This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/23/no-time-like-present-nadine-gordimer-review
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer – review | No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer – review |
| (3 days later) | |
| After his recent expulsion from the ANC, former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, who has never been known for his humility, said the people of South Africa should treat him in the same way that they had treated Nelson Mandela. In reply, the cross-dressing comedian Evita Bezuidenhout said: "What a great idea. Let's start with 27 years in jail …" | After his recent expulsion from the ANC, former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, who has never been known for his humility, said the people of South Africa should treat him in the same way that they had treated Nelson Mandela. In reply, the cross-dressing comedian Evita Bezuidenhout said: "What a great idea. Let's start with 27 years in jail …" |
| Here is a moment in South Africa's contemporary history that would surely have made it into Nadine Gordimer's new novel had Malema's expulsion not happened after her book was finished. For Malema, and South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, stalk the pages of No Time Like the Present. Gordimer, Nobel laureate and one of the best-known chroniclers of apartheid, turns her hard-eyed gaze on post-democratic South Africa. Each beat of Zuma's march to power, each accusation against him of bribery or of rape, along with his suspension from government, his constant repetition of the resistance song "Bring Me My Machine Gun" that helped him on his return to power, are picked over and reacted to by the book's cast, as is Malema's insistence that he would, if necessary, "kill for Zuma". | Here is a moment in South Africa's contemporary history that would surely have made it into Nadine Gordimer's new novel had Malema's expulsion not happened after her book was finished. For Malema, and South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, stalk the pages of No Time Like the Present. Gordimer, Nobel laureate and one of the best-known chroniclers of apartheid, turns her hard-eyed gaze on post-democratic South Africa. Each beat of Zuma's march to power, each accusation against him of bribery or of rape, along with his suspension from government, his constant repetition of the resistance song "Bring Me My Machine Gun" that helped him on his return to power, are picked over and reacted to by the book's cast, as is Malema's insistence that he would, if necessary, "kill for Zuma". |
| Politics, and the way they play out, are the lifeblood of the couple at the centre of this book. He is Steve, white son of a Jewish mother and a Christian father, who, having used his knowledge of chemistry to make explosives for the ANC, now teaches science to under-prepared university students. She is Jabulile (Jabu for short), beloved daughter of the patriarchal Baba, who defied his people's customs to send her across the border so she could get a proper education, after which she joined the ANC. There in Swaziland, she also met and married Steve, their lives defined by the needs of the exiled movement. | Politics, and the way they play out, are the lifeblood of the couple at the centre of this book. He is Steve, white son of a Jewish mother and a Christian father, who, having used his knowledge of chemistry to make explosives for the ANC, now teaches science to under-prepared university students. She is Jabulile (Jabu for short), beloved daughter of the patriarchal Baba, who defied his people's customs to send her across the border so she could get a proper education, after which she joined the ANC. There in Swaziland, she also met and married Steve, their lives defined by the needs of the exiled movement. |
| Now, South Africa is free and their choices are theirs alone. They find themselves moving from the inner-city rental of their Struggle days to a house in the Suburbs – both of which S words are capitalised throughout the novel. With their young daughter, Sindiswe, they slot into the peacetime middle classes and soon, having had a son, Gary Eliot, they are property owners in the midst of other radical neighbours, their compañeros of the Suburb. | Now, South Africa is free and their choices are theirs alone. They find themselves moving from the inner-city rental of their Struggle days to a house in the Suburbs – both of which S words are capitalised throughout the novel. With their young daughter, Sindiswe, they slot into the peacetime middle classes and soon, having had a son, Gary Eliot, they are property owners in the midst of other radical neighbours, their compañeros of the Suburb. |
| No more bomb-making. Jabu retrains as a lawyer, while Steve tries to find a way to protest the inadequacy of the school system. Jointly, they worry about which school, private or state, to choose for their children. Through these dilemmas and through their debates with friends and neighbours, we see a country ill at ease with its new self. When xenophobic attacks rock the cities, Steve, for whom a trip to London has provoked a kind of unspoken transformation, begins to contemplate the removal of his family to Australia. | No more bomb-making. Jabu retrains as a lawyer, while Steve tries to find a way to protest the inadequacy of the school system. Jointly, they worry about which school, private or state, to choose for their children. Through these dilemmas and through their debates with friends and neighbours, we see a country ill at ease with its new self. When xenophobic attacks rock the cities, Steve, for whom a trip to London has provoked a kind of unspoken transformation, begins to contemplate the removal of his family to Australia. |
