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Books : Bitter Fruit
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Rating: 
- Microcosm and macrocosm
This is a novel for all those wondering why they restrict their reading to British and American fiction, or, in my case, mainly just British. I'd decided to read, and compare for myself, all last year's Booker shortlisted novels, and found this one impressively original.
The story is of the torments of an ordinary South African family, set against the macrocosmic torments of a country in seismic political upheaval with the apartheid era moving into its death-throes. The Alis' fragile family life [and NOT, as the back-cover itself states, "the Ali's fragile family life"...; perhaps time somebody at Atlantic Books had a look at Lynne Truss?] is thus an illustration of a country and a civilisation in transition as the present struggles to accommodate itself to the past, represented on the political level by the injustice of racial segregation and discrimination and on the personal level by the rape of a black woman by a white man.
"When Mikey thinks of his mother, the word 'Mama' no longer comes to mind." The novel also deals with the difficulties of growing up and the generation gap. Nearly everyone in the book has secrets of some kind, and characters attempt, and unwittingly fail, to know what is going on in each other's minds. Inevitably, things fall apart, differences become irreconcilable; "Bitter Fruit" is a meticulously observed study of the difficulties of coming to terms with the past and with change. It fully deserved its place on the Booker shortlist.
Rating:
- A moving story
Achmat Dangor once again portrayed himself as a great storyteller in this masterful story set in post-apartheid South Africa. Based on the story of a mixed race character, Dangor's true life experiences give credence to his brilliant plot and rich character development that made the story so alive. The pace is fast and a reader easily gets sucked into the novel without knowing it. This page turner is a recommended read.Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES,THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS,DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE COLOR OF WATER, TRIPLE AGENT DOUBLE CROSS.I equally liked their setings and story lines.
Rating: - engrossing, disturbing
takes one to current day South Africa in a manner that news reports cant match. Real people, uncomfortable situations, but wholly believable. How do a country's people come to terms with a new way of relating in a changed environment. Not necessarily encouraging but totally engrossing. Highly recommended
Rating: - Skin Deep
The writing style of this punchy novel by Achmat Dangor is so
economic and subtly crafted that I read this terrifically compelling
book in a single sitting.
Charting the dismayingly inevitable breakdown in the relationships
between the three central characters - idealistically driven father
Silas, haunted and unstable wife Lydia and their confused son Mikey -
the central journey through their own personal truth and (partial)
reconciliation is set against the broader backdrop of the post-
Apartheid process of the same name.
The emotional and political landscape that Bangor depicts is one
full of complications, betrayals and the searchings for truth
through the half-darkness of mis-remembered pasts. This is not the
sunny rainbow nation: rather, it is a brutal and twisted aftermath to
hideous acts that cannot be forgotten or forgiven. Racial, religious
and sexual confusions and distortions weave through the narrative
and create a sense of dark foreboding - a land where the centre
cannot hold. The "bitter fruit" of the title seems to refer to both
the consequences of apartheid as well as the double-edged sword of new found freedom - a freedom in which relative values seem to become disorientated, a freedom where conventional moralities lose their grip. At the most obvious level, of course, the bitter fruit is Mikey himself: the product of perhaps the ultimate desecration - rape - and a symbol of the unhappy congruence of old and new, white and black, oppressor and oppressed. The bitterness cannot be contained.
All very engaging, and the mapping of the pyschological journies of
these central characters takes a real hold. Where the novel, I feel,
lets us down slightly is in its conjuring of the sights, sounds and
smells of the new South Africa. The narrative is so focused on the
interior lives of these characters that they don't come alive in a
very real sense. I couldn't really imagine what they looked like and
scenery and context never really progresssed beyond a collage of
hints, some of these very powerfully expressed however. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, skin features heavily both in a very real, physical
sense (the prose really comes alive at these points) and as a
metaphor - a metaphor for self-protection and containment, for
fragility and vulnerability (shockingly so for Lydia in an early
pivotal episode). The climax of the novel is stunning, both in narrative terms - so deeply moving - and in terms of its descriptive power.
I recommend this novel whole-heartedly - its handling of the deep
emotional issues of love, passion and guilt is masterly and utterly
riveting and, once again, it is proved that nothing is simply black
and white.
Rating: - Exceptionally fine novel
Dangor's novel of a family disintegrating in post-apartheid South Africa has garnered considerable critical acclaim, including the Booker short-list for 2004. I simply want to say that all the attention and honours it has received are richly deserved.
Very briefly, there are three great inter-related strengths to this work. Firstly, Dangor's prose is so well-crafted and vivid. Secondly, the reader is given perceptive insights into modern South Africa and the (often universal) issues facing it today. Thirdly, all of the characters - including the minor ones - are so real: it may be cliched, but the Silas, Lydia and Mikey do indeed linger in the mind long, long after finishing this exceptional work.
