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Absolution
A bold and exciting literary novel set in South Africa that contemplates the elusive line between truth and self-perception.Ambitious and assured, Absolution propels the reader to the final page in a drive to discover the secrets and truths at its core. How or why did a young antiapartheid activist disappear twenty years earlier? How does that event link the present-day characters? And how does it explain the choices they have made or the lies they may tell themselves?Absolution is a big-idea novel about the pitfalls of memory, the ramifications of censorship, and the ways we are silently complicit in the problems around us. It’s also a devastating, intimate, and stunningly woven story. Told in shifting perspectives, it centers on the mysterious character of Clare Wald, a controversial South African writer of great fame, haunted by the memories of a sister she fears she betrayed to her death and a daughter she fears she abandoned. Clare comes to learn that in this conflict the dead do not stay buried, and the missing return in other forms—such as the child witness of her daughter’s last days who has reappeared twenty years later as Clare’s official biographer, prompting an unraveling of history and a search for forgiveness. Part literary thriller, part meditation on the responsibility of the individual under totalitarianism, this is a masterpiece of rich, complicated characters and narration that captures the reader and does not let go.
393 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
65 people are currently reading
1956 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Flanery
20 books78 followersPatrick Flanery was born in California in 1975 and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. After earning a BFA in Film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts he worked for three years in the film industry before moving to the UK, where he completed a doctorate in Twentieth-Century English Literature at the University of Oxford. As well as publishing scholarly articles on British and South African literature and film in a number of academic journals, he has written for Slightly Foxed and The Times Literary Supplement. He lives in London.
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June 30, 2020
Here is a book that is special. It is the best book I have read about apartheid in South Africa. It covers a period both during apartheid and post-apartheid. It is a book about the consequences of apartheid and its affect on South African people. The focus is more on Whites than on Blacks, on the haves over the have-nots. You might as well know this before you begin.
The two central characters are white. One is an accomplished, popular, elderly South African author held in high esteem. This is Clare Wald. She is burdened by guilt—she regrets or at least questions her own past actions. She is a mother of a daughter and son. She is a divorced wife, living now with her longtime friend, an employed black assistant named Marie. They live in a secure, heavily guarded and alarmed, gated community near Cape Town. The second character has been hired by Clare’s publisher to write her biography. His name is Sam. There is a past connection between them. Of this they do not speak. Sam writes the biography. Clare is writing a book of fiction. It is this that she states, but it is in fact a mix of history, essays and autobiography. It’s title? Absolution, which is of course the title of this book too.
What is true and what is false? What is fact and what is fiction? Is there one truth to history or can there be several? Does there exist one truth, a truth valid for all? These are questions the book poses, the background being the apartheid and its fall.
A little history, a little background is helpful tp know. During the 1980s in South Africa, the military contingent of the African National Congress (the ANC) was active. Anti-apartheid guerrillas dynamited fuel depots. Car bombs wreaked havoc in city centers. Violence was rife. The MK, the ANC’s guerilla force, were killing without restraint. For the three years prior to him being sentenced to life-in-prison, Nelson Mandela was its commander-in-chief. The white, supremist government labelled all such actions as terrorism. Retaliations and reprisals followed one after the other. In 1990, released from prison, Mandela continued to see the MK as a necessity, a means by which one could combat the injustice and violence of apartheid. In 1994, South Africa became a democracy, with Nelson Mandela its elected president. It was this year, the first fully multi-racial democratic election was held. The transfer of power was said to be peaceful and orderly. Could this have been possible? A deal was made—punishment of atrocities committed on either side was not to occur. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. Both the supporters and opponents of apartheid went before the commission, openly declared past actions and asked for amnesty, i.e. immunity from prosecution for political crimes committed during the apartheid. The commission’s purpose was not to dispense justice. Its purpose was to document a collective historical truth of the past and to unite the people of the country. Although a praiseworthy goal, the feasibility of success was minimal. With no way of judging the validity of that said, since so many of those who did know had been killed, how could either side forgive and forget?!
This book allows readers to understand on a personal level the difficulties that arose. On closing the book, one asks if reconciliation is possible.
Another interesting topic focused upon is what can be achieved through fiction compared to books of non-fiction. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. There is no denying that a book of fiction more easily pulls a reader in. They have more often an emotional impact, and so leave a more lasting impression.
The prose is outstanding. Some characters are articulate; they express themselves fluently. Other characters less so, but always each one’s words match their background and life experiences. While not a humorous book, it does not lack humor. Other parts are creepy, suspenseful. Ideas and lines are so eloquently expressed, one cannot help but note them. Continually the author has you thinking–be it about something as simple as gardening or as complex as race, censorship, truth and forgiveness.
Now, here comes a warning—pay attention please! This book is extremely hard to follow. Bits of information are thrown at you from different sources. Often, I was unsure who was speaking. Often, I was not sure if that which I was being told was true. Much is confusing. Despite the confusion I was never tempted to give up. By the end you do understand everything. Keep this in mind. And consider this--there is a reason for the confusion. It demonstrates how life really is. We often do not know all that we want and need to know. We often must scramble through a multitude of disparate information. The way the book is written mirrors an important message of the book. Making sense of right and wrong, of what is true and what is false is part of life. It is along just such a path a person must go to reach absolution.
Janet Suzman and Patrick Doherty narrate the audiobook. Both do a fantastic job. The intonations capture marvelously who the characters are—each one’s personality and background. Accents, dialects and racial differences can be heard. They are flipped between with ease. There is no over-dramatization. Janet’s narration is better than marvelous, for the simple reason that I fell in love with her intonations for Clare and Marie.There is one problem though—the volume is too low. This must be a production fault. With settings at the highest level, I still had to listen with my ear right next to the boom box. Even with the sound high, the two names Laura and Nora were at times hard to distinguish. It is annoying to have to rewind. That both a male and female narrator are used helps only partially to make the story told less confusing.
This is not an easy book to read It is confusing. It is worth the effort. I know in my heart how I have reacted. To me, the book is amazing. It pulled me in emotionally. It had me thinking. It is tremendously well-written. I recommend it highly.
The two central characters are white. One is an accomplished, popular, elderly South African author held in high esteem. This is Clare Wald. She is burdened by guilt—she regrets or at least questions her own past actions. She is a mother of a daughter and son. She is a divorced wife, living now with her longtime friend, an employed black assistant named Marie. They live in a secure, heavily guarded and alarmed, gated community near Cape Town. The second character has been hired by Clare’s publisher to write her biography. His name is Sam. There is a past connection between them. Of this they do not speak. Sam writes the biography. Clare is writing a book of fiction. It is this that she states, but it is in fact a mix of history, essays and autobiography. It’s title? Absolution, which is of course the title of this book too.
What is true and what is false? What is fact and what is fiction? Is there one truth to history or can there be several? Does there exist one truth, a truth valid for all? These are questions the book poses, the background being the apartheid and its fall.
A little history, a little background is helpful tp know. During the 1980s in South Africa, the military contingent of the African National Congress (the ANC) was active. Anti-apartheid guerrillas dynamited fuel depots. Car bombs wreaked havoc in city centers. Violence was rife. The MK, the ANC’s guerilla force, were killing without restraint. For the three years prior to him being sentenced to life-in-prison, Nelson Mandela was its commander-in-chief. The white, supremist government labelled all such actions as terrorism. Retaliations and reprisals followed one after the other. In 1990, released from prison, Mandela continued to see the MK as a necessity, a means by which one could combat the injustice and violence of apartheid. In 1994, South Africa became a democracy, with Nelson Mandela its elected president. It was this year, the first fully multi-racial democratic election was held. The transfer of power was said to be peaceful and orderly. Could this have been possible? A deal was made—punishment of atrocities committed on either side was not to occur. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. Both the supporters and opponents of apartheid went before the commission, openly declared past actions and asked for amnesty, i.e. immunity from prosecution for political crimes committed during the apartheid. The commission’s purpose was not to dispense justice. Its purpose was to document a collective historical truth of the past and to unite the people of the country. Although a praiseworthy goal, the feasibility of success was minimal. With no way of judging the validity of that said, since so many of those who did know had been killed, how could either side forgive and forget?!
