Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams, Review – Part 1

The first time I read “Mine Boy” by Peter Abrahams, it was one of the English Literature texts at high school. My enduring memory was the love triangle between Xuma, Eliza and Maisy. Re-reading as an adult, there are other dimensions to the book that are fascinating. I start this review with an introduction to the main characters.

The Main Characters

Leah is the most significant character in the book. Our first encounter with her was in the very first page. She was the head of a very strange household at Malay Camp, a household that seemed not to believe in anything and without any kind of tie. Xuma, the Mine Boy, described Leah as “tall and big, with heavy hips and sharp eyes that can see through a man”. Those sharp eyes saw through Xuma, a complete stranger, and within minutes, assessed his character and judged him worthy of joining her household. The book revolved around Xuma, the mine boy. Xuma arrived at Leah’s house at 3.00am in the morning, “thirsty, hungry and exhausted”. Leah perceived a man with “deep and husky voice, big and strong”. He had travelled from the Northern part of South Africa to look for work. Leah welcomed him in, thereby setting up a trail of event that would change Xuma from a young man fighting for survival, into a man who championed the cause of other mine boys. The next big character in the book was Eliza, the teacher. Unlike Xuma and Leah, Eliza was well educated. Later in the book, Paddy who never met Eliza but heard about her from Xuma, described Eliza as a social animal. Xuma and Eliza fell in love but Xuma did not meet Eliza’s expectations. Eliza was Leah’s niece and she was known in Leah’s household as the one who “wants the things of the white people”. Eliza loved Xuma but there was a snag: he was not educated. She preferred a man who was educated, smoked, drove a car and wore suits everyday. In her own words: “inside me there is something wrong and it is because I want the things of the white people and go where they go and do the things they do and I am black. Inside I am not black and I do not want to be a black person”. Eliza knew her attitude to Xuma hurt him but she was helpless. She even asked Xuma to beat her and hate her but Xuma was filled with lover for her.In big contrast to Eliza is Maisy, a happy woman whose “laughter rang out loud and hoarse and friendly”, a woman who waved and smiled at strangers in the street. Maisy was the third person in the love triangle. She was in love with Xuma but Xuma was too obsessed with Eliza whom he described as a disease in his blood. It was Maisy who lifted up Xuma’s spirit each time Eliza fired a poisonous arrow into his heart of love. Even in the presence of Maisy, Xuma continued to wish his happiness was coming from Eliza.

The Author, Peter Abrahams

It is always important to know more about the author as it helps to put the story in perspective. Abraham’s father was Ethiopian and his mother was mixed race. Abrahams was born in Vrededorp. The book is set in Malay Camp, Vrededorp. After his father passed away, Abrahams was sent to live in Elsburg, a rural town in Gauteng Province located in the northern part of South Africa. It is possible that Abrahams drew on his experiences in Elsburg to construct the character of Xuma and part of the plot.

The Book

Leah believed black people needed power and also that money is power. Her business was selling beer illegally to black and mixed race people in Malay Camp. To be able to evade arrest, she paid informers in the police. Xuma was perplexed that Leah, who was kind to a complete stranger like him, did not tell the other black people when the police came to raid. Yet, when they were arrested, she contributed money to help towards their legal cost. Leah, a pragmatist would reply that if the police came to raid and they didn’t catch anybody, they would know that there was a leak.

Xuma was also puzzled by the relationship between “Daddy”, one of the resident of Leah’s household who was always drunk, and Leah. Why did Leah, such a strong and purposeful person, respected such a man, he wondered. One day, another resident of the household, Ma Plank, who loved Daddy, explained that Daddy raised Leah and used to be a respected man in Malay Camp to whom everybody looked up to. Daddy in his present plight showed what that strange place called the “city” did to men, especially, when they realized that no matter how hard they worked, they are not making a difference. Many resorted to the bottle to cope with live under apartheid. A good illustration of this problem was JP Williamson, one of the “boss boys” in the mines of South Africa. It was Johannes who used his connections to secure a “boss boy” role for Xuma in the mines. At the weekend when Johannes was drunk, he shouted ” I am JP Williamson and I will crush any sonofab***h. On a weekday, he is subservient to his masters in the slums, and as meek as a mouse.

On his first day at the mines, Xuma cleared the heap of sand dug up from the mines. However the harder he worked, the higher the pile of sand grew. His heart sank. He was frightened by:

The seeing of nothing for a man’s work. The mocking of a man by the sand that was always wet and warm; by the mine dump that would not grow, by the hard eyes of the white man who told them to hurry up.

This captured the intolerable and inhuman condition of work in the South African mines; the harshness of the city where the indigenous people, having been dehumanized, were treated as if they were machines. It was a picture of life under apartheid and colonialism, where there was a colour bar and no matter how hard you work, certain things were unattainable.

How did the miners cope with this? Nana, an experienced miner described the process of adaptation:

It is hard when you are new, but it is not so bad. With a new one it is thus: First there is a great fear, fear for your work and there is nothing to see for it. And you look and you look and the more you look, the more there is nothing to see. This brings fear. But tomorrow, you think, well, there will be nothing to look for and you do not look so much. The fear is less then. And the day after you look even less, and after that, even less, and in the end you do not look at all. Then, all the fears go.

This is not only true of the mines but of the plight of majority of blacks and mixed race people in apartheid South Africa. To me, this is an imagery of somebody or a group of people seeing a bad situation and wanting to change it. However after toiling and toiling and not seeing any improvement, people resign themselves to the situation and adjust to the new normal. This problem exists in virtually every country today.

Eliza and Xuma represented two different reactions to apartheid. Xuma was conditioned to survive and accept that certain things were for the white people while others were for black people. He considered black and white as mutually exclusive sets. Xuma believed the desire of Eliza to have the things of the white people was futile. Eliza on the other hand, probably due to her education and exposure, wanted the “things of the white people”. Unfortunately, her desire felt like a betrayal of her own people (Leah, her aunt who brought her up, Xuma, the man who love her), therefore, she was laden with guilt. There is no doubt what she experienced were depression bouts.

Xuma resented white people because he felt they were the source of Eliza’s confusion. To avoid Eliza, he kept away from Malay Camp. He was thriving in the mines and was a “boss boy”. A boss boy was a black or mixed race man who led, motivated and supervised a cohort of miners. Xuma did the job well and his “white man” (his boss) had nothing to do, apart from sitting in the shade. Paddy (his boss), an Irishman, wanted to be friends with Xuma but Xuma did not believe it was possible for whites and blacks to be friends.

Look out for the concluding part of the review to see how the journey of Xuma ended.