Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life

"After he left, there is a debate about what to do with the teacup. The custom, it appears, is that after a person of colour has drunk from a cup the cup must be smashed. He is surprised that his mother's family, which believes in nothing else, believes in this. However, in the end his mother simply washes the cup with bleach."

Coetzee's fictionalized memoir of his boyhood days is fascinating to compare with similar works by other South African authors. Although born before the official beginning of apartheid, the legacy of racial discrimination obviously preceded that, as Coetzee's youth indicates. Although coming from a white and on the surface, well-to-do background, John Coetzee (and the book is written in the third person, to distance the 'real' Coetzee from the fictionalized version of his younger self) experiences family dysfunction, loss, sexual discovery, a keen awareness of the suffering of animals, and acknowledgement of racial and class discrimination. 

Of course, anyone looking for a factual account of apartheid and white-minority rule in South should read Down Second Avenue or Kaffir Boy for insights into the Black South African experience, but it's interesting to see the evolution of Coetzee's identity and attention to social inequality from a sympathetic white perspective. The earliest reference to racial or ethnic discrimination is in the casual anti-Semitism of Worcester, something Coetzee's supposedly 'liberal' and English-minded mother and uncles participate in. "Natives" are rare in young Coetzee's world (except for the delivery 'boy,' a man, who is seen by Coetzee's parents as representative of a wasteful new generation of 'Natives'), but clearly inhabit the shadows. The Coloured (multiracial) inhabitants of Worcester, the Karoo, and Cape Town are clearly the major Other in the text, yet presented as being closer to the 'earth' and romanticized by a young Coetzee.

The numerous allusions to impoverished Afrikaans whites without shoes (and bearing brutish behavior patterns from the Anglophile point of view of John), the Coloured children abused and beaten, the Coloured children who cannot afford to see the circus but peer through the flaps of the tent, the Coloured farm workers who are the "real" inheritors of the land yet are forced to work it for white owners, or the absurd customs that Coetzee's supposedly 'English'-minded and nontraditional parents preserve about the need to smash a teacup used by any person of color in one's home indicate how before the Nationalists took power, white society in South Africa instituted a class/color hierarchy. Coloureds were not to touch guns, nor were they given the access to education that whites possessed.

The young John's hatred of his father, life in the dusty development of Worcester, and complete breakdown of the family by his teen years (back in Cape Town, after his father's wastefulness and foolish drove the family into deep debt) presents parallels with many other works by authors exploring their childhood. The archetypal loss of innocence, death, disillusionment, and constant search for identity are present here in this short memoir. Certainly, huge themes such as the aforementioned importance of race, as well as shame, disgrace, guilt, love (is it a prison, as a young Coetzee ponders) are also suggestive for the novels Coetzee wrote before and after the publication of Boyhood in the late 1990s. 

It's touching that only in the veld, or on the farm, where John can be free, is where he seems happiest, not afraid, feeling no shame, fear, or confines of family or society. On the Voelfontein farm of his father's family in the Karoo, where anything that grows in that arid landscape is blessed, he is most happy, yet, like all children facing adulthood, he knows life on the farm is not his future. Instead, the memoir ends on a rather unfortunate note in Cape Town, where John is attending poorly staffed  Catholic school, his alcoholic father, after driving the family into debt, does not look for a job, and his mother's willingness to sacrifice herself for the family (as well as see through her love, forcing John to realize his mother is an independent being with disillusionment, disappointment, hardship) propels him into adolescence.

As a short read in the three-part 'autobiography' of Coetzee, Boyhood is undoubtedly useful for fans of Coetzee's work and for a serious reading endeavor on an era in South Africa (the Western Cape in the 1940s). For anyone interested in the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and the divisions among white South Africans, Coetzee's embellished memoir also attests to the seemingly impenetrable divisions wrought by class, language, religion, culture, nationalism, war, and race. Indeed, many Afrikaans words or phrases permeate the text, in addition to the cultural and linguistic divides that separate English South Africans from the Afrikaans-speakers. A family like Coetzee's, of Afrikaans origins yet English speakers in the home, they are caught in the interstices of white South Africa, offering a unique vantage point on the nation's looming social inequities that ushered in the Nationalists and apartheid.

