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The Exploded View
The Exploded View , from the masterful South African novelist Ivan Vladislavić, tells the story of four lives intertwined through the sprawling infrastructure on the margins of a stastician taking the national census, an engineer out on the town with city officials, an artist interested in genocide, and a contractor who puts up billboards on construction sites. Arcing across distance and time, Vladislavić deftly explodes our comfortable views and brings us behind the curtains of the city while subtly expanding our notions of what is possible in the novel form.
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Ivan Vladislavić
45 books75 followersIvan Vladislavić is a novelist, essayist and editor. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. His books include The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, Portrait with Keys and Double Negative. Among his recent publications are Flashback Hotel, a compendium of early stories; The Loss Library, a reflection on writing; and 101 Detectives, a collection of new short stories. He has edited volumes on architecture and art. His work has won several prizes, including the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction. In 2015, he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction by Yale University.
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August 7, 2017
Adrift in Post-Apartheid South Africa
I said four characters, but really they are three plus one: three marginalized white men, and one successful black artist, whom I will return to later. All are approaching forty. The three whites are a statistician working for the Census in the first story, a sanitary engineer inspecting a new development in the second, and a contractor who erects billboards on building sites in the fourth. All emerge more or less as failures. The statistician lusts vainly after one of the women he is interviewing, but the racial subtext is muted here; she herself is also white, an Afrikaner, simply more at ease in the new society. The climax of the story with the engineer comes at a dinner with some black associates who talk mainly among themselves in Sotho, "switching back to English occasionally to include him"; the story is neatly framed by scenes in an hotel room that feels luxurious at the start and shabby at the end of it. The last story ends with an incident that had been glimpsed from a distance in the first, where racial fear and the naked threat of violence enter the novel for the first time.
Even here, though, the book stops short, holding back from overt action. This disconnected quality of the exploded view is echoed in a certain dryness of manner. The statistician, engineer, and contractor share the feature of looking at their world from the outside, via numbers, maps, and traffic reports. It is significant, too, that none of their stories have conventional endings; they just stop. Perhaps if I lived in South Africa and could pick up on the social clues (even to the extent of knowing who was white and who black), I would understand more, but I begin to think that my sense of dislocation is an essential feature of post-Apartheid literature, probably reflecting the country itself. I have felt it in The Unspeakable by Peter Anderson, Absolution by Patrick Flanery, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut, and above all in the great Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, although there the violence is palpable and extreme.
Vladislavić is not quite on the level of any of these four extraordinary books—or his stories with white protagonists are not—but the odd one out, about the black artist, definitely enters five-star territory. Simeon Majara is a conceptual artist whose subject is genocide. He has done pieces about the Holocaust and Bosnia. His pieces on Rwanda consist of shrouds molded with the imprint of body parts, and bone dust from the killing fields. His series Bullet-In shows the silhouettes of people shot by murder squads, outlined in bullet holes in a plaster wall. The present story takes place at the closing party for his show Curiouser (or Curio-User), made up hundreds of carved wooden souvenirs: masks degraded with drill, saw, and chisel, and animals cut into thin sections and not quite reassembled—the literal Exploded View. So far as I can tell from the names, most of the guests at the party are white, with Simeon the lionized African, the African lion among them. What I admire about the story is the extraordinary way in which Vladislavić thrills you with the sheer invention of the artist's solutions, while at the same time suggesting that they are inadequate and even facile responses to the immense moral implications of his subject:
On the plans that accompanied the do-it-yourself projects every solid thing had been exploded, gently, into its components, arrangements of boards, springs, rails, nails, veneers, bushings, cleats, threads. Each part hovered just out of range of the others it was meant to meet, with precise narrow spaces in between. All it needed was a touch, a prod with the tip of a finger, to shift everything closer together, and a perfect whole would be realized, superficially complete and indivisible. Until then, each element waited, in suspension, for finality.Illustrations in the magazine Popular Mechanics as recalled by one of the characters in Ivan Vladislavić's four connected stories. In engineering draftsmanship, this is known as the exploded view. But the metaphorical relevance to post-Apartheid South Africa should be obvious: a fractured society consciously reassembled, but where the constituent parts have not yet fully joined. Rather than tackling the subject head-on, Vladislavić explores it obliquely, through brief moments in the lives of four male characters, in the same suburb of Johannesburg at roughly the same time. Although the four do not know each other, their stories are connected by the same landmarks, the same restaurants and housing developments, and the same themes, justifying the book's status as a novel.