This book allows readers to understand on a personal level the difficulties that arose. On closing the book, one asks if reconciliation is possible.
Another interesting topic focused upon is what can be achieved through fiction compared to books of non-fiction. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. There is no denying that a book of fiction more easily pulls a reader in. They have more often an emotional impact, and so leave a more lasting impression.
The prose is outstanding. Some characters are articulate; they express themselves fluently. Other characters less so, but always each one’s words match their background and life experiences. While not a humorous book, it does not lack humor. Other parts are creepy, suspenseful. Ideas and lines are so eloquently expressed, one cannot help but note them. Continually the author has you thinking–be it about something as simple as gardening or as complex as race, censorship, truth and forgiveness.
Now, here comes a warning—pay attention please! This book is extremely hard to follow. Bits of information are thrown at you from different sources. Often, I was unsure who was speaking. Often, I was not sure if that which I was being told was true. Much is confusing. Despite the confusion I was never tempted to give up. By the end you do understand everything. Keep this in mind. And consider this--there is a reason for the confusion. It demonstrates how life really is. We often do not know all that we want and need to know. We often must scramble through a multitude of disparate information. The way the book is written mirrors an important message of the book. Making sense of right and wrong, of what is true and what is false is part of life. It is along just such a path a person must go to reach absolution.
Janet Suzman and Patrick Doherty narrate the audiobook. Both do a fantastic job. The intonations capture marvelously who the characters are—each one’s personality and background. Accents, dialects and racial differences can be heard. They are flipped between with ease. There is no over-dramatization. Janet’s narration is better than marvelous, for the simple reason that I fell in love with her intonations for Clare and Marie.There is one problem though—the volume is too low. This must be a production fault. With settings at the highest level, I still had to listen with my ear right next to the boom box. Even with the sound high, the two names Laura and Nora were at times hard to distinguish. It is annoying to have to rewind. That both a male and female narrator are used helps only partially to make the story told less confusing.
This is not an easy book to read It is confusing. It is worth the effort. I know in my heart how I have reacted. To me, the book is amazing. It pulled me in emotionally. It had me thinking. It is tremendously well-written. I recommend it highly.
January 23, 2019
Translation widget on The blog!!!
“Iertare” este un roman complex, construit pe suspans, un roman de tip labirint. Povestea este captivantă, te poartă în sudul Africii pe vremea apartheidului, construind cu fiecare relatare, un tablou trist. Despre regretul deciziilor luate în pripă, decizii ce au afectat în moduri aproape imposibil de imaginat, familia și liniștea sufletească. O confesiune a păcatelor care au avut consecințe grave. Și nevoia de iertare…
Recenzia mea completa o puteți gasi aici:
https://www.delicateseliterare.ro/ier...
“Iertare” este un roman complex, construit pe suspans, un roman de tip labirint. Povestea este captivantă, te poartă în sudul Africii pe vremea apartheidului, construind cu fiecare relatare, un tablou trist. Despre regretul deciziilor luate în pripă, decizii ce au afectat în moduri aproape imposibil de imaginat, familia și liniștea sufletească. O confesiune a păcatelor care au avut consecințe grave. Și nevoia de iertare…
Recenzia mea completa o puteți gasi aici:
https://www.delicateseliterare.ro/ier...
October 6, 2013
I really don't like giving bad reviews and wish I could give this 2.5 stars just to be neutral. I'm surprised that so many people have commented on how well he has portrayed South Africa and South Africans, as I found myself cringing regularly at the little things he gets wrong. That said, I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for someone to write perfectly about a place and people that are not their own - so, he should be congratulated on doing as well as he did.
Patrick Flanery is undoubtedly a talented writer and this is an impressive first book. But I fear also that he has ruined himself by going as far as he did in academia. At the end I felt resentful, wondering if he wasn't simply using South Africa's past to make some academic comment on the politics of history/memory etc.
I don't know if he did it on purpose, or perhaps just felt too daunted by the prospect, but black people are invisible in this book largely set during the struggle. I felt angry at the way he gave the few black characters that do appear such bland, weak portrayals - even when they're there they're almost invisible.
One particular scene in the book has stuck with me as being painful to read. One of the main characters, Sam, is at a Jo'burg mall having dinner in 2009 (I think) and smiles at a black waitress, the waitress sinks below the counter overwhelmed, then has to retreat to a back room. Sam's wife asks what came over the young girl and Sam says he doesn't think she has ever been smiled at by a white man. This is supposed to be set in Rosebank, one of the more cosmopolitan neighbourhoods in South Africa and in 2009. It is ridiculously unrealistic and embarrassing to read, as a white South African male let alone as a young black woman I'm sure.
Flanery obviously enjoys writing about South Africa and has studied the country for a long time, thus I'm sure we can all appreciate that writing about another country and culture is a massive task to get right, and unfortunately he just doesn't succeed. Sorry if that's too harsh, read the book and make up your own mind. There are definitely parts that make it a worthwhile read.
Patrick Flanery is undoubtedly a talented writer and this is an impressive first book. But I fear also that he has ruined himself by going as far as he did in academia. At the end I felt resentful, wondering if he wasn't simply using South Africa's past to make some academic comment on the politics of history/memory etc.
I don't know if he did it on purpose, or perhaps just felt too daunted by the prospect, but black people are invisible in this book largely set during the struggle. I felt angry at the way he gave the few black characters that do appear such bland, weak portrayals - even when they're there they're almost invisible.
One particular scene in the book has stuck with me as being painful to read. One of the main characters, Sam, is at a Jo'burg mall having dinner in 2009 (I think) and smiles at a black waitress, the waitress sinks below the counter overwhelmed, then has to retreat to a back room. Sam's wife asks what came over the young girl and Sam says he doesn't think she has ever been smiled at by a white man. This is supposed to be set in Rosebank, one of the more cosmopolitan neighbourhoods in South Africa and in 2009. It is ridiculously unrealistic and embarrassing to read, as a white South African male let alone as a young black woman I'm sure.
Flanery obviously enjoys writing about South Africa and has studied the country for a long time, thus I'm sure we can all appreciate that writing about another country and culture is a massive task to get right, and unfortunately he just doesn't succeed. Sorry if that's too harsh, read the book and make up your own mind. There are definitely parts that make it a worthwhile read.
January 14, 2013
Patrick Flanery's debut novel is a very interesting example of an overarching story that incorporates another "novel" or "memoir", a journal and more embedded inside it... Set in post-apartheid South Africa Absolution is a thought provoking book, and engaging not necessarily, or least of all, in the sense one would initially expect. Much of the novel could be set in any other country that lived through two opposing government systems. While there are hints of the political realities of South Africa, such as the brief visit to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the central theme of the novel addresses deep moral questions of the human condition that are not time or place specific.
In the most overarching sense Absolution is a deep reflection on guilt and seeking foregiveness, on what is truth and why we may not even admit aspects of the truth and our behaviour to ourselves, let alone to others. How many shades of truth are there?
Two central characters - Clare, a grand old dame of literature and Sam, her much younger biographer - enter over the course of the novel into a kind of intellectual and emotional "pas de deux", whereby each reacts to or dances around the other's questions and answers. Both reveal slowly and tentatively snippets of themselves and their lives... leaving us as readers to sift through the many shades of truths. As we follow each piece within the emerging puzzle we may at times think we are ahead of the two protagonists, but are we really?
While the "pas de deux", the discussions between author and biographer, are central to the novel, the backstories of the two protagonists, told in separate sections and in different tones, are as essential. There is Clare's "letter" to her daughter Laura, which reflects on and responds to her daughter's notebooks, written while she was on the run from authorities during the "old regime" some twenty years earlier. Clare is also writing a "novel", Absolution, that reads more like a personal memoir and in another series of chapters we learn more about Sam's life that was deeply shaken early on in his youth...