Favorite Quotes

"I'f being a Christian means singing hymns and listening to sermons and then coming out to torment the Jews, he has no wish to be a Christian." (24)

"Being a Catholic is a part of his life reserved for school. Preferring the Russians to the Americans is a secret so dark that he can reveal it to no one. Liking the Russians is a serious matter. It can have you ostracized." (26)

"Soon every one in his class knew about it: the new boy was odd, he wasn't normal. From that mistake, he has learned to be more prudent. Part of being prudent is always to tell less rather than more." (29)

"Afrikaans children are almost like Coloured children, he finds, unspoiled and thoughtless, running wild, then suddenly, at a certain age, going bad, their beauty dying within them." (56)

"There are white people and Coloured people and Natives, of whom the Natives are the lowest and most derided. The parallel is inescapable: the Natives are the third brother." (65)

"He does not see the point of having elections if the party that wins can change the rules. It is like the batsman deciding who may and who may not bowl." (68)

"With Coloured people in general, and with the people of the Karoo in particular, he simply does not know when they cease to be children and become men and women. It seems to happen so early and so suddenly: one day they are playing with toys, the next day they are out with the en, working, or in someone's kitchen, washing dishes." (86) 

Age of Iron

I read Coetzee's Age of Iron while traveling a few weeks ago, so my memory of the novel is fleeting. Nonetheless, I will share a few thoughts that lingered these past weeks. Like the last novel by Coetzee reviewed on this blog, this one is set in Cape Town during the last days of apartheid, and structured as a letter by a dying white woman to her daughter in the States, so written in second person. Stylistically and in terms of setting, it is reminiscent of Life & Times of Michael K in that the reader is treated to lengthy prose, similarly themed inner thoughts of the protagonists, and the landscape of Cape Town and its environs.  The narrator, Mrs. Curren, is a former professor who begins to befriend a homeless man whose race is not specified, Verceuil.

The title of the text refers to the 'iron generation' of black youth who are resisting apartheid while losing out on education, the innocence of childhood, and the decline of 'traditional' family life. This seemingly callous generation that is capable of great violence, shocks and disturbs the dying Curren, who sees the disillusionment, inequality, and hypocrisy of her own liberalism. Still, white South Africans have walked on the iron graves of the ancestors of black South Africans for generations, thereby causing this current generation of South African youth to lose their innocence to struggle for social equality in their country. Other themes of the novel include motherhood (Curren's relationship with her daughter, the use of motherhood to express the burdens of privilege and race white South Africans inherited long before apartheid), humanity, race, retaining humanity in the face of apartheid, death, animal rights (the graphic description of Florence's husband job of killing chickens for a living in an animal factory is quite chilling, or the power of animals as companions in the relationship between Verceuil and his likely stolen dog), as well as companionship.

Through Florence's son and his friend, children from Guguletu who are skipping their substandard schools and out in the streets resisting apartheid, Mrs. Curren is forced to examine her own relationship with white supremacy, her own complicity in the status quo. She experiences the death of Florence's son's friend at the hands of the police, witnesses the violence, roadblocks, and anger in the townships, befriends the homeless Verceuil for companionship and a friend to mail her letter to her daughter. Verceuil's race is never stated, perhaps because his ultimate role in the novel is to show the universality of the human experience and how companionship can transcend racial divisions in conditions of apartheid (although throughout the novel it is quite unclear what Verceuil's motivations are or if he will ever mail Curren's confessing letters).

I must say, some of the same themes of whiteness in South Africa and disillusionment recur in Coetzee's Disgrace, even in the similarities between the two protagonists (aged white academics). Coetzee seems to suggest that in Age of Iron, however, that there is more optimism and hope for a post-apartheid South Africa, even though Curren does not make it. Moreover, it is fascinating to see Coetzee tackle an older, female protagonist as a younger male writer. Just as thought provoking or troubling, is the disagreement Curren has with Florence's cousin, Mr. Thabane, a former teacher in support of the youth embracing anti-apartheid activism, a disagreement that symbolizes the seemingly unbridgeable gap between black South Africans and sympathetic white liberals who see black South Africans as going too far. One cannot help but think of the US Civil Rights Movement and how white moderates and liberals at various times endeavored to curtail or limit black mobilizing and activism.

