Alan Paton (1903–1988)

This is a beautiful novel about South Africa, where the country functions as a subject, setting, and character. Paton grew up in South Africa and he clearly knows what he is talking about, but since he wrote the novel while not living in South Africa there is this strong sense of nostalgia, of longing for a home you can never go back to, of a place very dear to your heart. His description of the land is gorgeous, from the dry veld to the misty mountains. There are all these beautiful rural show more villages that are becoming increasingly unfarmable meaning more and more people are forced to move to the big city (all roads lead to Johannesburg) which if you are poor basically means the slums. And even though there is the hope that Kumalo's village will be saved at the end, you can't help but think of all the villages that won't be. The book obviously deals with the fact that Africa is a shit show because of white colonizers whose greed keeps white people richer at the expense of the natives who greatly outnumber them. One of Jarvis' essays explains that it isn't wrong that the European's colonized Africa, but what is wrong is that they destroyed their way of life without giving them a proper new way. This idea reoccurs in the novel- "The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again." The problems and social issues seem to be in a vicious cycle, so there is a definite sadness to South Africa. But it's not just South Africa- this kind of thing happens all the time ie. issues with Canadians natives or crime in ghettos are still problems today stemming from similar factors. There's no easy solution- neither religion or politics prove to be entirely successful in this novel. What is important is family, community, and forgiveness. Kumalo's tale is SO SAD of going to find his son but learning his son is a murderer. So much of his grief comes across and the grief of the parents of the murder victim. But I like that the writing is quite simple and sparse. It's not flowery at all, but very direct. It hits very hard at certain points ie. "If I could come back to Ndotsheni, I would not leave it anymore." It's always hard to see someone convicted for what is so clearly a social ill. But though there is lots of sadness, there are uplifting, good moments too. The novel has many nice characters who do wonderful things. And I liked the part about how sorrow is better than fear, as fear is like a journey and sorrow the arrival. It's incredible that this was Paton's first book, as it is so well written and insightful. It's clearly about a subject close to his heart which is why it feel so inspired. Truly excellent. show less

This is the big daddy of all liberal South African protest novels, the first really high-profile international bestseller to draw attention to the damage done by the racism embedded in the South African system, even before the fiction of "apartheid" was created.

It's a simple, very classically-constructed novel, a tragedy built around a father's quest for his missing son, full of symbolic landscape description and stately, formal conversations, peppered with interpolated sociological show more observations that come at us from a Marxist-Anglican viewpoint, all of it very much more 1848 than 1948. But somehow that doesn't seem to matter: Paton gets away with it because of his obvious love for the country and the people who live in it and his passionate concern to undo the mess that it is in.

Paton sees the racism that poisons South African life in a straightforward Marxist way, as an ideology that has grown up to justify the need the capitalist system has to keep black people in poverty so that there will always be a pool of unskilled labour prepared to work at low wages to keep the mines and farms going. By taking away the best land and forcing people into inadequate "reserves", the old agricultural economy of the tribal system has been broken down, taking with it the social control and restraints on behaviour of traditional society. Young men have to leave their families to go and work in the cities — the system doesn't allow them to establish stable family homes in the cities, or to build careers or businesses once they are there, so those who are too enterprising or too undisciplined to cope with tedious work in mines and factories are more than likely to end up in crime.

For the moment, political opposition doesn't seem to offer a way out — in the absence of any real political responsibilities open to them, black leaders are vulnerable to being corrupted by the system. Well-meaning white liberals can make a difference on a small local scale, but in the end they are only giving back a part of what their community took away in the first place. The only real pillar of hope for Paton seems to be the (Anglican-) Christian church, which gives black people a new kind of community structure to replace what they have lost in the breakdown of tribal bonds. But he's clearly not expecting the revolution any time soon.

If this were a new book, it would be criticised because Paton is a white person writing from the point of view of a black protagonist, using elements of style that are clearly meant to give the book an African rhythm, but which can sometimes start looking rather Hiawatha-ish: Here is a white man's wonder, a train that has no engine, only an iron cage on its head, taking power from metal ropes stretched out above. Conversations that are supposed to be in Zulu are rendered in very formal, courteous English, which is perhaps an accurate representation of the way social relations in Zulu work, but starts after a while to look like a cliché of old-fashioned exoticising colonial fiction. It's clearly all well-meant, of course, and in the context of its time, we can't really use the "cultural appropriation" argument that Paton is stealing space in which black writers could have been selling their books. If anything, he's helping to create a demand for more African writing.

Of course, Paton wrote this for an international audience, during a stay abroad, and the book must owe a lot of its success to the self-satisfaction American readers got from discovering that there were worse things in the world than their own home-grown racism, and British readers from finding that it wasn't their responsibility any more. The South African authorities, of course, banned it. But Paton did go back home and continued to engage in South African politics, doing his best to swim against the tide and work for change.

Whatever you think of it, it's an engaging tear-jerker and an important document of its time. show less

"the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear"
By sally tarbox on 10 October 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
Written in the 1940s, this is a tale of a changing South Africa - where apartheid exists and where the Black and White populations are poles apart, but where some Blacks are challenging the status quo, some violently. And where some Whites see their country's failings and are trying to do better, while others hang on to power, albeit increasingly fearfully.
A poor country parson travels to show more Johannesberg to fech home his ailing sister. While there he tries to find his son, who moved to the city but has lost touch. What he finds is far worse than he could have expected...
This novel really works because the characters are all so plausible. Such a story could easily 'take the side' of one race or the other: the 'Natives', oppressed, longsuffering - or violent, immoral. The Whites - cruel, racist - or victims . In actual fact, we see the flaws - and good side; and difficulties - of each. There are no easy answers, though it finishes on a hopeful note.
Beautifully written. show less

4.5 really (I don't give 1/2 stars).

A beautifully crafted book with an ominous sense of danger throughout. The themes of racial apartheid, temptation, and fall from grace permeate the novel. The prose feels masterful and gives the situation the gravity it deserves. Paton is also skilled at making the reader piece things together, yet never letting you feel lost. The title is clever too--the phalarope symbolizes both the father's dominance and yet also a shared moment of tenderness that comes show more too late to save Pieter.

I'd give the book 5 stars, but it felt a little sparse, I wanted more depth. However, that this deep, sad story can be communicated with such sparing prose is also a strength of the book. show less