Flanery is very effective in pursuing these different narrative streams, interleafing them in a way that,taken together, make for an engaging and comprehensive whole. Your attention is required to keep the different versions of the truth apart. Personally, I couldn't help comparing Clare with the real-life grand old dame of South African writing, Nadine Gordimer. Be assured, though, there are no parallels between the two, other maybe the home invasion that both experienced and that weighs heavily on Clare's mind. I was taken by surprise that, despite the important political undercurrent in the novel, so little was in fact expressed in terms of the complex South African realities then and now. Race or colour was hardly ever mentioned if at all. On the other hand, I found some sections too detailed and a tightening of those would have increased my reading engagement. Yet, for a debut novel, this book is a great achievement and we can hopefully look forward to more by the author.
In the most overarching sense Absolution is a deep reflection on guilt and seeking foregiveness, on what is truth and why we may not even admit aspects of the truth and our behaviour to ourselves, let alone to others. How many shades of truth are there?
Two central characters - Clare, a grand old dame of literature and Sam, her much younger biographer - enter over the course of the novel into a kind of intellectual and emotional "pas de deux", whereby each reacts to or dances around the other's questions and answers. Both reveal slowly and tentatively snippets of themselves and their lives... leaving us as readers to sift through the many shades of truths. As we follow each piece within the emerging puzzle we may at times think we are ahead of the two protagonists, but are we really?
While the "pas de deux", the discussions between author and biographer, are central to the novel, the backstories of the two protagonists, told in separate sections and in different tones, are as essential. There is Clare's "letter" to her daughter Laura, which reflects on and responds to her daughter's notebooks, written while she was on the run from authorities during the "old regime" some twenty years earlier. Clare is also writing a "novel", Absolution, that reads more like a personal memoir and in another series of chapters we learn more about Sam's life that was deeply shaken early on in his youth...
Flanery is very effective in pursuing these different narrative streams, interleafing them in a way that,taken together, make for an engaging and comprehensive whole. Your attention is required to keep the different versions of the truth apart. Personally, I couldn't help comparing Clare with the real-life grand old dame of South African writing, Nadine Gordimer. Be assured, though, there are no parallels between the two, other maybe the home invasion that both experienced and that weighs heavily on Clare's mind. I was taken by surprise that, despite the important political undercurrent in the novel, so little was in fact expressed in terms of the complex South African realities then and now. Race or colour was hardly ever mentioned if at all. On the other hand, I found some sections too detailed and a tightening of those would have increased my reading engagement. Yet, for a debut novel, this book is a great achievement and we can hopefully look forward to more by the author.
January 2, 2013
Absolution – set in post-apartheid South Africa – is so searing, well-plotted, moving and provocative that it is nearly impossible to believe that it is a debut book. In some important ways, it contains wisps of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, a book that similarly centers around the break-in of a home,
The theme is, indeed, Absolution, the freeing from blame, guilt and consequences. Nearly every key character in Absolution is seeking forgiveness, either from the living or the dead, and as such, they are microcosms for their nation – a place that is in true need of absolution.
Patrick Flanery masterfully layers his story in patchwork style. The conflicting points of view come from four different perspectives: that of Clare, an aging, reclusive and celebrated Cape Town author…Sam, her young chosen biographer who holds a mysterious connection to Clare…Clare’s semi-fictional memoir – appropriately titled Absolution – which imagines what might have happened…and a fourth thread, which reveals what may, indeed, be the truth.
In brief, Clare is re-examining her past, which includes two pivotal deaths. Her hated sister, Nora, who held a pro-apartheid view, was gunned down years ago in what was likely a political reprisal. Clare’s own daughter, Laura, an anti-apartheid activist, also disappeared without a trace. What culpability – if any – did Clare have in either of these deaths? Can Sam be the key to the absolution she seeks? And when Clare’s home is senselessly broken into and an object of little monetary – but great personal – significance is taken, another question is raised: can a flawed memory hold its own kind of truth?
Absolution is but one of this book’s riveting themes. Another is the falsity of the stories we tell ourselves. “It is possible, through a sense of vanity, either conscious or unconscious, to attribute crimes wholly to oneself in which one has only had a partial hand,” Flanery writes. A little earlier: “History is not always correct, because it cannot tell all the stories that have been, cannot account or everything that has happened.”
Like in many powerful books, definitive answers remain elusive. The truth of memory, Flanery implies, is no less accurate than literal truth. This was the last book I read in 2012, but it soars to the top of my personal “Best of 2012” list. It has everything I look for: complex characters, important themes, arresting and often lyrical prose, and stunning craftsmanship.
The theme is, indeed, Absolution, the freeing from blame, guilt and consequences. Nearly every key character in Absolution is seeking forgiveness, either from the living or the dead, and as such, they are microcosms for their nation – a place that is in true need of absolution.
Patrick Flanery masterfully layers his story in patchwork style. The conflicting points of view come from four different perspectives: that of Clare, an aging, reclusive and celebrated Cape Town author…Sam, her young chosen biographer who holds a mysterious connection to Clare…Clare’s semi-fictional memoir – appropriately titled Absolution – which imagines what might have happened…and a fourth thread, which reveals what may, indeed, be the truth.
In brief, Clare is re-examining her past, which includes two pivotal deaths. Her hated sister, Nora, who held a pro-apartheid view, was gunned down years ago in what was likely a political reprisal. Clare’s own daughter, Laura, an anti-apartheid activist, also disappeared without a trace. What culpability – if any – did Clare have in either of these deaths? Can Sam be the key to the absolution she seeks? And when Clare’s home is senselessly broken into and an object of little monetary – but great personal – significance is taken, another question is raised: can a flawed memory hold its own kind of truth?
Absolution is but one of this book’s riveting themes. Another is the falsity of the stories we tell ourselves. “It is possible, through a sense of vanity, either conscious or unconscious, to attribute crimes wholly to oneself in which one has only had a partial hand,” Flanery writes. A little earlier: “History is not always correct, because it cannot tell all the stories that have been, cannot account or everything that has happened.”
Like in many powerful books, definitive answers remain elusive. The truth of memory, Flanery implies, is no less accurate than literal truth. This was the last book I read in 2012, but it soars to the top of my personal “Best of 2012” list. It has everything I look for: complex characters, important themes, arresting and often lyrical prose, and stunning craftsmanship.
June 24, 2020
3.5 This is an extremely dense read, as the author asks the reader to follow as he connects the strands of memory, imaginings, past and future. Post apartheid, there is much on censorship, as one of the main characters, Clare, is an author of much fame and one of the few that manged to get published during those years. She holds much regret and searches for absolution in the deaths of her sister and brother in law and her part in those deaths as well as in the disappearance of her daughter. Sam, is charged with writing the biography of this woman, and he has regrets and secrets as well. They are both holding tight to secrets and their past connection to each other that needs to be exposed. This is an extremely well written novel, but the changing focus is a times very confusing and at other times pure genius. I would give this book a 4 for the writing and a 3 for the story, so I settled on a 3.5. This is definitely an author to watch.
August 14, 2013
There is no doubt that this book is beautifully written, cleverly structured, delicately observed and well-worth getting to the end of. (I read it in two days).
It tells the story of a white South African man, academically educated in the United States, who returns to post-apartheid South Africa to engage with an elderly white South African woman author as a prelude to writing her biography. As the story unfolds the complex historical and personal interconnections between Clare - the woman author - and her biographer reveal themselves in a complex interplay of different perspectives, different rememberings, and different self-projections.
As I got into the early chapters of the book I had already decided to give it four stars, but as I read on something began to bother me and my reading was progressively interrupted by longer moments of reflection, of trying to get my mental hands around what it quite was that bothered me.
Before starting the book I noted the observation by a number of reviewers of the remarkable way in which Flanery, a non-South African, had captured the feel and detail of place, space, and the historical time trajectory that set the the scene of the novel. As a South African myself, I entered the book intrigued to find out how he did this and if he did so successfully. At a practical level, my conclusion was that Flanery must have spent a considerable time in South Africa with a voluminous notebook or a prodigious memory.