Perhaps one day I will return to this novel, which clearly has much more to say on the state of affairs of South Africa (and the rest of humanity) below the surface. Likewise, Curren's relationship with Verceuil continues to fascinate me, perhaps suggesting what one New York Times critic suggests is the need for white South Africans to love the 'unlovable' to find redemption. The question of white South African liberalism also remains relevant to post-apartheid South Africa, just as the plight of the homeless and urban poor like Verceuil retains relevance to the social inequities, lack of love, and maintenance of an 'iron age' impedes actual reconciliation. Check out this for a well-written essay exploring Age of Iron, too.

Growing Up Black in White Supremacist South Africa: Down Second Avenue

Es'kia Mphahlele’s Down Second Avenue was a thrilling tale of growing up black in white supremacist South Africa. Moreover, I learned that marabi music, the earliest South African jazz from the townships, was created in Marabastad, a township of Pretoria where Mphahlele lived. Given to me by a South African woman from Cape Town who sees herself as having studied apartheid too much, gladly parted with the text. As someone whose only text dealing with apartheid was Kaffir Boy (which contains horrific scenes of discarded infants in trash heaps and child prostitution, leading to its banning in many US schools), Mphahlele’s story of an educated but impoverished black South African trying to transcend rigid racial hatred seems like an important precursor to the future narratives of blacks resisting apartheid. However, unlike what I recall of Kaffir Boy, Down Second Avenue contains surprisingly little information about key moments in the life of any young person, and also leaves out significant details about his personal life. For instance, how is it that he has a brother and a sister, but they are rarely discussed in any intimate way? Even later in life, when describing his marriage to Rebecca and their children, he never gives their names and his writings seems to suggest apathy to his progeny. But perhaps that general lack of description of loved ones and other moments in his adolescence reflect the psychological trauma he experienced, as well as bouts of depression, anger, restlessness, and the desire to leave, culminating in his move to Nigeria to teach. 

The novel also contained useful information regarding race relations between Indians and Blacks, as well as whites and blacks in Pretoria. The Afrikaans-speaking whites, unsurprisingly in Pretoria, tend to be more racist whereas the English whites and Europeans were more liberal. Indeed, Es’kia befriends many whites as well as some Coloureds during the course of his schooling and employment. Although at times mired in anger, he also knew very well that the only reason white supremacy could function so effectively in South Africa was with the complicity and active support of many non-whites, including the corrupt African policemen who actively protected pass laws and targeted other Blacks. Moreover, his account of his Aunt Dora’s fight with Abdool, the Indian shopkeeper, was also hilarious for the imagery of a heavyset woman publicly beating a man. The debates he represents between the ANC and the All Africa Convention were also interesting for the commentary among activists and leftists about a multiracial future for South Africa.

Overall, a fascinating account of a region of South Africa I knew little about, albeit written in a rather normative style. Perhaps the Capetonian who gave me the book was correct (as well as the author himself, who finds the style taken up by anti-apartheid writers as forced) in that much of the anti-apartheid literature becomes banal due to its proliferation and identical messages by authors who see themselves as bearers of a new message for racial harmony and progress. Indeed, I may have to return to Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K. for a good apartheid-era novel and discover some other works I have missed. Perhaps Nadine Gordimer is next on my list of authors, who is mentioned in Down Second Avenue.

Welcome To Our Hillbrow

Phaswane Mpe's short novel is quite the read. It's quite disturbing but worthwhile, especially for putting to life the residents of Hillbrow, Johannesburg. I have blogged about the neighborhood before, which can be found here. This novel, however, explains the streets, crime, xenophobia, racism, HIV/AIDS, and relationship with the rest of Johannesburg and South Africa sorely lacking in any sociologist or social worker's attempt to explain life in Hillbrow. The novel is centered on two black South Africans from Tiragalong, a rural area, and their intersecting lives with other blacks in post-apartheid South Africa. Oddly, the novel is written in second-story, switching between Refentse and Refilwe with tangents on the lives of their families, friends and loved ones. Oddly structured, yes, brilliant writing, undoubtedly. Descriptions of South African race relations, prostitution, extreme xenophobia, necklacing, and ostracism because of AIDS permeates the entirety of the novel.

