Verdict: carrot, carrot
Nicol is proving that hard-boiled, tough thrillers can be set, and set successfully, in South Africa. He is showing us a dangerous, lawless land where an awful lot of people have reasons to be seeking revenge and where laws are honoured in the breach.
Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso are back. The two private security specialists based in Cape Town have a new challenge: to stay alive and keep their families safe, while earning a living the only way they know how.
Killer Country is the second instalment in what will ultimately be the Revenge trilogy involving two former Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives-turned-gun runners and now – in democratic South Africa – bodyguards and fixers.
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Verdict: killer carrots
Local crime writers are painfully aware that they tread a self-immolating minefield of political correctness while they try to avoid racial stereotyping.
The good news, though, is that things are getting murkier and more real. Mike Nicol’s powerful second novel featuring black-and-white duo, Pylon Buso and Mace Bishop – former liberation struggle gun dealers, now in private security – depicts a South Africa where the running sores of ruthless cadre enrichment, state corruption, and casual violence causes even the tough guys to flinch.
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Uitspraak: wortel
Volgens Nancie Atwell, ’n bekende Amerikaanse onder wys kenner, lewe amper-tieners in twee wêrelde: Hul vingers klou nog aan die kindertyd, terwyl hul voete onverskrokke vorentoe na vroeë volwas sen heid stap.
Wie is dus die teikenlesers van ’n boek soos Dieter en Madame Zenobia? Die kind wat van ’n storieboek met helder kleurige prentjies sê, “Wow, dis cool,” of die kind (en dit kan dieselfde kind wees) wat uit die hoogte kyk na ’n boek wat só begin: “Dis tjoepstil in die saal. Nie een kind waag dit om te snuif of te hoes of hard asem te haal nie. Almal staar met groot oë na die hoof, meneer Du Plessis.”
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Uitspraak: wortel
Met sy jongste roman stel John Miles ’n hele paar uitdagings aan die leser.
Die ongewone vertelperspektief, ineengestrengelde verhaalgebeure, onderbrekings in die vertelling, samevloeiing tussen hede en verlede en vermenging van genres (soos die speur-, liefdes- en spanningsroman) is van die aspekte wat ’n tweede of selfs derde lees vereis.
Tog behoort voornemende lesers nie afgeskrik te word nie, maar moet eerder verheug wees oor ’n roman wat aktiewe en betrokke lesersdeelname verg – daar het sedert Agaat van Mar lene van Niekerk lanklaas ’n lywige roman verskyn wat so ’n ingewikkelde én genotvolle leeservaring vir prosaliefbebbers bied.
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Verdict: carrot
A new publication from Zimbabwe’s Weaver Press, comprising “ten sharply polished stories”.
Something of a boom has occurred in the area of record making about this period of life in the country that has driven texts dealing in either fiction or fact, perhaps even propaganda, to the bookshelves. Judging by literary produce, it is a country that has become all things to all people.
To add to this treasure trove is Daniel Mandishona’s ‘White God, Black Demons’, an anthology of ten short stories published under the Weaver Press stable. Its magic is that it feels startlingly familiar, whatever your politics may be. Each portrait in the 110-page collection is the product of prodigious observation and research, that resembles a return to the 16th century Every (wo)man theatrical genre.
What a reader will cherish is that there is a kind of fidelity about the stories that leaves you knowing it to be true. The characters, and their experiences cut a little too close to the bone. Where else has there been an independent candidate who promises a ‘new dawn’ ahead of a presidential contest held in March, whose results are held back to April?
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Uitspraak: wortel
Die “kortetjies” in die titel is ’n stimulerende verskeidenheid van 66 vertellings, kort-kortverhale, geselsies, sketse en essays.
Die skrywer noem dit outobiografiese verdigsels, “bygelieg” deur hom.
Die vonds in die bundel is egter die “lange” – die kortverhaal Ons mond. In dié verhaal, oor sy oupa wie se groot geheim eers enkele dae voor sy dood aan die skrywer bekend word, lieg Du Plessis niks by nie.
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Verdict: carrot
This South African-turned-Australian just gets better and better. Peter Temple – once a journalism cadet with this newspaper group – is into his ninth thriller, this one roving from the highest of high life in Melbourne, Victoria, to the bottom-feeding pond life that does their dirty work. There’s corruption, prostitution, torture and murder. The dirt touches everyone… even at second hand.
However, there’s always somewhere worse. Listen to the state leader of the opposition, Karen Mellish, having an on-air rant. The police minister should explain, she says, “why the CBD is becoming more frightening than Johannesburg, kids everywhere wasting their lives on drugs”. Is that the way they see us? Or is it the author’s twinge of exile guilt?
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Uitspraak:wortel
’n Aangename, plesierige, genotvolle en verruklike leeservaring. Daar is sekerlik nie genoeg woorde om te beskryf hoeveel ure se vreugde ’n mens uit die legendariese skrywer C.J. Langenhoven se boeke put nie. En ’n mens wil nie graag soetsappig raak nie, maar Langenhoven verdien alle lof.
Sonde met die bure is die eerste boekie in die reeks van twee wat as een van sy satiriese verhale bestempel word. Die twee verhale is byna ’n eeu gelede, in 1921, en Herrie op die ou tremspoor, in 1925, geskryf, maar steeds kan jy nie anders as om in verwondering te staan voor Langenhoven se besonderse talent nie. Al twee verhale spreek vandag nog tot die leser. Die leser kan in die storie inklim en saam met die skrywer ervaar asof dit vandag is. Dit is seker een van die merkwaardigste prestasies waaraan Langenhoven se werke vandag gemeet kan word. Daar is dikwels oor hom gesê: Langenhoven skryf nie, maar hy praat. Die twee boeke beklemtoon dit. Sy aanslag, wat deurspek is van sarkasme en kwinkslae, laat ’n mens kraai van lekkerkry.
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Uitspraak: wortel
Mapstieks meisie, maar jy’t my laat naels kou!
Margie Orford se derde boek, waarin die raakvat-joernalis dr. Clare Hart verskyn, sny byna te na aan die been.
Die storie, soos die titel skimp, fokus op die verdwyning van jong meisies, meestal in die bende-geteisterde Kaapse Vlakte. Enige iemand wat gereeld na die sewe-uur-nuus kyk, het genoeg opgegaarde beelde van vermiste- kleinmeisiejie-skoolfoto’s, om Daddy’s Girlte sien as fiksie wat die werklikheid weerspieël
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Verdict: stickn
Hazel Frankel’s debut novel, Counting Sleeping Beauties, was runner-up for the European Union Literary Award (SA) and the Telegraph First Book Award (UK) in 2007. One can easily see why it might have appealed to the judges. Frankel offers an assured, good prose, which lures one into her story. However, her novel is less convincing on other levels.
Counting Sleeping Beauties recounts the story of a family of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants and their servants in Johannesburg in the late 1950s (continuing into the recent present in the last few chapters and the epilogue).
The story is told from the alternating perspectives of four women: Leah, her daughter, Susan, and her granddaughter, Hannah, as well as Sina, one of their Sotho servants.
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