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A classic story of rural life in 19th Century South Africa, it is a searing indictment of the rigid Boer social conventions. The first of the great South African novels chronicles the adventures of three childhood friends who defy societal repression. The novel's unorthodox views on religion and marriage aroused widespread controversy upon its 1883 publication, and the work retains in power more than a century later.
358 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1883
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About the author
Olive Schreiner
132books81followersOlive Schreiner (24 March 1855 - December 11, 1920), was a South African author, pacifist and political activist. She is best known for her novel The Story of an African Farm, which has been acclaimed for the manner it tackled the issues of its day, ranging from agnosticism to the treatment of women.
From Wikipedia:
Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (1855-1920) was named after her three older brothers, Oliver (1848-1854), Albert (1843-1843) and Emile (1852-1852), who died before she was born. She was the ninth of twelve children born to a missionary couple, Gottlob Schreiner and Rebecca Lyndall at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschel in South Africa. Her childhood was a harsh one: her father was loving and gentle, though unpractical; but her mother Rebecca was intent on teaching her children the same restraint and self-discipline that had been a part of her upbringing. Olive received virtually all her initial education from her mother who was well-read and gifted.[clarification needed] Her eldest brother Fred (1840-1901) was educated in England and became headmaster of a school in Eastbourne.
When Olive was six, Gottlob transferred to Healdtown in the Eastern Cape to run the Wesleyan training institute there. As with so many of his other projects, he simply was not up to the task and was expelled in disgrace for trading against missionary regulations. He was forced to make his own living for the first time in his life, and tried a business venture. Again, he failed and was insolvent within a year. The family lived in abject poverty as a result.
However, Olive was not to remain with her parents for long. When her older brother Theophilus (1844-1920) was appointed headmaster in Cradock in 1867, she went to live with him along with two of her siblings. She also attended his school and received a formal education for the first time. Despite that, she was no happier in Cradock than she had been in Wittebergen or Healdtown. Her siblings were very religious, but Olive had already rejected the Christianity of her parents as baseless and it was the cause of many arguments with her family.
Therefore, when Theo and her brother left Cradock for the diamond fields of Griqualand West, Olive chose to become a governess . On the way to her first post at Barkly East, she met Willie Bertram, who shared her views of religion and who lent her a copy of Herbert Spencer’s First Principles. This text was to have a profound impact on her. While rejecting religious creeds and doctrine, Spencer also argued for a belief in an Absolute that lay beyond the scope of human knowledge and conception. This belief was founded in the unity of nature and a teleological universe, both of which Olive was to appropriate for herself in her attempts to create a morality free of organized religion.
After this meeting, Olive travelled from place to place, accepting posts as a governess with various families and leaving them because of the sexual predation of her male employers in many cases. During this time she met Julius Gau, to whom she became engaged under doubtful circumstances. For whatever reason, their engagement did not last long and she returned to live with her parents and then with her brothers. She read widely and began writing seriously. She started Undine at this time.
However, her brothers� financial situation soon deteriorated, as diamonds became increasingly difficult to find. Olive had no choice but to resume her transient lifestyle, moving between various households and towns, until she returned briefly to her parents in 1874. It was there that she had the first of the asthma attacks that would plague her for the rest of her life. Since her parents were no more financially secure than before and because of her ill-health, Olive was forced to resume working in order to support them.
From Wikipedia:
Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (1855-1920) was named after her three older brothers, Oliver (1848-1854), Albert (1843-1843) and Emile (1852-1852), who died before she was born. She was the ninth of twelve children born to a missionary couple, Gottlob Schreiner and Rebecca Lyndall at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschel in South Africa. Her childhood was a harsh one: her father was loving and gentle, though unpractical; but her mother Rebecca was intent on teaching her children the same restraint and self-discipline that had been a part of her upbringing. Olive received virtually all her initial education from her mother who was well-read and gifted.[clarification needed] Her eldest brother Fred (1840-1901) was educated in England and became headmaster of a school in Eastbourne.
When Olive was six, Gottlob transferred to Healdtown in the Eastern Cape to run the Wesleyan training institute there. As with so many of his other projects, he simply was not up to the task and was expelled in disgrace for trading against missionary regulations. He was forced to make his own living for the first time in his life, and tried a business venture. Again, he failed and was insolvent within a year. The family lived in abject poverty as a result.
