Customer Reviews

Red Dust: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in post-apartheid South Africa, enabled people who had been imprisoned for the crimes they had committed in apartheid times to secure an amnesty, provided they told the full truth about their activities to a court set up by the commission, presided over by judges and with perpetrators and victims represented by lawyers. This novel deals with one such case in a dusty little town called Smitsrivier.

Dirk Hendricks, a former policeman now imprisoned, had applied for amnesty in respect of his having severely tortured Alex Mpondo, now a member of Parliament. The powerful middle section of the novel is about the hearing of his case by the Commission. The tense confrontation between Hendricks and Mpondo in court is painful in the extreme. The burly Hendricks, who has been well-briefed by his lawyers and is in any case very familiar with court proceedings, who knows all about psychological weaknesses and is a shrewd actor to boot, is determined to conceal the full truth. Mpondo has for some years tried to bury the memories of what he has suffered, but now they surface and cripple him. Moreover, he is also crippled by something else (which I must not reveal in this review) which both he and Hendricks know but which Mpondo's constituents do not. There is also the undercurrent that the two men are bound to each other by a terrible kind of intimacy.

Closely interwoven with the Hendricks-Mpondo relationship is that between Pieter Muller, another ex-policeman, and James Sizela, a black headmaster, desperate to find the remains of his son Stephen whom Muller had killed. While Mpondo and Sizela are very different characters, Hendricks and Muller are, from a fictional point of view, perhaps a little too much alike; and the key confrontation between Muller and Sizela, though it is as tense as that between Hendricks and Mpondo and as powerfully written, struck me as being rather closer to melodrama than to drama. And although the game of bluff and double bluff that is played at the end of the book can be seen as an ironic commentary on the word "truth" in the title of the Commission, it also subtly, but I think unintentionally, shifts the novel from a profound exploration of the psychology of torturer and victim to an altogether slicker level of story-telling. But despite these reservations, I found this book so gripping that I stick with a five star rating.

Lastly, a few words about Sarah Barcant, Mpondo's lawyer. She had been born in Smitsrivier and had been trained there as a lawyer; but fourteen years ago, during the apartheid period, she had left for New York. One of the many excellent qualities of the book is her awareness of how much has changed in South Africa during her absence - and how much has not: in particular the eternal landscape of South Africa, its light and its scents, which are wonderfully conveyed. At the end the question is posed whether she had been a New York lawyer for so long that she never really understands what (in the author's view, I think) the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was, and what it was not and could not be.

This book has definitely been 'doctored' for an international audience (too many changes have been made to South African terminology), probably in order to make the book 'accessible' to US readers, and the story loses a bit in 'local color' and credibility as a result. The themes are well-worn, but given a new twist by placing the story in a Karoo town and making the chief protagonist, Sarah Barcant, a young South African who has settled in New York and whose reactions on a trip back home to the world she left behind are tracked step by step through the story. Sarah reluctantly returns to Smitsrivier for the duration of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing at the request of an old mentor and friend, Ben Hoffman, and is largely repelled by all she finds there, despite its bone-chilling familiarity. The impact on her of her encounter with the truths the TRC unearths (literally as well as figuratively)does not in the end appear to be more than superficial: indeed, her final decision (after allowing her dying friend to believe she will stay on to serve in her home country) is to return to NYC, to "an ordinary life unmarked by the contours of heroism, sacrifice and guilt." It is a decision easy to understand, but it leaves us as voyeurs on the sidelines of a drama which is, in fact, one of immense tragedy, playing itself out on a stage which we as outsiders can scarcely comprehend. As such, this is good courtroom drama, but lacks the depth and moral passion of great fiction. And given the importance of Slovo's subject matter, this reader wishes she had done more with it.

This is an excellent courtroom thriller about torturers and victims confronting each other in the context of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The plotting is superb and the story has enough twists and turns to hold the reader's interest all the way to the surprise ending(s). Certain passages -- and one key scene -- are overly cinematic but this doesn't seriously detract from the book's pleasures. That said, Red Dust is not Dostoevesky. The characters all speak alike (whether white or black, English or Afrikaaner), whites are more finely drawn than blacks, and the protagonist -- a South African practicing law in the US -- is the least necessary character in the book (basically, she gets in arguments). Disappointingly, Slovo doesn't provide much social context or use the novel to educate readers about the liberation struggle in South Africa.

Sarah Barcant is a successful young lawyer in New York who grew up in Smitrivier, South Africa. One day she gets a call from Ben Hoffman, a retired lawyer who used to be Sarah's professional mentor, asking her to come back to Smitrivier to take up a case. And so after fourteen years, Sarah returns to the town where she grew up to do Ben a favour because she thinks she owes him so much. A policeman, Pieter Muller, is suspected of having killed James Sizela's son Steve during the Apartheid. Muller's culpability has been a belief in Smitrivier for thirteen years, ever since Steve was arrested on Pieter Muller's orders and then disappeared. So now the Truth Commission is James's last chance to find his son's body and have him properly buried. The timing appears to be perfect since the Truth Commission is about to deal with the jailed policeman Dirk Hendricks who applied for amnesty for the torture of Alex Mpondo, now an MP in the South African government. The plan is to use Alex Mpondo's presence at the hearing to threaten Hendricks that unless he reveals Pieter Muller's complicity in the murder of Steve Sizela, he may not get his amnesty. But the search for the truth is going to be far more arduous than Sarah imagined - perhaps even an impossible task.
Mrs Slovo casts a merciless look at contemporary South Africa where heroism and perfidy are no longer distinct, where new truths are as painful as old lies, where torturers, once heroes, are now victims. An excellent novel which shows the absurd relationship between aggressors and victims and the power between the torturers and the tortured.

