In a review of the Booker-longlisted novel An Island (2020) by South African author Karen Kennings', academic David Atwell suggested that An Island is a useful successor to The Smell of Apples, an 'ethically-centred' 1990s study text on uncovering apartheid-era secrets. In my own review I linked to Attwell's review — and, intrigued, I bought The Smell of Apples...

The Smell of Apples (1993) was Tanzanian-born South African author Mark Behr's debut novel but he wrote only Embrace (2000) and Kings of the Water (2009) before his untimely death at the age of 52. The Smell of Apples won the 1996 M-Net Award* for a novel in English; as well as other South African book awards including the 1994 Eugene Marais Award; and the CNA (Central News Agency) Debut Literary Award. It was also recognised internationally: it won the 1995 Betty Trask Award; it was shortlisted for the Steinbeck Award and it won the 1996 LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction.

The significance of these awards is not to be overlooked. The Smell of Apples was published the year before South Africa had its first democratic elections in 1994, and these awards show that the new South Africa was open to books which interrogated the legacy of apartheid. It's a coming-of-age novel, featuring a boy who hero-worships his father Johan, a General in the army who is mounting covert operations in Angola while publicly denying that they are taking place. And that's not all that's very disturbing about this father...

The apples of the title — sweet, fresh and crisp — are a metaphor for innocence. But apples can be deceptive —they can be rotten inside and can also be tainted if they come into contact with something foul. The ironically named family of Marnus Erasmus is a microcosm of South African society and they represent a family and society defined by racism, hypocrisy and moralising cant. It depicts in hideous clarity how these attitudes were formed, but it also shows that the system is starting to crack. It's not just that the sanctions are starting to bite so there is, for example, petrol rationing, it is also that order in society is starting to break down so that it affects the white minority. There are also challenges to the regime from within their own circle. Family cohesion is breaking down, which is catastrophic for conservative families because their religion values (their version of) 'family life' so highly.
Cultural warning:
Aspects of this review use offensive terminology from the Apartheid era.
The story is told in two time frames: the end of the school year in 1973 when Marnus is just a boy of eight or nine; and in June 1988 when he is a Lieutenant in the South African army, fighting over the border in Angola. As a boy, Marnus has a best friend and 'blood-brother' called Frikkie, and their lives revolve around school, homework, fishing and not getting caught when they get into minor mischief. For Marnus, who has absorbed his authoritarian father's sanctimonious strictures about morality and truth, telling lies about helping Frikkie with maths homework demands an ongoing secret penance in his nightly prayers. Marnus is depicted as a rather nice little boy, whose encounters with others including 'Coloureds' are generally positive. He has mean thoughts about some peers who are less privileged than he is, but he has been taught to keep these unkind inclinations in check.

It is not until late in the novel when he has an encounter with a servant who was sacked for theft that we see his sense of entitlement emerge and recognise the kind of adult he will become. Chrisjan, now a derelict begging on the streets, doesn't recognise Marnus, and Marnus, convinced of his own importance in this wretched man's life, is outraged. He misses Chrisjan and the chats they had in the garden, and considered him to be part of his life, albeit one whose unequal status is never questioned. When this connection is repudiated, Marnus is furious... and he is horribly cruel to this vulnerable man.

Marnus has an older sister called Ilse who is starting to question aspects of the regime that trouble her.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/03/26/the-smell-of-apples-1993-by-mark-behr/ ( )

I read this book for the portrait of South Africa, which was moving. I feel that it connected me to a time and a place in a believable way. I do not understand why the author decided to add random sexual trauma #3 to the end of the book. For me it did not connect in any way to anything else that was going on. Like the Kite Runner, it took a fascinating book and turned it into sensationalistic dreck. I absolutely believe that childhood sexual abuse occurs more frequently than we want to admit, and that it causes terrible harm, but I don't understand it as a literary conceit. ( )

Told from the viewpoint of an Afrikaans boy growing up in Cape Town. The innocent voice exposes how simple it is to keep two separate sets of values bolstered by propriety, religion, and tradition.

The boy tells it all in his own simple terms. He conveys the "facts" of racial differences in the same way as he describes the history of whaling in False Bay. We see this strange world as he makes sense of it, and it is quite jarring. The book explores how harmful attitudes are shaped at a young age, and how difficult it is to swim against the prevailing current. Throughout the story we cannot help but feel the shadow of hidden conflict between different understandings of truth and humanity. We are also given a glimpse of the evil that lurks behind carefully constructed images of family life, order and principle. ( )

Set in South Africa in the mid 1970s, and narrated by Marnus Erasmus, the eleven year old son of the well connected and politically influential Afrikaner General Erasmus and his now retired opera singer wife Leonora, the story gives real insight into how one’s background and upbringing facilitate firmly held ideals and beliefs.
The Erasmus family plays host to a Mr Smith, the alias given to a visiting undercover Chilean General who sympathises with the Afrikaners’ views. Through their interaction with Mr Smith, with their attitude toward their Coloured servants and their behaviour toward the Blacks, we get a very good impression of the Afrikaners’ proud belief in their own superiority; however shocking such views may seem today.
But the beauty of the story is in the telling through the eyes of the eleven year old Marnus. Behr convincingly conveys the activities, expressions and innocence of youth, despite the perverted indoctrinated beliefs. His friendship with is class mate Frikkie, something of a bully and problem child at school; and his spiteful relationship with his older sister Ilse are well portrayed. Particularly endearing is the relationship he enjoys with his parents and his undoubted love and respect for them; a love than can even overcome the horrifying discovery Manus makes towards the end involving his father.
Interspersed with the current narrative is an ongoing account from the twenty four year old lieutenant Manus as he serves on the war front.
A beautifully written and revealing account, Behr succeeds in presenting an appealing view of a year in a family’s life despite their horrifying attitudes and beliefs. ( )

A story of what it was like to grow up in an Afrikaner elite/military family during the 1970's in apartheid South Africa. Marnus is a young boy living in a successful, Afrikaans family in Cape Town in the height of Apartheid. His world has largely been shaped by his family, who are firm believers in the Apartheid state. Discrimination, stereotypes, ignorance and indoctrination are central themes in the story.

Interestingly, especially for a book that derides the faults of the Apartheid state, the story is not centered on the racism and violence of the era. Instead, since it is told in the perspective of a child, it focuses on the daily life of a kid in ZA. Thus, the action mostly centers on playing, going to school and playing sports. With quotes like, “[My teacher] said the Xhosa are a terrible nation and it was them that used to rob and terrorise the farmers…”, and “Dad says…the blood that was left in Africa was the blood of the dumber blacks – that’s why you won’t find an educated black anywhere.”, the story of apartheid indoctrination is only told in the subtleties of life and sounds that surround Marnus. It makes for quite an interesting read. Rarely do you see books about Apartheid from such a perspective.

Although I thought the book was interesting, original and insightful, I had only one major issue with it, which was what I deemed the unnecessary correlation with homosexuality and pedophilia. In the last twenty pages of the book, Marnus’s watches through a hole in the wall (well, actually the floor) what he later realized was his father and “General Smith”, a houseguest from Chile in a potential sexual act. Then the next night he sees his father raping his friend, Frikkie. Granted, Marnus isn’t positive it is his father with the General, nor can he be sure that there was a sexual encounter, but the author does lead you to believe that both did occur. This tie between homosexuality and male-on-male pedophilia seemed unwarranted and unnecessary. ( )