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emiliereads2000's review
funny
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
jamskel's review against another edition
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
nuhafariha's review
3.0
Thank you to The New Press and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!
Now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indie Bookstore.
Zoe Wiecomb's Still Life is a wholly unique time traveling adventure as an author struggles to write a memoir of Thomas Pringle, a forgotten poet known only as the Father of South African Poetry. Jumping between 18th century Scotland, contemporary South Africa and the West Indies, the cast of characters expands time and space as we meet the seasoned time traveler Sir Nicholas Green, Mary Prince a West Indian slave and Hinza, Pringle's illegitimate son. It's a novel unlike anything I've ever read before as the author breaks the fourth wall constantly, creating a sort of meta questioning into the structure and function of the novel or literature in general. Provocative and interrogative in its relentless examination of Pringle, his racist and colonialist past, Still Life offers a glimpse into what it means to live in South Africa today.
Now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indie Bookstore.
Zoe Wiecomb's Still Life is a wholly unique time traveling adventure as an author struggles to write a memoir of Thomas Pringle, a forgotten poet known only as the Father of South African Poetry. Jumping between 18th century Scotland, contemporary South Africa and the West Indies, the cast of characters expands time and space as we meet the seasoned time traveler Sir Nicholas Green, Mary Prince a West Indian slave and Hinza, Pringle's illegitimate son. It's a novel unlike anything I've ever read before as the author breaks the fourth wall constantly, creating a sort of meta questioning into the structure and function of the novel or literature in general. Provocative and interrogative in its relentless examination of Pringle, his racist and colonialist past, Still Life offers a glimpse into what it means to live in South Africa today.
azu_rikka's review
DNF after page 121.
I can't rate this book because I didn't understand it.
I think my knowledge on Great Britain and its colonial history is too small plus I don't know about poets.
I enjoyed previous books of the author, which to me were written in an easier style and about topics I knew more of.
I can't rate this book because I didn't understand it.
I think my knowledge on Great Britain and its colonial history is too small plus I don't know about poets.
I enjoyed previous books of the author, which to me were written in an easier style and about topics I knew more of.
eveningstar_reader's review
5.0
I don't think I've ever read a book like this. It's very hard to describe - in fact the synopsis on Netgalley sounded so strange but learning that the author is a top literary voice of South Africa made me take the leap and request it anyway. It really blew me away! It's wildly unique and meta but it WORKS.
The book is about an author who is trying to write a book about Thomas Pringle, the "famous" poet of South Africa who was actually Scottish and only lived in South Africa a short time in the early 1800s. The author enlists the help of the ghosts of Mary Prince, a slave woman who Pringle wrote a book about, and Hinza, an indigenous boy who Pringle raised and wrote a poem about. Pringle brought them both to London with him. And finally there is the spirit of the fictional poet Nicholas Greene from Virginia Woolf's Orlando (which I've never read). Pringle, Mary, and Hinza are real historical figures.
Are you confused/ lost yet? Please don't let all that scare you off. The way Ms. Wicomb used these ghosts to reflect on Pringle and his relationship to them, to Indigenous people of South Africa, to colonization, to abolition, and to poetry, is incredibly multi-layered and excellent.
The ghosts are working together to do research in 1970s London and South Africa in order to write this book about Pringle. The way the author used the characters in order to develop and change the reader's understanding of just who this Pringle really was, was impressive.
The book is so precise with its reveals and its unfolding of what was really going on. I can't begin to put it all in this short review. But she pulls the wool away from the reader's eyes, as well as the ghosts' eyes, on how being anti-slavery (as Pringle was) can still have racist reasons such as colonization and "saving" or "civilising" the native people in South Africa and training them to be missionaries. That's just one example of an issue she articulates and shows the reader so well.
It's fiction, but in a way it's an examination of the history of British colonization in South Africa, colourism, sexism, and white saviourism. Blown away.
On the idea of reparations. "When it came to money, the genteel, Christian folk were deaf to the logic of those words: Give it back! All addicted to wealth, no matter how nastily acquired , like the very effects of tobacco and sugar produced by their distant slaves."
The book is about an author who is trying to write a book about Thomas Pringle, the "famous" poet of South Africa who was actually Scottish and only lived in South Africa a short time in the early 1800s. The author enlists the help of the ghosts of Mary Prince, a slave woman who Pringle wrote a book about, and Hinza, an indigenous boy who Pringle raised and wrote a poem about. Pringle brought them both to London with him. And finally there is the spirit of the fictional poet Nicholas Greene from Virginia Woolf's Orlando (which I've never read). Pringle, Mary, and Hinza are real historical figures.
Are you confused/ lost yet? Please don't let all that scare you off. The way Ms. Wicomb used these ghosts to reflect on Pringle and his relationship to them, to Indigenous people of South Africa, to colonization, to abolition, and to poetry, is incredibly multi-layered and excellent.
The ghosts are working together to do research in 1970s London and South Africa in order to write this book about Pringle. The way the author used the characters in order to develop and change the reader's understanding of just who this Pringle really was, was impressive.
The book is so precise with its reveals and its unfolding of what was really going on. I can't begin to put it all in this short review. But she pulls the wool away from the reader's eyes, as well as the ghosts' eyes, on how being anti-slavery (as Pringle was) can still have racist reasons such as colonization and "saving" or "civilising" the native people in South Africa and training them to be missionaries. That's just one example of an issue she articulates and shows the reader so well.
It's fiction, but in a way it's an examination of the history of British colonization in South Africa, colourism, sexism, and white saviourism. Blown away.
On the idea of reparations. "When it came to money, the genteel, Christian folk were deaf to the logic of those words: Give it back! All addicted to wealth, no matter how nastily acquired , like the very effects of tobacco and sugar produced by their distant slaves."
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