However, Olive was not to remain with her parents for long. When her older brother Theophilus (1844-1920) was appointed headmaster in Cradock in 1867, she went to live with him along with two of her siblings. She also attended his school and received a formal education for the first time. Despite that, she was no happier in Cradock than she had been in Wittebergen or Healdtown. Her siblings were very religious, but Olive had already rejected the Christianity of her parents as baseless and it was the cause of many arguments with her family.
Therefore, when Theo and her brother left Cradock for the diamond fields of Griqualand West, Olive chose to become a governess . On the way to her first post at Barkly East, she met Willie Bertram, who shared her views of religion and who lent her a copy of Herbert Spencer’s First Principles. This text was to have a profound impact on her. While rejecting religious creeds and doctrine, Spencer also argued for a belief in an Absolute that lay beyond the scope of human knowledge and conception. This belief was founded in the unity of nature and a teleological universe, both of which Olive was to appropriate for herself in her attempts to create a morality free of organized religion.
After this meeting, Olive travelled from place to place, accepting posts as a governess with various families and leaving them because of the sexual predation of her male employers in many cases. During this time she met Julius Gau, to whom she became engaged under doubtful circumstances. For whatever reason, their engagement did not last long and she returned to live with her parents and then with her brothers. She read widely and began writing seriously. She started Undine at this time.
However, her brothers� financial situation soon deteriorated, as diamonds became increasingly difficult to find. Olive had no choice but to resume her transient lifestyle, moving between various households and towns, until she returned briefly to her parents in 1874. It was there that she had the first of the asthma attacks that would plague her for the rest of her life. Since her parents were no more financially secure than before and because of her ill-health, Olive was forced to resume working in order to support them.
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January 14, 2019
If you have not read this, please do. It is a beautifully melancholic and inspiring read, exploring the The New Man as well as The New Woman as well as providing thought-provoking discussions on philosophy religion which can afterwards be reflected upon.
April 18, 2014
What led me to this novel was the Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, said to be the only autobiographical work about the First World War written by a woman. If my recollection is right, this novel was a hot topic of discussion between Vera Brittain and her fiance during the few last moments of peace they enjoyed before he, Vera's brother and several of their male friends went to the Front and perished one-by-one in the battlefields of Europe.
But why would these Englishmen be discussing a novel about an African farm during the brink of a world war? Well, the novel is not about any farm though the setting is in a farm in South Africa where the author was born in 1855. It is almost about EVERYTHING except farming.
Olive Schreiner's parents were devout Christians (Calvinists). Her father was a missionary among the tribesmen in the frontiers of the colony whom he was trying to convert to the faith. Yet at the young age of ten (as she confessed later in life), shortly after the death of her younger sister who was dearly loved, she had become an atheist.
She never attended school, even of the most basic nursery-type thing, spending childhood years in lonely missionary outposts. At age twelve she left home to work: as a housekeeper to some of her older married siblings and, on several occasions, as a governess for various white (Boer) families. It was while working as a governess that she began writing this novel. It was published in 1883 with much acclaim mainly because of its feminist theme (two of its principal protagonists were unconventional, strong-willed women, although both looked stupid to me on matters of the heart). And it was also a platform for the 28-year-old author's anti-religious bent where, for example, she made a character say:
"Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and never liked; the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see what he was made of--the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned. Now we have no God.
"'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' It may be so. Most things said or written have been the work of fools.
"This thing is certain--he is a fool who says, 'No man hath said in his heart, There is no God.'
"It has been said many thousand times in hearts with profound bitterness of earnest faith.
""We do not cry and weep; we sit down with cold eyes and look at the world. We are not miserable. Why should we be? We eat and drink, and sleep all night; but the dead are not colder.
"And, we say it slowly, but without sighing, 'Yes, we see it now: there is no God.'
"And, we add, growing a little colder yet, 'There is no justice. The ox dies in the yoke, beneath its master's whip; it turns its anguish-filled eyes on the sunlight, but there is no sign of recompense to be made it. The black man is shot like a dog, and it goes well with the shooter. The innocent are accused, and the accuser triumphs. If you will take the trouble to scratch the surface anywhere, you will see under the skin a sentient being writhing in impotent anguish.'