I said four characters, but really they are three plus one: three marginalized white men, and one successful black artist, whom I will return to later. All are approaching forty. The three whites are a statistician working for the Census in the first story, a sanitary engineer inspecting a new development in the second, and a contractor who erects billboards on building sites in the fourth. All emerge more or less as failures. The statistician lusts vainly after one of the women he is interviewing, but the racial subtext is muted here; she herself is also white, an Afrikaner, simply more at ease in the new society. The climax of the story with the engineer comes at a dinner with some black associates who talk mainly among themselves in Sotho, "switching back to English occasionally to include him"; the story is neatly framed by scenes in an hotel room that feels luxurious at the start and shabby at the end of it. The last story ends with an incident that had been glimpsed from a distance in the first, where racial fear and the naked threat of violence enter the novel for the first time.
Even here, though, the book stops short, holding back from overt action. This disconnected quality of the exploded view is echoed in a certain dryness of manner. The statistician, engineer, and contractor share the feature of looking at their world from the outside, via numbers, maps, and traffic reports. It is significant, too, that none of their stories have conventional endings; they just stop. Perhaps if I lived in South Africa and could pick up on the social clues (even to the extent of knowing who was white and who black), I would understand more, but I begin to think that my sense of dislocation is an essential feature of post-Apartheid literature, probably reflecting the country itself. I have felt it in The Unspeakable by Peter Anderson, Absolution by Patrick Flanery, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut, and above all in the great Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, although there the violence is palpable and extreme.
Vladislavić is not quite on the level of any of these four extraordinary books—or his stories with white protagonists are not—but the odd one out, about the black artist, definitely enters five-star territory. Simeon Majara is a conceptual artist whose subject is genocide. He has done pieces about the Holocaust and Bosnia. His pieces on Rwanda consist of shrouds molded with the imprint of body parts, and bone dust from the killing fields. His series Bullet-In shows the silhouettes of people shot by murder squads, outlined in bullet holes in a plaster wall. The present story takes place at the closing party for his show Curiouser (or Curio-User), made up hundreds of carved wooden souvenirs: masks degraded with drill, saw, and chisel, and animals cut into thin sections and not quite reassembled—the literal Exploded View. So far as I can tell from the names, most of the guests at the party are white, with Simeon the lionized African, the African lion among them. What I admire about the story is the extraordinary way in which Vladislavić thrills you with the sheer invention of the artist's solutions, while at the same time suggesting that they are inadequate and even facile responses to the immense moral implications of his subject:
Crime Scene I: a charred mask, gouged and gaping, made to gape more chillingly. […]I have not read such a compelling account of the ambivalence of art since Patrick White's great work The Vivisector.
Crime Scene II: another mask, more severely scorched, with bullet holes in the left temple and the jaw. […]
Crime Scene III: the real loser. Burnt beyond recognition but gleaming white everywhere, as if the fire has pared the wood down to a skull. […]
The smells in the studio were comforting. Damp plaster, sawdust, creosote, glue. He sat in the neon glare while the work folded from his brain, one piece out of another, sequences and series, objects and their names, stamped with Roman numerals like the descendants of a single forebear.