| Gordimer's great reputation as a novelist derives in part from her unblinking exploration of the costs of a country divided into black and white, and it is on this same terrain that she now shines. Take, for example, the ghastly but likable Brenda, who is married to Steve's brother. She hugs her black sister-in-law, while the omniscient narrator who drives the book enters her mind to tell us that "one of the characteristics of being black is that peasant or lawyer, they certainly can sing". Then there are the moments when Jabu and Steve reflect (never out loud) on the manner in which their different skin colour changes the way they face the "opposition within". The time, for example, when she, witnessing his despair over education, thinks that "you can only decide it's hopeless if you're used to having everything. If you've been white." Immediately, she is "ashamed to be thinking that. Of him". Gender, too, is at the fore: contemplating a move to Australia, Jabu knows she will not be leaving what he's leaving (her roots are much more deeply embedded). Even so, steeled by family custom to assume a wife's obedience, it looks as if she will follow Steve even into joblessness. | Gordimer's great reputation as a novelist derives in part from her unblinking exploration of the costs of a country divided into black and white, and it is on this same terrain that she now shines. Take, for example, the ghastly but likable Brenda, who is married to Steve's brother. She hugs her black sister-in-law, while the omniscient narrator who drives the book enters her mind to tell us that "one of the characteristics of being black is that peasant or lawyer, they certainly can sing". Then there are the moments when Jabu and Steve reflect (never out loud) on the manner in which their different skin colour changes the way they face the "opposition within". The time, for example, when she, witnessing his despair over education, thinks that "you can only decide it's hopeless if you're used to having everything. If you've been white." Immediately, she is "ashamed to be thinking that. Of him". Gender, too, is at the fore: contemplating a move to Australia, Jabu knows she will not be leaving what he's leaving (her roots are much more deeply embedded). Even so, steeled by family custom to assume a wife's obedience, it looks as if she will follow Steve even into joblessness. |
| This novel of two people facing the dilemmas imposed by new freedoms is told in a mainly depersonalised voice; the real events that are so much part of the action may be inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the post-election ructions that have riven the governing ANC and the country. But despite its occasional wordiness, the book's strengths lie in its understatement. The moment, for example, when Jabu realises that her beloved father sees any criticism of the flawed Zuma as a plot against his hero, and it occurs to her that the man who broke with tradition to educate his daughter might come to identify her with the whites who resent black political power. | This novel of two people facing the dilemmas imposed by new freedoms is told in a mainly depersonalised voice; the real events that are so much part of the action may be inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the post-election ructions that have riven the governing ANC and the country. But despite its occasional wordiness, the book's strengths lie in its understatement. The moment, for example, when Jabu realises that her beloved father sees any criticism of the flawed Zuma as a plot against his hero, and it occurs to her that the man who broke with tradition to educate his daughter might come to identify her with the whites who resent black political power. |
| In these scenes, as well as in the visits by the children to their grandfather's lands, the curious dispassion of Gordimer's prose gains power. Here are the intricacies of the new South Africa writ large. Nadine Gordimer has not shied away from asking difficult questions, or from following the twists and turns of South Africa's transformation. It all makes for a complex book and a pained examination of the difficulties posed by a freedom that was won by imperfect human beings. | In these scenes, as well as in the visits by the children to their grandfather's lands, the curious dispassion of Gordimer's prose gains power. Here are the intricacies of the new South Africa writ large. Nadine Gordimer has not shied away from asking difficult questions, or from following the twists and turns of South Africa's transformation. It all makes for a complex book and a pained examination of the difficulties posed by a freedom that was won by imperfect human beings. |
| Gillian Slovo's An Honourable Man is publiushed by Virago. | Gillian Slovo's An Honourable Man is publiushed by Virago. |