JACQUES Pauw’s novelised lifestory of apartheid killer FerdieBarnard, although far from a liter-ary masterpiece, is a cracking goodread.
Pauw, the prize-winning inves-tigative journalist who broke thestory of apartheid death squads inVrye Weekblad in 1989, has foundthat hot spot in South African writ-ing, the place where truth isstranger, more thrilling and com-pelling, than fiction could ever be.
Despite Mahmood Mamdani’sarguments against South Africanexceptionalism in his influential1996 book Citizen and Subject, weremain a country that believes in itsown extraordinariness.
It’s almost urban legend: no onehas more rapes per capita than wedo; a faster-growing HIV infection-rate; a bigger wealth gap; a greaterincidence of heart attacks; morehijackings; a quicker frequency ofviolent crime, etc, etc. Whetherthese claims are true is hardly thepoint – to South Africans outside ofCamps Bay, Hout Bay and Kalk Bay,they feel true.
A raft of recent South Africanfiction has gone for the throat ofsuch extremity, but fictionalised it invarious gradations of the “crimethriller”. Just last year we had
novels such as Jassy Mackenzie’sRandom Violence, Rozena Maart’sThe Writing Circle, Tracey Farren’sWhiplash, Mike Nicol’s Payback,Megan Voysey-Braig’s Till We Can
Keep an Animal, Edyth Bulbring’sThe Club, Hamish Hoosen Pillay’sThe Rainbow Has No Pink, and still more – novels in which thatwhich is unpalatable in socialrealism is transmuted into readable“thrillers”.
However, many of these novelswere hard to swallow, and hard toread, simply because the awarenessof violence is already so high up theaverage South African reader’sthroat – so close to the gag button –it’s as though one doesn’t want fic-tional melanges of what one knowsand fears.
But as publishers’ sales figuresshow, South Africans have a greatrespect for no-BS truth. Quite possi-bly this stems from our long – andcontinuing – history of governmentmendacity, cover-ups, corruptionand Wild West rapaciousness under
various fig leaves of “democratic”accountability. What a laugh!
And it’s that button, that “giveme a break” incredulity, aroundwhich Pauw’s Little Ice Cream Boy
resonates: the full-scale revelation ofthe real, ugly truth, the real thingbehind mountains of lies. It’s thisthat often sells books, rather thandaintily fictionalised “allegories” ofcrime, or lyrical treatments of theinteriority of the victim – the kindof writing that often emanates fromcreative writing courses.
A sizeable segment of readers,such as they are, prefer the lowdownon matters of truth because they’vehad “fiction” in heaps. The baretruth is a valuable commodity. Pauw,however, has given readers a blend:the ugly, true facts woven into a fic-tional frame. This way, he keeps thesucker punch of discovered orrevealed truth, but he also offers afirst-person storyline and a com-pelling fictional context.
So, you get Gideon Goosen as thenovelistic reconstruction of FerdieBarnard, the Civil CooperationBureau undercover operative whoshot Wits academic David Websterin cold blood outside his Troyevillehome on May 1, 1989. In Little Ice
Cream Boy, Goosen kills “fictional”Wits academic Prof Paul Williams
outside his Yeoville home on May 1,1989. But the surrounding context isthe same, and the sense of revealedtruth works to much the same effect as it does in Pauw’s other,
non-fiction books about apartheid’sstate-sanctioned killers.
What is different, however, is thatPauw enters true-blue fictional ter-ritory by redrawing “Barnard’s”
childhood, and also by imaginingthe inside-prison, before-and-afterframe of the story, which hasGoosen up against Taliep, a Mafiahenchman inside prison, and whichsees him fall in love with a “granny”who has taken up a mother-loverelationship with him.
In fact, the fictional pretext forthe first-person narrative here, theoccasion for writing this narrative,that is, is the conceit that Goosen is“explaining everything” to thismother-substitute.