February 5, 2017
dang i keep reading brilliant books.
this one is by a white south african writer i didn't know. this book is being reissued and i got it thanks to netgalley and archipelago books.
south africans do race quite spectacularly. in my limited experience of their literature i notice two elements that are not present, yet, in our literary discourse on race. the first, crucially, is an analysis of whitness. when american authors want to talk about race they talk about black or brown folks. south african authors have learned quite early that whiteness is a race too and can/must be analysed in itself. this gives white authors great scope for talking about race without stepping into other people's conversations. the second is that there is less tip-toeing around, and more put-your-arms-deep-down-in-the-wound examination. while we, in the US, are still doing slavery 101, as the success of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad proves, south africans have been talking about what it means to be a racially polarized country for decades.
that i should write this on the day in which our president disclosed to the world that he has no idea who Frederick Douglass is, is, well, poignant and not a little dispiriting.
the first story is about a white man, mid-thirties, employed by the government to work with a focus group to finalize the census form. since there are so many controversial things about collecting census data in SA, this man visits members of his group at their homes (not close to each other) and works with them on various drafts. these people are getting paid for what they do. one of them is a woman who lives in a gated community called venice and sort of faux italian. there are some themes here that will resurface later: patterns of traffic; nigerian presence in SA; statistics; the proximity of wealthy and destitute communities. the story is beautiful and masterfully crafted.
the second is about a sanitation engineer who visits a township (except that's not how they are called any more) that's being built for a black community. the housing is clearly low-cost, and it's pure shite. in the course of the story the protagonist is made to feel excluded by a group of black politicians and administrators who speak in an african language (don't remember which one), cutting him off entirely even though he is part of the group. again, there is attention to place: crappy living quarters, good living quarters, what people deserve, why people complain, the general ideas that the poor should be happy with what they've got, the general idea that the non-poor are entitled to more than what they get.
the third story is about a black artist and the art he does. there is a closing party after a successful exhibition and friends from the art world come. lots of lovely reflections on the creative process, on art, on art and politics, on african art, on serendipitous art, on what is asked of one just because one is black.
the last story, which gives the collection its title, has some lovely bits about america, the dream of america, the mythologizing of places and the impossibility of mythologizing some other places (venice can be mythologized, america can be mythologized, johannesburg, not so much).
all stories are inevitably also about masculinity -- men succeeding and men not entirely succeeding at what they want, what they aspire to, who they want to be. it's a compassionate collection, the stories are brilliant, and the writing is beautiful. i gobbled it up.
this one is by a white south african writer i didn't know. this book is being reissued and i got it thanks to netgalley and archipelago books.
south africans do race quite spectacularly. in my limited experience of their literature i notice two elements that are not present, yet, in our literary discourse on race. the first, crucially, is an analysis of whitness. when american authors want to talk about race they talk about black or brown folks. south african authors have learned quite early that whiteness is a race too and can/must be analysed in itself. this gives white authors great scope for talking about race without stepping into other people's conversations. the second is that there is less tip-toeing around, and more put-your-arms-deep-down-in-the-wound examination. while we, in the US, are still doing slavery 101, as the success of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad proves, south africans have been talking about what it means to be a racially polarized country for decades.
that i should write this on the day in which our president disclosed to the world that he has no idea who Frederick Douglass is, is, well, poignant and not a little dispiriting.
the first story is about a white man, mid-thirties, employed by the government to work with a focus group to finalize the census form. since there are so many controversial things about collecting census data in SA, this man visits members of his group at their homes (not close to each other) and works with them on various drafts. these people are getting paid for what they do. one of them is a woman who lives in a gated community called venice and sort of faux italian. there are some themes here that will resurface later: patterns of traffic; nigerian presence in SA; statistics; the proximity of wealthy and destitute communities. the story is beautiful and masterfully crafted.
the second is about a sanitation engineer who visits a township (except that's not how they are called any more) that's being built for a black community. the housing is clearly low-cost, and it's pure shite. in the course of the story the protagonist is made to feel excluded by a group of black politicians and administrators who speak in an african language (don't remember which one), cutting him off entirely even though he is part of the group. again, there is attention to place: crappy living quarters, good living quarters, what people deserve, why people complain, the general ideas that the poor should be happy with what they've got, the general idea that the non-poor are entitled to more than what they get.