I can't fault Flanery on his delicate and precise observation of place. But I felt increasingly discomforted by his portrayal of the historical, political and social context in which his characters engaged with each other and their world.
For one thing, a South African author would have given more sense of the race and ethnicity of their characters. Given South Africa's history - and its current realities - race (without racism) is a key determinant of how South Africans understand themselves, understand others, and understand their surroundings. But one often struggles in this book to be sure of the race or ethnicity of many of the minor characters. Of course, it is clear that the major characters are white and there is a clear sense of the privilege and advantage that their whiteness entails. One almost gets the sense that Flanery, consciously or unconsciously, is trying to prove his own non-racism by refusing to clearly identify the ethnicity of his 'non-white' characters.
For instance, the police woman assigned to investigate a house invasion experienced by the main character, Clare, is not clearly identified as a black woman. (In fact, she is named 'Ms White'). But it becomes clear from her resentful interactions with Clare that she is black. Her ethnicity dictates her attitudes, but why make the reader guess? Simplistic descriptions of characters as black or otherwise is not what I am advocating, but it is not difficult to clearly locate them in South African social hierarchies through description.
Another minor, but telling, example is a small anecdote in the book - potentially quite poignant - in which the biographer, Sam, and his wife are in Sandton and overhear a child saying to its parents 'Do we really have to go back to South Africa?' But the poignancy of this observation is determined by knowing the ethnicity of the child and its parents. Seeing the space outside Sandton as South Africa and Sandton as somewhere else has significantly different meanings for a white child or a black child. Again, why must the reader guess?
But Flanery's partial avoidance of the ethnicity of some of his characters is not what primarily bothered me about the book. It is only an observation that a South African author would have had less hesitation in understanding the importance to the reader of knowing the social standing (historical and present) of their characters.
What really bothered me is that such a talented author should have failed to adequately convey the complexities and subtleties of the South African political and social context. For want of a less crude characterisation, the book is imbued with a white and European (including the Europeans who emigrated to north America centuries ago) perspective on the South African reality. The book seems to buy into the common, largely white, public discourse that post-apartheid South Africa is simply a country of crime and corruption. Certainly, it is acceptable that Flanery's main characters would perhaps have this view and the more progressive among them would feel some disappointment that the new South Africa does not fulfil the promise of their own ideals and values nurtured in their opposition to apartheid. This is a reasonable reflection of reality. But Flanery does not draw a clear line between the views of his characters and the realities and complexities beyond their own perceptions.
Perhaps Flanery shares his characters' views of South Africa today, or perhaps he just got lost in his characters, but my concern is that readers of 'Absolution' will come away with a simple confirmation of the stylised and unmitigated view of democratic South Africa as a bitter disappointment and a place of ever-present danger, begging, crime, corruption and generalised evil. Perhaps, to be fair, that is how Flanery experienced South Africa during his visits there. If so, I must play the man rather than the book.
All that being said, the book is exquisitely written and a good read, and my concerns only lost it one star.
It tells the story of a white South African man, academically educated in the United States, who returns to post-apartheid South Africa to engage with an elderly white South African woman author as a prelude to writing her biography. As the story unfolds the complex historical and personal interconnections between Clare - the woman author - and her biographer reveal themselves in a complex interplay of different perspectives, different rememberings, and different self-projections.
As I got into the early chapters of the book I had already decided to give it four stars, but as I read on something began to bother me and my reading was progressively interrupted by longer moments of reflection, of trying to get my mental hands around what it quite was that bothered me.
Before starting the book I noted the observation by a number of reviewers of the remarkable way in which Flanery, a non-South African, had captured the feel and detail of place, space, and the historical time trajectory that set the the scene of the novel. As a South African myself, I entered the book intrigued to find out how he did this and if he did so successfully. At a practical level, my conclusion was that Flanery must have spent a considerable time in South Africa with a voluminous notebook or a prodigious memory.
I can't fault Flanery on his delicate and precise observation of place. But I felt increasingly discomforted by his portrayal of the historical, political and social context in which his characters engaged with each other and their world.
For one thing, a South African author would have given more sense of the race and ethnicity of their characters. Given South Africa's history - and its current realities - race (without racism) is a key determinant of how South Africans understand themselves, understand others, and understand their surroundings. But one often struggles in this book to be sure of the race or ethnicity of many of the minor characters. Of course, it is clear that the major characters are white and there is a clear sense of the privilege and advantage that their whiteness entails. One almost gets the sense that Flanery, consciously or unconsciously, is trying to prove his own non-racism by refusing to clearly identify the ethnicity of his 'non-white' characters.
For instance, the police woman assigned to investigate a house invasion experienced by the main character, Clare, is not clearly identified as a black woman. (In fact, she is named 'Ms White'). But it becomes clear from her resentful interactions with Clare that she is black. Her ethnicity dictates her attitudes, but why make the reader guess? Simplistic descriptions of characters as black or otherwise is not what I am advocating, but it is not difficult to clearly locate them in South African social hierarchies through description.
Another minor, but telling, example is a small anecdote in the book - potentially quite poignant - in which the biographer, Sam, and his wife are in Sandton and overhear a child saying to its parents 'Do we really have to go back to South Africa?' But the poignancy of this observation is determined by knowing the ethnicity of the child and its parents. Seeing the space outside Sandton as South Africa and Sandton as somewhere else has significantly different meanings for a white child or a black child. Again, why must the reader guess?
But Flanery's partial avoidance of the ethnicity of some of his characters is not what primarily bothered me about the book. It is only an observation that a South African author would have had less hesitation in understanding the importance to the reader of knowing the social standing (historical and present) of their characters.
What really bothered me is that such a talented author should have failed to adequately convey the complexities and subtleties of the South African political and social context. For want of a less crude characterisation, the book is imbued with a white and European (including the Europeans who emigrated to north America centuries ago) perspective on the South African reality. The book seems to buy into the common, largely white, public discourse that post-apartheid South Africa is simply a country of crime and corruption. Certainly, it is acceptable that Flanery's main characters would perhaps have this view and the more progressive among them would feel some disappointment that the new South Africa does not fulfil the promise of their own ideals and values nurtured in their opposition to apartheid. This is a reasonable reflection of reality. But Flanery does not draw a clear line between the views of his characters and the realities and complexities beyond their own perceptions.
Perhaps Flanery shares his characters' views of South Africa today, or perhaps he just got lost in his characters, but my concern is that readers of 'Absolution' will come away with a simple confirmation of the stylised and unmitigated view of democratic South Africa as a bitter disappointment and a place of ever-present danger, begging, crime, corruption and generalised evil. Perhaps, to be fair, that is how Flanery experienced South Africa during his visits there. If so, I must play the man rather than the book.
All that being said, the book is exquisitely written and a good read, and my concerns only lost it one star.
June 18, 2018
Truth, Reconciliation, and Authenticity
Shortly after the elections of 1994 effectively ended Apartheid, the unity government set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) designed to bring to light human rights violations on all sides and also, in appropriate situations, to offer amnesty. The work of the TRC makes several appearances in Patrick Flanery's ambitious and in many ways extraordinary debut novel, which spans four decades from the Apartheid era to the present day. But more than that, the entire book is about the search for truth, the reshaping of truth, and the reconciliation that is only possible when a single version of that truth emerges. Or, in the words of Flanery's title, Absolution.
Sam Leroux, a South African born but American educated academic, returns to Cape Town to write the biography of the intimidating grande dame of South African letters, the novelist Clare Wald. (Yes, there are certainly similarities to Nadine Gordimer in Flanery's portrait, but even more differences.) The two dance around each other for weeks, partly due to Clare's aloof reticence, but partly because theirs is not a random connection, and each knows facts impacting the other's life that they prefer to keep secret. These center around the disappearance of Clare's daughter Laura, an anti-apartheid activist who may have been involved in terrorist activities in the 1980s. Clare has acquired her daughter's diaries, but Sam may have had a more immediate connection.
