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3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
Gordimer walks a tightrope beautifully here. I'm not sure that I've read anything that so effectively captures the chasm of racial and cultural tension between two characters as finely as this one.
That said, this is a highly 'experimental novel' that will challenge some readers. Not much 'happens', and all of the characters remain known only at the superficial level. Yet, I suspect that the author has chosen it this way, and it certainly works in terms of the final 'message'.
Well worth your time.
That said, this is a highly 'experimental novel' that will challenge some readers. Not much 'happens', and all of the characters remain known only at the superficial level. Yet, I suspect that the author has chosen it this way, and it certainly works in terms of the final 'message'.
Well worth your time.
At first, I didn’t understand that this was a work of speculative fiction. I could not believe that there had been a civil war in South Africa that I had been unaware of.
South Africa! How people react and interact when their boundaries and social roles are suddenly erased by violent circumstances. Wonderfuly written. The story of a white family taken by their black servant to his rural home when the anti-apartheid struggle engulfs their city in fighting.
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
beautifully written, an interesting look at race relations in South Africa in the 80's.
I know I'm supposed to like this novel but......I just don't. I get the meaning behind it and understand the significance of the story but the writing is just so weird! Another reviewer said it best - the writing is disjointed. Nothing really fits and you never really know who's saying what. It's just all kinds of confusing. Had it been any longer, I never would have got through it.
reflective
medium-paced
A short, but multi-layered novel. A white middle-class family, with a liberal world view and living in South-Africa at the time of apartheid, has to flee for a black military upraising with the help of Cubans and Russians. They are sheltered by their black servant July, in his little village.
Two theme's are worked out: the difficult process of adaption of the white family to living in a strange, 'uncivilized' environment, without their certainties. And the reversal of power-relations: the white family is dependent on their former servant, and their liberal world vision suddenly doesn't seem that morally superior any more.
Gordimer brings all this (and much more) in a masterly way, transferring the feeling of desorientation the white family suffers from, on the reader. One downside though: just as in [b:Burger's Daughter|526927|Burger's Daughter|Nadine Gordimer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348427341s/526927.jpg|888256], I had some difficulty with the writing style of Gordimer; there's something rough-unpolished in it, and that made the reading at times a bit stiff.
Two theme's are worked out: the difficult process of adaption of the white family to living in a strange, 'uncivilized' environment, without their certainties. And the reversal of power-relations: the white family is dependent on their former servant, and their liberal world vision suddenly doesn't seem that morally superior any more.
Gordimer brings all this (and much more) in a masterly way, transferring the feeling of desorientation the white family suffers from, on the reader. One downside though: just as in [b:Burger's Daughter|526927|Burger's Daughter|Nadine Gordimer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348427341s/526927.jpg|888256], I had some difficulty with the writing style of Gordimer; there's something rough-unpolished in it, and that made the reading at times a bit stiff.