the third story is about a black artist and the art he does. there is a closing party after a successful exhibition and friends from the art world come. lots of lovely reflections on the creative process, on art, on art and politics, on african art, on serendipitous art, on what is asked of one just because one is black.
the last story, which gives the collection its title, has some lovely bits about america, the dream of america, the mythologizing of places and the impossibility of mythologizing some other places (venice can be mythologized, america can be mythologized, johannesburg, not so much).
all stories are inevitably also about masculinity -- men succeeding and men not entirely succeeding at what they want, what they aspire to, who they want to be. it's a compassionate collection, the stories are brilliant, and the writing is beautiful. i gobbled it up.
July 9, 2017
Fabulous writing -- 4 stories. Quite good.
March 17, 2019
Raw cognitive impairment. Fear, missteps, and chaos of the interior and landscapes. Several punches right to the gut.
March 30, 2017
When Realism is too Sharp
Vladislavic was recommended to me in 2015 by some literary critics in South Africa, who are fed up with Coetzee because he is taken to represent their national situation. In their view, Coetzee's sense of politics is simple-minded to the point of absurdity, and unhelpfully mythologizing ("Waiting for the Babrarians"), while his sense of place is abstract to the point of universality (where, exactly, does "Despair" or "Diary of a Bad Year" take place?). Personally, I had never read Coetzee as a way to learn about South Africa, but I can easily see the frustration among South African readers when he is taken by so many people around the world as an emblem of what South Africa is. As one person said, he's a salve for the consciences of many readers.
Vladislavic is a tremendous antidote. There's a small similarity between "The Exploded View" and Roddy Doyle's early work: in both cases, the subject is the forgotten parts of the country, where dirt, corruption, kinds of poverty, and general confusion mix with kitsch, regional capitalism, and camp. "The Exploded View" is about those stretches of the freeway in South Africa where townships sit beside new housing estates. It's an excellent verbal portrait of that new sort of landscape outside of suburbia and slums.
As with Coetzee, it's also possible to read Vladislavic just as a writer, instead of as a way of finding out about South Africa. (Even though he occasionally makes that difficult by putting census facts and figures in his characters' mouths. telling us, for example, that one two percent of white South Africans speak an African language.) In terms of writing, some of his descriptions are wonderful, although he does rely a great deal on similes and tends to write brief, imagistic tropes, one per clause or one per sentence. There are some passages in which images merge rather than accumulating, but they are in the minority. His similes are inventive and sharp enough to sustain the writing--but it also feels as if the writing needs sustaining, as if it would sink down into ordinary prose if it weren't buoyed by metaphors. The tropes are like little gulps of air: they make the surrounding writing appear inert. What are the limitations of such a style, where description happens in iterated units, and is almost exclusively metaphoric, visual, and deictic?
There's also the issue of realism, and Vladislavic's distance from his raw material. Occasionally his similes are based on observations that appear to have been made minutes before he took notes on them. They're hard-edged, sharp and immediate. It's hard not to imagine him walking and driving through the housing estates, townships, and highways, and jotting things down in a notebook. Those passages are distracting, and it might have been better if he'd modified and integrated them into material he'd invented later on.
Vladislavic was recommended to me in 2015 by some literary critics in South Africa, who are fed up with Coetzee because he is taken to represent their national situation. In their view, Coetzee's sense of politics is simple-minded to the point of absurdity, and unhelpfully mythologizing ("Waiting for the Babrarians"), while his sense of place is abstract to the point of universality (where, exactly, does "Despair" or "Diary of a Bad Year" take place?). Personally, I had never read Coetzee as a way to learn about South Africa, but I can easily see the frustration among South African readers when he is taken by so many people around the world as an emblem of what South Africa is. As one person said, he's a salve for the consciences of many readers.