What follows is one of the most extraordinary approaches to storytelling I have read in some time, an absolute orgy of unreliable narrators. Flanery cycles between short chapters headed respectively "Sam," "Clare," "Absolution," and with the date of a year. At first, it is hard to see what the differences are between them, only that they contradict each other in important ways. "Sam" has the confused memories of a child. The "Clare" sections contain the novelist's often lurid fictional recreations of her daughter's last days. "Absolution" will turn out to be chapters of published memoir in which Clare presents aspects of her life, using her own name and those of her family, but steadfastly maintaining the guise of fiction. A ridiculously artificial construct, one might think, except that this is exactly how J. M. Coetzee treated his own years in South Africa in his recent novel Summertime.
The whole book thus becomes a search for authenticity: which perspective is correct? But the paradox is that every viewpoint shines with the authenticity either of imagination or of fact. I admit that I was disturbed at first to discover that the author, an American now living in London, is not South African himself, so cannot have the authenticity of personal experience; could I trust him the way I do Coetzee or Gordimer or Damon Galgut? But soon my skepticism disappeared. Flanery certainly convinces me with his picture of South Africa today as a country where the rich live behind electrified fences and refrigerators are sold with locks to prevent the domestics from stealing food. And there is the monstrous obscenity of Apartheid hanging over everything, which is surely fact enough for anyone.
It is not quite a perfect book. Flanery tends to give his characters, especially Clare, overlong speeches that read more like manifestos. The rapid switches can be confusing at the beginning, and not everything is cleared up at the end. But it is an extraordinary achievement for a first novel. In addition to the authors mentioned above, I thought of Peter Carey, and Russell Banks, and Thomas Kennedy, and Richard Powers, and quite a few politically-committed European writers, from Kafka to Kertesz. It will take several more novels to discern where Flanery's personal authenticity will lead him, but there is nothing trivial about this first beginning.
April 20, 2012
This is a story of lives lived in ways which give cause for regret. This is becoming a genre. Ian McEwan talked about Atonement. Here the quest is for Absolution. In both cases memory and remembrances are fluid. They are fuzzy or not reliable. The quests for Atonement and Absolution become larger, more significant then the events that precipitated the need.
Will this bring us to The Sense of an Ending? All of these books are characterised by muddy memories and relative truths, and unreliable authors within the stories.
It’s hard to believe that this is the first novel from Patrick Flanery. It is a self-assured and complex work that braids together the related stories of several characters. Clare is a famous South African author, a bit of a curmudgeon, who is working with her biographer. (If this was ever made into a movie, Maggie Smith would be perfect for the role.) She is using her own literary skills as a tool to clarify mysterious past events involving her family’s roles in the political history of South Africa, but she is a bit obtuse with her young biographer who struggles to understand how his own life has figured into hers. Most of the novel leads to discovering why Clare feels the need for absolution.
Flanery’s writing is intelligent, incisive, and he can write a mean bit of suspenseful action. “Before killing you they would burn the names from your mouth, pull syllables from your fingernails, soak vowels and consonants from your nostrils, remind you of their authority with steel and wire, electricity and fire.”
There was an intense scene of a home invasion, where you could almost hear the scared breathing trying not to be heard, the tense silence broken by stealthy creaks. Clare is interviewed by police afterward, and that becomes a brilliantly Kafka-esque interaction.
There are wonderful gems of prose. On family: “One can but sow the seed and provide the proper environment, and hope that the flower promised by the illustration on the packet is the one that will grow, trust that the hybrid will not revert to the characteristics of some earlier generation, or be so transformed by unpredictable and wholly external factors – a drought, a storm, environmental pollution – that the seed mutates and something unrecognizable grows.”
Or when one’s vacation plans are suddenly upset by a phone call with unexpected news: “Lying in bed that morning, the phone still in his hand, he could feel the broken expectation of that escape raining down around him, and then he realized the rain was not just in his head but outside the window, a shower of ice that began to coat the glass, contorting their view of the traffic, the canary sludge of taxis, bleeding brake lights along West End Avenue.”
And I loved this description of a minor character: “Timothy is overripe and over-processed. His nails have been manicured, his suit is more expensive than anything I’ll ever be able to afford. He’s rotten with success.”
Flanery is American but writes convincingly of what daily life is like nowadays for some in cities like Capetown and Johannesburg. Some descriptions were so detailed that I followed along in Google Maps Streetview. That was an interesting exercise — I felt as if suddenly I was seeing the scene as the author saw it in his own mind.
This book has been one of the best I’ve read in a few months.
Will this bring us to The Sense of an Ending? All of these books are characterised by muddy memories and relative truths, and unreliable authors within the stories.
It’s hard to believe that this is the first novel from Patrick Flanery. It is a self-assured and complex work that braids together the related stories of several characters. Clare is a famous South African author, a bit of a curmudgeon, who is working with her biographer. (If this was ever made into a movie, Maggie Smith would be perfect for the role.) She is using her own literary skills as a tool to clarify mysterious past events involving her family’s roles in the political history of South Africa, but she is a bit obtuse with her young biographer who struggles to understand how his own life has figured into hers. Most of the novel leads to discovering why Clare feels the need for absolution.
Flanery’s writing is intelligent, incisive, and he can write a mean bit of suspenseful action. “Before killing you they would burn the names from your mouth, pull syllables from your fingernails, soak vowels and consonants from your nostrils, remind you of their authority with steel and wire, electricity and fire.”
There was an intense scene of a home invasion, where you could almost hear the scared breathing trying not to be heard, the tense silence broken by stealthy creaks. Clare is interviewed by police afterward, and that becomes a brilliantly Kafka-esque interaction.
There are wonderful gems of prose. On family: “One can but sow the seed and provide the proper environment, and hope that the flower promised by the illustration on the packet is the one that will grow, trust that the hybrid will not revert to the characteristics of some earlier generation, or be so transformed by unpredictable and wholly external factors – a drought, a storm, environmental pollution – that the seed mutates and something unrecognizable grows.”
Or when one’s vacation plans are suddenly upset by a phone call with unexpected news: “Lying in bed that morning, the phone still in his hand, he could feel the broken expectation of that escape raining down around him, and then he realized the rain was not just in his head but outside the window, a shower of ice that began to coat the glass, contorting their view of the traffic, the canary sludge of taxis, bleeding brake lights along West End Avenue.”
And I loved this description of a minor character: “Timothy is overripe and over-processed. His nails have been manicured, his suit is more expensive than anything I’ll ever be able to afford. He’s rotten with success.”
Flanery is American but writes convincingly of what daily life is like nowadays for some in cities like Capetown and Johannesburg. Some descriptions were so detailed that I followed along in Google Maps Streetview. That was an interesting exercise — I felt as if suddenly I was seeing the scene as the author saw it in his own mind.
This book has been one of the best I’ve read in a few months.
January 5, 2013
This is a book of extraordinary power and intensity. I don't know if I was more surprised to learn that the author was a first-time novelist or that he was not South African -- the book conveys an amazing nuanced sense of place and history, and is written with serious maturity and talent. This book will break your heart, with its tales of betrayal, loss and missed chances, both historical and familial, and stretch your mind, as the maze of its interconnecting narratives show just how flimsy historical "truth" is (and in the process seriously interrogate (on several levels) just what a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" could accomplish). There are also parts of this novel that will have your hair standing on end and your heart pounding, whether it's the vivid depiction of a home invasion (or the constant fear of one) or the reminiscing/imagining that the characters do about the violence done and tortures inflicted by the apartheid regime, as well as some of its opponents.
In addition to conveying fear and paranoia beautifully, I thought the sense of loss was masterfully done. I felt keenly both the personal loss that the missed connections and betrayals great and small between parent and child, brother and sister, and sister and sister, engender, and the great historical loss of South Africa, where a dream worth dying for has become ( at least in this telling) a harrowing dystopia, and where (in a neat touch) some of its most radical revolutionaries are now floridly middle-aged and work for the Tourism Board, while others are still lost in unmarked graves.
