Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

Alex la (Yurna 3 Polilics and Aesthe bzllczni Mkhize
(Coetzee 197 1 :6). The writer, Coetzee correctly suggests, 'should not choose
tradition at random, but rather choose it with some sense of social implications for
choice' (Coetzee 197 1 :6). This is precisely what La Guma is doing, Coetzee p
in his brief but illuminating examination of A Walk in the Night in which
convincingly shows that this novel 'exemplifies a conception of literature radic
different from Nkosi's' (Coetzee 1971 :7). According to Coetzee, La Guma's
informed by a critical realist tradition which is exeinplified in La Guma's
depiction of the Coloured situation and the gesture towards 'potentialities for h
action' (Coetzee 1971: 11,IO) as captured in the sy~nbolisln of the 'dawn
situation. Coetzee continues this line of argument in another essay, Man's F
Novels of Alex la Gurna'. David Attwell (1993:12) captures Coetze
argument thus:
ument seems to have overlooked the fact
his and other stories is indicative of
ism. Moreover, one wonders at the
ar story by La Guma! The same
(the documentation of minute details) is used much more effectively in A
e Night, which Ndebele does not make reference to because, one suspects, it
question the validity ofhis argument with regard to La Guma.
This debate invokes the 1930s debates between Lukacs and Brecht amongst
ers which were triggered oflby Lukhcs's attack on Bloch's e~~ressionisrn". In the
a1 version of the debate it would seem that Nkosi subscribes to Brecht's argument in
the use of the experimental line ofmodernism is seen as coinpatible with
ealistic aesthetic. For example, Nkosi (1979:223) has a lot of praise for Bloke
[I] 'Man's Fate in the Novels of Alex IaGuma' Coctzce goes on to argue. via
George Lukacs's studies of realism, that La Guma is a critical realist who
politicizes his art by gesturing toward a revolutionary transformation of
liistoly encoded in characterization and symbolism: thus, J,a Gulna arrives
at liar]-ative solutions that have an implicitly progressive social
Iierrueneutic.
isane's Blame Me On Hislory because it 'shows a dedication to a superior form of
ich succeeds partly because the author is alive to the fact that reality itself is
to the process of Time as an orderly sequence of events'. Coetzee, it has been
s Lukacs in his defence of La Gurna's oeuvre. Unlike Nkosi, who
s towards modernism, Ndebele does not seem to be suggesting that
should dispense with the realist tradition per se; instead, he postulates a
a realist aesthetic in terms ofwhich individual characters in a text grapple with
In a word, then, ],a Gunla is a social realist who is conscious of the ideologi
implications ofworking within this tl-adition.
Seventeen years after the publication of Nkosi's essay, this debate was tak
up by Njabulo Ndebele. Following Nkosi, Ndebele argued in 'Turkish Tales and
Thoughts on South African Fiction', a11 essay that has since become seminal in
African critical debates, that 'what we have (in South African black iiction) is cr
internal' contradictions of their identity. Michael Vaughan (1 990: 194),
, has show11 how Ndebele's own fictional work, Fools and other .storie.r., is
itten in the realist tradition but is also targeted at the development of an
lectual leadership'. La Guma's project, on the contrary, was directed elsewhere.
is LaGuma on this point:
writing's allnost obsessive elnulation of journalism' (Ndebele 199 1 :45). Having read South African literature, I discovered that nothing satisfactory
apparently heavy reliance on an obsessive docurnentation of oppression has, accordi~lg or worthwhile from my point of view had been written about the arca from
to Ndebele, inevitably led to the production of an aesthetic of 'anticipated su~faces which 1 sprang. So1 think there was a conscious effort on my part to place on
rather than one of processes'. an art which lacks the potential for a transfo~
impact on 111e reader's consciousness because it is grounded on political
SLIC~I kind of fiction thrives on an aesthetic effect based on 'identifi
record the life in the poor areas. working class areas, and perhaps for that
reason most of 11iy work is centred around that community and life (La
Gullla 199 1 :9).
'1-ecognition' (Nriebele 1gC)1 :35), Ndebele argues. Ndebele takes debate lnu
furttier in his later essay, 'The Rediscovery of the Ordinary', suggesting that write
sl~ould 'rediscover the ordi11at-y' by exploring a wide range of hurnan experience,
thoreby avoiding 'the representation of'the spectacle' (Ndebele 199 1:37) as ernbod'
in narratives which are preoccupied with a documentation of oppressi
Rediscovering the ordinary, it turns out, also includcs an effective use ofsubtlety so t
the reader's imaginative faculty is challenged and, in this way, the transformation o
hisll~erco~~sciousness is assured.
Curiously. Ndehele provides [,a Chrna's story 'Coffee for the Road' as an
Gulna here clearly identifies himself with, and regards his poi111 of view as
nsistent with, that of the working class: in aword, his ambition was to create a South
can working class (proletarian) literature-at least in terms of content (the question
hetherhe also had the working class as his virtual readership is another matter). It is
us no surprise that in line with his attempt to 'put on record' the lives of the poor
working classes, La Gurna perceives his role as a writer and his 'finction as that of an
historian ofthe people' (La Guma 199 1 :2 1). It should be clear, then, that the ideological
exalnple of the 'spectacular' and cites amongst orher things, 'the co-rnplete extcriori
ofeveiything', 'tho dramatic contl-asts all over the story' and the 'intensifying device " For this debate see Aesthetics and Po1itic.s (1971). A surn~~iary of these debates is also
hyphenated adjectives' as pointers to the 'spectacle' in this story (Ndebele 199 1 :4
There are no grounds to doubt the persuasiveness of Ndcbele's argu~nent in this rega
provided in Johnson's Mclusist Aesthetics (1984). I,unn's Marsi.sn~ cind Morlerni.sriz (1 982),
Bisztray's Mcle~lst A4odeEel.r ofLltercz13i (1978) anci Raliianujaln's Qi~esl fur Reconc~liaiioul ( 1993).