Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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kfi-.Vlrig .Toilth /lfi elwyn Sole<br />
potentially enormously powerful tool in the transmission of values and appr<br />
modes of behaviour via individual writers and readers communing through the<br />
els' of the late 1970s and early 1980s; while the mixture of generic<br />
in a work sucl~ as To Every Birlh Its Blood is downplayed,<br />
text, as well as in the demonstration and staging ofwhat it is (im)possible for an<br />
to represent and claim authority for in 'other' contexts. In Inore rigorous formul<br />
meone like Boehmer is wishing<br />
about how the use of form and<br />
Attwell (citing Michael Marais) claims that the self-conscious textu differs in kind from tlie others<br />
deconstructions of discourse someone like Coetzee undertakes in his I aspects that differentiate these<br />
authorial responsibility from writer to reader (178); while Parry uch as the social and political conceptualisations that<br />
suggestion that Coetzee's fiction 'engage(s) with-to stage, confro le them. If this is a general phenomenon, which I suspect it is, it renders<br />
explore-otherness' (quoted 15 1). Thus, Attwell speaks of Coetzee's 'da osed aesthetically-based emphasis essays such as hers claim to be<br />
language of the sublime' as a sign of the latter's 'muted ethical utopianism . leological certainty of the move towards 'better' literature than<br />
utopianism that a~nounts to an atielnpt to work around the denial of reciprocity hese critics assume.<br />
seems entrenched in colonial relationships' (1 77).<br />
In the long run, and despite the post-modern inflection of its covenant<br />
It is ironic, then, that it is usually the less theoretically weighty and stylistically<br />
rous essays that contain the more interesting insights. Walder's article on narrative,<br />
remain sceptical as to how a relationship between writer and reader based<br />
'transfol-mative acts of language' is in essence different in conceptualisation fro~n m<br />
of South African theatre is particularly stimulating and<br />
ns' explorations of gay writing under the States of Emergencies<br />
conservative forms of critical theory taught in South African universitie eception andre-imagining of South African theatre in the United<br />
manner analogous to-but paradig~natically different from-Ndebele, wh en up a number of fascinating areas for further study. Walder asks a number of<br />
suggested here is that literature can serve as apowerful modelling tool a questions about the taxonomy ofthe new South Afi-ican State, and its relation<br />
process for readers. 'The point may be argued that such a project of ethic al practice. He also provides an interesting critique of Fugard,<br />
made from a 'post-al' position, lays itself open inter alia to s playwright's selective marshalling of the 'universal' and 'local' to<br />
con~radictoriness. 1 criticism of his work. Heyns' readings of Gray, Prinsloo, Galgut el a1 are<br />
It is syrnptornatic in many of these essays that certain lynchpin terms of a ne iscussion of the claims that gay oppression is analogous to and<br />
01-thodoxy (such as 'sto~ytelling', 'the local' and 'the ordinary') are not interrogated le with black oppression (a debate similar to one that already exists<br />
all: for these are the key terrns of a new dispensation, to be naluralised and narcotise e point. Indeed, what this raises is the precise nature of the<br />
One finally colnes away fro111 this volume with the sense of a general1 the personal and political in a concrete situation, and this is refreshing<br />
approach to the hegemony currently dominant in the academy. Boehmer no nebulous formulations contained elsewhere. Walder's positive<br />
Morphet has in his 1990 Pretexts article) that the language of South African lit e 'oral' and 'storytelling7 however seemed to me slightly overblown: it<br />
criticism is still very 111ucl1 one of injunction, where gestures towards opelln his discussion of the former ignores the way in which the apartheid<br />
011 idcologica] proclivities. In light of this, while the desire to subject c o~ ties bypassed the fact that (in Mzainane's words in New Classic in 1977) 'the<br />
aesthetic conventions to scrutiny and confront literary-political canons in po to censor' by eventually simply banning and killing activists.<br />
mc>de~nist and post-structuralist practice is wclcorne. what this volulnc seems iscussion of gender and storytelling relies only on non-South African<br />
indicate---a1id the!-e is evjdellce elsc\vl?ese as well-----is that a new set of acterisation of the circularity of women's stories: some reference to<br />
ahoat literature a nexv cnllol~ are being put into place with remarkable c more convincing. It would be fascinating, as well, to study Gcina<br />
by ~".~i)one~lts of theories and aesthetics who proclaim themselves as eschewing su<br />
closure. It is also remarkable how often models for this new canon resemble the very 1<br />
S, and other's, use of oral storytelling on SATV at present, in order to see how<br />
ds identity-plus-community-through-storytelling Walder isolates as<br />
of 'great books' earlier radical critics in the country have sought to displace. This uld articulate with the overdetermining nation-building ideologies<br />
evident in Hoelimer's positive evaluation of Mhudi and The St09 of'an sent in the national broadcaster.<br />
Colleran's sketching of the vagaries of the reception of South African theatre<br />
and hesitation of their endings and their authors' desire 'not to fix a sing he United States (where it fluctuates between being characterised as 'familiar' and<br />
f.Llture': as is her praise ofl\idebele, Hcad and Coetzee for their stylistic a<br />
tlre hpa~checl' (sic.) contcxis in which they have had to work. Rut at the same time it<br />
otic') shows that more of this kind ofwork is necessary if South African literature is<br />
ing to evolve a literary culture independent of metropolitan acceptance or rejection;<br />
discf~.nible that such char;tcte~-iqtics arc qualified to certain kinds of'texts, rather th<br />
u~liversally applied. For example, thc ending in .lzi(y's Peo,~le is argued away<br />
this regard further discussion of the way in which the revolutionaly aspects of the<br />
uth African struggle have been appropriated (for instance as part of a black 'civil<br />
beloilging to diff'crcnt, less propitious, hesitation, as are thc lacunae a hts struggle') is essential. Barnard's semiotic examination of the literature of the