Most of this book is one of the most impressive books I've read in a long time -- but it just missed a five because the 2nd half is not as tightly constructed, and as heartstoppingly harrowing as the first. The conceits are a bit more dragged out, some passages are overwritten and some of the revelations (and concealments) are a long time coming.
Nonetheless, I think it's remarkable, likely bears re-reading, and Flanery's 2nd novel is eagerly awaited!
In addition to conveying fear and paranoia beautifully, I thought the sense of loss was masterfully done. I felt keenly both the personal loss that the missed connections and betrayals great and small between parent and child, brother and sister, and sister and sister, engender, and the great historical loss of South Africa, where a dream worth dying for has become ( at least in this telling) a harrowing dystopia, and where (in a neat touch) some of its most radical revolutionaries are now floridly middle-aged and work for the Tourism Board, while others are still lost in unmarked graves.
Most of this book is one of the most impressive books I've read in a long time -- but it just missed a five because the 2nd half is not as tightly constructed, and as heartstoppingly harrowing as the first. The conceits are a bit more dragged out, some passages are overwritten and some of the revelations (and concealments) are a long time coming.
Nonetheless, I think it's remarkable, likely bears re-reading, and Flanery's 2nd novel is eagerly awaited!
August 21, 2012
Near the end of Patrick Flanery's novel Absolution is a short discourse on the inability of history to tell all the stories and about the truth that memory always tells. The two points are at the heart of Flanery's complex novel. It's a novel about modern South Africa set a dozen years ago when the Truth and Reonciliation Commission was working hard at damage control after the long, hard years of apartheid. But it's one in which racial injustices aren't the focus. The narrative follows, instead, the revelations and confession of wrongs within a family. Though the racial issue smoulders in the background, South Africa isn't seen through its prism but rather through the hellishness of its criminal activity, robberies, killings, home invasions, and the general danger of city streets. Every home has become a fortress of walls, double gates, and security devices, including panic buttons in every room. It's a bleak, frightening portrait of the country. The menace and impersonality of the state Flanery writes about recalls Kafka.
Clare, one of the central characters, is writing a fictionalized memoir telling about her unforgivable betrayal of family members in the past. Sam, an academic, is writing a biography of Clare and remembering disturbing events loosely connected to hers. How Flanery brings these two strands together, two characters achieving absolution through confession and realizations of love while frenzied crime and fear swirl outside, threatening to spill over walls and in doors, is the novel's core.
It's a well-written novel, tightly structured and controlled. One hiccup of objection: it's a novel of dialogue, discussion, confession and quiet disagreement behind and between walls, thick protective walls of stucco making compounds around houses, blank walls within the house, and sometimes the stark characters tend to lose their energy and to blend into the stark walls. But it's a tiny thing in a first novel otherwise nicely done.
Clare, one of the central characters, is writing a fictionalized memoir telling about her unforgivable betrayal of family members in the past. Sam, an academic, is writing a biography of Clare and remembering disturbing events loosely connected to hers. How Flanery brings these two strands together, two characters achieving absolution through confession and realizations of love while frenzied crime and fear swirl outside, threatening to spill over walls and in doors, is the novel's core.
It's a well-written novel, tightly structured and controlled. One hiccup of objection: it's a novel of dialogue, discussion, confession and quiet disagreement behind and between walls, thick protective walls of stucco making compounds around houses, blank walls within the house, and sometimes the stark characters tend to lose their energy and to blend into the stark walls. But it's a tiny thing in a first novel otherwise nicely done.
May 14, 2019
This was one of my setwork books in my final year of high school (2016). My fellow students and I, all South Africans, had a lot of negative criticism on this book, and had long discussions about it.
A lot of people are giving this book good reviews simply because it handles an awful time in history. However, for a book LITERALLY HANDLING APARTHEID, there is such an absence of people of colour (specifically, black people) that makes this narrative absolutely cringeworthy to read. Even a personal assistant character, who we (and one of the audiobooks some students read) all presumed to be the only woman of colour present in the main narrative, was confirmed to be white when Flanery did a reading of an Absolution-related short story at our school. (Keep this school reading in mind, it’s important later in this review.)
Flanery is a white American man, and we vocally questioned him on his handling of race when he came to our school. According to him, most of his experience of South Africa was through visiting with his South African-born spouse. The aforementioned spouse apparently just... did not seem to hang out with any black friends. Out of pure coincidence. Which seems odd, considering that statistically, most of this country’s population is black. Could he not find any black people to hang out with and ask respectfully about their experiences? Could he not afford a sensitivity reader? This book that deals with the history and aftermath of a period of intense, systematic, government-enforced racial oppression.... centres entirely on the experiences of a group of white characters.
My next criticism is a bit of a meta one. For context, I am queer. And Flanery is as well. And when he first came to our school before my yeargroup and I read the book (before we had any idea of how it represented Apartheid history), and I found out he was married to a man, I was excited and anticipating some sort of queer representation. Of course, there was none, beyond a main heterosexual female character having a chuckle that, according to her, people likely assumed she and her assistant were lesbians.
Eventually, when Flanery came and did a reading at our school, he read that short story I mentioned. Now here’s the thing: that short story was written from the perspective of this particular lady character (whose name I have forgotten) - she is an author (and, in-universe, the author of a book ALSO called Absolution; bear with me), and in the story, she was reading to an audience of school children... y’know, like Flanery was doing. There were two strange things about this story:
1) It contained vague mention of queerness in the form of her spotting two schoolboys shyly sitting next to each other. When I privately posed a question to him later about any forms of subtext in the novel itself, he actually told me there was meant to be subtext with the character Sam, who he claimed would have likely been openly queer if not for trauma forcing him to close himself into compulsory heterosexuality. This felt a bit like a ret-con, because I *know* queer subtext, and have read many papers on identifying subtext in media, and I didn’t see anything in this book. It felt very... J.K Rowling. But this is not the bad part.
2) Remember how I said he was reading to school students? And how this short story was from the perspective of an author character reading to school students? Now, we had been given an opportunity to send in questions for him long beforehand, and a lot of my fellow students (as well as students from other schools) sent in criticisms that pointed out his ill-handling of various topics in the novel. He specifically wrote this short story to address some of those questions and criticisms, but since this particular author character was meant to be a bit cold and asocial, he had a veil to actually be vaguely petty about some of these criticisms. I thought I may have misinterpteted this at first, but I was not the only one who felt this way - we had a rather lively discussion in class about it afterwards, and my fellow students whose questions ‘the character’ dismissed were, understandably, fuming.
While I understand he was defensive about his debut novel getting scathing reviews from a bunch of 17-year-olds... this is not a good look for you, Flanery. Do better.
If you are looking for a book that has good handling of South Africa’s history of injustice and resistance, please do not give this book your time. Rather read a book by a South African, and specifically, a black South African - it will be so much more insightful.
A lot of people are giving this book good reviews simply because it handles an awful time in history. However, for a book LITERALLY HANDLING APARTHEID, there is such an absence of people of colour (specifically, black people) that makes this narrative absolutely cringeworthy to read. Even a personal assistant character, who we (and one of the audiobooks some students read) all presumed to be the only woman of colour present in the main narrative, was confirmed to be white when Flanery did a reading of an Absolution-related short story at our school. (Keep this school reading in mind, it’s important later in this review.)
Flanery is a white American man, and we vocally questioned him on his handling of race when he came to our school. According to him, most of his experience of South Africa was through visiting with his South African-born spouse. The aforementioned spouse apparently just... did not seem to hang out with any black friends. Out of pure coincidence. Which seems odd, considering that statistically, most of this country’s population is black. Could he not find any black people to hang out with and ask respectfully about their experiences? Could he not afford a sensitivity reader? This book that deals with the history and aftermath of a period of intense, systematic, government-enforced racial oppression.... centres entirely on the experiences of a group of white characters.
