The Rowing Lesson: A Novel

by Anne Landsman

Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize (English category).

“Anne Landsman’s glittering, shimmering new novel is a tour de force. . . . Elation and pain, anxiety and exuberance, and the uneven beat of living are all caught in language as silky and fluid as music.”—Roxana Robinson

“Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world at the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan

“An elegy for a lost father and a beloved world on the point of disappearing. Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J. M. Coetzee

“A fierce elegy, a daughter’s imaginary inhabitation of the memory of her dying father . . . an adventure in language. . . . It makes art of a life.”—Louis Menand

Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the United States to her father’s hospital bed in South Africa. Orphaned young, he had to struggle to become a doctor and to win the respect of his Boer patients. We first meet young Harold Klein on an excursion with his friends on the Ebb ’N Flow, a river to which he often returns. That is where he later teaches his little daughter to row, and finally, where he makes his last metaphoric passage.

Anne Landsman was born and raised in South Africa. Her debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney (Soho Press, 1997), was published in paperback by Penguin. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

Genres: South Africa, Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

ALTHOUGH I grew up in Worcester, a small South African town in the shadow of the Brandwacht mountains, that wasn't the real me. The real me was best friends with Petunia, the North American goose who left her gooseprints in deep snow; Scuffy, the tugboat, who bumped up against logs and loggers as he floated down an East Coast river; and Madeleine, the little girl who lived right near the amazing Eiffel Tower. The South African skies, the mountains, the endless varieties of indigenous plants - all these things were intensely present in my life as a child and also entirely absent from the world of my imagination, where I lived. Most of the children I went to school with were Afrikaans, had blonde hair and shockingly blue eyes. I was Jewish, my black hair curled in every direction and my nose was long. It added another layer of not belonging. And then there was apartheid, which was invented and established while I was growing up. I knew it was wrong, my parents knew it was wrong, but that's where we lived, that's where we had a house with a brass plaque on the front wall which read - Dr. G.B. Landsman, M.B.Ch.B., M.R.C.P. (Edin.) That's where we had loquat trees, and guava trees, a silver tree and a kumquat tree. I was always passionate about leaving. When I was very young, I believed London, Paris and New York were on the other side of the Brandwacht mountains because that's where I wanted them to be. I got the idea of leaving from my mother, who took me to the public library on hot afternoons. The idea of staying came from my father, whose plaque remained affixed to the wall in front of the house until the day he died. I switched hemispheres when I was 21. I had just finished my undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town. I wanted to see London and Paris and New York, finally. New York stole my soul. It was everything South Africa was not. There was no Nature to miss in the tangle of buildings and the experience of a thousand cultures rubbing up against each other. I went to Columbia University and graduated with an M.F.A. in screenwriting and directing. My writing career started with the writing of screenplays, under the eye of the late Frank Daniel, the best teacher I have ever had. That's where I began to think of writing about South Africa, the place I never read about as a child. A short story I wrote which was published in the American Poetry Review became the prologue to my first novel, The Devil's Chimney. I then went on to adapt the novel for the screen, as well as teach writing myself. I also published essays, reviews and interviews and wrote a second novel, The Rowing Lesson, once again learning that some portion of my heart will always beat in that opposite hemisphere, in the shadow of the Brandwacht mountains, not far from the house with the loquat trees. Some part of me stayed down there. I belong where I am not"

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was the poor man's version of "Death of Artemio Cruz". And I didn't even like "Death of Artemio Cruz" that much but this was just probably one of the worst books I have ever read.

One of the advance reviews says: "Landsman is one of the few writers of our generation to have wrested from the English language a voice uniquely and searing her own". True, the voice is so unique that Landsman is probably the only person that can actually understand this mess of a narrative.

I am not a big fan of second person narrative. I didn't like the bits of it in "Death of Artemio Cruz" and it almost ruined "Feast of the Goat" for me. Landsman took it further and wrote the whole bloody book like that which was quite suicidal. To make matters worse she decided to abandon the boring custom of putting dialogues between apostrophes and threw it all together. Of course as experimental as she is trying to be there was no chronological order either. All this made the book confusing, tiring and impossible to read.

Don’t get me wrong here, though. I love some challenging narrative – Conversation in the Cathedral is my favourite book. However, there is a difference between sophisticated and pretentious. "The Rowing Lesson" is definitely the latter.

According to another review it is "A fierce elegy, a daughter's imaginary inhabitation of the memory of her dying father...". Felt more like a drunkard's mumbling but anyway, am I the only person that finds a daughter imagining her father pissing his pants, shitting himself and masturbating rather disturbing and NOT lyrical?
And after struggling through almost 300 pages of this the characters still refused to take any human shape whatsoever.

[Hazel McHaffie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this because a review hyped it and because it's about a woman sitting beside her dying father (my kind of subject matter!). The writing is beautiful in places and it's most unusual but I can't say I enjoyed it. It was hard work sorting out which era we were in and the absence of apostrophes around proper speech and the strange use of capitals added to the confusion. It's probably a literary masterpiece but it wasn't for me.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book for two fairly superficial reasons- its title involved rowing, and it's set in South Africa, where my mum grew up. But I really loved it- beautifully written. She used a very unusual perspective (second person, using 'you')- it allows the narrator into her father's head, but always with a little bit of storytelling distance. It was a vivid portrait of a childhood and young adulthood in South Africa, but also of the connections between parents and their adult children, and what all their interactions add up to at the end of a life together. Reminiscent sometimes of Joyce and Woolf, but a true and unique voice.