- Microcosm and macrocosmThis is a novel for all those wondering why they restrict their reading to British and American fiction, or, in my case, mainly just British. I'd decided to read, and compare for myself, all last year's Booker shortlisted novels, and found this one impressively original.
The story is of the torments of an ordinary South African family, set against the macrocosmic torments of a country in seismic political upheaval with the apartheid era moving into its death-throes. The Alis' fragile family life [and NOT, as the back-cover itself states, "the Ali's fragile family life"...; perhaps time somebody at Atlantic Books had a look at Lynne Truss?] is thus an illustration of a country and a civilisation in transition as the present struggles to accommodate itself to the past, represented on the political level by the injustice of racial segregation and discrimination and on the personal level by the rape of a black woman by a white man.
"When Mikey thinks of his mother, the word 'Mama' no longer comes to mind." The novel also deals with the difficulties of growing up and the generation gap. Nearly everyone in the book has secrets of some kind, and characters attempt, and unwittingly fail, to know what is going on in each other's minds. Inevitably, things fall apart, differences become irreconcilable; "Bitter Fruit" is a meticulously observed study of the difficulties of coming to terms with the past and with change. It fully deserved its place on the Booker shortlist.
Rating:
- A moving storyAchmat Dangor once again portrayed himself as a great storyteller in this masterful story set in post-apartheid South Africa. Based on the story of a mixed race character, Dangor's true life experiences give credence to his brilliant plot and rich character development that made the story so alive. The pace is fast and a reader easily gets sucked into the novel without knowing it. This page turner is a recommended read.Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES,THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS,DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE COLOR OF WATER, TRIPLE AGENT DOUBLE CROSS.I equally liked their setings and story lines.
Rating:
- engrossing, disturbingtakes one to current day South Africa in a manner that news reports cant match. Real people, uncomfortable situations, but wholly believable. How do a country's people come to terms with a new way of relating in a changed environment. Not necessarily encouraging but totally engrossing. Highly recommended
Rating:
- Skin DeepThe writing style of this punchy novel by Achmat Dangor is so
economic and subtly crafted that I read this terrifically compelling
book in a single sitting.
Charting the dismayingly inevitable breakdown in the relationships
between the three central characters - idealistically driven father
Silas, haunted and unstable wife Lydia and their confused son Mikey -
the central journey through their own personal truth and (partial)
reconciliation is set against the broader backdrop of the post-
Apartheid process of the same name.
The emotional and political landscape that Bangor depicts is one
full of complications, betrayals and the searchings for truth
through the half-darkness of mis-remembered pasts. This is not the
sunny rainbow nation: rather, it is a brutal and twisted aftermath to
hideous acts that cannot be forgotten or forgiven. Racial, religious
and sexual confusions and distortions weave through the narrative
and create a sense of dark foreboding - a land where the centre
cannot hold. The "bitter fruit" of the title seems to refer to both
the consequences of apartheid as well as the double-edged sword of new found freedom - a freedom in which relative values seem to become disorientated, a freedom where conventional moralities lose their grip. At the most obvious level, of course, the bitter fruit is Mikey himself: the product of perhaps the ultimate desecration - rape - and a symbol of the unhappy congruence of old and new, white and black, oppressor and oppressed. The bitterness cannot be contained.
All very engaging, and the mapping of the pyschological journies of
these central characters takes a real hold. Where the novel, I feel,
lets us down slightly is in its conjuring of the sights, sounds and
smells of the new South Africa. The narrative is so focused on the
interior lives of these characters that they don't come alive in a
very real sense. I couldn't really imagine what they looked like and
scenery and context never really progresssed beyond a collage of
hints, some of these very powerfully expressed however. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, skin features heavily both in a very real, physical
sense (the prose really comes alive at these points) and as a
metaphor - a metaphor for self-protection and containment, for
fragility and vulnerability (shockingly so for Lydia in an early
pivotal episode). The climax of the novel is stunning, both in narrative terms - so deeply moving - and in terms of its descriptive power.
I recommend this novel whole-heartedly - its handling of the deep
emotional issues of love, passion and guilt is masterly and utterly
riveting and, once again, it is proved that nothing is simply black
and white.
Rating:
- Exceptionally fine novelDangor's novel of a family disintegrating in post-apartheid South Africa has garnered considerable critical acclaim, including the Booker short-list for 2004. I simply want to say that all the attention and honours it has received are richly deserved.
Very briefly, there are three great inter-related strengths to this work. Firstly, Dangor's prose is so well-crafted and vivid. Secondly, the reader is given perceptive insights into modern South Africa and the (often universal) issues facing it today. Thirdly, all of the characters - including the minor ones - are so real: it may be cliched, but the Silas, Lydia and Mikey do indeed linger in the mind long, long after finishing this exceptional work.
