap wat letterlik haar
digterlike staanplek, haar balanspunt gevind
het.
Amanda Lourens
alourens@sun.ac.za
Stellenbosch
uile, beskou as die draers van slegte nuus en as
simbole van onheil. Die voëls en hulle konstante teenwoordigheid wys uit na die geheime
wêreld van die outistiese seun wat nie van buite
af gepenetreer kan word nie. Die voëls word
dus die vergestaltings van die nooit afwesige
herinnering aan die onplesierige werklikheid
wat outisme vir die gesin inhou.
Hierdie onplesierige werklikheid kan
byvoorbeeld nader omskryf word as die
moedeloosheid wat deur die ouers en dokters
ervaar word aangesien die outisme van die
kind onvoorspelbaar is. Een ervaring hiervan
word in die gedig “Gloukoom” (13) aangedui:
vanself ’n wonderwerk
is skadu aan die optiese senuwee
deur ’n spesialis beperk
Narokkong.
Riël Franzsen. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis,
2015. 64 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1-4853-0410-4.
tog bly uitsig uitsigloos
onder Narokkong se vlerk
Die debuutbundel van Riël Franzsen Narokkong skep op die oog af die indruk dat die
gedigte in die bundel die natuur as prominente
tema sal betrek veral aangesien die voorbladillustrasie ’n aantal natuurgegewens op die
voorgrond plaas. In die bundel word die
natuur egter hoofsaaklik as motief opgeroep.
Met die titel word die invloed van D. J.
Opperman aangedui aangesien die enigmatiese Narokkong in Opperman se gedig
“Koggelbos” figureer. Die sterkste tematiese
gegewe wat in Franzsen se bundel na vore
kom, is die intens persoonlike ervaring van
die mens en sy omstandighede met die fokus
feitlik uitsluitlik op ’n vader se worsteling met
die outisme van sy seun. Die gedigte bied op
’n rou en eerlike wyse ’n uitbeelding van die
ouer se ervaring van sy kind se lewensloop,
van geboorte tot volwassenheid.
Die spanning wat in die bundel ontwikkel,
word sterker beklemtoon deur die motief van
Narokkong (voël van die aand) en ander voëlsoorte. In sommige kontekste word voëls, veral
steeds val ouers en artse rond
vanuit die skaduwêreld
tonnelvisie van die psige
is hier aan die werk
Die gedig dui aan dat die besoek aan die
dokter in ’n sekere mate vrugte afgewerp het,
maar die “skade aan die optiese senuwee [is
slegs] beperk” en nie ten volle verhoed nie.
Genesing was dus net gedeeltelik. Die
onplesierige waarheid, dat outisme onvoorspelbaar is en dat die binnelewe van die kind
nog steeds gedeeltelik ’n geheim is, word
bevestig in die tweede strofe met die vermelding dat die “uitsig” van die ouers en die
dokters “uitsigloos / vanuit die skaduwêreld /
onder Narokkong se vlerk” bly. Die wêreld
van die seun is ’n “skaduwêreld” van geheimenis. Narokkong verkry hier ’n dubbele
betekenis. Eerstens staan Narokkong in vir ’n
negatief gekleurde skaduwêreld met die
suggestie dat hy die heerser oor hierdie
wêreld is omdat dit onder sy vlerke is.
Tweedens tree Narokkong op as sinistere
239
beskermer van die geheime wêreld van die
seun, aangesien die sig belemmer is en
“uitsigloos” bly. Die gevolg is dat die “ouers
en artse” rondval, en sonder volkome begrip
van die “skaduwêreld” kan hulle uiteraard nie
die geheimenisse deurgrond nie—die “tonnelvisie van die psige” van hul outistiese seun
bly ’n onvermydelike belemmering.
Al die elemente in die bundel word
saamgeweef om die indruk te laat van ’n
bundel wat verstegnies goed versorg is.
Ondanks die literêre, Bybelse en natuurkundige motiewe is die digterlike diepgang
wat in Narokkong bereik word, nie buitengewoon indrukwekkend nie. Dit is duidelik dat
die bundel meer daarmee gemoeid is om
uitdrukking aan die ervaring van ’n gesin met
’n outistiese seun te gee as wat dit ambisieus
die taal as digterlike medium uitdaag of
digterlike tendense probeer verskuif. Aangesien Narokkong egter ’n debuutbundel is, is dit
goed moontlik dat Riël Franzsen in sy verdere
groei as digter nog veel hoër sal mik.
Ondanks hierdie kritiese vasstelling is dit
vir die ontvanklike leser uiteindelik onmoontlik om die impak van die eerlike en pynlike
blik op die impak van outisme op die gesin te
mis te kyk of te vergeet. Gedigte soos
“Paasfees” (19), “Poppekas” (24–5) en “Reisgenote” (63) dring deur verby die emosionele
weerstand van die leser en bied ’n koue en
harde blik op die individu se ervaring van die
teistering, frustrasie, hulpeloosheid en die
onvermoë om weg te breek van outisme. Die
individuele ervaring van die spreker getuig
van ’n besef dat die waarheid dat sy geliefde
seun deur outisme vasgepen word, onomstootlik is, maar dat hy betekenis kan vind in
die saamleef daarmee sodat die ervaring
uiteindelik draagliker word.
Mariska Coetzee
coetzeemariska@ymail.com
Universiteit van Pretoria
Pretoria
240
Stil punt van die aarde
aarde.
Johann de Lange. Kaapstad:
Human & Rousseau, 2014. 119 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-7981-6491-7.
Ná ’n publikasiedroogte van veertien jaar
beleef Johann de Lange sedert die verskyning
van Die algebra van nood (2009) ’n bloeitydperk
met die publikasie van Weerlig van die ongeloof
(2011), Vaarwel, my effens bevlekte held (2012) en
sy mees resente bundel Stil punt van die aarde
(2014). ’n Moontlike verklaring hiervoor is dat
digterskap vir De Lange grootliks ’n noodwendige reaksie of selfs borswering teen verwonding en verlies verteenwoordig. Die implikasie
hiervan word goed in die motto van Hugo
Claus tot die slotafdeling (“Beseringstyd”) van
Stil punt van die aarde opgesom: “Hoe dichter
de dichters bij hun sterven geraken / Des te
grimmiger kermen zij naar de sterren.”
Hoe nader en meer die verlies, hoe groter
die digtersdrang. Moontlik verklaar dit ook
waarom De Lange so obsessief met bepaalde
temas in sy oeuvre omgaan—digterskap, seks,
liefde, toenadering tot die biologiese vader,
gesprekke met literêre voorgangers en die
dood. Dié pantsers bevredig soms, maar skiet
dikwels te kort. Gevolglik bly die sprekers in
De Lange se poësie voortdurend op soek na
die ideale panasee, want vir hierdie digter
“word die poësie die medium vir die digter
om neuroses te besweer. Die digter is ’n outopsigiater ”. De Lange se werkswyse mag
oënskynlik op ’n eenselwige patroon en onbereikbare strewe dui, alhoewel só ’n taksering
nie die ryk netwerk van teenpole, paradokse
en oorgange verreken nie.
In Stil punt van die aarde is herkenbare
kompulsies aanwesig, maar die bundel is ook
aanduidend van die voortdurende spanning
tussen vervulling en ontnugtering in De Lange
se oeuvre. Meermale word ’n dominante kompulsie in een bundel in ’n latere bundel gerelativeer of vanuit ’n ander invalshoek
benader. In dié verband is die verskuiwende
blik op die dwelmervaring relevant. Die
inkering en relativerende beskouing van die
spreker in Stil punt van die aarde verskil van
die kompulsiewe dwelmekstase wat in Die
algebra van nood nagejaag word. In die tweede
strofe van “Hersenskim” (71) is dié verskuiwing opmerklik: “& ek onthou die eensame
ekstase / van ’n junkie alleen op sy bed / met
sy toornige naald & toerniket,/ beskou deur
vuilgevatte brilglase.” In “Laat vaar ” (72)
verwoord ’n voormalige dwelmhedonis sy
ontnugtering nog duideliker: “Laat vaar die
lepel, laat vaar / die naald, laat vaar / die vlam:
die honger / hart is ’n weggooi-lam.”
Dié reëls suggereer dat verlies ’n prominente medespeler in menslike ervaring is. In
Stil punt van die aarde verwoord De Lange die
volle reikwydte van verlies indringender as
in sy vorige bundels. Naas gedigte oor die
verlies van geliefdes, troetelkatte, mededigters, onskuld en roem, sluit De Lange ook
gedigte in wat verlies in wyer sosiale kontekste
belig. Goeie voorbeelde is “Aankoms &
vertrek” (95) en “Kandahar 2” (108) wat
onderskeidelik oor die Jodeslagting en die
konflik in Afganistan handel.
Dit gaan in die bundel om die verganklikheid en weerloosheid van alle dinge. De
Lange se empatie lê by die randfiguur wie se
belewing hy op ’n insigryke en kompromislose
wyse skets. ’n Paar voorbeelde uit sy jongste
bundel is die skopofiel, olifantman, selfmoordenaar en dwelmverslaafde.
In die derde afdeling “Kermis van die nag”
val die fokus grootliks op gay seks. Die taalen beeldgebruik in dié gedigte is eksplisiet,
geil en boertig. Die speelse element in gedigte
soos “Boerneef ” (49), “Die Griekse kamp” (52),
“Roedes & roetes” (59), “Driemanskap” (62)
en “Lewis Caroll, ’n sirkusdroom” (67)
herinner sterk aan die homoërotiese gedigte
van Hennie Aucamp. Die duidelike invloed
van Aucamp is te bespeur in reëls soos: “Met
pomp & circus stands / sê’rie moenie meester
/ “Let me see a show of hands, / & put away
that ogling peester!”
De Lange se voorkeur vir die uitbeelding
van hipermanlike tipes (soos die avonturier,
cowboy, rugbyspeler en boer) kom ter sprake
in gedigte soos “Bear Grylls thrills” (54),
“Rodeo” (55), “Voorgee” (65) en “Haarsny”
(66). Dit gaan egter om meer as net ’n
herbevestiging van ’n stereotipiese ideaal,
want telkens ontbloot De Lange ’n wondbaarheid of relativeer hy sy oordrewe representasies. Dit is veral in “Rodeo” waarin dié aspek
beklemtoon word: “terwyl sy vry arm wilde
lasso’s / gooi om sy vrees.”
Nie al die homoërotiese gedigte is ewe
geslaagd nie. De Lange het ’n impasse bereik
met dié soort vers aangesien hy te veel steun
op suiwer grafiese beskrywings van gay seks
en die manlike anatomie. Daar is net soveel
maniere om ejakulasie, masturbasie en orale
seks oortuigend en oorspronklik uit te beeld,
alvorens dit neig na pornografiese verveling.
Gedigte soos “Halfkroon” (60), “Vroegoggend,
Sandy Bay” (64), “Theewaterskloof, Alien
Safari” (69) en “Branding” (70) herinner te veel
aan ’n arsenaal soortgelyke gedigte in die De
Lange-oeuvre wat om “bloot stom vlees”
sentreer.
De Lange se fyn waarnemingsvermoë en
intense verwondering aan natuurverskynsels,
seisoenwisseling en dieregedrag is ’n prominente gegewe in die bundel (veral in die
tweede afdeling “Spoor”). Dit is op dié terrein
waar De Lange sy vakmanskap die beste
vertoon in gedigte soos “Oogwitte” (30),
“Insek” (31), “Paradysboomslang” (36) en
“Duimsketse by die vier seisoene in Kaapstad”
(44). De Lange kan saam met Petra Müller, Ina
Rousseau, Wilma Stockenström en Johann
Lodewyk Marais as van die mees natuurbewuste digters in die Afrikaanse poësie ná
1970 beskou word. Dit is ’n aspek van sy poësie
wat soms nie behoorlik na waarde geskat
word nie ofskoon dit sedert sy debuutbundel
Akwarelle van die dors (1982) aanwesig is. Met
241
gedigte soos “Eilandballerina” (16) en “Hottentotsgot” (32) lewer De Lange ’n waardevolle
bydrae tot die spesiegedig in Afrikaans. In
laasgenoemde gedig slaag De Lange deur
treffende beelde soos “Kranige skadubokser”
en “vlugvoetige groen samoerai” om die
wesensaard van die hottentotsgot te verwoord. Hierdeur verkry die spesie naas
natuurwetenskaplike belang ook ’n poëtiese
waarde. Die hottentotsgot verskuif van insek
na estetiese objek. In dié opsig sluit De Lange
nou aan by Johann Lodewyk Marais—sekerlik
die mees vernugtige beoefenaar van die
spesiegedig in Afrikaans.
