Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

Alex la Cf~~ma k Politics and Aesthet
function which La Guma assigns to literature is radically different from the ideolo
function that Ndebele's realist project envisages''. La Guma's aesthetic is
approached through the work of Lukacs.
the individual existence [of characters] ... their 'ontological being' ... cannot
be distinguished from their social and Ilistorical environment. Their human
significance, their specific individuality cannot be separated from the
context in which they were created (LukBcs 1963: 19).
In Lukacs's tenns, then, the cornerstone of realism is the acknowledgement
b~llrnni Mlchize
in Lukacs's aesthetics of realism, in terms of which individuals are seen as 'social un
who are actively involved in the socio-historical forces that shape their future.
Lukacs's own words: viet connection
What characterizes the type is the convergence and intersection of all the
dominant aspects of that dynamic unity through which genuine literature
reflects life in a vital and contradictory unity all the most social. moral and
spiritual contradictions of a time (Lukhcs 1978:78).
In short, a socio-historical perspective and a broad readership willing to
conscientised are the necessary conditions for the realisation ofrealism.
developing sense of revolt which was fermenting all the time within the
La Guina's South African realism fit into metropolitan realist forms?
has articulated this belief in the potentiality of fiction to capture the quality of'
man life in its profundity. This view is epitomised in the often quoted statement made
148 149
ate literature from life, from human experience and hurnan aspirations' (La Gu~na