Representing Dissention: Riot, Rebellion and Resistance in the South African Novel
by JA Kearney
(Unisa)
Given the seemingly obvious connection between fiction, history and politics, it is surprising that relatively little of substance has been written on how history is articulated in “popular” (as opposed to “literary”) South African fiction.
Granted, there has been lots of highly intelligent critical work done on our classic authors, on politics, literary technique, among others — often from a bedazzling series of perspectives. Yet, with the notable exception of David Maughan-Brown’s brilliant critique of Wilbur Smith’s misuse of history in Rage, JA Kearney’s book is the first I’ve encountered that tries to take history within “popular” as well as “literary” fiction seriously.
Kearney’s project spans roughly the first half of 20th-century South African history. He shows how such incidents as the Bambatha Rebellion, labour militancy, the Rand Revolt, rising black resistance and the 1950s defiance campaign are treated by South African novelists.
Fiction mirrors the ideological strains and currents within society, and in his book Kearney shows how a number of these currents are played out through characters, plot and description of actual or fictionalised historical events.
Since popular fiction tends to be driven as much by markets as by some notion of “art”, it it not surprising that much South African English fiction mirrors the ideas and prejudices of its potential readership: socially conservative, anti-leftwing, moving along a spectrum from outrightly racist to mildly patronising on matters of race (including, in many authors, attitudes to Afrikaners). Kearney highlights these themes, pointing to how these values subtly and often not so subtly distort history.
In short, even among the more “liberal” writers there is an ideological undercurrent that, however uneasily, seeks to preserve the status quo. This, it should be noted, starts to change in some of the writings of the 1950s.
Kearney’s own stance is clear: he supports what he sometimes calls a “utopian” vision of a genuinely liberal-humanist democratic South Africa. If (I hope when) he continues his examination beyond the 1950s, I wonder how this stance might inform later South African fiction, particularly that of authors who openly supported armed resistance or whose thought was informed more explicitly by Marxism. And how would his standpoint interrogate the complex post-apartheid mentality that treats liberal humanism with varying degrees of scorn while, ironically, embracing economic neo-liberalism?
Kearney’s rather quirky style of referencing (he tends to use author abbreviations and page numbers) is deeply confusing, a nuisance and a distraction. Overall, however, this is a very impressive piece of work. The author draws interesting parallels between history and literature, parallels that can be of use both to historians and literary scholars.