"And, we say further, and our heart is as the heart of the dead for coldness, 'There is no order: all things are driven about by a blind chance.'"
The novel is marred by imperfections. A more careful publisher would have sent it back to the author for revisions or restructuring. As it is, it seems to be one where it has not made up its mind whether it wants to be humorous, tragic or polemical. But it stood out proud during its time, more than a century ago, and at its unique place in the sun, authored by this remarkable young woman.
It certainly still deserves to be read to this day.
But why would these Englishmen be discussing a novel about an African farm during the brink of a world war? Well, the novel is not about any farm though the setting is in a farm in South Africa where the author was born in 1855. It is almost about EVERYTHING except farming.
Olive Schreiner's parents were devout Christians (Calvinists). Her father was a missionary among the tribesmen in the frontiers of the colony whom he was trying to convert to the faith. Yet at the young age of ten (as she confessed later in life), shortly after the death of her younger sister who was dearly loved, she had become an atheist.
She never attended school, even of the most basic nursery-type thing, spending childhood years in lonely missionary outposts. At age twelve she left home to work: as a housekeeper to some of her older married siblings and, on several occasions, as a governess for various white (Boer) families. It was while working as a governess that she began writing this novel. It was published in 1883 with much acclaim mainly because of its feminist theme (two of its principal protagonists were unconventional, strong-willed women, although both looked stupid to me on matters of the heart). And it was also a platform for the 28-year-old author's anti-religious bent where, for example, she made a character say:
"Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and never liked; the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see what he was made of--the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned. Now we have no God.
"'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' It may be so. Most things said or written have been the work of fools.
"This thing is certain--he is a fool who says, 'No man hath said in his heart, There is no God.'
"It has been said many thousand times in hearts with profound bitterness of earnest faith.
""We do not cry and weep; we sit down with cold eyes and look at the world. We are not miserable. Why should we be? We eat and drink, and sleep all night; but the dead are not colder.
"And, we say it slowly, but without sighing, 'Yes, we see it now: there is no God.'
"And, we add, growing a little colder yet, 'There is no justice. The ox dies in the yoke, beneath its master's whip; it turns its anguish-filled eyes on the sunlight, but there is no sign of recompense to be made it. The black man is shot like a dog, and it goes well with the shooter. The innocent are accused, and the accuser triumphs. If you will take the trouble to scratch the surface anywhere, you will see under the skin a sentient being writhing in impotent anguish.'
"And, we say further, and our heart is as the heart of the dead for coldness, 'There is no order: all things are driven about by a blind chance.'"
The novel is marred by imperfections. A more careful publisher would have sent it back to the author for revisions or restructuring. As it is, it seems to be one where it has not made up its mind whether it wants to be humorous, tragic or polemical. But it stood out proud during its time, more than a century ago, and at its unique place in the sun, authored by this remarkable young woman.
It certainly still deserves to be read to this day.
July 23, 2013
I happened upon this book at a very painful time in my life, and I think my state of mind had a lot to do with how powerfully I was affected by this book. Every day I was fighting off the fear that physically, mentally, I was going down. And getting quite old on top of that. So it was precisely the philosophy of the book that impacted me most powerfully. Yes, some people are just cruel for no reason. And maybe, no matter how hard you try to believe in God, you can't make it. The character who impacted me most was the old man, the victim of so much abuse from the landowner female boss. He took the indignities with grace, was grateful, and as his sufferings became nearly unbearable, he still managed to find gratitude and hope. Don't get the wrong idea; his is not the only attitude on how to live that we hear about. For me, this book runs really deep. I have to say I ran into a South African who said that in his time they had all had to read it and it was a children's book and silly. Wow. I walked away from him quickly. Still, this book would not have been my cup of tea for a great majority of my life. It probably helps to be old, and it doesn't hurt to have your back against the wall.
May 26, 2017
“Was it only John, think you, who saw the heavens open? The dreamers see it every day.�
Warning: racist language throughout, extreme in parts, and a book that only concerns itself with white people. The writing is otherwise stunning, and the narrative voice strong and unique.