Since 1985, during The Emergency that tore open the façade of apartheid in South Africa, the citizens of the township of Smitsrivier have waited for the Truth Hearings. The hearings are scheduled to facilitate the amnesty of political prisoners, usually former policemen and other government agents who perpetrated violence against the blacks. In return for telling all of the circumstances of torture and other brutality, including murder, the Commission will decide whether to allow amnesty for each current appeal.

The central figure of the Truth Commission in this case is Dirk Hendricks, a former policeman applying for amnesty for the beating and torture of Alex Mpondo. Hendricks is the critical link between Mpondo and Steve Sizela, Alex's compatriot, who was also arrested and beaten, only Steve's body was never recovered. Alex holds the key to Steve's murder, but has been unable to remember anything clearly since his beating, whether Hendricks participated in Steve's murder or has knowledge of who actually did the deed. Alex engages in a dangerous dance with his tormentor, allowing Hendricks to prick his memory with questions and insinuations, hoping to remember. At issue is Alex's participation without allowing his further victimization.

A successful young New York lawyer, Sarah Barcant, is summoned to Smitsrivier to manage Alex's case. Her mentor, Ben Hoffman, who is dying, places a phone call requesting her help. He knows he cannot be refused, due to the ties of the past. Sarah and Ben hope, as part of the process, to uncover Steve's murderer and ascertain where he is buried, that his still grieving parents may see their son properly interred.

Using Sarah as a vehicle, Alex confronts Dirk Hendricks, willing to suffer the indignity of facing his tormentor all over again when they are face to face. But Alex is outraged when Hendricks declares himself a sufferer of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while "doing his job", a critical factor in Hendricks' defense. Hendricks assumes the mantle of victim, giving a brilliant performance before the Committee while on the witness stand. Sarah's task, given Alex's newly awakening insights, is to unmask the policeman for the monster that he really is. This will necessitate drawing out the personality Hendricks seeks to hide from his audience, the darkness waiting to surface.

The denouement of the murderer and restoration of Steve Sizela's body to his parents serve to begin a healing process in only one of the towns so devastated by long years of apartheid, a land too long immersed in fear and hatred. Racial tension and animosity still exist in Smitsrivier, where black and white exist side by side, but in a more subtle and insidious form. Yet Slovo's South Africa is a gorgeous and fascinating country, ripe with promise, reaping the rewards of a revolution against inequality and repression of the human spirit. The task is to harness that great source of humanity for the good of a country whose past cannot be allowed to govern the future. The idyllic prose is as rich as this vast land in transition, an important contribution toward the understanding of a new South Africa. Luan Gaines/2003.

A fantastic read. This book deals remarkably well with the complexities of ambiguous truths in the aftermath of Apartheid era South Africa. Slovo does an excellent job of presenting the harsh realities of those interrogated and tortured by the security aparatus as well as the truth as seen through the eyes of the perpetrators. Reminiscent of the work dealing with military dictatorships in South America: "A miracle, A universe: Settling accounts with torturers." Wonderfully written.

Red Dust deals with the South African TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) from a different angle. Sarah, a young lawyer who has left South Africa to pursue her law career in New York, has been called back by her aging mentor to help in a TRC case in her small hometown in the 'outback' of Eastern Cape.
Slovo manages remarkably well to keep her characters mentally well-balanced in spite of the extreme psychological pressure they are under - she does not allow excessive sentimentality and nostalgia. Given the circumstances this is no small task. The characters, both the victims and their tormentors, are described with pinpoint precision and are uncannily credible and real. Her powerful description of the town and the surrounding landscape makes you feel as if you were part of the setting.
Although it is not difficult to guess the ending, Slovo's storyline is never boring and there are a few interesting twists and turns on the way. The TRC hearings were supposed to bring about truth in return for amnesty to the perpetrators of the unspeakable crimes during apartheid. Slovo doesn't dismiss the possible benefits of the TRC hearings but she shows us how utterly complex, unpredictable, and elusive the pursuit of truth can be.
Slovo seems to be getting better with each new book. Definitely a good read - I warmly recommend it. Looking forward to her next work.

I enjoyed this very much. I have not read many novels about modern South Africa, but I have read Coetzee's 'Disgrace', and this inhabits the same territory, the moral ambiguity between races, the eating of humble pie by whites and the reaching out for what constitutes justice or acceptable compromises in the new world.

This is not as subtle as Coetzee's book, but has more directness. The courtroom scenes have cinematic quality, for example Alex Mbondo in court, thinking about the smell of his torturer's aftershave, 'crushed pine mixed with lard which soured on his slippery skin when he began to sweat'. The physicality of the white farmers, and the careful delineation of their code, and the agonizing restraint of the black families seeking what will have to pass for justice comes through with brutal candour.

I actually had to read this novel for a literature class I am taking. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. As far as mysteries go, Slovo does a great job of pulling you along as she creates secrets and mysteries that you want to find the resolution to. I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to those who love a good mystery, especially.