It is in this conceit, and its execu-tion, that Pauw could have donewith the kind of feedback a writinggroup might have afforded him – thefirst-person voice of Goosen getsimprobably entangled with Pauw’sauthorial voice, so that one gets apoorly educated “hood” using phras-es such as “ebullient supporters” todescribe the baying circle of kids ata schoolyard fight.
There is a lot of this smudginessof authorial voice, and it is a pity,because the general fictional opera-tion is very well pulled off, despite atendency towards sentimentalityand stereotypical exaggeration inthe drawing of “types” – criminals,reformed or otherwise, low-classAfrikaners, violent policemen, cor-rupt Boere on the make, and so on.
Pauw’s writing often treads theline between keen satire and some-what blotchy realistic description.
It’s as if the writing finds itsmark in precisely this intersection,satirically overdrawn on the onehand, straining for realism on theother, and the tension is not alwaysresolved. Perhaps this is a book, likeso many, that could have done withanother year’s worth of rewriting,and more refining of the fictionalvoice.
However, on the affirmative side,once one forgives the straying ofauthorial voice into the perspectivallimits of the first-person narrator,and goes along with the story, there
is a bonus: a laconic, raconteur-like,aphoristic style that yields short,snappy paragraphs such as the fol-lowing: “I’d become obsessed withher. My whole f****** existence wasdominated by her red hair and Arc-tic eyes and the perky c*** that hadliberated me from sexual inadequa-cy and banished that Volkskas bankclerk to the rubbish heap.”
Even though parts of this sen-tence don’t properly belong inGoosen’s second-class matric vocab-ulary, Pauw nevertheless catchesthe beat of his character’s being,even if imperfectly, and creates aPhilip Marlowe-type paradox of thelaconic voice narrating the details ofhuman extremity as if it’s a kind ofstyle-thing. Or try this for size:
“They’d fried the h***kop’s ballsto crackling but the c*** still refusedto tell them where he was hiding abag of jewellery he had stolen froma shop in Carlton Centre.”
With this style of writing, we’realmost back in Herman CharlesBosman territory, or DugmoreBoetie, or Marlene van Niekerk inTriomf, and it’s a refreshing changefrom the “deep” and intensely liter-ary, or the academically pigmentednarratives that are now coming outthick and fast.
For the most part, Pauw’spyrotechnics of voice work wellenough to carry the story, which initself is enthralling.
It is a story that reopens parts ofa common heritage – white trash,chronic lawlessness, police crimi-nality, culturally sanctioned patriar-chal violence, the drug underworld,Joburg vice, mafia hits and manoeu-vres – a dark heritage that needs sol-id fictional undercarriages.
Perhaps the scholarly culture hasspawned an overdose of genteelwork.
Pauw’s hard-hitting first novel,even if crude in places, proves thatthere’s a lot of dirt out there that weneed to pick up.
M A U R E E N I S A A C S O N
BLACK DIAMOND, Zakes Mda’snew novel, presents an acid portraitof a society in moral decay.
In an interview in Joburg, Mdasays he is happy that his vicious-ness is apparent; subject deter-mines style, so the novel is accessi-ble. In this it differs from The Heart
of Redness (2002), The Madonna of
Excelsior (2004) and The Whale
Caller (2005).Ways of Dying (1997), written at
a time when people had begun torun out of time to mourn their deadand were forced to hire a profes-sional mourner, necessitated Mda’sgreatest creation, Toloki, who reap-pears in Cion, Mda’s penultimatenovel, set in the US.
Mda’s refusal to sing praisesongs to the powerful has been aconsistent theme, which he tracesback to his 1978 play We Shall Sing
for the Fatherland, which he saysforesaw the current crisis of cor-ruption, depicted so clearly in The
Heart of Redness.In response to Memela’s letter
accusing Mda, among other SouthAfrican writers, of being “blackracists”, he says: “It is racial arro-gance to say that because I amblack I can’t criticise black people.He (Memela) is being racist for crit-icising me because I am black. Onlya fool would read that book (Black
Diamond) and accuse me of beingconservative.
