Other Lives

This book consists of three interconnected short stories, all set in contemporary Cape Town and its surrounding towns. In "The Blue Door", the main character is a middle aged teacher who is also a successful painter, who lives in an apartment with his wife, in a comfortable but stolid and childless marriage. He owns a studio across town, which also serves as a haven of solitude for him. He leaves the studio one day to go to a local delicatessen, but when he returns there, he is greeted by an attractive younger woman who claims to be his wife, and two small children who smother him with hugs and kisses. Shaken, he leaves and attempts to return home, but his plight becomes increasingly surreal. In the second story, "Mirror", a successful show more architect prepares to go to work one morning after his wife and children have left, but he is shocked at the change in his appearance in the bathroom mirror. Finally, "Appassionata" is narrated by a concert pianist, who engages in a professional relationship with a renowned but mysterious singer with a dark past, with whom he falls madly in love.

In [Other Lives], Brink plays with shifting identities and roles in the new South Africa, a country that is adjusting to new realities and expectations. The technique of using the same characters in different stories was largely successful, although "Appassionata" was a far weaker story than the brilliant first story and the very good second one. This book slipped from a 5 star read after "The Blue Door" to a 4 star one at the end, but it was still a very good read overall, and is highly recommended. show less

This volume of short fiction was a quick, compelling read by the celebrated South African novelist. It seems Brink enjoyed pushing the boundaries with these stories. He plays with the idea of alternate lives and seeing life and people from different perspectives. There are characters who appear as the main characters in one story and then as peripheral characters in the other stories.

He further explores issues of race and discrimination in the new South Africa. One man wakes up and looks in the mirror to find a black man looking back at him. The realisation that he is black has a huge impact on his psyche and we follow him through the day as he struggles to come to terms with who he is, and how others, including his wife and children, show more now perceive him.

In another story a painter steps out to buy groceries and when he steps back in he finds a whole other life welcoming him into its embrace. There's a wife he has never seen before, and two children. He doesn’t know them but they certainly appear to know and love him.

The initial stories fit together perfectly but I am still left wondering how the last story fits in to what was a great start to the volume. I can't quite find what binds them together and I've been thinking on it for days... The protagonists are all men and I enjoyed the male perspective on love, women, family life, and identity.

Brink does a great job of pulling one into the story and not letting go – one is constantly left wondering how far he will take it, and also if he will succeed, or if it will all just fall apart at some point. show less

I recently discovered Brink--I bought this book, and A Dry White Season, which I haven't read yet. Other Lives is one of those books that critics are apt to label as "bold" or "audacious." It's comprised of three novellas that are thematically linked, and, to a certain degree, linked by common characters. But the realities of the three novellas do not entirely coincide--here I imagine a sort of fractured, mirror-image structure. The main themes involve issues of race and identity in post-apartheid South Africa. The metaphysical weirdness of the book was generally well-done, particularly in the Kafkaesque second novella, though I think that part of the book would have been more successful had the protagonist's transformation engendered a show more more gradual change in awareness.

So there's the good stuff. Unfortunately, the whole book was marred for me by basic surface issues. Often bad prose, stilted dialogue. More than a few times I found myself wincing at a bad turn of phrase or a trite statement. Overall, I just couldn't help but feel disappointed that such an intelligently designed book didn't live up to its promise for me.

NB: Some readers might be disturbed by the rather violent sexual encounter in the second novella. show less

This novel is composed of overlapping stories about three men in modern South Africa, whose lives are subtly interconnected. In the first two tales, the protagonist faces a sudden surreal change in his life which makes him question his very identity. The last story lacks a sudden, dreamlike change as impetus; its surreal elements move in undertones. Each of the main characters engages in self-examination, slowly exposing the many secrets they keep from each other, betrayals that link each story to the next like threads twisted under the ground. Trust (or lack of it), self-identity and racism are all strong themes in Other Lives, which raises unsettling questions: how well can we know each other? and: how well do we even know ourselves? show more The endings left so many unanswered puzzles- and yet that made them all the more intriguing to me.

From the Dog Ear Diary show less