Vladislavic is a tremendous antidote. There's a small similarity between "The Exploded View" and Roddy Doyle's early work: in both cases, the subject is the forgotten parts of the country, where dirt, corruption, kinds of poverty, and general confusion mix with kitsch, regional capitalism, and camp. "The Exploded View" is about those stretches of the freeway in South Africa where townships sit beside new housing estates. It's an excellent verbal portrait of that new sort of landscape outside of suburbia and slums.
As with Coetzee, it's also possible to read Vladislavic just as a writer, instead of as a way of finding out about South Africa. (Even though he occasionally makes that difficult by putting census facts and figures in his characters' mouths. telling us, for example, that one two percent of white South Africans speak an African language.) In terms of writing, some of his descriptions are wonderful, although he does rely a great deal on similes and tends to write brief, imagistic tropes, one per clause or one per sentence. There are some passages in which images merge rather than accumulating, but they are in the minority. His similes are inventive and sharp enough to sustain the writing--but it also feels as if the writing needs sustaining, as if it would sink down into ordinary prose if it weren't buoyed by metaphors. The tropes are like little gulps of air: they make the surrounding writing appear inert. What are the limitations of such a style, where description happens in iterated units, and is almost exclusively metaphoric, visual, and deictic?
There's also the issue of realism, and Vladislavic's distance from his raw material. Occasionally his similes are based on observations that appear to have been made minutes before he took notes on them. They're hard-edged, sharp and immediate. It's hard not to imagine him walking and driving through the housing estates, townships, and highways, and jotting things down in a notebook. Those passages are distracting, and it might have been better if he'd modified and integrated them into material he'd invented later on.
April 26, 2020
This is a collection of 4 short stories set in Johannesburg, we read the thoughts and mundane encounters of people going through their routines; from such low key observations, tensions and absurdities of the globalized, modernized city rise to the surface.
I've never been to Johannesburg, the insights are mostly still relatable, but some of the observations or commentaries that are more unique to their city are probably lost on me. I imagine someone from Johannesburg would enjoy this a great deal more, I feel somewhat like an outsider uncomfortably looking at characters sharing an inside joke ... but, wait, isn't that a scene in one of the stories...
I've never been to Johannesburg, the insights are mostly still relatable, but some of the observations or commentaries that are more unique to their city are probably lost on me. I imagine someone from Johannesburg would enjoy this a great deal more, I feel somewhat like an outsider uncomfortably looking at characters sharing an inside joke ... but, wait, isn't that a scene in one of the stories...
April 2, 2017
Four loosely interlinked stories, focus on four men trying to find their footing in the shifting dynamics of the "new South Africa." Originally published in 2004, this collection offers insight into this time of change, exploring themes that are still at play, with Vladslavić's singular attention to detail and character. For my full review, see: https://roughghosts.com/2017/04/02/ou...
December 8, 2019
A haunting book made up of 4 stories loosely connected in terms of plot but cohesive at a deeper level. In the first, a statistician drives around Johannesburg to get feedback from a set of paid volunteers on a new census questionnaire, and falls in love with one of the respondents. In the second, a sewage engineer spends a boozy evening with 5 black officials whose apparently friendly behavior could hide ferocious scorn or worse. In the third, a successful installation artist takes stock of his career during a celebratory party. And in the last one, a none too successful contractor specializing in billboards chooses to take on 4 attackers and get killed rather than surrender the keys to his car. Although these stories take place in post-Apartheid South Africa, the mood is hardly jubilant. Social relations remain fraught, violence lurks everywhere, trust is in short supply and hope is as elusive as ever. Vladislavic has a keen eye for detail and his prose just shimmers.
March 4, 2017
Four stories, each featuring the Johannesburg area and habitation expansion. A census taker, a sanitary engineer, artist and architect, all are involved in one way or another with explosive suburbs rising out of the veldt. The writing is exceptional, the characters, not as different one from the other, but the situations are. Globalization makes for interesting familiarity (one character loses his cellphone, another watches Raging Bull on tv in his hotel room), but the flavor and atmosphere is undoubtedly that of Africa (in one story, titled Afritude Sauce, a visit to a restaurant was my favorite scene in the entire book).
