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| Gathering blue
by Lois Lowry | |
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Summary
| Never before has Gordimer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, published such a comprehensive collection of her nonfiction. Telling Tales represents the full span of her works in that field—from the twilight of white rule in South Africa to the fight to overthrow the apartheid regime, and most recently, her role over the past seven years in confronting the contemporary phenomena of violence and the dangers of HIV. The range of this book is staggering, and the work in totality celebrates the lively perseverance of the life-loving individual in the face of political tumult, then the onslaught of a globalized world. The abiding passionate spirit that informs â€�A South African Childhood,â€� a youthful autobiographical piece published in The New Yorker in 1954, can be found in each of the book’s ninety-one pieces that span a period of fifty-five years. Returning to a lifetime of nonfiction work has become an extraordinary experience for Gordimer. She takes from one of her revered great writers, Albert Camus, the conviction that the writer is a â€�responsible human beingâ€� attuned not alone to dedication to the creation of fiction but to the political vortex that inevitably encompasses twentieth- and twenty-first-century life. Born in 1923, Gordimer, who as a child was ambitious to become a ballet dancer, was recognized at fifteen as a writing prodigy. Her sensibility was as much shaped by wide reading as it was to eye-opening sight, passing on her way to school the grim labor compounds where black gold miners lived. These twin decisives—literature and politics—infuse the book, which includes historic accounts of the political atmosphere, firsthand, after the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the Soweto uprising of 1976, as well as incisive close-up portraits of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, among others. Gordimer revisits the eternally relevant legacies of Tolstoy, Proust, and Flaubert, and engages vigorously with contemporaries like Susan Sontag, Octavio Paz, and Edward Said. But some of her most sensuous writing comes in her travelogues, where the politics of Africa blend seamlessly with its awe-inspiring nature—including spectacular recollections of childhood holidays beside South Africa’s coast of the Indian Ocean and a riveting account of her journey the length of the Congo River in the wake of Conrad. Gordimer’s body of work is an extraordinary vision of the world that harks back to the sensibilities—political, moral, and social—of Dickens and Tolstoy, but with a decidedly vivid contemporary consciousness. Telling Times becomes both a literary exploration and extraordinary document of social and political history in our times. | |
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Characters
| Attributes | Homeless | |
| Orphan | |
| Mother is deceased; born with a deformed leg; gifted weaver; | |
Genre
| Young adult fiction | |
| Science fiction | |
| Fantasy
--Magic | |
Topics
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Never before has Gordimer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, published such a comprehensive collection of her nonfiction. Telling Tales represents the full span of her works in that field—from the twilight of white rule in South Africa to the fight to overthrow the apartheid regime, and most recently, her role over the past seven years in confronting the contemporary phenomena of violence and the dangers of HIV. The range of this book is staggering, and the work in totality celebrates the lively perseverance of the life-loving individual in the face of political tumult, then the onslaught of a globalized world. The abiding passionate spirit that informs â€�A South African Childhood,â€� a youthful autobiographical piece published in The New Yorker in 1954, can be found in each of the book’s ninety-one pieces that span a period of fifty-five years. Returning to a lifetime of nonfiction work has become an extraordinary experience for Gordimer. She takes from one of her revered great writers, Albert Camus, the conviction that the writer is a â€�responsible human beingâ€� attuned not alone to dedication to the creation of fiction but to the political vortex that inevitably encompasses twentieth- and twenty-first-century life. Born in 1923, Gordimer, who as a child was ambitious to become a ballet dancer, was recognized at fifteen as a writing prodigy. Her sensibility was as much shaped by wide reading as it was to eye-opening sight, passing on her way to school the grim labor compounds where black gold miners lived. These twin decisives—literature and politics—infuse the book, which includes historic accounts of the political atmosphere, firsthand, after the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the Soweto uprising of 1976, as well as incisive close-up portraits of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, among others. Gordimer revisits the eternally relevant legacies of Tolstoy, Proust, and Flaubert, and engages vigorously with contemporaries like Susan Sontag, Octavio Paz, and Edward Said. But some of her most sensuous writing comes in her travelogues, where the politics of Africa blend seamlessly with its awe-inspiring nature—including spectacular recollections of childhood holidays beside South Africa’s coast of the Indian Ocean and a riveting account of her journey the length of the Congo River in the wake of Conrad. Gordimer’s body of work is an extraordinary vision of the world that harks back to the sensibilities—political, moral, and social—of Dickens and Tolstoy, but with a decidedly vivid contemporary consciousness. Telling Times becomes both a literary exploration and extraordinary document of social and political history in our times.
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Nobel laureate Gordimer believes that within the next century a printed book will be ignored as simply "a stone tablet," and she is "relieved to know" that she "won't be around" to witness this world. The reading and writing of books has been Gordimer's universe for nearly 80 years, and this collection of her nonfiction is a brilliant example of the power of the written word. This massive volume includes essays, letters, and speeches and reflects the continuing themes of her life-being a white South African, fighting apartheid, resisting censorship, and promoting writers and writing. Other essays explore the physical and material landscape of South Africa, such as the gold mining towns, African pots, and coal dumps, while her most recent work concerns the challenge of voter education, the effects of globalization, and the scourge of AIDS. VERDICT Pieces are grouped by the decade in which they were written and include the date of publication but not a complete bibliographic citation-a disappointing omission. An introduction by the author would have been useful; however, Gordimer fans as well as readers interested in literature, literary criticism, and South Africa will still value this collection. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/10.]-Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
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Politics and literature intersect in this comprehensive-sometimes too comprehensive-collection of nonfiction writings by the Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist and antiapartheid activist. Covering five decades, these short pieces run the gamut: autobiographical sketches; chiaroscuroed travelogues that wander from the Congo to Cairo; literary essays on novelists from Tolstoy to Chinua Achebe and Philip Roth; profiles of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu; op-eds on issues like AIDS and water shortages; the odd dispatch from the Cannes film festival and a retrospective on the 20th century. At the vital core of the volume are Gordimer's gripping reports from the battle against apartheid, in which she dissects the hypocrisy and brutality of South African racism and ponders her responsibility as a white liberal "minority within the minority." The more polished of these pieces brim with subtle insights and evocative landscapes and characterizations. Others, culled from after-dinner speeches, letters, and other odds and ends, have a tossed-off feel; the tome is large enough to require and reward judicious browsing. At its best, Gordimer's writing is both consummately artful and deeply engaged; she shows us that "the truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is." (June) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
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In this landmark collection of Nobel laureate Gordimer's assured and historic nonfiction--nearly 100 essays spanning 60 years the clarity of her voice and the deep impress of her observations make for high-voltage reading. The daughter of Jewish European immigrants to South Africa, Gordimer, born in 1923, has been a keen and candid, brilliant and artistic witness to her country's struggle toward racial equality and justice. She writes beautifully of common humanity ; chronicles the sacrifices of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and scores of less-heralded heroes; and explores with great insight and passion the crucial symbiosis between politics and literature. As one of many banned authors, she condemns censorship and declares, All that a writer can do, as a writer, is to go on writing the truth as he sees it. Which she does in Letter from Soweto, a protest against the violent crushing of the 1976 black-student uprising; Living in the Interregnum, a clarion 1982 inquiry into the role of whites opposed to apartheid; the vivid and frank Five Years into Freedom, written in 1999; and into the 2000s, when Gordimer writes of AIDS, the water crisis, and, as always, the unkillable word. Gordimer's sublimely literary nonfiction of conscience is at once personal and magisterial.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
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