[Sonja Arlow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though the book contained moments of amazing writing the story was so disjointed it almost felt like you were walking through someone else’s fever dreams. The 2nd person narrative was highly distracting and you were never sure if you are now in the past or present of the father or the daughter’s story.

I wish I could give it a higher rating seeing that I love supporting SA authors but this was just not a pleasant reading experience.

[Karol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is full of poetry and spunk, as the narrator imagines her father's life in South Africa after she returns, married and pregnant, from her long years as an ex-pat in New York. It is a poignant book about the bond of father and daughter, and a meditation on identity and place.

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure why I persevered with this book, as I couldn’t wait to finish reading it. I have such mixed feelings about it. Whereas the writing is beautiful in places I found it quite difficult to follow which era one was in as there was no chronological order. I can’t help feeling that these are actual memories from real life, which is the kind of thing I enjoy reading, but the writing style really didn’t appeal to me at all. It is beyond me how any non-South Africans could appreciate this book, as it is full of colloquialisms and there is no glossary. In my opinion, the book was OK. Quite honestly, I was disappointed. I expected more.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne Landsman tells the story of a man's life through the memories of his daughter as he lies dying in a hospital. Her father is a Jewish doctor in South Africa nearing the end of World War II. His lifelong trials and tribulations are made known through his daughter's lyrical remembrances, as if she experienced his life along side of him. Because of the rising and falling pitch of emotion it is often difficult to keep track of the times, places, and persons. And I am not really sure how the final scene is played out. However, it is an intriguing and almost beguiling read.

[Ra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Betsy Klein is summoned from New York to the bedside of her dying father. The father who is the main protagonists is lying in coma, and already exists only as a memory in the mind of his loving daughter who takes us through his journey from his adolescence in the rural western cape to becoming a man as a student in Cape Town and beyond that to her experience of him as a father teaching her to row on on a river near George.
One cannot help the feeling that these are actual memories from a real life. The first part for me was fascinating as it traced some of South Africa's history during the great wars. It also drew random pictures of the life of a Jewish family in George. The writer did not shy away from describing the father as he truly was, a lover of nature, a helpful physician but also a stubborn brute with evil temper and embarrassing outbursts. The father as the central character played out his role as son, orphan, jealous brother, adolescent at the cusp of his first sexual experience, student away from and home, suitor, doctor, husband, father, father-in-law and patient. All of his roles were refreshingly real and flawed, his frail humanity showing at every stage.
The book reminded me a collage, a collection of memories with Harold Klein at their center, it was all too obvious that the book will inevitably end with his death, but I was hoping for a more fitting farewell something more substantial. His death when it came was like an exhalation of a final breath, quick, silent and anti-climatic.

This a thought-provoking literary book for someone who wants something a little challenging.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Rowing Lesson" is a great title giving the reader an image of the rower, athletically moving forward, but requiring frequent looks backward to stay on course. It is the perfect title for this unique novel written by South African Anne Landsman.
A married and pregnant New Yorker, Betsey Klein, returns to her native South Africa to stand vigil at her dying father's bedside. Harry Klein is a Jewish doctor, a general practictioner, living in George, South Africa. Now in a coma, Dr. Klein's life is vividly remembered and reimagined by his conflicted daughter. The story is told in the second person in a stream of consciousness style requiring the reader to complete large passages in order to "stay on course" and remain in the moment.
The backdrop of the story is South Africa itself and the Jewish experience of being part of a country that sees you as an outsider, despite being born there. Betsey's memories/reimaginings are often uncomfortable and dark. While her father is kept alive by machines, she contemplates the life he lived and shared with his family, the stories he told her, his raging moods, his violent temper, his drinking....and tries to make sense of it all through relived memories and speculative imaginings. This is a bleak novel that can be downright depressing at times for the reader. Nonetheless it is original in its prose, its use of tense and its style. Recommended for those interested in South Africa and its history.

[Elizabeth Havey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love medicine, I read articles constantly about new research etc. When I purchased this novel from a remainder shelf in the library, I had no idea that it was about a Jewish doctor, who had lived and practiced in Africa, and that the novel relates his life story through the eyes of his daughter, Betsy.

The prose style selected by And Landsman is creative and challenging. Told in the second person, she is recounting to the "YOU" of the story, her dying physician father, many elements of his life as she has witnessed them and in some cases imagined them.

The novel is beautifully written, but very cerebral, and thus can be hard-going in sections. But it is poignant and as the novel stresses: when you row a boat, your back is to the direction you wish to go. You can't see what's ahead of you, you can't evaluate what is ahead. Thus Landsman's text attempts that evaluation, being a backward look at her father's life. It is a lesson in relationships and how others interpret the lives we are living.

[Stephen Cadywold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in an unedited proof and if I weren't familiar with South Africa I'd would have found it useful to have a glossary in the final version. This is a clever (too clever perhaps?) piece of creative writing in the form of a missive from a daughter to her comatose dying father, which is not without its moments of humour. I found the ending peculiar and that, for me, spoiled what is otherwise an engaging and poignant novel.

[Kay]

Cyber gift - Danielle - Xmas 2007

[Noreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and very moving. Really looking forward to her next book!

[Tonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magnificently written

[Jeannette Laudeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't get past Chapter 2. I just didn't like the style of writing and couldn't connect to the characters.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing language and impressive use of the second person narrative.

[Stephen Darori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read