March 15, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is a series of 4 short stories that are connected to one another, making an 'exploded view' of South Africa shortly after the end of Apartheid. It was an easy read that didn't lack for depth.
February 6, 2024
Four exquisitely-written stories of four men unmoored in post-Apartheid South Africa as an abundance and dearth of opportunities present themselves.
May 28, 2025
“The world was so loud, and no one took seriously a thing that didn't attract attention to itself. There was no room for subtlety.
Things were either visible or not, their qualities were either shouting from the surface or silent. This silence, the lull behind the noisy surface of objects, was difficult and dangerous. You never knew what it held, if anything. How were you to judge whether the voice you heard was a deeper meaning, whispering its secrets, or merely the distorted echo of your own babble?”
Things were either visible or not, their qualities were either shouting from the surface or silent. This silence, the lull behind the noisy surface of objects, was difficult and dangerous. You never knew what it held, if anything. How were you to judge whether the voice you heard was a deeper meaning, whispering its secrets, or merely the distorted echo of your own babble?”
April 20, 2018
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy this collection of loosely linked short stories, or novel in 4 parts as the author describes it, but I just found myself distanced and unengaged. We learn of the lives of four men, three white and one black, living and working in and around Johannesburg, and through their daily lives get a glimpse of what life is like today in contemporary post-apartheid South Africa. A statistician taking the census, an engineer, an artist and a contractor – ordinary people doing ordinary jobs but in a still unsettled and sometime difficult environment. Well-written, certainly, in an understated way, but not a book that drew me in.
November 11, 2019
I couldn't put this book down and read it almost in one sitting. There is a quote by American fiction writer Lorrie Moore that comes to mind:
'People go around constantly disappointing themselves and each other, often while being bitterly hilarious'.
This kind of describes the four main characters in these stories - with a modern South African backdrop. Incidentally the tone and quality of the book matches that of The New Yorker fiction short stories (where I discovered Lorrie Moore and many other top notch writers).
I am late to Ivan Vladislavic and shall be on the prowl for all of his books!
'People go around constantly disappointing themselves and each other, often while being bitterly hilarious'.
This kind of describes the four main characters in these stories - with a modern South African backdrop. Incidentally the tone and quality of the book matches that of The New Yorker fiction short stories (where I discovered Lorrie Moore and many other top notch writers).
I am late to Ivan Vladislavic and shall be on the prowl for all of his books!
May 29, 2017
Every now and then it's refreshing to move from the comfortable known out onto the unknown. Ivan Vladislavic's subject matter was foreign to me: Four stories of men living, working and dreaming in contemporary South Africa. And yet the challenge of relating to these characters was made easier by Vladislavic's portrayals. I may not have recognized all the subtleties of South African culture, and I found myself researching a few terms along the way. But it was a valuable read, and a bit of insight was gained.
Read
July 9, 2019This was a quiet and subtle book that felt like a sliver of an impression of Johannesburg. It was a refreshing example of the interconnected short stories type of book, where instead of characters making cameo appearances in one another's stories, the stories were linked by places or ideas instead. I also enjoyed the title appearance moment in the final story. I had been wondering about it, and paying special attention to all the miniature explosions in the first three sections, but when it was finally explained it felt very gratifying.
June 20, 2023
I read and wrote one of my undergrad dissertation chapters on this book. Adored it then and adored it now.
The book is split into 4 stories that slightly overlap in places. Setting is post-apartheid Jo’burg. Novel has a preoccupation with the city, homes and infrastructure and how these intersect post-apartheid.
Vlad is a sensational writer and captures the magic of everyday human interaction. Truly a great of the arts.
The book is split into 4 stories that slightly overlap in places. Setting is post-apartheid Jo’burg. Novel has a preoccupation with the city, homes and infrastructure and how these intersect post-apartheid.
Vlad is a sensational writer and captures the magic of everyday human interaction. Truly a great of the arts.