Met Stil punt van die aarde lewer De Lange
voldoende bewys van sy ervare digterskap.
Dit is veral sy sterk estetiese ingesteldheid en
tegniese bedrewendheid wat opnuut bekoor.
Neil Cochrane
cochrn1@unisa.ac.za
Universiteit van Suid-Afrika
Pretoria
Nomade.
Johann Lodewyk Marais.
Pretoria: Cordis Trust Publikasies, 2014.
92 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9870397-8-1.
Die negende bundel van Johann Lodewyk
Marais, Nomade, tree in vele opsigte in gesprek
met die digter se bestaande oeuvre en die
gevestigde fokus op natuur- en plekgegewe,
omgewingskwessies, historiese figure en
gebeure—die hele digterlike diorama van
Marais.
Die bundeltitel aktiveer by die leser ’n
verskeidenheid van verwagtinge: ’n tematiese
fokus rondom die aksie van reis en van plek
tot plek beweeg; die swerwende, onvaste aard
van ’n swerwersbestaan; die teenstellende
aspekte van aan die een kant die eksotiese
242
ontdekking van die onbekende en aan die
ander kant die vervreemding wat die onbekende meebring; en die reis nie net as fisiese
reis nie, maar ook as geïnternaliseerde reis.
Met hierdie assosiasies in die agterkop begin
die leser se eie reis deur die landskap van die
bundel.
Die bundel is pragtig uitgegee en die
voorbladkunswerk van Lynette ten Krooden
met die gepaste titel, Timbuktu, sowel as haar
pensketse wat met gedigte regdeur die bundel
in gesprek tree, dra by tot ’n geskakeerde
visuele ervaring.
Dieselfde visuele rykheid vind neerslag in
die digter se soeke na en verwoording van
Afrika in sy kleurryke en dikwels teenstrydige
geheel van teenstellings en botsings—die
postkoloniale lewe teenoor die disintegrerende oorblyfsels van ’n koloniale bestel; die
fokus op natuurgegewens en die mens se
afhanklikheid van die natuur, maar ook die
uitbuiting van natuurlike hulpbronne, soms
juis deur dié wat daarvan afhanklik is;
uiteenlopende godsdiensbeskouinge (met ’n
gepaardgaande blik op die Islamgeloof en
verwante simbole) en politieke onrus, geweld
en oorlog.
Ingedeel in agt afdelings, open die bundel
met ’n inleidende afdeling wat die sentrale
reismotief van die bundel binne ’n kosmiese
konteks plaas. In die openingsgedig, “Oorsprong” posisioneer die reisiger-digter die reis
binne die grense van Afrika en wys op sy
tuiskoms “by die riviere, / vleie en heuwels
van hierdie moeder / met die chromosome
van lank, lank terug” (13). Die reis is enersyds
’n uitwaartse beweging, maar ook ’n terugkeer na die oorsprong van lewe. In “Sonnewende” (15) verkry die reis ’n kosmiese dimensie “tussen die boogskutter en die steenbok” en tree op multidimensionele vlakke in
gesprek met Adam Small. Ook Van Wyk
Louw se “wye en droewe land” word hier en
in ’n opvolgende gedig (“F. W. de Klerk”, 46)
geaktiveer. Afrika word aangebied as die
moederkontinent, die beskermer van lewe,
maar ook teenstellend as die plek van
droefheid en ellende.
Die verdere afdelings handel agtereenvolgend oor Afrikabome (II), diere waarmee
die mens in verskillende verhoudings staan
(III), kernfigure in die historiese landskap van
Afrika (IV) (waarin die gedig “Nelson Mandela” [45] die aangrypende hoogtepunt is),
plekgedigte (V), ’n aantal hibriede gedigte in
afdeling VI wat aansluit by die tema van reis
per boot, in afdeling VII gedigte oor museums
en veral ook ’n blik op die koloniale erfenis
van Afrika, afgespeel teen die postkoloniale
hede. Die slotafdeling van die bundel bevat
gedigte wat as ’t ware soos by die tuiskoms
ná ’n reis, terugkeer na die digter self en sy eie
posisie binne die gegewe.
In die pragtige “Worsboom” (20) word die
reisiger-digter wat sy tyd aflees uit die
worsboom se pendules op ’n fisiese wyse
betrek; hy is ook karteerder (21) wat sintuiglik
en taktiel “sien”, “kyk”, “gesels”, “oefen” (21)
en met sy “vinger gly” (22) oor die tasbaarhede
wat hy teenkom op sy reis. Die suggestie van
vrugbaarheid, oorvloed en belofte van die
“handvol pitte” wat in sy kaart toegevou is in
die gedig “Kremetart” (21), staan in skel kontras met die gevoel van vernietiging en disintegrasie in die slotgedig, wanneer die “ruwe
kaarte van groot trekroetes” (92) in die skadu
staan van die “verweerde aardbol” waar “alles
onherstelbaar begin kwyn”—die troostelose
woorde waarmee die bundel sluit.
In die afdeling oor plekgedigte is dit veral
die gedig “Heilige skrif ” wat opval waarin die
reisiger-digter uitreik om die “mooi karakters” van die Koran-skrif met sy wysvinger
aan te raak, maar in die proses die lesende
vrou daarvan laat “gru”. In hierdie kontaksone,
soos gedefinieer deur Pratt (7) beleef die
reisiger ’n botsing van teenstrydige kulture
en die uitsluiting van die reisiger kan gelees
word as ’n marginalisering—’n tema wat
geëggo word deur die toenemende gevoel
van vernietiging en “verval” (90) waarvan hy
hom bewus word. Die reisiger-digter sien dat
“niks op die veld […] oorbly nie” (89), dat “die
hoekpale van klip verkrummel” (90) en hy
self later bykans geen spoor meer laat nie as
hy “eggoloos deur die leë huis” stap (“Karen
Blixen-museum”, 81). Gaandeweg word die
ontreddering van die spreker-digter openbaar: hy “blaai koorsig in ou reisjoernale” (80)
en “word […] niks verder wys nie” (90). In
“Oorlees” sê hy:
Hierdie geslote boek is my lewe,
maar hoe blaai ek die blaaie om en terug
na die collage van foto’s, indrukke
en stemme van die afwesiges? (90)
Die bundel verse as reisverslag verkry groter
stukrag in die lig van die persoonlik-menslike
element van verlies—verlies nie net aan die
lewende wesens van die kontinent, hul
uitbuiting, die ten gronde gaan van die
natuurlike omgewing en die disintegrasie en
stelselmatige vernietiging van rekordhouding
nie, maar ook ’n verlies aan die gekoesterde
wêreld van die self: “in die klein ryk van” sy
“vae kindertyd” waar die voorvader-reisgenote “oral” steeds in “rosette van dahlias” en
“suurlemoenverbena” teenwoordig was, het
die stemme stil geword. Die herinnering aan
die “donker hand” wat na hom omgesien het
en die hele geborge lewe van taalontdekking
word vertroebel deur “kilte en verdriet” (91–
2); dit het alles deel geword van die “stemme
van die afwesiges” (90). Die uitstaande
kinderherinnering van in die spieël kyk en
homself sien en ken (92) veronderstel ’n
selfkritiese hede-oomblik van binnetoe kyk
wanneer die reisiger-digter sy eie plek in die
reisverhaal in oënskou neem. Binnetoe kyk,
en selfs die onvermoë om te kan sien (89)
omdat dit wat gesien moet word, tot niet is,
staan in sterk kontras met die herhaalde aksies
van “kyk” en “sien” wat as deurlopende
motief in die bundel voorkom.
Johann Lodewyk Marais bevestig met
243
hierdie bundel nogeens die nisposisie wat hy
in die Afrikaanse poësie beklee en verruim
terselfdertyd die tematiek van sy oeuvre.
Nomade is ’n heg gestruktureerde bundel wat
met die uitsondering van enkele gedigte wat
minder digtheid en dwingendheid vertoon,
’n waardevolle toevoeging maak tot sy
bestaande oeuvre en substansieel daarmee in
gesprek tree. ’n Hoogs aanbeveelbare bundel
waarin “die vrugbaarste sade […] geheel / en
al ongemerk” ontkiem het.
Geraadpleegde bron
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing
and Transculturation. Londen & New York: Routledge, 2008.
Susan Smith
ssmith@ufh.ac.za
Universiteit van Fort Hare
Oos-Londen
Die vrou wat alleen bly.
Karel Schoeman. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis,
2014. 197 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4853-0184-4.
E-boek: EAN 9781485301851.
Die vrou wat alleen bly, twee draaiboeke vir
televisie, is ter viering van Karel Schoeman se
75ste verjaardag in 2014 uitgegee. Protea
Boekhuis publiseer die afgelope dekade Schoeman se werk en hierdie publikasie is ’n gepaste
wyse om ’n belangrike mylpaal van ’n uiters
produktiewe skrywer te vier.
In 1975 het Schoeman twee tekste vir
“beeldradio” gepubliseer: Die somerpaleis en
Besoek. In 1976 verskyn Die jare, en in 1989 het
Schoeman sy roman Veldslag tot draaiboek
verwerk. Sy televisiedrama Op die grens is in
1988 verfilm en het die SAUK-prys vir die beste
televisiedrama verower; die draaiboek is egter
nie gepubliseer nie. Naas die talle romans,
vertalings en niefiksie-publikasies in Schoe-
244
man se indrukwekkende oeuvre is hierdie
handvol televisiedramas interessant. Schoeman het moontlik aangevoel dat die enigste
nie-epiese genre waarin sy tipe verhale tot
hul reg sou kom, die televisiedrama is.
Die moderne leser is egter bewus daarvan
dat die blote konsep van die “televisiedrama”
problematies is; dié visuele teenhanger van
die verhoogdrama en radiodrama het nooit
besondere populariteit geniet nie, aangesien
kykers meer geïnteresseerd was en is in
dramareekse of films wat uitgesaai word. Die
vrou wat alleen bly is dus anachronisties in elke
opsig. Die tekste het volgens die voorwoord
ongeveer in 1985 hul ontstaan gehad (dus in
die tyd toe Schoeman met ’n aantal draaiboeke
besig was), maar vreemd genoeg dra ’n Vrou
wat alleen bly die datum 1990, en Hiér was huise,
hiér ’n pad die datum 1990–1. Hierdie klein
diskrepansie word nie in die teks verklaar nie.
Schoeman vrywaar hom in die voorwoord van die ergste kritiek wat betref anachronisme deur te verwys na die feit dat die
politieke situasie in Suid-Afrika sodanig verander het in die vroeë negentigerjare dat daar
nooit sprake kon wees van verfilming van
die twee tekste nie. In ieder geval was hy nooit
heeltemal tevrede met die draaiboeke nie en
het hulle “in die eerste instansie […] as lééseerder dan as speeltekste beskou”. Gewapen
met hierdie kennis moet ook die leser van Die
vrou wat alleen bly die tekste primêr as leestekste
benader—en dit is ’n belonende oefening.
Die titel van die publikasie is duidelik afkomstig van die eerste teks in die bundel, ’n
Vrou wat alleen bly. Die “oorkoepelende titel”
sinspeel op die oorkomste tussen die twee
tekste: hoewel hulle in verskillende tydperke
en op verskillende plekke afspeel, is die hoofkarakter in albei tekste ’n ongetroude vrou
van om en by die dertig, ’n sielvolle “oujongnooi” wat as sodanig misgekyk en misken
word deur die mans en getroude pare om haar.
In die eerste draaiboek is dit Alma, ’n
onderwyseres op die dorp en orrelis in die
gemeente waar Helgard, ’n vriend uit haar
kinderjare, predikant is. Aan die begin van
die teks sterf Helgard in ’n fratsongeluk, en
die res van die teks het ten doel om die spanninge uit te beeld wat ’n sinistere ondertoon
aan die predikant se dood verleen. Alma ken
almal op die dorp, maar het nie enige ware
vriende of vriendinne nie, behalwe Helgard,
met wie sy ’n inniger vriendskap sou wou gehad het, en Linda, ’n nuweling in die gemeenskap wat haar eie huwelik berou en op die
getroude Helgard verlief raak. Die teks is deurweek van die beklemming van ’n klein, na
binne gekeerde gemeenskap en die onvermoë, desnieteenstaande, van mense om betekenisvolle kommunikasie te bewerkstellig.