I thought this would be, I don’t know, the story of an African farm. But Olive Schreiner has woven a story out of spiritual questioning, and discovered some singular connections and exceptional insights along the way.
There is so much in this little book.
Some gorgeous sentences: “He howled, till the tarantulas, who lived between the rafters and the zinc roof, felt the unusual vibration, and looked out with their wicked bright eyes, to see what was going on.�
Sorrow: “In truth, nothing matters. This dirty little world full of confusion, and the blue rag, stretched overhead for a sky, is so low we could touch it with our hand.�
Insights into art: “And the attribute of all true art, the highest and the lowest, is this—that it says more than it says, and takes you away from itself. It is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please.�
And feminism: “Your man’s love is a child’s love for butterflies. You follow till you have the thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing, and the thing flies still, then you love it more than ever, and follow till you break both; then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground.�
And death: “For this hour—this, this—they barter truth and knowledge, take any lie, any creed, so it does not whisper to them of the dead that they are dead!�
And lots of wise and lovely stuff about nature, my favorite being: “Of all the things I have ever seen, only the sea is like a human being; the sky is not, nor the earth. But the sea is always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question, and it never gets an answer. I can hear it in the day and in the night; the white foam breakers are saying that which I think. I walk alone with them when there is no one to see me, and I sing with them. I lie down on the sand and watch them with my eyes half shut. The sky is better, but it is so high above our heads. I love the sea.�
I could go on, but I’ll stop quoting now! One last thing. The ending just knocked my socks off. Overall, a thrilling read.
Warning: racist language throughout, extreme in parts, and a book that only concerns itself with white people. The writing is otherwise stunning, and the narrative voice strong and unique.
I thought this would be, I don’t know, the story of an African farm. But Olive Schreiner has woven a story out of spiritual questioning, and discovered some singular connections and exceptional insights along the way.
There is so much in this little book.
Some gorgeous sentences: “He howled, till the tarantulas, who lived between the rafters and the zinc roof, felt the unusual vibration, and looked out with their wicked bright eyes, to see what was going on.�
Sorrow: “In truth, nothing matters. This dirty little world full of confusion, and the blue rag, stretched overhead for a sky, is so low we could touch it with our hand.�
Insights into art: “And the attribute of all true art, the highest and the lowest, is this—that it says more than it says, and takes you away from itself. It is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please.�
And feminism: “Your man’s love is a child’s love for butterflies. You follow till you have the thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing, and the thing flies still, then you love it more than ever, and follow till you break both; then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground.�
And death: “For this hour—this, this—they barter truth and knowledge, take any lie, any creed, so it does not whisper to them of the dead that they are dead!�
And lots of wise and lovely stuff about nature, my favorite being: “Of all the things I have ever seen, only the sea is like a human being; the sky is not, nor the earth. But the sea is always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question, and it never gets an answer. I can hear it in the day and in the night; the white foam breakers are saying that which I think. I walk alone with them when there is no one to see me, and I sing with them. I lie down on the sand and watch them with my eyes half shut. The sky is better, but it is so high above our heads. I love the sea.�
I could go on, but I’ll stop quoting now! One last thing. The ending just knocked my socks off. Overall, a thrilling read.
November 17, 2024
AFAIK this is the first South African fiction I have attempted. & I say attempted as I am putting it aside now, probably for good.
This book is beautifully written, but almost uniformly depressing & I just don't deal well with cruelty to children.
DNF at 38% & all I feel is relief.
This book is beautifully written, but almost uniformly depressing & I just don't deal well with cruelty to children.
DNF at 38% & all I feel is relief.
September 19, 2013
When The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883, the title gave no indication to readers what the complex scope of the novel was really about.
Written by South African governess, Olive Schreiner, the book's crux ran along the controversal: the oppression of women, feminism, the existance of God, anti-imperialism, the bizarre transformation of one the novel's characters (not Lyndall) into a transvestite. It goes on and on. The novel was written when the belief of agnosticism was in the early stages of being in 'vogue.' Also interesting, Darwin's Origin of the Species had been published for some time, and the theory had rooted itself in many areas of society.