“Actually, to not be a praisesinger is progressive because (itmeans that) you are a free thinker.A praise singer is the most conser-vative creature (because in hiseyes) whatever the leader does isgood. That is how Africa got intothe mess it is in at this time. Let metell you how it happened. Firstlyleaders fought for liberation. Actu-ally we fought for liberation.
“We had independence, as it wascalled. Then we began to deifythose leaders. They became presi-dents for life. We cheered when theybegan to loot from the coffers of thestate. We said these people have suf-fered on our behalf, they can
deserve what they get. Then we (thepeople) gave them all the power. InSouth Africa fortunately things didnot happen like that… Peoplewould elect the ANC government,then tomorrow they will be demon-strating in the street.
“What I am doing is a continua-tion of what the ordinary peopleare doing when they see somethingwrong. That is what patriotism isabout – it is not about who followsthe leaders when they are corruptand begin to accumulate power andto oppress the people and say we
can’t criticise them because we arepatriotic. That is stupidity. I am notstupid.
“Patriotism is self-examinationand self-criticism – the only way wecan build a strong country (and) astrong people. If we are honestenough to look into ourselves andto point out our own flaws. That iswhy I am praising the policies Ithink are great and criticisingthose I think are wrong. That ispart of dialogue.
“There is no one whose wordcan be final on these issues andthere is no one who can silence meor anybody. I am a free spirit. I havemy views, but they are not sacro-sanct. Someone else will have their
views. It is part of the debate weneed to engage in…
“I fought in this liberation strug-gle. I believe in the policies of theANC, but I do not believe in some ofthe practices that have developed inthe course of achieving what theANC has mapped out.
“I do not identify with politi-cians although they are a necessaryevil. I am not an anarchist, we haveto have governments and we haveto run a country. Among the elders,Walter Sisulu is more of a hero
than anyone, he has integrity.”I ask: “Do you think that politi-
cians set the tone that creates themoral decay that we read about inBlack Diamond?”
“They are the architects of it all!“We won’t get out of this situa-
tion… but a free press will notallow them to have a wholesaleimpunity.”
I ask: “Don’t writers play arole?”
“Well, writers, who reads writ-ers? It is the elite that is not capableof changing the situation because itbenefits from it.”
“Is the elite not capable or doesit not want to change things?”
“We are protecting our owninterests, we are benefiting fromthis system whereas the mediapenetrate to other sectors of thesociety and become participants ofthe dialogue.
“As a country I think we aregoing in the right direction. Politi-cally, I stand where I have alwaysbeen. I believe in the ANC and I think their policies are very pro-gressive. It is only the practicerather than the policies that one
may criticise. If there were elec-tions tomorrow I would vote forthem.”
“Did you vote for them thisyear?”
“I was not here.”“You don’t live here anymore?”“Some of the time, I do. I am a
migrant worker in America. Thesituation there is right for me towork in. I teach creative writing atOhio University, but most of thetime I write, I am paid to write myown stuff. I invest a lot in SouthAfrica, in a beekeeping project,which I started with my wife,Gugu… I am not just talk, I dirtymy hands. I work as dramaturge forthe Market Theatre and as a direc-tor of the Southern African Multi-media Aids Trust.”
Mda ignores the academic crit-ics. “The only reviews I read arereviews from popular press.”
This year Mda was accused ofplagiarism, when a study wasreleased comparing Mda’s novelHeart of Redness with Jeff Peires’shistorical work, The Dead Will
Arise. “Of course, you would beupset if you are accused of plagia-rism but this was a non-issue in theUS. Instead, scholars wrote to me insupport.
“It was never a secret that mysource of the historical aspect ofthe novel came from Jeff Peires – I can refer you to other articles,written in a positive light, studyingit as an example of how a writercan write new works of art. JeffPeires was happy with my acknowl-edgement in Heart of Redness.”
“Do we have something to learnfrom intertextuality?”