Hiér was huise, hiér ’n pad speel in 1908 in ’n
“hotelletjie aan die kus in die nabyheid van
Kaapstad” (111) af. Die ongetroude hoofkarakter is Mina Raubenheimer, ’n onderwyseres (soos Alma in ’n Vrou wat alleen bly) wat
vakansie hou in die hotel. Sy deel vir ’n kort
tydperk hierdie ruimte met ’n lukrake versameling vakansiegangers en is deel van die wisselwerking wat binne die gedwonge intimiteit
van só ’n opset plaasvind. Mina bly egter grotendeels ’n toeskouer van ontluikende vriendskappe en verborge hartstog onder die
“jonger” gaste. Net soos Alma, wat óók verlief
is op Helgard maar dit nooit kan openbaar
nie, is Mina die simpatieke aanhoorder van
Kitty se liefde vir Willie in plaas daarvan om
aktief te mag handel op grond van haar
gevoelens vir Kitty.
In albei tekste is hierdie onvermoë van
die vroulike hoofkarakters ’n bron van frustrasie en patos. Aangesien hulle nie die kans
gegun word om ’n duidelike afdruk op hul
omgewing te laat nie, maak hul lewens die
indruk van vervlietendheid. Die professor in
die tweede teks se vergelyking van ’n mens
se lewe met ’n verdwene beskawing is besonder van toepassing op Alma en Mina se
onderskeie toekoms: “hele wêrelde so volkome uitgewis dat niemand vandag meer kan
sê nie: hiér was huise, hiér was ’n pad” (148).
Die twee draaiboeke beeld op Schoeman
se kenmerkende ongehaaste manier verbygegane eras in die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika
uit. In samehang daarmee word universele
temas op sensitiewe wyse in fyn besonderhede
geskets.
Jacomien van Niekerk
jacomien.vanniekerk@up.ac.za
Pretoria
Die pad byster.
Nicola Hanekom. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis,
2014. 104 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4853-0059-5.
Die aktrise en dramaturg Nicola Hanekom is
teen hierdie tyd bekend vir die innoverende
ruimtes waarin haar dramas afspeel, byvoorbeeld in haar trilogie waar Betesda in ’n
swembad opgevoer is, en die ander twee
stukke (Lot en Babbel) in ’n oop veld. In Die pad
byster, bestaande uit twee dramas, speel Hol
in ’n gimnasium af en die bekroonde Trippie
op ’n bewegende bus.
Die karakter in die eenvroustuk Hol,
Liesbet, is anoreksies en bulimies. Sy is vir die
duur van die toneelstuk op ’n trapmeul in ’n
Virgin Active-gimnasium. Deur die loop van
haar innerlike monoloog kom ons te wete
hoe sy haar gereeld te buite gaan aan kitskos,
net om alles ’n paar minute later op te bring.
Op ’n stadium praat die stem van Anna (dus
van anoreksie) kortstondig deur Liesbet. Sy
deel ons mee dat Liesbet verskeie kere deur
die loop van die dag by verskillende gimnasiums oefen, waar sy “Onopgemerk. Spoorloos.” hardloop. “Sy—kan vir ewig aanhou”
(37). Anna verduidelik ook dat die optimale
strategie vir gewigsverlies “kots, kak en hol”
is (38).
245
Die drama ontgin al die verskillende
moontlike betekenisse van die titel: “hol” as
’n sinoniem vir hardloop, veral in die sin van
“weghol” (Liesbet probeer weghardloop van
haar gewig, maar ook haar verlede), ook
“poephol” (19)—só noem die kritiese Liesbet
haarself. Laastens is daar “hol” in die betekenis
van leeg; Liesbet is altyd honger en haar
obsessie met haar gewig en voorkoms
verklap ’n blywende innerlike leemte. Hierdie
spel met homonieme word ook elders in die
drama voortgesit, byvoorbeeld in die verskillende betekenisse van “kos” (43).
Liesbet het op die ouderdom van vyftien
’n seksuele verhouding met haar ma se kêrel,
Gary, gehad wat noodlottig geëindig het. Ná
vyftien jaar in die tronk gaan Gary eersdaags
vrygelaat word en die stuk word onder andere
oorheers deur Liesbet se obsessionele gedagte
dat Gary “uitkom” en sy “moet mooi lyk vir
hom” (51). Die periodieke geweerskote en
verwysings na eietydse geweld in Suid-Afrika
(25–9) verklap in hoe ’n mate Liesbet deur
haar geskiedenis met Gary getraumatiseer is.
Haar gretigheid om hom te sien is op sy beurt
’n teken van Liesbet se ernstige sielkundige
probleme.
Die stuk lewer in die algemeen kommentaar op die wyse waarop jong vroue hulself
aan vermaaklikheidsterre meet, en op die feit
dat daardie sterre fyner dopgehou word as
die gemiddelde vrou (sodat ’n mens byvoorbeeld uit foto’s kan aflei dat Madonna op ’n
jonger ouderdom ‘vetter’ was as nou). Daar
word ’n lang litanie van brandmaer aktrises
en ander beroemdes verskaf (47–8). Liesbet
se gehardloop beeld die nimmereindigende
stryd van vroue uit wat soos die Angelina
Jolies van die wêreld probeer lyk, en haar
monoloog verwoord die onderliggende rede
vir die strewe daarna om maer en mooi te
wees: “Ek’s nie goed genoeg nie!” (49).
In Trippie word die gehoor, die passasiers
op die bus, kort voor lank die toeskouers van
die bisarre interaksie wat tussen die twee
246
karakters “Man” en “Vrou” afspeel. Dit is ’n
uitgerekte flirtasie,’n wedywering tussen die
geslagte, met dialoog wat aan absurde teater
herinner. Uiteindelik word pynlike details oor
die verlede van beide karakters onthul, maar
dit slaag nie daarin om hulle in simpatieke
karakters te omskep nie. Binne die tragikomiese opset van die drama (vergelyk die
ironiese, ietwat grusame omkering van die
sprokie van Sneeuwitjie in die slot) was dit
egter nooit die bedoeling dat die karakters
lewensgetrou of simpatiek moet wees nie.
Hulle smokkel veel eerder met die gehoor-—
en leser-—se kop.
Al is die verloop van die twee dramas erg
verskillend, is daar vormlike en inhoudelike
ooreenkomste. In albei stukke word sekere
woorde beklemtoon deur hulle tipografies van
die res van die stuk te onderskei. Hierdie feit
is vir die leser (en nie vir die toeskouer nie)
bedoel, net soos sekere toneelaanwysings,
byvoorbeeld die beskrywing van die Vrou in
Trippie: “‘Mal’ is dalk ’n té gerieflike term om haar
te beskryf, terwyl ‘opgewonde’ ’n eufemisme sou
wees. Sy straal ’n mengelmoes van jagsheid en
onskuld uit” (57). Die bykomende tekstuele
laag moet dalk vergoed vir die belewenis van
Hanekom se besonderse aanwending van
ruimte en rekwisiete tydens die opvoering
van die dramas waaraan die leser van die
gepubliseerde teks nie kan deelhê nie.
Benewens gemeenskaplike temas in die
twee dramas soos vroulike skoonheid en
seksuele geweld teenoor vroue, verwys albei
stukke in die verbygaan na breër aktuele
kwessies: wêreldwye hongersnood in Hol (44)
en bedreigde spesies in Trippie (70–1). Verder
herinner die Man in Trippie se lewensfilosofie
aan dié van Liesbet: “Dis jou taak op hierdie
aardbol, in hierdie lewe, om te verduur, om te
oorleef, om aan te hou” (88).
Soos af te lei is uit die hoeveelheid ruimte
wat in hierdie resensie aan elke drama bestee
is, is Hol my gunsteling van die twee stukke.
Tog demonstreer albei dramas Hanekom se
besondere gawe om die konvensies van taal
én van die teater te ontgin op wyses wat die
gehoor en leser onthuts en ongemaklik laat,
en albei dramas lewer nog meer op by nadere
lees as waaraan hierdie resensie reg kon laat
geskied.
Jacomien van Niekerk
jacomien.vanniekerk@up.ac.za
Universiteit van Pretoria, Pretoria
Buys: ’n Grensroman.
Willem Anker. Kaapstad: Kwela, 2014.
432 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7957-0693-6.
EPUB: 978-0-7957-0694-3.
MOBI: 978-0-7957-0695-0.
Willem Anker is sedert 2004 bekend as
dramaturg wat met innoverende teaterstukke soos Slaghuis, Skrapnel en Samsa-masjien die
grense van teater uitdaag. In 2007 verskyn sy
bekroonde debuutroman, Siegfried, waarmee
beide die bildungsroman en die sogenaamde
heldereis as subgenres uitgedaag word. In
2014 verskyn Anker se tweede roman, Buys:
’n Grensroman, wat soos die subtitel reeds te
kenne gee, weer eens grense verskuif.
Buys bied ’n blik op die nomadiese lewe
van die historiese figuur Coenraad de Buys.
Die roman begin in die laat sewentienhonderds
wanneer Buys op agtjarige ouderdom sy
ouerhuis verlaat en sy eerste grens oorsteek.
Spoedig verlaat hy die Kaap en oral langs die
pad verwek hy kinders met ’n ganske
“Buysvolk” wat tot stand kom. Saam op sy
drosterpad is daar die honde wat nie net sy
spoor agtervolg nie maar juis hierdie persoon,
wat ’n totale weersin in die idee van grense
gehad het en konstant van inperking probeer
ontvlug het, se jeukvoete op die pad gesit het.
Die subtitel skep onmiddellik ’n verwagting van hierdie roman se aansluiting by
grensliteratuur, met Etienne van Heerden se
ikoniese kortverhaal, “My Kubaan”, wat in
verband gebring kan word met die hondmotief in Buys. Die Kubaan-figuur in Van
Heerden se kortverhaal manifesteer as figuurlike entiteit aangesien dit ’n verpersoonliking
van die soldaat se skuldlas is. Op hierdie wyse
word ’n eiesoortige verband getrek tussen
die “Grensroman” in die subtitel en grensliteratuur as subgenre, aangesien die honde
in Buys, soos Phil van Schalkwyk (2014) tereg
aandui, kontrasterend fungeer as die Kubaan
in Van Heerden se kortverhaal.
In Van Heerden se kortverhaal sluit die
verpersoonliking van die soldaat se skuldlas
aan by N. P. van Wyk Louw se bekende gedig,
“Ballade van die bose”: “Ek is jou wese se
ondergrond en ek trap in jou spoor soos ’n
goeie hond”. Hierdie versreël kan verder in
verband gebring word met Henning Snyman
(2014) se mening dat Buys die donker kant
van die menslike aard en karakter is, oftewel
die onderbewuste en die barbaarsheid van
menswees.
Hierdie brutaliteit, boos- en barbaarsheid
van menswees skakel Buys met Cormac
McCarthy se Blood Meridian (1985). In sy
ontvangstoespraak tydens die oorhandiging
van die UJ-prys vir Skeppende Skryfwerk aan
Buys, het Anker erken dat hy dikwels na
McCarthy se roman teruggekeer het om te
kyk hoe McCarthy wilde mans in wilde plekke
beskryf. Behalwe vir beide romans se
uitbeelding van uiterse brutaliteit en gewelddadigheid, is verdere verbande wat uitgelig
kan word dat Blood Meridian, net soos Buys, ’n
roman is wat met historiese gegewens werk
en wat op ’n nomadiese karakter fokus.
In sy doktorale proefskrif het Anker (2007)
ondersoek ingestel na die nomadiese karakter
in onder andere Alexander Strachan se Die
werfbobbejaan (1994), deur die roman te lees
volgens die Franse denkers Deleuze en
Guattari se besinnings oor subjektiwiteit en
die wordende-dier. Interessant is dat Anker
247
se bevindinge oor die aspek van wordendedier in Strachan se roman ook neerslag vind
in sy eie roman, wat nie net Buys en Die
werfbobbejaan by mekaar laat aansluit nie, maar
ook verdere insigte bied in die hond-motief
wat in Buys gevind kan word. Hierby kan
ook Strachan se roman Die jakkalsjagter genoem word, omdat die parallel tussen hond
en mens selfs sterker hierin figureer.
Die sogenaamde wordende-dier, aldus
Deleuze en Guattari, impliseer nie dat die dier
en die mens dieselfde ding is nie, maar verwys
eerder na wanneer die dier ’n koorsagtige
gedagte in die mens word. Dit gaan dus nie
soseer oor identifikasie met die dier nie, maar
die vraag word eerder gestel of die nomadiese
subjek sy eie elemente kan voorsien met die
affekte wat daarvan ’n dier sou kon maak.
Daarom is daar ’n montage wat aan die
wordende-dier van die nomadiese subjek
behoort, met hierdie montage wat ’n sogenaamde ontvlugtingslyn, of ontsnaproete, vir
die nomadiese subjek sal bied om grense te
ontvlug.
