The Smell of Apples: A Novel [Paperback]

Mark Behr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1997

Winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction from the Los Angeles Times
Winner of the M-Net Award
Winner of The Eugene Marais Award
Winner of the CNA Literary Award
Winner of the Betty Trask Award
A Booker Prize Nominee

Set in the bitter twilight of apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s, The Smell of Apples is a haunting story narrated by eleven-year-old Marnus Erasmus, who records the social turmoil and racial oppression that are destroying his own land. Using his family as a microcosm of the corroding society at large, Marnus tells a troubling tale of a childhood corrupted, of unexpected sexual defilements, and of an innocence gone astray.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's not that Marnus Erasmus is forced to parrot his major-general father's prejudices--the 11-year-old has no idea he's even doing so. The voice Mark Behr has created is a mix of youthful innocence and hope and terrible hatred and ignorance. Unconsciously relaying tales of Communist indoctrination and Coloured abomination, the boy is all set to become another soldier of the white South African state. "Dad says he'll never forget what the Communists and the blacks did to Tanganyika. And Dad says we shouldn't ever forget. A Volk that forgets its history is like a man without a memory. That man is useless." Marnus's domestic memories, however, turn out to be far more difficult to deal with than any issues of national import. His final essay of the school year ends with the triumphant "Open eyes are the gateways to an open mind," even as his family is attempting to keep his firmly shut.

From Publishers Weekly

"The dreams of the parents become the dreams of the children," observes Marnus Erasmus, the 10-year-old son of an affluent white South African family of the early 1970s. The irony behind his remark lies at the heart of this moving and tragic first novel, whose innocent narrator provides the perfect lens through which to view a culture in decay and self-denial. A boy who enjoys fishing and playing with his grade-school friends, Marnus lives in a beautiful house with his mother, a former musician, and his father, the youngest-ever major-general in the South African Defence Force. But doubts, many mirroring the unpleasant realities of South Africa itself, begin to burrow at the foundation of this seemingly idyllic life. The young son of the family's servant is severely burned by white men; Marnus's beloved aunt is exiled from the family for espousing "liberal" views, while his sister, Ilse, threatens to follow in her footsteps; a visit from a Chilean general inadvertently reveals to Marnus the moral rot within his own parents' marriage. Perfectly controlled and powerfully realistic, this novel is underwritten in the most positive sense: Behr creates a situation so potent that the characters seem to indict themselves. And yet the reader retains sympathy for Marnus, a boy just beginning to understand the horror around him and, in italicized passages seeded throughout the narrative, a man facing death 15 years later on the battlefields of Angola.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Picador (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312152094
• ISBN-13: 978-0312152093
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A disturbing and memorable book., July 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Smell of Apples: A Novel (Paperback)

The mark of a good book is that it comes back to haunt you after you've finished reading it. Subtle yet shocking, THE SMELL OF APPLES left me feeling both outraged and sad. Behr skillfully weaves his plot so that it isn't until the very end that the full irony and horror of the book's title become clear to you. It's hard to believe this is the author's first novel. I can't wait for his next one

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Personal, Historical Look at Apartheid, October 25, 2000

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Smell of Apples: A Novel (Paperback)

Mark Behr's novel, The Smell of Apples, is a beautifully written look at the world of an eleven year old Afrikaaner child in 1970's South Africa. It is history writ small. The horrors and corruption of a society under the heel of apartheid are shown effectively in this story of one family. It is a coming of age story that is both personal to the child and emblematic of the society around that child.

This novel is excellant at showing an historical period in a way that a book of history never could. Mark Behr makes the society feel real, and is all the more chilling for having done so. It is the small quiet moments that truly are the most shocking and that is how it should be. An excellant novel about a time and place of which more people should be aware.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Promising prelude to the better 'Embrace', June 21, 2002

By 

zeldesse (Utrecht, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Smell of Apples (Hardcover)

Apartheid as seen by a child is an interesting theme. You get to see a little of how the system worked, how hatred was bred and looking away was encouraged. The book shows a child losing its innocence. Marnus is not an exceptional child and not particularly likeable. He is just a ten year old, egocentric, insecure, worshipping his father, arguing with his sister. He feels love, hatred, friendship and compassion. The boy's confusion at seeing his hero father being very very wrong is very realistic and heartbreaking.

I like the theme, the characters and the style. But the story and the dramatic plot line were not as good as they could have been. I was annoyed with the Angolan war intermezzo's. I felt I hardly had gotten to know the boy and was not ready to be dragged into the boy's future. I also wasn't finished with the story when the book was. It ended rather abruptly without warning. Maybe my expectations were wrong, having read 'Embrace' and liked that a lot. In 'Embrace' the story of a boy coming of age is much better developed. I missed that here.