My next criticism is a bit of a meta one. For context, I am queer. And Flanery is as well. And when he first came to our school before my yeargroup and I read the book (before we had any idea of how it represented Apartheid history), and I found out he was married to a man, I was excited and anticipating some sort of queer representation. Of course, there was none, beyond a main heterosexual female character having a chuckle that, according to her, people likely assumed she and her assistant were lesbians.
Eventually, when Flanery came and did a reading at our school, he read that short story I mentioned. Now here’s the thing: that short story was written from the perspective of this particular lady character (whose name I have forgotten) - she is an author (and, in-universe, the author of a book ALSO called Absolution; bear with me), and in the story, she was reading to an audience of school children... y’know, like Flanery was doing. There were two strange things about this story:
1) It contained vague mention of queerness in the form of her spotting two schoolboys shyly sitting next to each other. When I privately posed a question to him later about any forms of subtext in the novel itself, he actually told me there was meant to be subtext with the character Sam, who he claimed would have likely been openly queer if not for trauma forcing him to close himself into compulsory heterosexuality. This felt a bit like a ret-con, because I *know* queer subtext, and have read many papers on identifying subtext in media, and I didn’t see anything in this book. It felt very... J.K Rowling. But this is not the bad part.
2) Remember how I said he was reading to school students? And how this short story was from the perspective of an author character reading to school students? Now, we had been given an opportunity to send in questions for him long beforehand, and a lot of my fellow students (as well as students from other schools) sent in criticisms that pointed out his ill-handling of various topics in the novel. He specifically wrote this short story to address some of those questions and criticisms, but since this particular author character was meant to be a bit cold and asocial, he had a veil to actually be vaguely petty about some of these criticisms. I thought I may have misinterpteted this at first, but I was not the only one who felt this way - we had a rather lively discussion in class about it afterwards, and my fellow students whose questions ‘the character’ dismissed were, understandably, fuming.
While I understand he was defensive about his debut novel getting scathing reviews from a bunch of 17-year-olds... this is not a good look for you, Flanery. Do better.
If you are looking for a book that has good handling of South Africa’s history of injustice and resistance, please do not give this book your time. Rather read a book by a South African, and specifically, a black South African - it will be so much more insightful.
April 13, 2012
"Dostoevsky says that everyone remembers things he would only confide to his friends, and other things he would only reveal to himself...But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself." In Absolution a first novel about memory and guilt and censorship, the author has produced a stunning, compelling tale of an aging South African author, Clare, and her biographer, Sam, told in multiple points of view. Absolution brought the country and its tragic past to life as much as anything I've read by classic authors such asCOETZEE JOHN M. and Nadine Gordimer. The characters were well-drawn and the plot moved forward sometimes at rapid pace as I flipped ahead, unable to await the resolution of an incident, the clues to a possible future. The writing is very good and Clare's voice rings true. I closed the book with satisfaction that reading this book was time well spent and sparked my interest in learning more about the country and people of South Africa (rueing a missed travel opportunity a few years ago). The author looms large on my radar for future works. He is a writer to watch.
February 4, 2012
Set in post-apartheid South Africa, Absolution focuses on a series of meetings between elderly writer, Clare Wald, and her recently-appointed biographer, Samuel Leroux. However at the real heart of the novel lies the fate of Laura, Clare's daughter.
Missing, presumed dead, Laura was actively involved in the liberation struggle and her life intersected dramatically with Sam's childhood, though we only learn the full significance of this intersection as the novel progresses and the truth about Sam's, Clare's and Laura's inter-connected pasts begins to emerge from a number of over-lapping and conflicting narratives. Even by the end of the book, however, several important questions are left only partially answered and the reader is forced to draw his or her own conclusions.
Patrick Flanery paints an arresting picture of contemporary South Africa as a society riven by violent crime in which the white middle class have barricaded themselves within fortress-like compounds whose every room is equipped with a panic button.
It's not a comfortable read and the ending is in many ways unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, this is a compelling, challenging and disturbing account of the corrosive effect the apartheid regime exercised, and still continues to exercise, on both South Africa's black and white communities.
Missing, presumed dead, Laura was actively involved in the liberation struggle and her life intersected dramatically with Sam's childhood, though we only learn the full significance of this intersection as the novel progresses and the truth about Sam's, Clare's and Laura's inter-connected pasts begins to emerge from a number of over-lapping and conflicting narratives. Even by the end of the book, however, several important questions are left only partially answered and the reader is forced to draw his or her own conclusions.
Patrick Flanery paints an arresting picture of contemporary South Africa as a society riven by violent crime in which the white middle class have barricaded themselves within fortress-like compounds whose every room is equipped with a panic button.
It's not a comfortable read and the ending is in many ways unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, this is a compelling, challenging and disturbing account of the corrosive effect the apartheid regime exercised, and still continues to exercise, on both South Africa's black and white communities.
August 11, 2012
Patrick Flanery: Will you marry me? How I loved this novel! So much so that I am even willing to forgive your flagrantly Irish name and risk my father's English wrath.
In post-apartheid South Africa, acclaimed author Clare Wald and aspiring writer Sam Leroux come face to face -- as author and subject, as the rejecter and the rejected, as human beings coming to terms with painful ambiguous pasts. Both are suffering from the scars of apartheid and also (...I think?) from a too fierce loyalty to their country and their academic ideals. As Sam works on a biography of Clare's life, they coyly fumble through their shared present and past. So much of the social and personal fabric of the country was in tatters after apartheid -- unanswered questions, disappeared loved ones, inability to trust anyone, a constant fear of violence that has lead homeowners to install steel shutters on their homes and locks on their shower doors. Clare and Sam's sins cannot be absolved by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But they might just find that absolution in each other.
A lovely, thoughtful book. Beautiful, complex, intellectual. Like me. (Hint hint, Patrick.)
In post-apartheid South Africa, acclaimed author Clare Wald and aspiring writer Sam Leroux come face to face -- as author and subject, as the rejecter and the rejected, as human beings coming to terms with painful ambiguous pasts. Both are suffering from the scars of apartheid and also (...I think?) from a too fierce loyalty to their country and their academic ideals. As Sam works on a biography of Clare's life, they coyly fumble through their shared present and past. So much of the social and personal fabric of the country was in tatters after apartheid -- unanswered questions, disappeared loved ones, inability to trust anyone, a constant fear of violence that has lead homeowners to install steel shutters on their homes and locks on their shower doors. Clare and Sam's sins cannot be absolved by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But they might just find that absolution in each other.
A lovely, thoughtful book. Beautiful, complex, intellectual. Like me. (Hint hint, Patrick.)
May 28, 2012
The story is about post apartheid South Africa but it's focus is on the devastating impact the politics has on a family as they adopt different positions. It's one of those fascinating books in which the way the story is told from multiple points of view persuades the reader to consider the tale from different perspectives. Versions of the facts differ depending on how much the narrator is willing to admit to the listener or to his or her self and may also change depending at which point of time we are glimpsing that version of the facts.
it's not an easy read in many ways but it is both devastating and satisfying in the way it confronts the lies we have to tell ourselves and others in order to continue to live a life which allows some degree of absolution.
There are 2 sentences on the last page of the book which will not give anything away to those who have not read it but which to me sums up the essence of what it is to live an imperfect life with no active intent to hurt any other human being: "There is no guile about him. And that, I know is the quality of the greatest liars."
it's not an easy read in many ways but it is both devastating and satisfying in the way it confronts the lies we have to tell ourselves and others in order to continue to live a life which allows some degree of absolution.
There are 2 sentences on the last page of the book which will not give anything away to those who have not read it but which to me sums up the essence of what it is to live an imperfect life with no active intent to hurt any other human being: "There is no guile about him. And that, I know is the quality of the greatest liars."
November 29, 2014
This is an excellent first novel at the micro level, but structurally — at the macro level — the novel didn’t work for me. It appears to be a classic case of over-ambition. I found the constant shifting of viewpoint and person (from chapter to chapter) overly complex and forced. In addition, I didn't feel that the revelations about truth and memory were all that revelatory.