Die trop honde wat Buys op sy drosterpad
agtervolg, is gedurig aan die verander, met
van die kwylende bekke wat die trop verlaat
en ander wat weer aansluit. Buys sowel as
hierdie trop honde kan as drosters beskou
word wat maak dat hulle met mekaar verbind
kan word. Daar is dus, in navolging van Anker
se proefskrif, ’n sogenaamde Deleuze/
Guattariaanse komposisie wat tussen Buys en
die honde bestaan: ’n montage wat geskep
word deur nie net Buys en die honde se
gewelddadigheid en brutaliteit nie, maar ook
deur hul drostery. Hierdie idee word bevestig
deur Van Schalkwyk wat meen dat Buys, soos
die trop honde wat hom agtervolg, doelbewus orde, geborgenheid en ingesetenheid
agterlaat en as’t ware self drosterhond word
soos dié in Peter Blum se gedig, “Drosterhonde
bo Oranjesig”, wat deur middel van die motto
in die roman opgeroep word.
In sy proefskrif lê Anker verder klem op
248
Deleuze en Guattari se stelling dat verraad deel
is van enige wording. Die wordende-dier is
aan die kant van die verraad, met verraad wat
aanwesig is binne die wording van ’n mens
met ’n dier. Hierdie verraad is ook aanwesig in
Buys as wordende-dier, maar in die vorm van
Buys se verset en opstand teen grense en
gesagsfigure. Hierdie verraad begin wanneer
hy as seun in opstand kom teenoor sy swaer
en peetpa, Dawid Senekal, en word ook later
gevind in sy botsings met die gesag van die
Kolonie. As jong seun byt Buys ’n hond se oor
af tydens ’n konfrontasie met die trop.
Alhoewel Buys nie hondsdolheid opdoen nie,
word dit tog duidelik dat hy iets aangesteek
het by die gediertes, met sy wording wat
dierlik geïmpliseer word: “Sien jy hoe ek die
oggendlug ruik, my neus omhoog soos ’n
snoet? Hoe ek opkyk voor enigiemand anders
iets hoor?” (25). Hierdie aspek van wordendedier word ook bevestig deur Van Schalkwyk
se stelling dat die groep drosters en uitvaagsels
wat tydens Buys se omswerwinge by hom
aansluit, in eie reg trop word, gelei deur iemand
wat soos ’n wilde hond gewetenloos handel.
So ook is besmetting ’n verdere element
wat binne wordings figureer, met voortplanting wat as vorm van besmetting kan dien.
Talle vroue wat Buys op sy drosterpad teëkom,
word deur hom “besmet” met die gevolg dat
hy as ’t ware ’n eie volk vir homself voortplant. Ook die leser word besmet met die
legende van Coenraad de Buys wanneer
Alom-Buys aan die begin van die roman die
leser soos volg uitnooi op die drosterpad van
Buys: “Kom, laat ek jou besmet, my erflik
belaste leser” (9).
Buys se besmetting deur voortplanting
word sodoende verbind met die rol wat
seksualiteit in die nomadiese subjek se
wordingsproses speel, met die wordende-dier
van die mens wat volgens Deleuze en Guattari
altyd seksuele begeerte insluit, net soos Buys
se seksuele begeertes een van die belangrikste
rigtingwysers vir sy identiteit word. As voor-
beeld van Anker wat die historiese feite wil
eerbiedig maar steeds die reëls stylvernuwend
wil oortree, plaas Leon de Kock (2015) klem
op die waaghalsigheid waarop Anker ’n
homo-erotiese element aan Buys gee. Sodoende word gestalte gegee aan die historiese Buys
se seksuele identiteit wat sy enorme viriliteit
bevestig, aangesien Buys vermoedelik meer
as 300 kinders by ’n verskeidenheid vroue
verwek het. Heel komieklik verklaar Buys in
1814, wanneer sy derde vrou geboorte skenk
aan ’n seun, “[…] die Here weet ek het nie
meer name vir die spruite nie en ons doop
hom Baba” (358).
Opvallend is die uitgebreide opnoem van
lyste in die roman. Vanselfsprekend historiseer en verpersoonlik dit hierdie verbeelde
lewensverhaal van Coenraad se Buys, maar
dit kan ook in verband gebring word met die
identiteitskonsep in die roman, soos Willie
Burger (2015) opmerk. Die opstel van lyste is
juis ’n poging om dinge vas te pen en ’n sekere
begrip daaroor te kry, met Buys wat ondersoek
instel na wat gebeur as ’n mens weier om
vasgepen te word en jou te laat begrens.
Die gebruik van lyste in die roman om te
historiseer en te verpersoonlik, herinner aan
Ingrid Winterbach se Niggie; ook deurdat albei
tekste hulself voordoen as historiese romans
maar in die hande van meesterstorievertellers
hul nie deur hierdie subgenre laat begrens
nie. Merkwaardig van Anker se kreatiewe
omgaan met die historiese roman is die feit
dat Buys nie ’n poging is om ’n verklarende
beeld van die historiese figuur Coenraad de
Buys te bied nie. Met besinnings oor veral
verset en immoraliteit, laat Buys die leser
eerder iets oor menslike bestaan ontdek.
Anker verskuif verder die grense van die
historiese roman deur gebruik te maak van
’n alwetende ek-verteller, naamlik Alom-Buys,
om die begrensinge van tyd en plek te oorstyg
en die leser direk aan te spreek.
Die ek-vertelling wat by tye aangebied
word as ’n tipe bewussynstroomvertelling
waartydens gesteun word op liriese en
poëtiese taalgebruik, herinner verder aan
Etienne van Heerden se 30 nagte in Amsterdam
waar bekende Afrikaanse idiome en gesegdes,
net soos in die geval met Buys, ook deur Tante
Zan verdraai en vermeng word. Geertruy,
Buys se halfsuster, noem immers teenoor Buys
dat: “[…] woorde kan hard werk as jy hulle
reg inspan soos flukse osse. Woorde is
gereedskap. Jy moet hulle leer gebruik soos
’n saag of ’n hamer” (18–9), iets wat Anker op
verbluffende wyse in Buys regkry. Net soos
Van Heerden slaag Anker daarin om ’n unieke,
onvergeetbare karakter in die Afrikaanse
letterkunde te skep. Tante Zan en Buys is albei
rebelle en buitestaanders; beide is karakters
wat met hul rebelsheid proklameer dat hulle
nie saam met die norm gaan nie, maar ’n
ander manier van lewe aan hulself toeëien.
Die leser word veral oorrompel deur die
oortuigende wyse waarop Anker die liggaamlike agteruitgang en aftakeling van die
mens belig, met die verganklikheidsmotief
wat aangrypend uitgebeeld word; daardie
onvermydelike verouderingsproses waardeur
selfs ’n triomfantelike, onverskrokke, brutale
en heroïese figuur soos Buys moet gaan. Die
wyse waarop die aftakelingsproses en die
motief van verganklikheid beskryf word, laat
weerklink iets van dieselfde deernis en begrip
waarmee Marlene van Niekerk dit in Agaat
uitgebeeld het.
Willem Anker is een van die opwindendste
en belangrikste nuwe stemme wat die
afgelope dekade op die Afrikaanse literêre
toneel verskyn het—’n skrywerstem wat as
prosaïs, vanweë die literêre gehalte van
Siegfried en Buys, spoedig ’n belangrike rol
binne die Afrikaanse literêre kanon gaan
inneem. Met sy grensverskuiwende en
imposante Buys: ’n Grensroman, stel Anker nie
net ’n baie hoë standaard vir sy eie toekomstige prosawerke nie, maar hy stel ook ’n uitdaging vir skrywers wat op die terrein van
die historiese roman wil beweeg.
249
Anker, W. P. P. Die nomadiese self: skisoanalitiese
beskouinge oor karaktersubjektiwiteit in die
prosawerk van Alexander Strachan en Breyten
Breytenbach. DPhil-proefskrif, U Stellenbosch,
2007.
Anker, W. 2015. Toespraak gelewer tydens die
ontvangs van die UJ-prys vir Skeppende
Skryfwerk in Afrikaans vir Buys: ’n Grensroman
aan die Universiteit van Johannesburg, Saterdagaand 9 Mei. Johannesburg.
Burger, W. “Boekmerk: Buys deur Willem Anker.
Boekbespreking op kykNET se Flits”. YouTube,
1 Mrt. 2015. 30 Jul. 2015. <https://www.you
tube.com/watch?v=lPdjs1zBr30>.
De Kock, L. “Weet jy van die mans in Buys se
bed?” Rapport, 25 Jan. 2015. 30 Jul. 2015. <http:/
/www.netwerk24.com/vermaak/2015-01-25weet-jy-van-die-mans-in-buys-se-bed>.
Snyman, H. “LitNet Akademies-resensie-essay:
Buys deur Willem Anker ”. LitNet, 7 Nov. 2014.
30 Jul. 2015. <http://www.litnet.co.za/Article/
litnet-akademies-resensie-essay-buys-deurwillem-anker>.
Van Schalkwyk, P. “Our hunting fathers.” LitNet,
9 Des. 2014. 30 Jul. 2015. <http://www.litnet.
co.za/Article/biebouw-resensie-buys-en-ourhunting-fathers>.
Frederick J. Botha
fbotha@uj.ac.za
Universiteit van Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Sonde van Lusinda.
Anton Schoombee. Pretoria:
Protea Boekhuis, 2014. 272 pp.
ISBN 9781485300885.
Anton Schoombee se debuutroman bewys dat
te veel van ’n goeie ding sleg is. En ook dat te
veel van ’n slegte ding nie goed is nie. Hierdie
waarneming is van toepassing nie soseer op
wát die roman uitbeeld nie, maar die hóé.
Die wát is die verhaal van Stéfan Söderling,
’n 43-jarige geskeide prokureur wat ten spyte
van die weelde van sy sukses (sportmotor, te
veel geld en ’n spogwoning op ’n wynland-
250
goed in Kaapstad se noordelike voorstede)
sukkel om ware geluk en liefde te vind. Hy
probeer sy bes om die verhouding met sy
tienerdogter aktief te hou, en terselfdertyd sy
eksvrou op ’n veilige afstand. Sover klink dit
na iets wat ’n mens al talle kere van gelees,
gehoor, of aan gedink het.
Daar is sy ingewikkelde, moeilike verhouding met sy ouers wat in Stellenbosch vergaan.
Sy pa is ’n afgetrede akademikus, eens die
heerser in die huis en nou tragies gereduseer
tot ’n kwylende, kwynende ou man. Sy ma is
die rede van vele van Stéfan se probleme met
vroue weens haar beheptheid met hom sedert
sy kinderdae.
In wals die 20-jarige Lusinda, die “blonde
bom” wat sy lewe kom omverwerp met haar
perfek gegrimeerde gesig, rondings in al die
regte plekke en vol rooi lippies wat die verleidelikste, vuilste dinge fluister. Dit is ’n
afgesaagde resep wat uitloop op ’n al te maklike einde: Stéfan verloor byna alles weens sy
betrokkenheid met hierdie nimf.
“Hy sien dit nie kom nie”, skop Schoombee die roman af. Ongelukkig kan ’n mens nie
dieselfde vir die leser sê nie. Op elke derde
bladsy kom ’n clichè voor. En soos Lusinda
met haar lang bene die gesegde van “te veel
van ’n goeie ding” vergestalt, is dit die magdom
clichés wat Schoombee se boek kniehalter:
uitsprake soos “Age is just a number ”;
karakters soos Lusinda se skatryk spiertier
van ’n stiefoom, Zander; gedagtes soos dat dit
“een vir die boeke is” wanneer Stéfan besin
oor die feit dat hy met ’n jong, deeltydse model
slaap. Selfs beskrywings (Stéfan wat lyk soos
’n “Griekse god”) word met pyn gelees.
Dit laat die leser sy hare uit sy kop wil trek
van frustrasie. Miskien doen Schoombee dit
egter met opset; is sy doel om ironies te skryf.
Dalk wil hy die spreekwoordelike (middel)vinger wys na die banaliteit en oppervlakkigheid van die middelklasbestaan of aantoon
dat die lewe wat mense soos Stéfan lei bloot
’n cliché is. Indien die skrywer bloot die punt
probeer maak dat daar in hierdie bestaan wat
hy in Sonde van Lusinda uitbeeld, geen
ontvlugting is nie; dat die karakters maar
almal so in hul clichès gemaak en laat staan is,
dan is dit nie nodig om ’n 272 bladsy lange
cliché te probeer skep nie. Want dít sou die
lees daarvan onnodig en sinneloos maak.
