First we had Disgrace and The Native Commissioner, then The Beneficiaries was foisted onto learners, and now the IEB selection committee has chosen Absolution (by Patrick Flanery) as a HL option for Grade 12 in 2015/2016. Angst and guilt abound – what are we trying to say to our youth about growing up in South Africa?
We all know about the awful things that happened in our country, but do teenagers need to relive these events and to read about characters who have responded to their circumstances in emotionally dysfunctional ways? How about a novel that generates some kind of positivity about South Africa? As a reviewer in The Daily Telegraph said: “I doubt Flanery’s impressive debut will be promoted by the South African tourist board anytime soon.”
I must be honest with you – I haven’t yet read Absolution – but, with The New York Times columnist writing the following “Not shy of stepping straight into demanding terrain, Patrick Flanery sets his first novel, ‘Absolution,’ in post-apartheid South Africa, where the horrific injustices of the past leak unavoidably forward. The end of apartheid may have put an end to state-sanctioned violence, but it signaled the beginning of an epidemic of a more personal kind of violence – a reactive, frustrated, untargeted revenge” and The Washing Post’s reviewer saying that “Patrick Flanery’s first novel, ‘Absolution’, sets out to combine diverse threads into one gripping plot: rebel activities in apartheid-era South Africa, the fraught relationship between a mother and her murdered daughter, the life of a writer under a regime of censorship and day-to-day living in one of the most economically unequal, dangerous societies in the world”, I see another grim tale that learners have to battle through.
I am not suggesting that we forget the past, that we pretend it didn’t happen, that we sugarcoat it in some way, but surely novelists out there are writing something other than stories full of emotionally weak characters who prefer to blame their personal circumstances on the political milieu in which they grew up?
While novels may be selected for their brilliant writing, rather than their plot, Flanery’s first novel has certainly not garnered too much praise in this department. While it has been praised as a first novel, many reviewers have commented that his style still needs a great deal of development, and that perhaps he should have selected a less weighty subject for his debut novel.
Having said this, a colleague of mine is finding it compelling reading, although she commented that it does deal with very gruesome incidents which might be considered more suitable for adults, rather than teenagers. She went on to say that the novel covers “lots of uncomfortable issues in our past and present, and is full of mystery and suspense.” I am hoping that the ‘mystery and suspense’ aspect of the novel saves it from being a disaster in the classroom.
Patrick Flanery is an American novelist and I have to ask whether no local writers are producing novels that could be selected?
If you know anyone on the IEB selection committee, please ask them to comment on this blog as I would love to get some insight into their rationale.
I would also like to hear from you about which local titles you think could have been put on the prescribed lists.
Once I have read Absolution I might revise my views. Watch this space …
MacMo