This was not the traditional Victorian novel that was written in the old English 'bonne bouche' manner on par with Jane Eyre or Emma. The prose of the novel has a broken up fluidity to it; it is not grandiloquent; it is in fact, quite brutal, edgy. As Elaine Showalter writes in the excellent introduction to the Bantam Classic edition, "Readers expecting the structured plot of a typical three-volume Victorian novel were startled by the oddity of African Farm, with its poetic, allegorical, and distinct passages, and its defiance of narrative and sexual conventions." With that clearly explained, it is not a surprise that it shocked old, priggish Englanders with their stiff upper lips and staunch, conservative manners, nor is it shocking that the Church of England called the novel "blasphemous."
African Farm details the lives of three key characters: Waldo, Em and Lyndall. The latter character is the one who seems to bring up the key issues that made the novel controversal. Lyndall is always described as 'little,' 'delicate,' 'like a doll,' 'a flower.' However, she is the one who refuses to marry (with one minor exception to the rule) until a social equilibrium is established between men and women. She desires equality between the sexes, and is willing to suffer for it. And she does, more than what is expected. Odd as it may seem, but considering the period in which the novel was written, the character of Lyndall really had to be physically 'feminized' in order to make up for her strongly held convictions of being a 'total' woman and not 'half' a woman.
If any person reads the novel, the character of Lyndall needs (from my view) special attention, for she questions the values of men, women who accepted the standard, religion and the social hierarchy in which she was born. Her questions seem like cartels, challenges. Why can't she have a job? Why can't she be educated or independent without the stigma 'weirdo' unflinchingly attached to her? Why must she be dubbed 'strange?' The reader must always ask why when reading this book. The three characters, Lyndall especially, endure a lot of hardship, a hardship that mirrored the very author's life, i.e. her cold and distant upbringing, the religious retraints placed on her life as well as the life-clenching grasp that old norms had on women of that period. African Farm was Olive Schreiner's liberty, her freedom from the societal choke hold.
In conclusion, the novel is not one of grace and patrician dogma. It is not a book of nice ladies and gentlemen sitting under the African sun near exotic, wild flowers sipping tea and participating in intellectual banter. No, it is an underscored work of literature where ideas of human aspiration and ecumenical desires are explored under a blazing sun and burnt, sandy plain.
Written by South African governess, Olive Schreiner, the book's crux ran along the controversal: the oppression of women, feminism, the existance of God, anti-imperialism, the bizarre transformation of one the novel's characters (not Lyndall) into a transvestite. It goes on and on. The novel was written when the belief of agnosticism was in the early stages of being in 'vogue.' Also interesting, Darwin's Origin of the Species had been published for some time, and the theory had rooted itself in many areas of society.
This was not the traditional Victorian novel that was written in the old English 'bonne bouche' manner on par with Jane Eyre or Emma. The prose of the novel has a broken up fluidity to it; it is not grandiloquent; it is in fact, quite brutal, edgy. As Elaine Showalter writes in the excellent introduction to the Bantam Classic edition, "Readers expecting the structured plot of a typical three-volume Victorian novel were startled by the oddity of African Farm, with its poetic, allegorical, and distinct passages, and its defiance of narrative and sexual conventions." With that clearly explained, it is not a surprise that it shocked old, priggish Englanders with their stiff upper lips and staunch, conservative manners, nor is it shocking that the Church of England called the novel "blasphemous."
African Farm details the lives of three key characters: Waldo, Em and Lyndall. The latter character is the one who seems to bring up the key issues that made the novel controversal. Lyndall is always described as 'little,' 'delicate,' 'like a doll,' 'a flower.' However, she is the one who refuses to marry (with one minor exception to the rule) until a social equilibrium is established between men and women. She desires equality between the sexes, and is willing to suffer for it. And she does, more than what is expected. Odd as it may seem, but considering the period in which the novel was written, the character of Lyndall really had to be physically 'feminized' in order to make up for her strongly held convictions of being a 'total' woman and not 'half' a woman.
If any person reads the novel, the character of Lyndall needs (from my view) special attention, for she questions the values of men, women who accepted the standard, religion and the social hierarchy in which she was born. Her questions seem like cartels, challenges. Why can't she have a job? Why can't she be educated or independent without the stigma 'weirdo' unflinchingly attached to her? Why must she be dubbed 'strange?' The reader must always ask why when reading this book. The three characters, Lyndall especially, endure a lot of hardship, a hardship that mirrored the very author's life, i.e. her cold and distant upbringing, the religious retraints placed on her life as well as the life-clenching grasp that old norms had on women of that period. African Farm was Olive Schreiner's liberty, her freedom from the societal choke hold.
