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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
“The transport of a novel, the false awareness of being within another time,
place and life that was the pleasure of reading.”
I'm not a fan of Nadine Gordimer's and I never will be. Her style of writing is bland, colourless, devoid of any emotion. Not only did it bore me to pieces, it confused me more than anything. Thoughts, feelings and events blurred into one another and I had difficulties keeping them apart. Similarly, it felt like the plot was not moving forward. However, after reading an essay about apartheid, inequality and postapartheid utopia in July's People, I know that this is far from the truth. The novel examines these three topics in an eye-opening way and I learned a lot about what it would take - and what it took - to free South Africa from their racist administration. Gordimer points out that as a white person being against the inequality between blacks and whites in SA is only effective when one actively tries to dismantle this imbalance. Cultural assimilation, power and wealth distribution need to happen before we can talk about fairness and equality. All of this is shown in the ever-changing relationship between the formerly wealthy, white family and their black servant turned saviour. Now it is them who depend on him, not the other way around. It's an allegory of a utopian vision, one that eventually took place 13 years after this book was written.
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place and life that was the pleasure of reading.”
I'm not a fan of Nadine Gordimer's and I never will be. Her style of writing is bland, colourless, devoid of any emotion. Not only did it bore me to pieces, it confused me more than anything. Thoughts, feelings and events blurred into one another and I had difficulties keeping them apart. Similarly, it felt like the plot was not moving forward. However, after reading an essay about apartheid, inequality and postapartheid utopia in July's People, I know that this is far from the truth. The novel examines these three topics in an eye-opening way and I learned a lot about what it would take - and what it took - to free South Africa from their racist administration. Gordimer points out that as a white person being against the inequality between blacks and whites in SA is only effective when one actively tries to dismantle this imbalance. Cultural assimilation, power and wealth distribution need to happen before we can talk about fairness and equality. All of this is shown in the ever-changing relationship between the formerly wealthy, white family and their black servant turned saviour. Now it is them who depend on him, not the other way around. It's an allegory of a utopian vision, one that eventually took place 13 years after this book was written.
Find more of my books on Instagram