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"When I get a little money I buy books. If any is left, then I buy food and clothes."
An Instant in the Wind
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An Instant in the Wind
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This Book is Currently in the Wild!
10 journalers for this copy...
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Thanks, Shylock! This book arrived this evening -- perfect timing, as I'm just about to head off on a three day business trip with lots of downtime to get caught up on my reading. I'm really looking forward to reading this one, and promise to have it sent along to JDT in California within 2 - 3 weeks. Best wishes from New Westminster, British Columbia (at left: the neon sign from my favourite coffee shop in New Westminster, the ninety year old Royal City Cafe).
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Historical and Anthropological background to An Instant in the WindMidway through AIITW, I decided I wanted to understand the historical context for what I was reading more clearly, so -- during the middle of a sleepless night -- I took to the internet. Here's a summary of what I found: We learn at p. 9 of AIITW that Aob's mother was a Hottentot, and his father a slave from Madagascar. At p. 12 of the book we hear about a group of Bushmen, who stole Oxen from the Larsson's hunting/exploration team. The Bushmen, also known as the San, and the Hottentots, also known as the Khoikhoi, are now referred to collectively by anthropologists as the Khoisan. The Khoisan were the earliest recorded inhabitants of South Africa. The San (Bushmen) were primarily hunters and the Khoikhoi (Hottentots) were herders, hunting people who had by some means obtained domestic animals. Some historians have labeled the Khoikhoi economy "fragile", since they often lost stock through theft or drought and had to fall back on hunting or cattle raiding -- as we hear in AIITW -- to survive. The Khoikhoi lived in villages of up to 100 people, in huts such as that in the photo at left (remember the scene in AIITW where Elisabeth is nursed through a medical crisis in a hut such as this by a Hottentot elder). (Contrary to popular belief, the Hottentots are not extinct! In the 21st century, the Khoisan have an ongoing place -- albeit a struggling one -- in the social and political fabric of South Africa. See, for example, this online account of the 2001 Report on the National Khoisan Consultative Conference.) Europeans first arrived in South Africa in 1652, when the colonial settlement of Cape Town began to grow from a supply station established by the Dutch East India Company (with whom Elisabeth's father was employed) at the Cape of Good Hope. The Khoisan were driven away from the Cape, and the settlers developed their own dialect -- Afrikaans, and their own church -- the Dutch Reformed Church. Slaves were subsequently imported from Madagascar (like Aob's grandfather, Afrika), India, Ceylon, Malaya and Indonesia (like Aob's grandmother, Seli). Some Khoisan -- such as Aob's mother -- were also taken into slavery. Over the next 150 years -- the period during which An Instant in the Wind takes place -- the colonists spread east, coming into violent contact with Bantu tribes. In 1779 (almost thirty years after the conclusion of the novel) the eastward expansion of the Boers (Dutch-Afrikaner farmers) was temporarily halted in the first Bantu War, but further Boer expansion was hastened after the British annexed the Cape in 1806. The abolition of slavery in 1834 was regarded by the Boers as an intolerable interference in their affairs, and led to migration (known as the Great Trek) across the Orange River two years later. |
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I'm finding it difficult to know what to write about An Instant in the Wind. I enjoyed reading it very much, and the story inspired me to learn more about the history of South Africa. I hadn't realized, for example, that the prison at Robben Island (best known as the site of Nelson Mandela's 25 year incarceration), where Aob/Adam is imprisoned prior to his 1744 escape, is actually hundreds of years old. Nor did I realize South Africa had a formal history of slavery (even predating its infamous treatment of indigenous people during the Apartheid era). I love books that encourage me to learn more history (particularly that of the southern hemisphere), since I'm not often inclined to pick up non-fiction books in this area. I also enjoyed An Instant in the Wind for the story it told, with its amazing descriptions of the western Cape, the Karoo, and the Swart Berg (Black Mountains). Although the description of Elisabeth and Aob/Adam's affair in these locales got a little "Blue Lagoon" for my taste (enough "warm, moist cave" and "pungent, fleshy plant matter" metaphors, already!), their odyssey across the Karoo and the mountains made for a great page-turner (you can see the area they covered in the map at top left, which shows Mossel Bay and the Karoo, hundreds of kilometers east of the Cape). Ultimately, though -- and with some reluctance -- I have to acknowledge I'm not sure I liked AIITW. Even bearing in mind the year this book was written (1976), and the fact that it was a radical act for Andre Brink to even write about a "mixed race" relationship at a time when such relationships were against the law, I found his treatment of Elisabeth and Aob's relationship (and -- by extension -- his underlying "pitch" regarding the future for black/white relations in South Africa) oddly idealistic. I realize others may want to quarrel with this characterization, especially given the book's ending. But it's interesting to contrast Brink's hopeful "why can't we all just get along" subtext with the treatment of this same issue by writers such as Nadine Gordimer (e.g. A World of Strangers) and J.M. Coetzee (e.g. Disgrace) in the decades that followed. Thanks so much, Shylock, for sending this book around the world. I'm really glad to have had a chance to read it. |
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Journal Entry 7 by
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Journal Entry 8 by
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Journal Entry 9 by
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Released 5 yrs ago (7/26/2006 UTC) at n/a in RABCK, RABCK -- Controlled Releases WILD RELEASE NOTES:
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Journal Entry 24 by
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Released 4 yrs ago (10/7/2007 UTC) at Blackfriars Pub, Bell St. in Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom WILD RELEASE NOTES:
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