Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

inconsistencies which lie behind the ritualistic formality and orderlines
force. Moleko's brutal murder is therefore partly attributable to his own failure to g
tlie inhumanity and sheer callousness of his enemies--Afrikaners who held se
positions in the South African police force. Moleko never realises, until it is too
that one cannot expect to be treated with justice and fairness by an institution in w
those values are hardly recognised.
After reading the blurb of Miles' novel, my immediate reaction was that
was just another story of a white man with powerwho ill-treats and, ulti~nately, mur
a junior black colleague whom lie considered to be 'cheeky'. However, aft
few of the book's short chapters, I realised that I was dealing with something d
was iinpressed not only by Miles' attempts to re-create, as authelltically as
Rook Rev~ew ni Ngvllenya
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Moleko's ill-fated life, but also by the thoroughly fascinating and ingenious manner
which the story is uan-ated. Written in the conventional metafictional mode,
novel constantly reminds the reader of its process of construction as well as its
This Day and Age
status as 'history' and 'fiction'. The writer is acharacter in his own story which has
piececl together from Moleko's lawyers, friends, relatives and colleagues.
focus of the book's chapters falls, alternately, on Moleko's life-history and
writer's atte~npts to weave together various aspects of Moleko's short life. Town: David Philip, 1992. 267 pp.
in creating vignettes of Moleko the count~y boy, the enthus
policeman, the family man devoted to his wife and son, and ofso~neone who is slo
learning to distinguish between illusion and reality in the conundrum of South Afric
politics of the 1980s. 'I'hus the research which went into the writing of the book
skilfully integrated with the narrative of Moieko's life. The writer's relationship w University of Durban-Westville
his character is both fascinating and curious, as exemplified in the following remarks
the omniscietlt narrator: W~ere yesterday. that is [he happy days of Enlightenment. only
the despotic power of the monarch had seerned to stand between
1E I'm to makc so~netliing out of all this. lie thought. then he and 1 will
man and his Freedom to act O\Jicol I 992:2).
llavc to be in it togctl~cr: the policeman and the writcr, the hlackmart and
thc \?il~ite. cacli confineci to his own tcrrito~y. yet both caught up in the
.ja\vs oia prcdatoty system k~hcrc only tile hlind have vision LX ti-ccdom
of'~iiovc~neiit ... liis liisrory is 1114. story: liis stoiy, irly af'fliction (1 7).
-li:xiuaI selflrcllexivity, authorial intervention and constant changes iri n
of view arc not siluply a manifes~ation of Miles' fascination with postmodern
nan-ative strategies, but a realistic demonstration of the difficulties faci
attelnpts to paint a relatively well-rounded portrait of a Inan whose life-
be gleaned from police records, lawyers' files and uncertain oral testimonies. First the lightning slashed at the earth when she ran until it struck alld
Miles' book has ensured.that the sad fate of Richard Motasi she changed into a frog. Then the wind carne in a rush and caugllt ui, tlic
name) will not be consigned to the dustbin of history as his murderers wanted it to frog blousing it higher and higher until it turned to dust (jVicol 1992: 130.
hut will he read by ~niliions of readers world-wide. Thns a sto~y of a 'Mr
wilt? paiict~vith his life in llis fight forjustice and personal vindication has become part Given these characteristics, Nicol's novel can also be categorised as a lnagic
our litcrar!,-historical heritage. Although it may seem thal Dcqfknin,? Silen t text-a text that uses myth and legend in its constr~~ction to challenge earlier
unnecessarily ilaunts its stylistic eclecticism as well as its status as a discursi of realism. Problems of categorisation inultiply when we consider that lnagic
const~uct iike no st postmode~nist novels, perhaps these are the most el~l'ective narrati may denote a pal-ticular strain of the conte~nporaly movement covered by
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