May 9, 2017
Four short stories that are connected by location in Africa. The writing is beautiful, and stream of consciousness. There's not always a ton happening because we're in the protagonists' heads a lot, but it's an interesting concept.
June 30, 2024
I had just finished reading The Folly when this copy arrived in the mail. Vladislavic has such turns of phrases *resists the urge to gnaw lightly on the edge of this book because I am overcome with autistic emotions of delight* I will absolutely need to find more of his books to devour.
January 22, 2023
offputting, atmospheric, very slyly and ambiently apocalyptic... very daring writing on race and brutal contemp. arts satire. but also filled with very gorgeous and gristly prose... loved!!!
February 6, 2023
Really good you should read it
August 14, 2023
A really interesting and compelling set of narratives, that while very good, wasn't really my thing.
May 8, 2024
his books always make me feel uncomfortable, just like living in post-apartheid south africa is probably uncomfortable... love this guy!
June 16, 2024
读了一篇半，弃了，空洞无聊。真的欣赏不来。
September 1, 2025
I’d throw the rose tint back on the exploooded view 🗣️
February 8, 2017
In „Exploded View Johannesburg“ (Osburg Verlag) erzählt der Autor Ivan Vladislavic in 4 Kurzgeschichten von dem Alltag in Johannesburg, Südafrika. Er schreibt über einen Mann, der die Volkszählung durchführt und dabei nicht vorankommt, illegalen Siedlern und Südafrikanern, die noch vor Fertiggestellung der Häuser diese besetzen und einem Künstler – sie alle prägen Johannesburg und Johannesburg prägt sie.
Südafrika ist für viele trotz der Geschichte des Landes und der immer wiederkehrenden politischen Konflikte ein Land der Träume. Sonne, Strand und Natur sind die Attribute, die Urlauber ihm zuweisen. In seinem Buch berichtet Vladislavic nicht von diesen Glanzseiten, sondern von den Hintergründen und von Menschen, die dieses Paradies am Laufen halten. Trotz Beendigung der Apartheid spürt man in den vier Geschichten deutlich eine Grenze, die sich nicht nur durch schwarz und weiß schiebt. Der Autor erlaubt kurze Einblicke in den Alltag verschiedener Südafrikaner, die mit dem Umbruch und dem Aufbruch kämpfen. Interessanterweise habe ich hierbei nach der Lektüre nicht unbedingt die einzelnen geschilderten Schicksale im Kopf, sondern eher eine große Mischung der Geschichten, die alle von einer gewissen Trostlosigkeit und Nüchternheit geprägt sind. Vladislavic will nicht, dass der Leser sich in den Figuren wiederfindet, sondern ihnen lediglich als stiller Beobachter – ähnlich wie in einer unkommentierten Reportage – folgt und dann ohne Probleme wieder verlässt. Besonders spannend war für mich die Handlung um den massiven Siedlungsbau rund um und in Johannesburg, in denen die Menschen neben den illegalen Siedlungen, die parallel entstehen, in halbfertigen Häusern wohnen, um die Nachbarn davon abzuhalten, auch die neuen Häuser zu besetzen. Oder die Erzählung von Simeon, der mit seinen Genocide-Projekten Krieg zu Kunst macht und diesen dafür sogar an sich selbst inszeniert…
„Exploded View Johannesburg“ ist nicht unbedingt ein Buch, das Spaß macht. Teilweise erscheint es wie eine Feldstudie und beinhaltet auch immer eine Ohnmacht, die in den Geschichten mitschwingt. Vladislavic schafft es in 4 kurzen Erzählungen, eine „Bestandsaufnahme“ Südafrikas wiederzugeben, die immer ein wenig zwischen Frieden und Gefahr schwankt und mich als Leserin mit vielen Fragen zurücklässt. Wo sind die Lösungen und gibt es diese überhaupt? Wo die glückliche Zukunft? Und vor allen Dingen: Wie kann ich dieses Buch in einer Rezension zusammenfassen, ohne das es zu oberflächlich und/oder verwirrend wirkt? Wie kann ich diese ganz bestimmte Stimmung in „Exploded View Johannesburg“ wiedergeben, wenn ich sie mir selber nicht richtig klar machen kann? So richtig mag es mir nicht gelingen, daher der Appell: Lest die Geschichten und werdet selber für kurze Zeit zum Einwohner Johannesburgs.
