Saturday 16 July 2011

Agaat

A quick reflection on the reading of Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat

I have just finished, all six hundred and ninety two pages of it. Was it worth it? Yes, yes I think it was. I may need some more time to really answer this. You see, I think that it is one of those books that you need to spend a fair bit of time pondering, especially as a white South African living in the Cape.
The story is narrated by Milla, a white Afrikaaner, who is on her death bed dying of a motor neuron disease. She tells a difficult story of a life on a farm in the Western Cape during the ‘dark days’. There is an abusive husband, an adopted child, a biological child, and a whole lot of internal struggle. But what makes this book interesting is not all this drama. Agaat is an exceptionally unfiltered look at race, and this makes the book a book to spend some time making your way through and then thinking about.
Toni Morrison, possibly one of the most brilliant authors of all time (in my opinion anyway), said of Agaat: ‘I was immediately mesmerized... Its beauty matches its depth and her achievement is as brilliant as it is haunting.’
South Africa is complex, we know this, but sometimes I think that we forget just how haunting our history is. We underestimate the psychological impact of what life was, of what living had to be, not more than one generation back.
Agaat was a rather intense reminder for me of how much healing still needs to happen for South Africa.

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