Sou die geheim nie eerder daarin lê om
fyner te skryf; om juis die afgesaagde
elemente (die eensame lewe van die vrygesel,
byvoorbeeld) op ’n unieke manier te skryf en
beskryf nie? Indien ’n mens met clichés wil
spot, moet jy dalk juis kreatief wees; die
karakters en gebeure in hierdie roman is net
te voorspelbaar.
Die Venter-gesin is hopeloos. Lusinda se
ma leef deur haar dogter en haar stiefpa drink
te veel brandewyn. Stiefpa Hennie se
beheptheid met mure is snaaks en subtiel
weergegee, veral omdat die leser besef dat
hierdie karakter beter af sou wees as hy
homself kon ommuur van sy vrou en dogter.
Maar die gesin is tweedimensioneel en speel
nie ’n groot genoeg rol in die ontwikkeling
van die storielyn nie. Stéfan ontwikkel ook
nie deur die verhaal nie. Soos wat ons hom
kry aan die begin, is hy steeds aan die einde—
minus natuurlik sy geld en sy werk. Maar dit
was van die begin af duidelik dat sy lus hom
in die moeilikheid gaan laat beland.
Schoombee se roman bereik sy klimakse
in die uitbeelding van konfliksituasies. Een
voorbeeld is by Lusinda se een-en-twintigste
verjaardagpartytjie, waar sy ’n nuwe Corsa
by haar stiefpa kry en waar Stéfan haar en
haar stiefoom later die aand afloer waar hulle
in die nuwe motortjie mekaar—sover Stéfan
kan uitmaak—lustig verken. Die moeilikheid
wat sy vir Stéfan veroorsaak is wat die leser
geïnteresseerd hou. Só is dit ook met die toneel
in die Weskus-kroeg, waar Stéfan moet bewys
hy is mans genoeg om op te staan teen ’n ou
wat te vatterig raak met Lusinda.
Die uitvalle met haar kom egter by tye
oordrewe oor en herhaal hulself. Dit laat die
leser wonder waarom ’n geleerde, aantreklike
en suksesvolle man soos Stéfan dit hoegenaamd sal duld.
Die hoogtepunt van die roman is die
uitbeelding van die verhouding tussen Stéfan
en sy 13-jarige dogter, Libby. Dit is die
geloofwaardigste verhouding in die boek. ’n
Pa wat liefdevol struikel om intimiteit te bou
met ’n dogter wat verknog is aan ’n wêreld
van sosiale media en realiteitstelevisie. Dit is
net jammer die verhouding figureer nie
sterker in die storie en in Stéfan se lewe nie.
Die leser kan deurentyd voel of daar vir
iets gewag word wat nooit gebeur nie.
Byvoorbeeld, die betrokkenheid van die
Venters in Stéfan se persoonlike en professionele lewe veroorsaak nie die drama wat ’n
mens sou verwag nie. Sy eksvrou Rolinda
maak hier en daar ’n verskyning, maar haar
impak is beperk. Selfs die hoer met ’n hart
van goud, vir wie Stéfan een aand ná nog ’n
hartebreek deur Lusinda besoek, verdwyn
skielik sonder om enige doel in die verhaalgang te dien. Die storielyn lees dus soos
iemand wat seks wil hê sonder enige voorspelery.
Wat Stéfan en sy beminde blondine betref,
handel die boek nie oor enige sonde van
Lusinda nie. Dit gaan oor Stéfan se besondiging aan haar. Hy moes van haar af weggebly het. Stéfan moes haar nie verkrag het
nie (iets wat heeltemal buite karakter en
sonder verantwoording is). Die leser sukkel
om simpatie vir of empatie met die protagonis
te hê. Sy ma se versmorende liefde, wat deur
onnodige, herhalende terugflitse uitgebeeld
word, is nie genoeg om Stéfan se redes vir
wat hy doen, te regverdig nie.
Tog is daar opwindende elemente in die
roman. Hoe voorspelbaar dit ook al is, kan
die leser hom- of haarself aan die schadenfreude
oorgee. Dit is soos om na sekere realiteitstelevisiereekse te kyk: jy wéét wat kom, maar jy
bly sit. Dit is net jammer dat die skrywer die
leser by tye laat dink—of hoop—dat daar een
251
of ander groot gebeurtenis gaan plaasvind
wanneer die karakters sal saamspan om die
hoofkarakter tot sy val te lei. Die roman loop
egter uit op ’n antiklimaks: alles is Stéfan se
eie skuld en boontjie kry sy loontjie.
Peet van Aardt
peetvanaardt@gmail.com
Pretoria
The Road of Excess.
Ingrid Winterbach. Vertaal deur Leon de
Kock. 2014. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.
320 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7981-5626-4.
The Road of Excess is Leon de Kock, bekende
outeur en vertaler wat onder meer ook
verantwoordelik was vir die vertaling van
Etienne van Heerden se In stede van die liefde
(In Love’s Place, 2013) en Marlene van Niekerk
se Triomf (Triomf, 1999), se vertaling van Ingrid
Winterbach se 2011 M-Net-pryswenner Die
benederyk. Die verhaal van Aaron Adendorff,
’n selfmartelende kunstenaar wat sukkel om
terug op sy voete te kom ná ’n stryd met
nierkanker en die skielike dood van sy vrou,
sy buurvrou Bubbles Bothma wat by sy huis
opdaag met ’n gorilla-mombakkies en pienk
spandex-broek aan, sy broer Stefaans—’n
voormalige drank- en dwelmverslaafde—se
bombardering van lukrake sms- en eposboodskappe met sy relase wat etlike
bladsye aaneen strek. Al die gebeure, gesprekke en relase wat Winterbach meesterlik in Die
benederyk saamgeweef het, word in The Road
of Excess met sukses oorvertaal.
Maar tog is daar iets wat verlore gaan in
die vertaling; of dalk nie verlore gaan nie, maar
net ánders is. Die eerste opmerklike “andersheid” tussen die oorspronklike roman en
die vertaling is die titel. Die benederyk sou
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sekerlik meer akkuraat vertaal kon word met
“underworld”, soos wat dit menigmale in die
roman gedoen word, maar The Underworld
dra met hom sy eie bagasie—’n reeds
bestaande filmreeks, musiekgroep en roman
met hierdie benaming. Om The Underworld
as titel vir hierdie roman eerder uit te sluit,
maak dus heeltemal sin.
Dit ter syde gestel, is dit wel waar dat die
titel The Road of Excess ’n ander sleutel vir die
leser gee om die roman mee te interpreteer.
Waar die “benederyk” dui op ’n statiese plek,
kan daar in die “road of excess” iets gesien
word van ’n reis, ’n uittog, van verandering.
Verder gee die taalgebruik in die roman
daartoe aanleiding dat Aaron as karakter
minder desperaat voorkom. Die intensiteit,
die histerie waarmee die karakter deurlopend
in die Afrikaanse weergawe van die roman
geassosieer word, kom in die vertaling meer
gedemp voor. Die vertelling van sy gevoel
teenoor die voormalige bure se honde wat
hy met klippe bestook het, sy frustrasie met
sy huishulp Gloria Sekete asook galeris Eddie
Knuvelder en buurvrou Bubbles Bothma wat
hy in Die benederyk met vurigheid gevóél het,
word oorgedra met ’n hopeloosheid—’n
omarming van die verandering wat hy
ondergaan en ’n atmosfeer van groter ontvanklikheid. Sy verbanning van Bubbles uit
sy huis voel minder heftig, selfs sy verwyte
van Eddie Knuvelder (en sy assistente) en
Jimmy Harris is meer bedees.
Die taalgebruik in Die benederyk is ook
meermale die bron van die humor in die
roman wat dan aanleiding gee tot die vraag
of humor vertaal kan word. Buiten Bubbles
Bothma se voorkoms (haar pienk spandexbroek, gorilla-mombakkies en truie met allerhande lukrake motiewe daarop) is dit die
taalgebruik van die karakter asook die
onversoenbaarheid van sekere van haar opmerkings met haar karakter self wat humoristiese effekte tot gevolg het. So is daar
byvoorbeeld haar voordrag van ’n uittreksel
uit Milton se “Paradise Lost” wat vir Aaron
(en die leser) nie noodwendig ooreenstem
met die verwagte verwysingsraamwerk wat
Bubbles sou hê nie. Sou die leser kon aanneem
dat indien Engels haar moedertaal was, die
moontlikheid groter sou wees dat Milton
algemeen deel van haar verwysingsraamwerk uitmaak? Sonder die deurlopende
wisseling tussen Afrikaans en Engels gaan
daar ook iets van Bubbles se karakterisering
verlore. Uiteindelik kom dit daarop neer dat
die humor waarmee Bubbles geassosieer
word, nie juis in The Road of Excess so
prominent is nie en dat dit veral raakgesien
word indien die oorspronklike roman ook
byderhand gehou word.
Waarop dit neerkom, is dat die titel, die
taalgebruik, die sinskonstruksie, die toonaard
van die roman, die karakterisering, en so meer
dit laat voorkom asof die karakters minder
desperaat is. Die juistheid van die vertaling
word hier nie bevraagteken nie, soos Aaron
se omskrywing van Jimmy Harris wie se naels
“tot in die lewe gebyt is” waarvan die vertaling
“his nails are bitten to the quick” (52) is. Die
vertaling is weliswaar akkuraat, maar “to the
quick” beklemtoon nie die groteskheid
waarmee Harris geken word op dieselfde
manier as wat “tot in die lewe” dit doen nie.
Daar is nie ’n konstante stryd teen afdaling
in die benederyk nie, maar eerder ’n
omhelsing van die pad wat daartoe lei en
daarmee saam ook selfs die bestemming. Selfs
die buiteblad van die boek dra tot hierdie idee
by. Waar die buiteblad van Die benederyk byna
heeltemal swart is met net enkele kleure aan
die bokant van die boek, is die buiteblad van
The Road of Excess gevul met tropiese plante
en blare, wat herinner aan die beskrywing
van Aaron se tuin in Durban.
Kortom: die roman is anders as die
oorspronklike. Hiermee wil ek nie beweer dat
Winterbach se stem verlore gaan nie. In Aaron
se vertelling van sy skilderproses, sy liefde
vir kadmiumrooi, in Stefaans se relase oor
hulle ouers, grootouers, Samuel en Josua
Reinecke, Jimmy Harris se teoretiese aanslag
tot kuns, deurentyd is Winterbach se stem in
hierdie vertaling herkenbaar—herkenbaar,
maar anders.
Dawita Brits
dawitajohanna@yahoo.com
Pretoria
Fragmente uit die Ilias.
Homeros. Vertaal deur Cas Vos. Pretoria:
Protea Boekhuis, 2014. 160 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-4853-0181-3.
Die Ilias en Odusseia van Homeros behoort
tereg tot die hoogtepunte van die wêreldletterkunde. Hoewel daar die afgelope tyd ’n
groot aantal Engelse vertalings hiervan
verskyn het, is die enigste volledige vertaling
in Afrikaans nog steeds dié van die Stellenbosse klassikus J. P. J. van Rensburg wat in die
middel van die vorige eeu gepubliseer is. Van
Rensburg se vertaling, hoewel baie noukeurig, is egter taamlik argaïes en prosaïes en
slaag nie daarin om reg te laat geskied aan die
poëtiese aard van die eposse nie. Cas Vos, ’n
teoloog en digter met verskeie digbundels op
sy kerfstok, se poging om ’n vars, nuwe
vertaling van ’n keur van uittreksels uit die
Ilias in digterlike formaat te lewer, moet dus
van harte verwelkom word.
Die eerste helfte van die werk word in
beslag geneem deur drie inleidende hoofstukke. Die eerste hiervan—ietwat onvanpas
getitel “Homeros se afdrukke” aangesien dit
om veel meer as net die “afdruk” (impak?)
van Homeros handel—bespreek naas die
invloed van Homeros ook die tipiese inleidingsvraagstukke soos die komposisie, outeurskap, taalgebruik, vergelykings en
253
versmaat. Hierdie hoofstuk sluit ’n hele aantal
aanhalings uit moderne werke in wat die
invloed van Homeros uitnemend illustreer.
Hoewel die hoofstuk verder heelwat interessante inligting vir die oningewyde leser
bevat en selfs vir die ingeligte leser verrassende perspektiewe op die invloed van
Homeros bied, is daar tog ook ’n paar sake
wat pla. Die onderskeid tussen paragraaf 2
(“Die invloed van Homeros se werke”) enersyds en paragrawe 5 en 6 (“Die Ilias se invloed
op die poësie” en “Die Ilias se afdruk in die
Afrikaanse poësie”) andersyds is nie baie duidelik nie, aangesien paragraaf 2 ook na die
invloed op poësie verwys. In al drie paragrawe
word Homeros (dit wil sê die Ilias en die
Odusseia) dikwels gelyk gestel aan die mites
waarop Homeros berus. Só word daar byvoorbeeld op bl. 15 beweer: “Homeros bied
ook die grondstof vir Seamus Heaney se
voortreflike drama, The cure at Troy (1990)”.