4 von 5 Sternen möchte ich vergeben – für Kurzgeschichten, die mich nicht unbedingt berührt, aber ein Blick in vier Leben gegeben haben, die mich interessiert haben und nach wie vor interessieren.
Südafrika ist für viele trotz der Geschichte des Landes und der immer wiederkehrenden politischen Konflikte ein Land der Träume. Sonne, Strand und Natur sind die Attribute, die Urlauber ihm zuweisen. In seinem Buch berichtet Vladislavic nicht von diesen Glanzseiten, sondern von den Hintergründen und von Menschen, die dieses Paradies am Laufen halten. Trotz Beendigung der Apartheid spürt man in den vier Geschichten deutlich eine Grenze, die sich nicht nur durch schwarz und weiß schiebt. Der Autor erlaubt kurze Einblicke in den Alltag verschiedener Südafrikaner, die mit dem Umbruch und dem Aufbruch kämpfen. Interessanterweise habe ich hierbei nach der Lektüre nicht unbedingt die einzelnen geschilderten Schicksale im Kopf, sondern eher eine große Mischung der Geschichten, die alle von einer gewissen Trostlosigkeit und Nüchternheit geprägt sind. Vladislavic will nicht, dass der Leser sich in den Figuren wiederfindet, sondern ihnen lediglich als stiller Beobachter – ähnlich wie in einer unkommentierten Reportage – folgt und dann ohne Probleme wieder verlässt. Besonders spannend war für mich die Handlung um den massiven Siedlungsbau rund um und in Johannesburg, in denen die Menschen neben den illegalen Siedlungen, die parallel entstehen, in halbfertigen Häusern wohnen, um die Nachbarn davon abzuhalten, auch die neuen Häuser zu besetzen. Oder die Erzählung von Simeon, der mit seinen Genocide-Projekten Krieg zu Kunst macht und diesen dafür sogar an sich selbst inszeniert…
„Exploded View Johannesburg“ ist nicht unbedingt ein Buch, das Spaß macht. Teilweise erscheint es wie eine Feldstudie und beinhaltet auch immer eine Ohnmacht, die in den Geschichten mitschwingt. Vladislavic schafft es in 4 kurzen Erzählungen, eine „Bestandsaufnahme“ Südafrikas wiederzugeben, die immer ein wenig zwischen Frieden und Gefahr schwankt und mich als Leserin mit vielen Fragen zurücklässt. Wo sind die Lösungen und gibt es diese überhaupt? Wo die glückliche Zukunft? Und vor allen Dingen: Wie kann ich dieses Buch in einer Rezension zusammenfassen, ohne das es zu oberflächlich und/oder verwirrend wirkt? Wie kann ich diese ganz bestimmte Stimmung in „Exploded View Johannesburg“ wiedergeben, wenn ich sie mir selber nicht richtig klar machen kann? So richtig mag es mir nicht gelingen, daher der Appell: Lest die Geschichten und werdet selber für kurze Zeit zum Einwohner Johannesburgs.
4 von 5 Sternen möchte ich vergeben – für Kurzgeschichten, die mich nicht unbedingt berührt, aber ein Blick in vier Leben gegeben haben, die mich interessiert haben und nach wie vor interessieren.
January 25, 2008
four short stories from four very different gauteng residents about their everyday. particularly enjoyed "curio-ser" - thought-provoking insight on images, and consumption of these images, of Africa.
May 14, 2024
The piece where the exploded view is explained, as well as the ending, is some of the richest, most deeply felt writing I have read in a long time.
January 5, 2015
One of my favourite South African books.
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July 28, 2017PW
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