“I use the modes of writing thatare at my disposal. I cannot write acommon denominator type of workfor ignorant people, I am not a com-mon denominator writer.
“Those who know about it willappreciate my work. It is for me totell my fiction the best way I canand some of it will include the workof historians. Cion makes use ofhistorical sources and acknowl-edges them. This is not the last timeI will do this. I will do it again whenthe need arises.”
17BooksTHE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NOVEMBER 29 2009
Books Page
EDITED BY
MAUREEN ISAACSON
I refuse to be silenced, says Zakes Mda
Guns,thugs andreal life in the rawLittle Ice Cream Boy goes down smooth,despite all the razors.It is a book written by a no-nonsense South African to be read by the same
M A U R E E N I S A A C S O N
SANDILE Memela, a senior mar-keting manager for the Departmentof Arts and Culture, has writtenanother letter “in his personalcapacity”. A former journalist,Memela reserves the right to speakthe truth in the press, asking us todisregard his rank, which requiresa certain suspension of belief.
This week, he made the letterspages of newspapers with ominouswarnings of “a dangerous increasein books written by black authorsand so-called intellectuals that givea negative portrayal of life underfreedom and democracy”.
He said overrated writers andintellectuals typically ignored the
fact that black corruption waslinked to and fed off white injus-tice, corruption and greed.
Of course, he was not denyingthat some black people had boughtinto the corrupt lifestyle that waspreviously the preserve of whiteprivilege.
But he said that reflected “theinternalisation of racism, deep-seated anti-black sentiments andan inferiority complex which saysthere is absolutely nothing good in the black experience underdemocracy”.
Memela singled out the books ofwriters and intellectuals he calledoverrated – Xolela Mangcu’s To the
Brink, Moeletsi Mbeki’s Architects
of Poverty, Zakes Mda’s Black Dia-
mond, William Gumede and Leslie
Dikeni’s The Poverty of Ideas andJacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia,
saying: “One had only to look atthese… to understand how someblack writers rubbish the achieve-ment of freedom and democracy.
“Mangcu generated attention tohimself by writing a book that saysdemocracy is on the brink of col-lapse; Mbeki says the ANC is toblame for apartheid sins; Mda saysblack elite are corrupt sell-outs;Gumede and Dikeni say freedom ofexpression is under threat, whileDlamini says blacks had normallives under apartheid.”
Memela said this perspectivewas too reactionary, simple andpredictable – especially from blackpeople with PhDs – who shouldcome out with a more complexanalysis and interpretation of thetransition. With the black conser-vative assault on the black identity,democratic gains were nothing buta silly attempt to please white audi-ences and live up to false liberalnotions of so-called courage, inde-pendence and fearlessness, he said.
“Actually, it marks a crisis ofblack thought and creative leader-ship,” said Memela.
Only a fool
would
read that book
(Black Diamond)
and accuse
me of being
conservative
In hispersonalcapacity
Little Ice Cream Boyby Jacques Pauwreview by Leon de Kock
‘Memela needs a dose of honesty tablets’MOELETSI Mbeki’sresponse to Memela’s crit-icism is to say “SandileMemela must surely qual-ify as first black man tospeak with forkedtongue”.
Please see the e-mailbelow that Sandile sent to me in July, asking me towrite a foreword to a book he is hoping to havepublished. In his letter, he says: “I have decided toapproach you because of the common thread withyour recent book and the fact that your views oncontemporary struggle history are a soberingrevelation.” It amazes me that a few months afterlauding my work he now says I am one of the writ-ers rubbishing the achievements of freedom anddemocracy and blaming the sins of the apartheidregime on the ANC.
Clearly, Mr Memela has forgotten to take hisdose of honesty tablets… but, of course, the mancould be a genuine schizophrenic.
Dear Moeletsi
I pray all is well with you. I am fine, too,
making the best of what life has to offer.
