Patrick Cullinan is an established poet, widely anthologised and with seven collections of verse to his name. Along with a biography of the 18th-century traveller, Robert Uacob Gordon published in 1992, Matrix is Cullinan’s second venture into prose and his first into fiction.
The book is a rites of passage tale about a young boy, Tom Hanrahan, growing up in Johannesburg before and during the war. Like all adolescents, Tom suffers agonies of self-doubt and confusion as he moves slowly towards maturity. His growing pains, both physical and psychological, are persuasively conveyed in a clear, unpretentious style, often reflecting in its imagery Cullinan’s vocation as poet.
Though a work of fiction, one feels strongly that Matrix is at least partly a personal memoir of childhood filtered through an adult sensibility. This is no bad thing, however, as it gives to the narrative an effect of felt experience and to the settings a powerful sense of place.
As one might expect from the ambiguous and evocative title, Tom’s mother features large. The book opens with the very young Tom living almost entirely ”in her presence”.
While his world is expanding her presence becomes more diffused, but at the end, when the extraordinarily discerning 13-year-old is about to enter a new and more challenging phase of his life, his mother’s presence — much changed as it is — again predominates.
The story is also about another meaning of ”matrix”, exploring the forces that mould character and the influences that shape choice. Tom is from a privileged background but, as David Attwell points out in a cover note, ”suffering has no colour or class” and this makes his story ”as important as any other, in our current obsession with memory in South African fiction”.
And indeed this story does have a resonance beyond its immediate participants. The description of bullying at school, for instance, has an awful familiarity, only the detail varying from situation to situation. In this case the victim is a Jew who naively believes his tormentors when a truce is called. The lull makes the sudden murderous assault by six bigger boys on a smaller one all the more shocking.
One knows from this ugly incident that the ringleader, Bok, will grow up to be just like the mindless ruffian of a policeman, who in a later scene slaps a young black man around. There is a nasty déjàvu about this episode that occurs ”in full view of everyone at the house” and which is the prelude to a much more savage beating.
Everything to do with Tom’s preparatory school is wonderfully presented. From the ”meaty” matron and her pleasure in inflicting petty humiliations, to the pompous headmaster and his empire of staff and boys, the cast of characters springs vividly to life. The atmosphere of this self-engrossed, enclosed world is also palpable.
There are many other striking scenes in the book, including a fishing trip during which Tom’s relationship with his father begins to shift. His first encounter with love is another effective scene: Tom’s mood — ”happy, excited and vague” — is immediately recognised by his mother who is amazed and saddened at this sudden jumping of ”the gap between innocence and flagrant desire”.
This book grew on me as I read it and certainly evoked some nostalgic moments. The writing is leisurely but gathers momentum as it moves towards its final, emotionally charged closing section and its profoundly moving last paragraph.