Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

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potentially enormously powerful tool in the transmission of values and appr
modes of behaviour via individual writers and readers communing through the
els' of the late 1970s and early 1980s; while the mixture of generic
in a work sucl~ as To Every Birlh Its Blood is downplayed,
text, as well as in the demonstration and staging ofwhat it is (im)possible for an
to represent and claim authority for in 'other' contexts. In Inore rigorous formul
meone like Boehmer is wishing
about how the use of form and
Attwell (citing Michael Marais) claims that the self-conscious textu differs in kind from tlie others
deconstructions of discourse someone like Coetzee undertakes in his I aspects that differentiate these
authorial responsibility from writer to reader (178); while Parry uch as the social and political conceptualisations that
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
explore-otherness' (quoted 15 1). Thus, Attwell speaks of Coetzee's 'da osed aesthetically-based emphasis essays such as hers claim to be
language of the sublime' as a sign of the latter's 'muted ethical utopianism . leological certainty of the move towards 'better' literature than
utopianism that a~nounts to an atielnpt to work around the denial of reciprocity hese critics assume.
seems entrenched in colonial relationships' (1 77).
In the long run, and despite the post-modern inflection of its covenant
It is ironic, then, that it is usually the less theoretically weighty and stylistically
rous essays that contain the more interesting insights. Walder's article on narrative,
remain sceptical as to how a relationship between writer and reader based
'transfol-mative acts of language' is in essence different in conceptualisation fro~n m
of South African theatre is particularly stimulating and
ns' explorations of gay writing under the States of Emergencies
conservative forms of critical theory taught in South African universitie eception andre-imagining of South African theatre in the United
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
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
process for readers. 'The point may be argued that such a project of ethic al practice. He also provides an interesting critique of Fugard,
made from a 'post-al' position, lays itself open inter alia to s playwright's selective marshalling of the 'universal' and 'local' to
con~radictoriness. 1 criticism of his work. Heyns' readings of Gray, Prinsloo, Galgut el a1 are
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
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
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
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
approach to the hegemony currently dominant in the academy. Boehmer no nebulous formulations contained elsewhere. Walder's positive
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
criticism is still very 111ucl1 one of injunction, where gestures towards opelln his discussion of the former ignores the way in which the apartheid
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
aesthetic conventions to scrutiny and confront literary-political canons in po to censor' by eventually simply banning and killing activists.
mc>de~nist and post-structuralist practice is wclcorne. what this volulnc seems iscussion of gender and storytelling relies only on non-South African
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
ahoat literature a nexv cnllol~ are being put into place with remarkable c more convincing. It would be fascinating, as well, to study Gcina
by ~".~i)one~lts of theories and aesthetics who proclaim themselves as eschewing su
closure. It is also remarkable how often models for this new canon resemble the very 1
S, and other's, use of oral storytelling on SATV at present, in order to see how
ds identity-plus-community-through-storytelling Walder isolates as
of 'great books' earlier radical critics in the country have sought to displace. This uld articulate with the overdetermining nation-building ideologies
evident in Hoelimer's positive evaluation of Mhudi and The St09 of'an sent in the national broadcaster.
Colleran's sketching of the vagaries of the reception of South African theatre
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
f.Llture': as is her praise ofl\idebele, Hcad and Coetzee for their stylistic a
tlre hpa~checl' (sic.) contcxis in which they have had to work. Rut at the same time it
otic') shows that more of this kind ofwork is necessary if South African literature is
ing to evolve a literary culture independent of metropolitan acceptance or rejection;
discf~.nible that such char;tcte~-iqtics arc qualified to certain kinds of'texts, rather th
u~liversally applied. For example, thc ending in .lzi(y's Peo,~le is argued away
this regard further discussion of the way in which the revolutionaly aspects of the
uth African struggle have been appropriated (for instance as part of a black 'civil
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