In hierdie drama bied Heaney ’n weergawe
van die mite wat ons uit Sophokles se drama
Philoktetos leer ken. Hoewel daar verwysings
na Philoktetos en Neoptolemos (die ander
hoofkarakter in die mite) in die Ilias en die
Odusseia te vinde is, is Heaney deur Sophokles en nie deur Homeros beïnvloed nie. ’n
Kleiner, meer filologiese probleem is die inkonsekwente spelling van Griekse eiename:
so vind ons byvoorbeeld Heraklitos in plaas
van Herakleitos; Plutarchus, Pindarus, Glaukus en Hesiodus naas Homeros, Philoktetos
en Priamos. In die notas word verder vreemd
genoeg dikwels na bybelse ensiklopedieë en
woordeboeke (byvoorbeeld The Dictionary of
New Testament Background; The International
Standard Bible Encyclopedia; The Eerdmans
Dictionary of Early Judaism) as bron vir ’n
Griekse mite of historiese feit verwys in plaas
van na standaard klassieke naslaanwerke soos
die Oxford Classical Dictionary of Brill’s New
Pauly. Laasgenoemde werke sou vir die leser
wat verder wou lees oor Homeros van meer
waarde wees as die bybelse naslaanwerke.
254
Die tweede hoofstuk, “Die Ilias op die
weegskaal van die tyd”, plaas die gebeure van
die Ilias kortliks in historiese konteks (die titel
is dus weereens nie heeltemal van toepassing
nie), terwyl die derde hoofstuk, “Konteks”, ’n
baie nuttige en leesbare kort opsomming van
die inhoud van elke boek van die Ilias gee.
Vos se weergawe van uittreksels uit die
Ilias vind ons in die tweede helfte van die boek.
Uit sy “Besinning oor vertaling” in hoofstuk
1, paragraaf 7.2 is dit duidelik dat hy in die
“omdigting” van die Griekse teks nie probeer
om die oorspronklike versmaat direk weer te
gee nie, maar nogtans probeer reg laat geskied aan die poëtiese kwaliteite van die
oorspronklike: “’n Vertaling vra ook na die
musikaliteit en samevoeging van woorde en
sinne. Die vertaler moet luister na die woorde
wat hy kies en dit vergelyk met die letterlike
betekenis van die oorspronklike taal. Hy moet
dan die gevoelswaarde daarteen opweeg ten
einde die geskikte toonaard en kadens te vind”
(38). Daarbenewens moet die vertaler so ver
moontlik rekening hou met die kultuurhistoriese konteks van die oorspronklike teks
(40). Wanneer ’n mens Vos se weergawe lees,
word jy inderdaad keer op keer getref deur
die vars wyse waarop Grieks in Afrikaans
oorgedra word. Ek gee slegs enkele voorbeelde wat redelik lukraak gekies is:
Toe die Daeraad die vroeë oggend soos ’n nageboorte kleur, stuur Apollo vir hulle ’n kragtige wind. Hulle laat die mas regop staan en
vlerk die wit seile oop. Die wind blaas haar
asem teen die seile en die skip se kiel roer
purper golwe. (Boek I 91)
Twis laat galm die strydkreet,
hits die Achajers se harte aan,
oorlogswoede pak hulle beet,
die aarde sug, bloednat gesweet. (Boek VI 109)
Terselfdertyd moet die leser daarop bedag wees
dat Vos se weergawe nie werklik ’n vertaling
in die eng sin van die woord genoem kan word
nie; daarvoor wyk dit te dikwels af van die
Grieks. Ek noem ’n paar voorbeelde uit die
begin van Boek I, met die letterlike vertaling
van Van Rensburg ter vergelyking:
Agammemnon en Achilles se nerwe is maar
dun.
in a burning sea. contemporary afrikaans
poetry in translation.
Red. Marlise Joubert. Pretoria: Protea
Boekhuis, 2014. 352 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4853-0107-3.
Met die wroklied kry Zeus, die oppergod, sy
sin.
Wie laat die twis tussen die twee opvlam?
Apollo los in blinde woede ’n donker pes.
Agammemnon is die oorsaak van die onheil.
Dit is hý wat die eer van priester Chruses
krenk. (85)
In Van Rensburg se vertaling lui dieselfde
gedeelte:
[…] die plan van Zeus is voleindig!—ja, vandat Atreus se seun, koning van manne, en die
goddelike Achillês vir die eerste keer in twis van
mekaar geskei het. Wie van die gode het hulle
twee dan in twis en stryd teen mekaar gestel?
Lêto en Zeus se Seun: woedend vir die koning,
het Hy ’n bose pes dwarsdeur die laer verwek,
en die manne het gesterwe, omdat die seun
van Atreus sy priester, Chrusês, beledig het.
Net hierná, op dieselfde bladsy, word “die
sterkskeenplaat-Achajers” en “die gode wat
hulle Olimpiese wonings het” (Van Rensburg)
deur Vos vertaal met “julle ander oorlogbeheptes” en “die gode wat in Olimpiese herehuise in weelde leef ”, wat klaarblyklik die
kultuurhistoriese konteks uit die oog verloor.
Vos se weergawe van die Ilias-uittreksels
moet dus as ’n “indruk” of “resepsie” van Homeros beskou word, eerder as ’n vertaling.
Lesers wat ’n kort indruk wil bekom van die
Ilias sal baie vreugde hê aan die goedversorgde
en aantreklike band met die kragtige en frisse
Afrikaans. Vir ’n nuwe Afrikaanse vertaling
van die Ilias moet ’n mens egter nog wag.
Johan Thom
jct@sun.ac.za
Universiteit Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch
In 2014 verskyn die Engelse bloemlesing in a
burning sea by Protea Boekhuis—eietydse
Afrikaanse gedigte in Engelse vertaling. Hierdie tweetalige publikasie (met die Afrikaanse
bronteks en die vertaling naas mekaar) van
ongeveer 170 vertalings poog om die “moderne” beeld van Afrikaanse poësie plaaslik en in
die buiteland groter blootstelling te gee, vandaar die insluiting van digters van wie daar in
die afgelope 5 jaar (2005–2011) ten minste ’n
tweede bundel verskyn het. Soos André P.
Brink in die inleiding tot die bundel beklemtoon, is die publikasie “a way of affirming the
modern world, but also a kind of tribute tot
the very origins of South African poetry” (18).
Dié benadering van die samestellers Marlise
Joubert en Brink (wat die finale seleksie uit 10
gedigte soos voorgelê deur die 30 digters
gemaak het), is tekenend van die tematiese
naelstring waaraan die ouer sowel as die
jonger generasie digters en hulle gedigte
verbind is, naamlik hierdie Afrika—die historiese asook die alledaagse, die sardoniese en
die serieuse, die politieke en die persoonlike,
en alles daartussen. Die bloemlesing verskyn
in ’n tydsgees waarbinne die mens se sensibiliteit ongemaklik ossileer tussen “onoplosbare uiterstes van sinisme en idealisme, van
onverskilligheid en betrokkenheid, van wanhoop en utopiese behoefte,” aldus Van den
Akker en Vermeulen soos aangehaal deur
Marlene van Niekerk (13–4). Dalk verwoord
Daniel Hugo se gedig “Warmbad, Namibia”
(128) iets hiervan—in die vormgewing, die
rymende koeplette, die weerloosheid:
my prilste herinnering: ’n glansende maan
wat stil uitstyg bo die rand van ons agterplaas
255
in sy lig sien ek hoedat my dun skadu val
eindeloos deur ’n rotsagtige kil heelal—
daar waar ek staan in ’n landskap van ysterklip
het bedags ’n Namakwa-vrou my opgepas
haar geklik het tóé weerklink in my Afrikaans:
die magneet wat my moet vashou hier
ondermaans
die taal wat my laat klou aan die gebarste lip
van Afrika, waaroor hortend ’n koorsasem
blaas
en daarnaas, die vertaling:
my earliest memory: a radiant moon
silently rising above the rim of our backyard
in its light I saw my slender shadow fall
endlessly through a craggy, cold eternity—
there where I stood in a landscape of dolerite
by day a Namaqua woman looked after me
her clicking speech echoed in my Afrikaans
a magnet that must hold me here in the
moon’s trance
the language that has me holding on tight
as across Africa’s cracked lip its fevered breath
blows hard
Die samestellers se invalshoek van die “moderne” is van belang in die lig van wat Steiner
(7, 27) noem die “informing sphere of sensibility”. Vir hiérdie leser is die bundel belangwekkend nie noodwendig in die tematiese gegewens of die tendense wat die gedigte
weerspieël nie (Brink bespreek dit breedvoerig
en insiggewend in die Inleiding), maar omdat
dit Afrikáánse poësie in Engels (plaaslik en
internasionaal) karteer en sodoende lesers se
leefruimtes binne die werklikheid herorganiseer. ’n Voorvereiste vir hierdie kateringsproses om te kan plaasvind, is dat die doeltaal
256
ontvanklik sal wees vir die nuwe tekste en die
metafore wat dit verteenwoordig; geen woord
staan alleen nie, “when using a word we wake
into resonance, as it were, its entire previous
history” (Steiner 24). Hierin lê die vernuwing
in poësie wat vertaling bewerkstellig: tydens
die proses van vertaling word die objek, die
gedig, geapproprieer in so ’n mate dat dit
bewaar word, maar ook ’n versnelde, verlengde lewe kry. Die vertáler (hetsy ’n eksterne vertaler of die digter self) is die medium,
die agent, wat die totstandkoming van die
bronteks naspoor, náskryf. Dit is ’n tweeledige proses: reproduktief ten opsigte van ’n noukeurige oordrag van die gees (of styl) van die
oorspronklike, en innoverend ten opsigte van
vernuftige maniere waarop die doeltaal ingespan word om uitdagings in die bronteks
te oorbrug.
Die titel van die bloemlesing is ontleen aan
Breyten Breytenbach se gelyknamige gedig
(53) uit die bundel Windcatcher (2007), en eggo
Heinrich Heine se gedig “Storm”: “ver aan die
rotskus van Skotland / waar ’n ou grys kasteel
/ uittoring bo ’n brandende see; / daar, by ’n
geboë venster, / staan ’n vrou, beeldskoon en
mistroostig, / deursigtig van gelaat en marmerbleek. / En sy speel op ’n harp en sy sing;
/ en die storm woed in haar lang hare; / en
haar donker lied sweef / oor die wye, dreigende see” (vry vertaal na Untermeyer se
vertaling in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three
Hundred and Twenty-Five Poems. 1917 [1830]).
Dit is ’n titel wat die niestandvastigheid van
vernuwing en verandering suggereer, asook
die paradoksale eienskap van digterskap,
naamlik ’n behoefte aan die bekende en voltooiing, maar die steeds groeiende—brandende—begeerte na abstraksie en afstand.
Die bundel is verteenwoordigend van
vroeër generasies digters soos Stockenström,
Spies, Breytenbach (wat steeds publiseer), die
daaropvolgende generasie met onder andere Antjie Krog, Marlise Joubert, Cas Vos, Zandra Bezuidenhout, Marlene van Niekerk en
Joan Hambidge, en laastens ’n generasie digters wat in die jare sewentig en tagtig gebore
is, waaronder Danie Marais, Ronelda S.
Kamfer en Loftus Marais. Van Kamfer is daar
reeds twee bundels in Nederlands vertaal, en
van Marais enkele gedigte opgeneem in ’n
Nederlandse versamelbundel.
in a burning sea bevat oorwegend eerste
vertalings van digters se werk, daarom die
belangrikheid van hierdie bloemlesing. Van
Zandra Bezuidenhout, alfabeties eerste in die
bundel, verskyn drie ongepubliseerde gedigte
en vertalings deur Michiel Heyns. Die gedig
“Intimate” se universele aanspraak dra op
intens intieme wyse die beeldrykheid van die
bronteks oor: “how transparent the nipplebud / bleeding in berry-red passion”, terwyl
’n invoeging soos “Contre-jour” ’n doelbewus
vreemde keuse is vir die nie-vervreemdende
bronekwivalent “teenlig”. Heyns is ook die
vertaler van enkele van T. T. Cloete se gedigte,
en in “letter” slaag hy daarin om die “skoongeskroptheid” van Cloete se styl na te skryf.
