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lindam's review against another edition
1.0
I'm sure this is a meaningful and seminal book for South Africa in its development and slow emancipation of women, alongside all its other issues, but its a very didactic, slow, over-rehearsed piece of work. Not an enjoyable read for me. Sorry bookclub!
robinlm's review against another edition
4.0
Well this is a complicated book. It was recommended to me as one of the first works of feminist literature. After I had finished part 1 of the book, I was like "...what? Feminist literature? I don't get it." Ignoring that, I must say I really enjoyed this book. The writing is so eloquent I feel like every sentence is a quote worth memorizing. Especially in part 2, I was just blown away by the truth I was reading. Even though this book is over 100 years old, it is definitely worth a try.
glyptodonsneeze's review against another edition
3.0
The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner (reinvented as the 2004 film Bustin' Bonaparte, the movie that inspired whiners on Amazon to give it no stars because it's not about talking animals). My pen pal Peter recommended the pants off this book and I am deeply sorry that I didn't like Story of an African Farm as much as he does. As soon as he recommended it, I downloaded it off Librivox, and started listen-reading. It does have merit, but it also has rough patches and serious issues. The book opens on a bleak landscape of red dirt and stunted shrubs that is, somehow, also a working farm. Three children are playing hide and seek in the emptiness of the vast African plain, and over the next few chapters the reader slowly realizes that farm's isolation is relative to the dozens of farm employees of who live onsite but are native Africans and don't count. The farm is an indisputable hole and the people who live on it are bound by poverty and notions of their own superiority. Em and Lyndell are English children. English being the best race. Lesser in ethnic virtue are Otto, the kind Christian farm manager, and his son Waldo. Tant Sannie is a fat Boer who owns the place and is inferior to other white people, but she is better than the Hottentots, who are better than Kafirs, who aren't allowed indoors. Lyndell is the mind, Em the body, and Waldo the spirit.
TSoaAF is divided into two parts: Childhood and sort of a bildungsroman, divided by a looooooooong, second person meditation on a child's religious awakening. Childhood is mostly the story of a bad man named Bonaparte Blankins who turns up on the farm and bamboozles the adults into thinking he's an English peer and relative that other Bonaparte. The kids are onto him, but he's only busted when Tant Sannie's younger, prettier niece turns up and he proposes to her while Tant Sannie is stuck in the attic, because she's fat.
In the second, less frustrating, part of the book, everyone is in the later stages of adolescence. It took me a while to notice that Em wasn't the cleverest ostrich in the ostrich camp because I am always rooting for Em people, but Em is fat and sad now. There's apparently tension between the African appreciation for the voluptuous woman and the English antipathy towards it. In any case, Emma is huffing and puffing and hoping someone will turn up and marry her. Waldo goes off to seek his fortune and remains a steady moral compass and a person of simple beauty and compassion. Lyndell has been away at school and then comes back with new ideas about womanhood and rights and oppression. She has a lot of dialogue. There's one moving feminist speech, in particular, which completely blows apart when she compares something to a Hottentot with no ability to see beauty, or think. Yikes. Lyndell refuses to marry the man she wants to marry out of principle and fornicates, thus slowly dying from complications related to childbirth. The new farm manager, who also loves her, travels to the veldt and spends months cross dressing to nurse her. So there. It's not a bad book if you can get over the appalling racism. South Africa didn't get over its appalling racism until the 1980s. There were many moments of wonder. Waldo and his father are beautiful souls. I learned more about South Africa than I knew before, although I did meet the director of the Capetown Y once. Also, South Africa has penguins. Olive Schreiner does not mention penguins. The atheist declamations may have been a little to much for audio; it might be better to read this in paper book.
http://surfeitofbooks.blogspot.com/2014/12/empire-and-its-spoils.html
TSoaAF is divided into two parts: Childhood and sort of a bildungsroman, divided by a looooooooong, second person meditation on a child's religious awakening. Childhood is mostly the story of a bad man named Bonaparte Blankins who turns up on the farm and bamboozles the adults into thinking he's an English peer and relative that other Bonaparte. The kids are onto him, but he's only busted when Tant Sannie's younger, prettier niece turns up and he proposes to her while Tant Sannie is stuck in the attic, because she's fat.