It’s interesting how, midway through the novel, the pieces effectively reach their end, and in Part II Flanery has to almost start all over again.
Flanery is an excellent writer, and this is a promising debut. I look forward to seeing where he takes his talents.
It’s interesting how, midway through the novel, the pieces effectively reach their end, and in Part II Flanery has to almost start all over again.
Flanery is an excellent writer, and this is a promising debut. I look forward to seeing where he takes his talents.
April 26, 2013
really dense and rather slow pace, but also incredibly in-depth look at "finding the truth". for a first novel it is just wow. plot is a writer interviews a writer about her book(s) while also writing his own book, and all are simultaneously exposing and hiding "the truth". course in south africa, those truths take on a horrific, almost science fiction ghoulishness. super accomplished first novel, but took forever to get through.
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April 21, 2012Choppy and confusing. Every few pages it changes point of view, locale, time frame, and verb tense. Heavy use of present tense narration, of which I am generally not a fan.
If you dislike the use of second-person narration, ("You smile at me and nod your head."), this book will try your patience.
If you dislike the use of second-person narration, ("You smile at me and nod your head."), this book will try your patience.
July 20, 2016
Cannot understand the kudos for this book about life before and after apartheid in South Africa. It was written by an American who did not experience either of those eras. There was no sense of the specific country of South Africa; it could have been any fictionalized nation. The entire focus of the book is on the lives of the white people and wealthy ones at that. I could not finish this book.
July 8, 2017
A very complex, many layered book that will leave me thinking for a while. It certainly evokes a very specific time and place in white South Africa (because black characters are basically absent, which is disturbing but part of the profile of this place the author draws where even the liberal anti-apartheid characters live wholly separate lives). The multiple narratives, each with overlapping but often contradictory truths does not make this an easy book. Nor does the dark subject matter. Truth is a messy matter as the truth and reconciliation hearings found out and this book illuminates that.
July 6, 2012
Clare Wald is a South African author coming to the end of her life who has agreed to be involved in the writing of her biography. It is to be written by Sam Leroux, a fellow South African now returning to the country of his birth after some years' absence. Revisiting the past brings up old secrets for both of them and they must be truthful with themselves about the part they played in disturbing events.
This novel has four different narrative strands, which makes things complicated at times, especially when the strands contradict each other. There are several mysteries in the book, but one main mystery is examined from different points of view and the events connected to it are re-told in a number of different ways. However, the events seem to be less important than what the characters think about them, and it is a novel in which the characters think much more than they say. I found this more than a little frustrating as it meant getting to the truth about what happened was impossible.
I felt that the complex structure was a hindrance rather than a help to the book, but that the detail with which the characters were described almost made up for this. But although the reader is let into what the characters think, I was left with a niggling sense that they might not be being truthful, even to themselves, so perhaps what they tell us isn't wholly reliable. In short, they're human and we have to make up our minds about them from the available evidence.
I didn't feel a sense of resolution when I got to the end of the book and felt that the end was quite weak compared to the build up of the bulk of the novel. However, I found it an interesting character portrait of how people react in unimaginable circumstances and a detailed study of post-apartheid South Africa.
This novel has four different narrative strands, which makes things complicated at times, especially when the strands contradict each other. There are several mysteries in the book, but one main mystery is examined from different points of view and the events connected to it are re-told in a number of different ways. However, the events seem to be less important than what the characters think about them, and it is a novel in which the characters think much more than they say. I found this more than a little frustrating as it meant getting to the truth about what happened was impossible.
I felt that the complex structure was a hindrance rather than a help to the book, but that the detail with which the characters were described almost made up for this. But although the reader is let into what the characters think, I was left with a niggling sense that they might not be being truthful, even to themselves, so perhaps what they tell us isn't wholly reliable. In short, they're human and we have to make up our minds about them from the available evidence.
I didn't feel a sense of resolution when I got to the end of the book and felt that the end was quite weak compared to the build up of the bulk of the novel. However, I found it an interesting character portrait of how people react in unimaginable circumstances and a detailed study of post-apartheid South Africa.
June 23, 2012
I had to force myself to give this book 100 pages before I let myself give up on it. The beginning was very jumbly and confusing - which I think the author meant to use as a technique to give the reader a feel for the multiple angles and confusion caused by trying to figure things out in hindsight, as well as from multiple points of view. It took that 100 pages for me to really sink into the groove of the story, to understand the perspectives and to care about the characters. I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't easy!
As for the story - it's a compelling look at the difficult decisions that people are forced to make when society has created a monster such as apartheid. Themes like courage, honesty, freedom and intellectual curiosity are explored within the context of post-apartheid South Africa.
As for the story - it's a compelling look at the difficult decisions that people are forced to make when society has created a monster such as apartheid. Themes like courage, honesty, freedom and intellectual curiosity are explored within the context of post-apartheid South Africa.
June 12, 2016
One of the best books I've read. There are three major characters, two of whom, Sam and Clare, are unreliable narrators, and Clare's daughter Laura who lives only in their memory. The intricate, violent, complicated final days of apartheid in South Africa are rendered in four platforms, through narrative fiction and memoir. Lies are told and truths distorted.
The story unravels but not in Roshomon fashion. The truth is elusive, as elusive as memories of Laura and her motivations. What is truly remarkable about this book is that it is a debut novel, and further, that Flanery did not grow up in Cape Town or experience first hand the times he writes so eloquently about. This is a novel that shows promise beyond that of most first time outings. Need I say, highly recommended.
The story unravels but not in Roshomon fashion. The truth is elusive, as elusive as memories of Laura and her motivations. What is truly remarkable about this book is that it is a debut novel, and further, that Flanery did not grow up in Cape Town or experience first hand the times he writes so eloquently about. This is a novel that shows promise beyond that of most first time outings. Need I say, highly recommended.
October 20, 2017
I only finished this book because it was a book club choice. It was such hard work! The dialogue was very clunky and inauthentic, the characters were so unpleasant, dishonest and self-absorbed. There was no real sense of anyone actually wanting to improve the lives of those around them. I had no sympathy with any character at all. The scope of the book was so narrow when it should have been so broad. There was no attempt to include poor or black characters in the narrative, just white middle class navel gazers. The narrative was so dull and everything so vague it was hard to get a grip on what was going on. Sorry to be so negative but I hated it.
December 9, 2016
Horrible. I absolutely hated this book and I am not one to hate books very often. Patrick Flanery didn't understand South Africa at all. I felt very judged while reading this book. I often heard a very arrogant voice while reading this. Books like this are why we have so many sterotypical preconceived ideas about South Africa. I wish I could give a -1 rating
January 2, 2016
I really disliked this book.
October 22, 2017
I kept waiting for it to get good. Two stars is generous.
December 7, 2021
Dios mío qué tostón. Lo único con lo que me quedo es con lo que he aprendido de la historia de Sudáfrica.
Si, como yo, seguís leyendo para saber si Laura está viva o muerta, no sigáis. No se sabe lo que pasa con ella al final.
Si, como yo, seguís leyendo para saber si Laura está viva o muerta, no sigáis. No se sabe lo que pasa con ella al final.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 6, 2025
Disturbing and shocking , set in South Africa past and present, and showing that nothing much has changed except the participants. The story concerns Clare and Sam, who each want something from the other, but neither is willing to ask. Clare, a world renowned author, writes a memoir which is pitched as “fictional” in an effort to forgive herself for things she may or may not have done to her sister and daughter, while telling Sam, who is writing her biography, another version of the truth. He in turn tells her, and himself, different versions of his past. Additionally, Clare imagines what her daughter’s fate might have been. The timeline jumps back and forth, and between characters, and it’s hard to tell if something actually happened or if the person doing the telling thinks or wishes it did. Regardless, the book is an indictment on South African politics, and was summed up for me by what one character, newly arrived, said :- “ This is my idea of paradise…… The only drawback is the lingering fear that I might wake up with a shotgun in my face”. She then added, “But I guess that could happen anywhere “, apparently not realising that would be most unusual outside of South Africa or the USA.
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