Dit is geen verrassing dat die meeste van
Breyten Breytenbach, Antjie Krog en Marlene
van Niekerk se gedigte in die bundel selfvertalings is nie. Van Vuuren (2014) skryf oor
Mede-wete (2014), Kaar (2013) en vyf-en-veertig
skemeraandsange uit die eenbeendanser se
werkruimte (2014): “In ’n gemarginaliseerde taal
soos Afrikaans, is al drie hierdie digbundels
merkwaardig in hul onderskeie soorte
vernuwing, grensoorskryding en die hoogstaande gehalte van ’n totale andersoortigheid
van elkeen. Breytenbach se gedigte in die
bloemlesing kom uit reeds verskene Engelse
bundels, terwyl Krog se selfvertalings uit Body
Bereft geneem is en Karen Press se vertaling
“land” uit Skinned. In haar vertaling “Convolvulus” (“Purperblom”, 299) kry Van Niekerk
dit reg om, asof met ’n enkele kwashaal, die
sensibiliteit van die digter en vertaler vas te
vang, terwyl “The Red Poppy” (295) duidelik
die digterlike vryheid van die selfvertaler
belig:
Klein klaproos opgeskote in my tuin
Onmoontlik vermiljoen op ’n harige stingel,
Enkelgekartel met ’n filigraan bewimperde
pikswart oog,
[…]
Small red poppy sprung up in my yard
impossibly vermillion,
on a hairy stem, a single silky drift unfurling,
filigree lashed your pitch-black eye,
[…]
Ook van Petra Müller, Charl-Pierre Naudé,
Johann de Lange en Ilse van Staden verskyn
selfvertalings, maar met die uitsondering van
twee van Lina Spies se gedigte, is elke digter
se werk deur dieselfde vertaler(s) vertaal, ’n
aspek wat konsekwentheid ten opsigte van
styl verseker.
Teen die agtergrond van ontnugtering, die
wegskryf en ánders skryf van die gewone en
die aanvaarde wat kenmerkend is van die
jonger generasie digters se werk, is die
veiligheid waarmee Charl J. F. Cilliers “Good
girls (Kamfer, “Goeie meisies”, 151) vertaal
opvallend: ’n mens sou hier ’n poging tot
oordrag van Kamfer se taal in die gedig
verwag, ’n oordrag van die skok, woede en
teleurstelling wat so geslaagd deur Kamfer
bewerkstellig word deur haar gebruik van
Cape Flats-taal: “hulle raakie”; “hulle roekie”;
“hulle tik nie”; “hulle djol nie”; “bly nie oppie”.
In die vertaling gaan die tekstuur, die grinterigheid van byvoorbeeld die verkortings
(“they do not”; “do not live on the”) verlore
en die gedig verkry ’n formeler register wat
bots met die styl van die digter. Die invoeg
van ’n voetnota vir die woord “jol” in hierdie
gedig, maar ook in “Little Cardo”, ontneem
die gedig van sy vervreemdende karakter.
Verfrissend wel, is Cilliers se vertaling van
Loftus Marais se “Wederkoms”, waarin die
beeldrykheid, die noukeurig geplaaste woorde asook die gestrooptheid baie geslaagd
oorgedra word.
257
In geheel is die bloemlesing ’n weergawe
van Walter Benjamin (17) se nosie dat taal,
oftewel tale, ten minste één gemene faktor
het, naamlik dít waaraan hulle uitdrukking gee.
in a burning sea getuig van vertaalprosesse
waartydens die vertalers nié noodwendig die
doeltaal (Engels) probeer bewaar en beskerm
het nie, maar dit ontvanklik gemaak het om
op kragtige wyse deur die brontaal beïnvloed
te word in so ’n mate dat die doeltaal verbreed
en verdiep (Benjamin, 22), in ’n proses van
“becoming”.
Benjamin, Walter. “The task of the translator ”.
The Translation Studies Reader. Red. Lawrence
Venuti. Londen, New York: Routledge, 2000.
15–25.
Steiner, George. After Babel. Aspects of Language &
Translation. Oxford: OUP, 1998.
Heine, Heinrich. Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three
Hundred and Twenty-Five Poems. Vert. Louis
Untermeyer. 1830. Londen: Forgotten Books,
1917.
Van Niekerk, M. “Die handige dubbelganger as
beeld van die digter in die ouderwetse
ambagtelike handwerkersgedigte van ’n
internasionaal geroemde Iers-Engelse digter.”
Poësievertaling: Nederlands-Afrikaans-slypskool, Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands,
Universiteit Stellenbosch, 28–31 Okt. 2014.
Ongepubliseerde lesing.
Van Vuuren, H. “LitNet Akademies-resensie-essay:
Mede-wete deur Antjie Krog”. Lit-Net Akademies.
3 Des. 2014. 30 Jul. 2015. <http://www.litnet.co.
za/Article/litnet-akademies-resensie-essaymede-wete-deur-antjie-krog>.
F. A. Vosloo
francivosloo1@gmail.com
Stellenbosch
258
Die mond vol vuur: Beskouings oor die
werk van Breyten Breytenbach.
Louise Viljoen. Stellenbosch: SUN Press,
2014. 329 pp. ISBN: 978-1-920338-83-1.
In 2009 verskyn Louise Viljoen se bundel
opstelle, Ons ongehoorde soort: Beskouings oor
die werk van Antjie Krog. Dié publikasie getuig
duidelik van ’n navorser wat ’n lewenslange
belangstelling in die werk van een digter
noukeurig uitgebou het tot ’n formidabele
kritiese beskouing oor een van Afrikaans se
veelsydigste digter-skrywers. Daar is min
navorsers wat enkele jare later nóg ’n boek
op dieselfde peil kan publiseer, met ’n soortgelyke diepgaande verkenning van een
alkantige digter-skrywer se oeuvre. Die verskyning van Die mond vol vuur is tasbare bewys
van Viljoen se omvattende ondersoek oor die
werk van Breyten Breytenbach, en terselfdertyd ook ’n soort getuigskrif van dié kritikus se invloed op die Afrikaanse literêre kritiek van die afgelope 25 jaar.
Met ’n uitgewerslandskap waar daar nog
min vakkundige publikasies op die gebied van
die literêre kritiek verskyn, tree daar by
hierdie leser dikwels ’n mate van skeptisisme
in wanneer versamelbundels van reeds gepubliseerde navorsing uitgegee word. In die
geval van Die mond vol vuur is daar egter twee
sterk teenargumente op hierdie soort kritiek.
Eerstens is dit duidelik dat hierdie bundel nie
gewoon ’n herpublikasie van ouer navorsing
is nie. Die outeur meld in haar erkennings dat
“vorige weergawes” van die hoofstukke in
Die mond vol vuur voorheen elders in verskeie
vaktydskrifte en ’n vakkundige versamelbundel verskyn het, maar die woordkeuse
hier dui daarop dat daar aansienlike veranderinge aangebring is vir hierdie publikasie.
Reeds in die eerste hoofstuk oor die eiename in Breytenbach se poësie is dit duidelik
dat Viljoen haar navorsing bygewerk het deur
ook die digter se nuwer bundels in ag te neem.
Onder andere Die beginsel van stof (2011) en
Katalekte (2012) word in hierdie bespreking betrek, waardeur nuwer motiewe in Breytenbach se poësie aan bod kom:
Tesame met [die name “Blackface”, “Buiteblaf ”
en “Blanckface Buiteblaf ”], wat dui op toenemende frustrasie sowel as die groeiende
besef dat die dood in aantog is, gebruik die
digter ook in Katalekte die naam “Stoftong
Bobbejabach” om te suggereer dat die digter,
wat eintlik ’n bobbejaan is, se mond binnekort
gesnoer sal word deur die dood en tot stof sal
terugkeer (25).
Op hierdie wyse tree die hoofstukke in Die
mond vol vuur effektief met Viljoen se nuwer
navorsing in gesprek. Onlangs, by die kongres
van die Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging in
Pretoria, Oktober 2014, het sy nog ’n referaat
gelewer waarin sy die tema van uitwissing in
Breytenbach se Die windvanger (2007), Die
beginsel van stof en Katalekte bespreek.
Die leser sal opmerk dat die navorser in die
boek deurgaans van voetnote gebruik maak.
As voetnoot tot haar eie opmerking oor die
aspek van “die desentralisering en fragmentering van die subjek” in Breytenbach se poësie,
volg hierdie voetnoot: “Vergelyk hieroor ook
die doktorale proefskrif van Smuts (1995)
getitel “Die desentralisasie van die subjek: ’n
Post-strukturalistiese beskouing van Breyten
Breytenbach se Die ysterkoei moet sweet en (‘yk’)”.
Soortgelyk is daar ’n voetnoot in Viljoen se
hoofstuk “Die digter en sy vaders” waarin
melding gemaak word van “[Andries] Visagie
(2004:54-86) se ondersoek na die verhouding
tussen ‘(v)aders, seuns en die politiek’ in die
werk van Alexander Strachan, Mark Behr en S.
P. Benjamin”. Hierdie vermeldings dui vir die
leser op twee sake. Eerstens die tekenende invloed wat Viljoen as navorser en kritikus op
navorsing oor Afrikaanse poësie gehad het (en
steeds het), en tweedens hoe sy ook die gesprekke tussen literêre werke en verskeie navorsers se ondersoeke fyn nagevolg het.
Benewens die belang van name en die
verhouding met die vader(s) in Breytenbach
se poësie, dek die ander hoofstukke in Die
mond vol vuur ’n aantal belangrike temas en
kwessies oor die digter se werk. In “Die spanning tussen lokale en globale indentiteite” bou
Viljoen met ’n bespreking van Dog Heart (1998)
voort op die “onstabiliteit van identiteit” in
Breytenbach se poësie; ’n eienskap van sy
digkuns wat die ondersoek oor die gebruik
van veelvuldige name in die eerste hoofstuk
ook besoek het.
In die negende hoofstuk ondersoek
Viljoen spesifiek Breytenbach se dramastukke
(Boklied, 1998; Die toneelstuk, 2001 en Johnny
Cockroach, wat nooit gepubliseer is nie, maar
slegs opgevoer is). As ’n mens Breytenbach se
lang loopbaan as digter en skilder oorskou,
kom die vraag onvermydelik op waarom hy
hom so laat in sy skrywersloopbaan tot die
verhoogkuns gewend het, maar Viljoen stel
juis dat dit nie vreemd is nie: “Die teater bied
aan hom die geleentheid om sy vaardigheid
met die digterlike woord te kombineer met
sy verbeeldingrykheid as visuele kunstenaar
op ’n manier wat deur ’n regisseur en spelers
verder geneem kan word om die teaterervaring te skep” (197). Hoewel die navorser
in die woord vooraf prontuit stel dat “die
ondersoek na Breytenbach se skilderwerk
[oorgelaat word] vir kundiges op die gebied”
(vii) is dit duidelik dat sy goed kennis neem
van die potensiële impak van die digter-skilder
se visuele uitbeeldingsvermoëns en tog ’n
bydrae lewer tot die diskoers oor Breytenbach
se visuele kuns.
In die laaste twee hoofstukke word Breytenbach se sentrale posisie in die Afrikaanse
literêre sisteem noukeurig ondersoek deur
enersyds te oorweeg hoe Afrikaanse digters
in gesprek tree met die digter as openbare
figuur, en andersyds in gesprek tree met sy
digterskap. Hierdie sentrale posisie wat Breytenbach beklee, is ook in die populêre kultuur
geen geheim nie, soos wanneer dit byvoor-
259
beeld tot absurde en gewaande hoogtes gevoer word as die liriekskrywer van die rockgroep Fokofpolisiekar, Hunter Kennedy, in
Annie Klopper se biografie oor dié groep (Biografie van ’n bende, Protea Boekhuis, 2011) as ’n
soort Breytenbach-figuur geskets word. Soos
Viljoen tereg noem, is dit “opvallend dat ’n
baie wye spektrum van Afrikaanse digters,
vanaf gekanoniseerde figure tot selfgepubliseerde digters, vanaf gevestigde digters tot
debutante, hulle geroepe gevoel het om op
Breytenbach se openbare optredes te reageer”. Verder dui sy in ’n deeglike analise aan
hoe ’n aantal gedigte deur onder andere
George Weideman, Lina Spies, Adam Small,
Wopko Jensma en Ronel de Goede verwys
na Breytenbach se poësie en “’n blik [gee] op
die uitsonderlike impak wat hy op die Afrikaanse literêre lewe gehad het en nog steeds
het” (270).