In the second, less frustrating, part of the book, everyone is in the later stages of adolescence. It took me a while to notice that Em wasn't the cleverest ostrich in the ostrich camp because I am always rooting for Em people, but Em is fat and sad now. There's apparently tension between the African appreciation for the voluptuous woman and the English antipathy towards it. In any case, Emma is huffing and puffing and hoping someone will turn up and marry her. Waldo goes off to seek his fortune and remains a steady moral compass and a person of simple beauty and compassion. Lyndell has been away at school and then comes back with new ideas about womanhood and rights and oppression. She has a lot of dialogue. There's one moving feminist speech, in particular, which completely blows apart when she compares something to a Hottentot with no ability to see beauty, or think. Yikes. Lyndell refuses to marry the man she wants to marry out of principle and fornicates, thus slowly dying from complications related to childbirth. The new farm manager, who also loves her, travels to the veldt and spends months cross dressing to nurse her. So there. It's not a bad book if you can get over the appalling racism. South Africa didn't get over its appalling racism until the 1980s. There were many moments of wonder. Waldo and his father are beautiful souls. I learned more about South Africa than I knew before, although I did meet the director of the Capetown Y once. Also, South Africa has penguins. Olive Schreiner does not mention penguins. The atheist declamations may have been a little to much for audio; it might be better to read this in paper book.
http://surfeitofbooks.blogspot.com/2014/12/empire-and-its-spoils.html
emma_probett's review against another edition
4.0
'There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children.”'
I remember watching this as a very young child, an old adaptation even then. I remember it because it had, what I thought at the time, was a disappointing ending. I think it might have been the first period drama I watched where the woman didn't change (remarkable within itself - I do seem to be partial still to bildungsroman in which there is a big reveal), and the men's feelings didn't change because of that, which is even more remarkable. The men in this novel all love Lyndall. They idolise Lyndall. They do not understand Lyndall. Only Waldo gets close. He remembers her as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. He remembers and knows her in her entirety, although he often doesn't understand her. But what gives Waldo credence over the other men in this story is that to the end, he thinks and refers to her as a friend. Echoing, a novel yet to be written, Anne of Green Gables, she is his "heart's friend".
This novel returned to me in quotes in Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth', in which she spoke about Schreiner and Feminism, thinking about the New Woman, and how literature was changing and shaping her ideas even before the First World War broke out. For such an old book, Waldo's final outcry for Lyndall remains appealing to a modern audience, an audience that no doubt must steal navigate the whore-Madonna complex, ironically ignoring all complexity:
“Change is death, change is death!” he cried. “I want no angel, only she; no holier and no better, with all her sins upon her, so give her me or give me nothing!”
I remember watching this as a very young child, an old adaptation even then. I remember it because it had, what I thought at the time, was a disappointing ending. I think it might have been the first period drama I watched where the woman didn't change (remarkable within itself - I do seem to be partial still to bildungsroman in which there is a big reveal), and the men's feelings didn't change because of that, which is even more remarkable. The men in this novel all love Lyndall. They idolise Lyndall. They do not understand Lyndall. Only Waldo gets close. He remembers her as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. He remembers and knows her in her entirety, although he often doesn't understand her. But what gives Waldo credence over the other men in this story is that to the end, he thinks and refers to her as a friend. Echoing, a novel yet to be written, Anne of Green Gables, she is his "heart's friend".
This novel returned to me in quotes in Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth', in which she spoke about Schreiner and Feminism, thinking about the New Woman, and how literature was changing and shaping her ideas even before the First World War broke out. For such an old book, Waldo's final outcry for Lyndall remains appealing to a modern audience, an audience that no doubt must steal navigate the whore-Madonna complex, ironically ignoring all complexity:
“Change is death, change is death!” he cried. “I want no angel, only she; no holier and no better, with all her sins upon her, so give her me or give me nothing!”
linzhere's review against another edition
2.0
Hard to follow. Quite interested in some of the writing about Africa. Surprised that it was written in 1883. Long middle chapter about Waldo's faith does not add to the story. Have added notes to kindle book.
laurynreads's review against another edition
3.0
Poor poor Waldo. I definitely need to return to this read for my Intro to British Literature class in a few years.
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