Thanks a million times for the special treat
last Tuesday. It was an honour and a privilege
to reconnect to think aloud. As usual, I found
your company inspiring, enlightening and
very encouraging. There are a lot of things that
can make one afraid, but there is nothing to
fear but fear itself. We have to be agents of the
change that we want to see. But life will always
take its own course.
As promised, find the manuscript. I would
appreciate it if you can do some 700-word intro-
duction or foreword to this historical fiction
novel. I have decided to approach you because
of the common thread with your recent book
and the fact that your views on contemporary
struggle history are a sobering revelation.
I may be wrong, but for the foreword or
introduction, I feel that you will do the best
analysis of the fusion of literature, history and
contemporary politics.
Once again, thanks a million times for
agreeing to participate in the project.
I am looking forward to hear from you when
done.
With love and respect,
Sandile
Boer in Beton remembers and SA poet makes it onto Costa shortlistM A U R E E N I S A A C S O N
SO ENCHANTED was I with thelyrics of Koos Kombuis in the late1980s that I waited outside his par-ents’ home while they watched theirfavourite TV show for a full halfhour, waiting for an interview.
Short Drive to Freedom: A Person-
al Perspective on the Afrikaans Rock
Rebellion (Human & Rousseau) is adisappointingly unfocused journeydown Kombuis’s memory lane. Butit recalls the genius of the musi-cians who resisted the legacy of
their forebears. These includedJohannes Kerkorrel, who died by hisown hand and whose brilliant lyri-cal portrait of Hillbrow in theeponymous song is on the CDVoëlvry accompanying the book,along with Kombuis’s equally bril-liant Boer in Beton.
Kombuis and his tales of hissmall town con-man father, whoblew his mother’s pension on pyra-mid schemes and seaweed extract isas much a part of the South Africanstory as is Joost: The Man in the Mir-
ror, by David Gemmel (ZebraPress).The scrumhalf ’s antics cap-
tured in a sex video are legion butthose who want to know what turnsrugby Joost Van der Westhuizen oncan read about the chicken killingand other shenanigans at KampStaaldraad and his defence of thecamp, widely condemned for its out-landsishly harsh training methodsof aspirant World Cup rugby play-ers. He spoke of “total mind fitness”.
Among extracts of nominationsfor the The Guardian’s Worst Sexprize is Paul Theroux’s A Dead
Hand: A Crime in Calcutta.
“ ‘Baby’. She took my head inboth hands and guided it downward,
between her fragrant thighs. ‘Yonipuja – pray, pray at my portal’.
“She was holding my head, mur-muring ‘Pray’, and I did so, beseech-ing her with my mouth and tongue,my licking a primitive form of lan-guage in a simple prayer. It hadalways worked before, a languageshe had taught me herself, the warmmuffled tongue.”
● Jenny Crwys-Williams’s BigBook Brunch will take place on Sat-urday, December 5. E-mail CarolBosch at [email protected] orcall 076 393 8083. The event will beheld at Buitengeluk Restaurant,
Broadacres Centre, Cedar Road,Fourways, 9am for 9.30am.
● South African KatharineKilalea’s debut collection of poetry,One Eye’d Leigh (Carcanet), hasbeen shortlisted for the prestigiousCosta prize.
Recycled small boys
Jackson, you are too slow. The
boy looks up and hurries on.
His clothes smell of mildew. Until
recently he’d have shot somebody
for less or, as boys do, taken a town
and thrown a tantrum
and stamped his foot on it.
Instead, he looks meekly down.
The four boys sit quietly weaving
hair and not questioning orders.
The truth is that ladies spend a lot
of money on looking good
so they’ve recycled their AK-47s
into curling tongs and set off
beneath a fresco of falling tiles
and trumpeting pigeons
forging neat paths through the
scalp, curling hair tightly into itself,
these brave mercenaries in their
abandoned church-cum-salon,
untangling knots, snipping at
split ends, plaiting rows.
A slow hairdresser has no cus-
tomers. People don’t like sitting still.
SandileMemela
Zakes Mda