Alex La Guma's A Walk in the Night

Alex La Guma's short novel, A Walk in the Night, is a fascinating read on Cape Town's colored District 6, early 1960s apartheid, and the destructive impact of racism and hatred on human society. Instead of writing a formal analysis or review, I shall dsecribe interesting aspects of La Guma's novel, featuring the unnecessary and immoral murder of a colored youth with kinky hair, white supremacy, the cosmopolitan world of Cape Town, and apartheid's negative effects on society, essentially driving violence and murder.

Cape Town's District 6, prior to it's forced evacuation of the "Colored" population under apartheid rule, which has been discussed in previous blog posts about "Mannenberg" or "Cape Town Fringe" by Abdullah Ibrahim, is the setting for the story. Though a "Colored" district where only mixed-race people are supposed to reside, an alcoholic and out of work Irish actor lives in a tenement with several impoverished Coloreds. District 6 also houses shebeens, restaurants (some owned by Indians or other Europeans, such as the Portuguese) and hosts international guests of color. In fact, Puerto Rican shipworkers from the US almost get in a brawl with Colored gangster-wannabes. In addition to European, Indian, and American workers seeking cheap thrills through South African prostitutes and bars, the white police officers possess a permanent volatile presence in the District. Though despised, Constable Raalt and his driver cruise around, harassing store owners and pedestrians, often out of rage at personal problems as well as their hatred for "hotnots," exacerbating relations between white and Colored South Africans under apartheid. Since the apartheid state required strict segregation of the races, pass laws, and white supervision and curtailment of non-white movement, the white police in District 6 operate like an occupying force, similar to their present role in many US African-American or Latino urban communities.

Cape Town, city of beauty and center of the Colored population, is important in terms of race relations because Coloreds outnumbered Black South Africans in this time. Indeed, the population of Cape Town is still mostly "Colored," yet in this novel, the "Colored" seem to be racialized as "black." Perhaps this varies with skin color and physical features, so that the kinky-haired Willieboy becomes a "hotnot," but one of the police officers refers to all the "Coloreds" as "hotnots," derived from "Hottentot," which refers to the indigenous peoples of the region, the Khoikhoi. Thus, distinctions between Black and Colored South Africans are not as apparent in this novel, perhaps due to the simple fact of a small Black population in Cape Town in the early 1960s, or because of the broadened definition of "black" during the anti-apartheid movement to foster unified resistance among the non-white populace. La Guma also came from a Communist Colored background, perhaps also impacting his racial identification with the Black majority in an effort to overturn centuries of division and self-hatred for the African heritage of South Africa's Colored. However, this was years before Black Consciousness, so perhaps I am reading too much into this. The professor of the course I was required to read this for definitely presented this way, though, describing everyone as "black" despite the differences in South Africa's racial structure.

The novel links the infidelity, racism, segregation, and labor exploitation. Michael Adonis, the character who murders the Irishman, is fired from his job by a white overseer, thereby turning his heart to hate of all whites. However, the exploitation and expropriation of Colored labor is another inherent part of apartheid's longevity. Though Black South African miners, domestics, and others are not present in the novel, the Marxist themes of exploitation of workers are present in Michael Adonis being terminated from his work, complete white control of the economy, and the lives of the numerous members of the community of the novel. The married couple living in the same building as are struggling to live while the mother becomes pregnant, representing hope for the future, nevertheless live a life of material poverty despite the laboriousness of the family. Likewise, Willieboy's life under an abusive father or the homeless acquaintance of Adonis, provide clear evidence of an underpaid, exploited, abused, subject people whose community is reduced to patron-client relations with whites, substandard housing, and crime. The excessive policing, more reminiscent of slave paddyrollers than any sense of protection or justice, exemplify the ruthlessness of apartheid and racial hatred within a broader system of capitalism.

However, hope for the future remains, despite the wrongful death of Willieboy and the ongoing existence of apartheid. La Guma ends with the following, "Franky Lorenzo slept on his back and snored peacefully. Beside him the woman, Grace, lay awake in the dark, restlessly waiting for the dawn and feeling the knot of life within her." Amazingly, La Guma ends on an optimistic note, despite Willieboy's death and Michael Adonis giving in to hate.