Die mond vol vuur bied aan die leser ’n
omvattende reis deur die werk van Breyten
Breytenbach. Selfs diegene wat bekend is met
Viljoen se navorsing sal waarskynlik haar
bywerkings vir hierdie publikasie insiggewend vind. Dit moet ook genoem word
dat hierdie teks met vrug voorgeskryf sou
kon word (as ’n mens dit nog sou waag om so
’n boek vir letterkundestudente voor te skryf)
vir ’n universiteitsmodule met Breytenbach
as fokuspunt. Met haar weloorwoë argumente en kritiek, sowel as haar klinkklare
skryfstyl wat toeganklik genoeg is vir die
ondersoeker en student, bevestig Viljoen met
hierdie publikasie weereens haar posisie as
poësiekenner.
Reinhardt Fourie
fourir@unisa.ac.za
Universiteit van Suid-Afrika
Pretoria
260
Conversations of Motherhood. South
African Women’s Writing across Traditions.
Ksenia Robbe. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN
Press, 2015. 328 pp. ISBN 978-1-86914-288-9.
Ksenia Robbe embarks on a daring and very
relevant undertaking with her analysis of
women’s writing from South Africa in both
English and Afrikaans. Her comparative crosscultural reading is inclusive and intersectional,
taking into account race, class, cultural background and, naturally, gender. The author herself describes her approach as “reading both
along the lines of ‘traditions’ and across them”
(3). Engaging in a dialogue with pro-inclusive
theorists of South African literature, such as
Ena Jansen or Michael Chapman, Robbe
argues for one body of South African literature, while taking into account the differences
along the possible axes of oppression. The
main emphasis of the author’s reading is, as
the title suggests, the notion of motherhood
in the broadest sense of the word, concentrating on “representations of experiences of
mothering” (4), while tracing the changes in
mothering practices, such as childbirth, nurturing, childcare etc., or, as she mentions, the
process of “remoulding motherhood” (15).
Robbe’s analysis of shifts in gender-based
practices, based on the notion of textual translocation, both at transnational and transcultural levels, questions sociocultural boundaries and image-forming notions such as
“culture”, “nation” or “tradition”. Hence the
emphasis on motherhood and mothering as
practices often manipulated within both
colonial and anti-colonial patriarchies on the
basis of their crucial role in the creation of
imagined communities. In her critical inquiry
Robbe departs from the claim that, especially
in socially highly unstable times such as the
shift from an oppressive system towards democratic statehood, motherhood can provide
“necessary points of identification to man-
oeuvre between discursive locations” (37). She
adds: “The issue of special interest here is how
and for what ends women writers have
participated in the creation of ‘mother of the
nation’ images and how they have written
against them” (56).
At the same time Robbe is, however, fully
aware of possible theoretical weaknesses of
such an essentialist assumption, and provides
theoretical argumentation supporting these
choices. This also applies to her decision to
shift attention from a Eurocentric to an Afrocentric perspective, backed by the notion of
Spivak’s strategic essentialism, or, “shifting the
centre” as proposed by Collins (41). Ksenia
Robbe considers motherhood as a phenomenon that is both locally grounded and intersubjectively constituted. Motherhood “is not
locked in a space of a single cultural identity
but, rather, is open, whether in alignment or
juxtaposition, to other cultural imaginings of
motherhood,” she argues (43). As an example
Robbe uses the case of Lauretta Ngcobo, who
in her essay A Black South African Woman
Writing Long after Schreiner (1991) places her
own writing in relation to Schreiner’s. Ngcobo
makes herewith a very accurate point, which
Robbe fully supports. Irrespective of divergent
views on gender, race, ethnicity, religion or
tradition, every woman writer in South Africa
is located within a larger, even though very
heterogeneous, textual heritage. The void
between own writing and existing literary
traditions, claimed by other black South
African writers (e.g. Miriam Tlali), is present
and absent at the same time. Its existence
depends on how broad, far and openmindedly we are willing to read, i.e. how do
we imagine the community in the frame of
which we are reading.
Robbe’s transnational dialogic reading of
women’s literary texts in English and Afrikaans from the 1970s to 2010 confirms the
above-mentioned statement: “Until recently,
literary and cultural production by South
African women of different backgrounds was
predominantly seen in terms of parallel
currents, rather than influences or confluences. Although in many cases literary processes
take place within reading and writing communities set ‘apart’ and it is therefore difficult to
speak of different influences, a consideration
of intersections and relations between these
currents is of primary importance.” (61).
Robbe’s innovative inclusive approach to
women’s writing from South Africa is anchored theoretically in Bakhtinian dialogics and its
postcolonial interpretations, which she uses
for her “dialogic critique of motherhood” (13).
Bakhtin’s epistemology is brought into dialogue (sic) with recent postcolonial (and) feminist theoretical frameworks. Dialogics are also
present in the author’s approach to the analysed texts, departing from the assumption of
an interaction between the author (and her
characters) and the reader. Robbe motivates
her choice for Bakhtin’s theories as follows:
“By placing Bakhtin’s theory of speaking and
textual practice in a broader socio-anthropological perspective, I mean to emphasise that
his writing, with its focus on language and
literature (as social and political acts), provides
a suitable conceptual framework for investigating dialogic patterns of subject production
through narrative” (119).
Robbe illustrates her theory with three case
studies, each of them providing a comparative
reading of motherhood as subjectivity and
agency. The comparative studies follow a
chronological development, but also shifts in
themes and/or narrative approaches. The first
case study, including readings of Elsa Joubert’s
Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (The Long
Journey of Poppie Nongena) and Wilma Stockenström’s Die kremetartekspedisie (The Expedition
to the Baobab Tree), concentrates on the representation of black mothers by white women
authors. This is followed by a comparative
reading of Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk and
Mother to Mother by Sindiwe Magona which
261
untangles the relations between women (mothers) of different races and the processes of
mother- and/or child-making. The last case
study, based on the analysis of A Daughter’s
Legacy by Pamphilia Hlapa and You Can’t Get
Lost in Cape Town by Zoë Wicomb, emphasises
daughters as “emerging subjects” (173) and
reads the texts as literary processes of “writing
back/against”. The narrative strategies addressed in the three case studies could be summed
up as “writing about”, “writing with” and “writing to”. Robbe shows that the analysed texts,
irrespective of the race of the authors and the
dates of publication, are “deeply implicated in
collective experiences and the histories of social
relations in South Africa” (126) and all, in their
own ways, illustrate shifting racial relations in
the development of colonialism to decolonisation to postcolonialism.
The analysis is successfully and very
sensitively placed at the intersection of its
various contexts, such as South African literature, Afrikaans literature, English (Commonwealth) literature and literatures in native
languages. History of colonisations and major
migratory movements are also taken into
account, as well as the multiplicity of feminisms
one has to consider for such an undertaking.
Ksenia Robbe, probably due to her personal
history, handles her analysis with necessary
caution, fully aware of the potential “traps”
associated with her chosen reading strategies.
The feminist informed author positions herself
in relation to her research as a mother and
transnational subject and, in so doing, creates
“strong objectivity” providing her reader with
innovative interpretations. This book is a
wonderful example of how valuable and
informative transnational and/or transcultural
readings can be for an existing scientific
discourse in a particular field of research.
Martina Vitackova
m.vitackova@gmail.com
University of Pretoria, Pretoria
262
Outposts of Progress: Joseph Conrad,
Modernism and Post-colonialism.
Eds. Gail Fincham, Jeremy Hawthorn,
Jakob Lothe. Cape Town: University of Cape
Town Press, 2015.iii-xxxviii + 226 pp.
ISBN 978-1-77582-081-9.
This collection of conference papers takes its
title from Conrad”s “An Outpost of Progress”
(1897) an early short story which already
signals the concerns that would inform his
oeuvre throughout his life. Darkly ironic and
detached in tone, that tale scrutinises imperialist activities in Africa and questions accepted
notions of “progress”, “civilisation”, and the
myth of European superiority. As the tale
charts the gradual degeneration and, finally,
the deaths of two incompetent agents (representatives of the Great Trading Company) the
narrative”s cool indictment of these “pioneers
of trade and progress” anticipates the more
profound and sophisticated web of ironies that
would inform Heart of Darkness two years later.
Both story and novella were written after
Conrad”s experience in the Congo in 1890:
“All the bitterness of those days, all my puzzled
wonder as to the meaning of all I saw—all my
indignation at masquerading philanthropy—
have been with me again, while I wrote”
(Letters i.294). That indignation, underlying
every aspect of “An Outpost”, is encapsulated
in Carlier”s remark: “In a hundred years, there
will perhaps be a town here. Quays and warehouses, and barracks, and—and—billiardrooms. Civilization, my boy, and virtue—and
all.” The ironic juxtaposition of commerce and
conquest, trivial billiard-rooms with civilisation
and virtue, the feeble tailing off, needs no underlining. By the end of the story the reader
has re-evaluated the concepts of progress and
imperialism in Africa through the ironic crosshatching that shades every page.
Irony was integral to Conrad”s vision and
style and infuses nearly all his work: ironies
of tone and situation, as well as wider dramatic
and historical ironies, reveal that profound
political and psychological understanding
which give his fictions their power. It was a
mode highly congenial to Conrad’s temperament and operates at every level, sparing
neither the “civilised” countries of Europe,
their commercial and imperial activities and
agents, the reader (who may indeed recognise
his own complicity) nor the narrator or even
Conrad himself. It relies, however, on the
reader’s powers of discrimination and so can
be mis-interpreted, as witness Achebe’s wellknown misreading of Heart of Darkness as a
racist text.
Based on papers originally presented at a
conference in post-apartheid South Africa (at
the University of Cape Town and at the Goedgedacht Trust Olive Farm), this volume is
especially relevant to Conrad’s life-long preoccupation with the ethical issues bound up in
colonialism and imperialism. The editors’
introduction ably places Conrad in his period,
persuasively evaluates his achievement as an
early Modernist, summarises the range of
critical questions posed in his works, and
itemises the contribution of each paper. The
volume is divided into two sections, though
inevitably there is some overlap: the first half
contains essays that address aspects of “Language, culture and history”; the second is titled
“Writing and genre in Conrad’s fiction”. Although most of the papers focus on the earlier
works—”An Outpost of Progress”, Heart of
Darkness, Almayer’s Folly, Lord Jim—others
analyse later texts such as A Personal Record
and Victory, and three offer illuminating
comparisons between Conrad’s vision with
those of, variously, Coetzee, Ngugi, and Robert
Louis Stevenson.
In a short review it is impossible to do
justice to all the contributors and of necessity
one must be selective, but something of the
range of papers offered and their different
critical approaches can be seen in two fine
analyses, one on a novella from Conrad’s
early phase, the other on a novel from his
later period. David Medalie’s “At the dying of
two centuries: Heart of Darkness and Disgrace”
addresses the different perspectives involved
in the sense of historical ending, of fin de siècle
in Conrad and Coetzee. Published a hundred
years apart at the end of their respective centuries, these works are suffused with a sense
of anxiety and apocalypse and akin in their
ironic awareness of history as an inescapably
cyclical process. As Conrad’s novella unfolds,
revealing the ethical hollowness at the core of
imperialism, Medalie suggests that both Marlow and Kurtz are overwhelmed by a sense of
futility, bleakly recognising the impossibility
of moral regeneration in their time. Similarly
Disgrace reveals a disturbing vision of postapartheid South Africa as a dystopian society
which has merely perpetuated the violence,
inequalities and injustices of the previous era.
Konstantin Sofianos’ “Victory, music and
the world of finance” is a welcome addition to
the ranks of critics (this reviewer among
them) who see Victory not as a product of Conrad’s declining powers but rather as a fresh
experiment, indicating a new direction in his
art. While the novel’s view of commerce in
the opening chapters is as ironic as one would
expect from the author of Nostromo, Sofianos
cogently argues that beyond the meticulously
realised world of commerce and finance, the
novel’s essential dynamic is driven by the
dream-world, by suggestiveness, obliqueness,
atmosphere, and that indeed the text as a
whole aspires to the condition of music, which
Conrad called “the art of arts” (Preface to The
Nigger of the Narcissus).
As the essays in this discriminating collection demonstrate, Conrad’s power as a
novelist is founded on his ability to evoke the
subjective lives of his characters in their
interaction with each other while placing those
lives in a wider historical context, showing
how the personal and the historical are
263
intertwined. Both are then located in a still
wider context which acknowledges the indifference of nature and time to the human
world. These essays offer valuable new critical
perspectives on Conrad as a modernist writer,
on his treatment of imperialism and colonialism, on his vision of human nature and
endeavour, and affirm that he remains our
264
contemporary, as relevant to the 21st century
as he was to his own.
Mara Kalnins
mik1000@cam.ac.uk
Corpus Christi College
Cambridge

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