In conclusion, the novel is not one of grace and patrician dogma. It is not a book of nice ladies and gentlemen sitting under the African sun near exotic, wild flowers sipping tea and participating in intellectual banter. No, it is an underscored work of literature where ideas of human aspiration and ecumenical desires are explored under a blazing sun and burnt, sandy plain.
June 18, 2020
� Ma questo pensiero solo rimane sempre fisso, non se ne va mai � se solo potessi rinascere nel futuro; allora, forse, nascere donne non significherà essere marchiate a vita �
Figlia di un missionario tedesco e di una donna inglese, Olive Schreiner cresce in Sud Africa dove trascorrerà la maggior parte della sua vita.
Attiva politicamente in difesa dei diritti delle donne, contro la guerra ed il razzismo, conoscerà il successo proprio con indicato come uno dei primi romanzi femministi.
Pubblicato nel 1883 con lo pseudonimo maschile di Ralph Iron (Il nome in onore di Emerson, il cognome probabilmente riconducibile alla gabbia di ferro in cui sono costrette le donne), il romanzo racconta la vita di tre personaggi principali: le due cugine Em e Lyndall e il Waldo un pastore apparentemente selvatico ma con le mani e l'animo di un artista.
� Le vicende della vita possono essere dipinte in due modi. Si può adottare il metodo teatrale: esso ci permette di predefinire e schierare in scena ogni personaggio con la sua bella etichetta; sappiamo con immutabile certezza che, al momento giusto, ognuno di loro interverrà a svolgere il proprio ruolo e che, una volta calato il sipario, tutti si presenteranno alla ribalta con un inchino. Questo metodo senza dubbio procura in noi un senso di soddisfazione e di completezza. Ma c’� anche un altro metodo, quello comunemente adottato nella nostra vita di tutti i giorni. In esso non è dato profetizzare nulla. I percorsi s’intrecciano in modo strano e casuale.�
Cosi la Schreiner scrive nella prefazione della ristampa dopo il successo della prima pubblicazione (1883) e dove svelò il suo vero nome.
Il tema della casualità fa sì che nella fattoria governata dalla grassa boera Tant� Sannie (rappresentante la tipica coloniale limitata dai pregiudizi e dalle superstizioni) si presentino, a volte, personaggi misteriosi e bizzarri.
Da bambini a giovani adulti seguiamo i tre protagonisti nei loro percorsi di crescita.
Un racconto in cui si passa facilmente dal riso alla commozione e dove i meravigliosi paesaggi acuiscono il senso di solitudine.
Una storia dove assistiamo tanto all'estenuante ricerca di un dio amorevole quanto alla presa di coscienza delle ingiustizie e all'affermazione dei diritti delle donne.
Si ride anche per le caricature di uomini e donne che abitavano quelle sperdute colonie.
E ci si sorprende di trovare, in un romanzo di fine ottocento, pensieri così apertamente agnostici (“Dio non esiste!�) e uomini che fanno emergere la propria femminilità travestendosi.
Un libro dei sogni.
Di quelli che si fanno, però, ad occhi aperti e delineano le forme di un mondo più giusto.
Intanto attorno a queste bianche vite girano presenze nere, indigeni con cui ci si rapporta come strumenti da lavoro e chiamati con dispregiativo boero “cafri�.
L’autrice non li fa parlare e questo rende ancora più vivida l’atroce realtà della colonia sudafricana.
Lettura, per me, molto soddisfacente per il coinvolgimento e la sorpresa
Non mi aspettavo, infatti, una trama così ricca di movimento forse perché credevo che un romanzo ambientato nel karoo riflettesse l’aridità statica del suo ambiente.
Ad Olive Schreiner ci sono arrivata tramite Janet Frame che ne parla nella sua autobiografia .
Dopo vari anni che ci giro attorno finalmente l’ho letto e il gradimento è stata completo.
� Le sbarre della realtà ci premono da vicino e non c’� concesso aprire le ali perché le urtiamo subito e ricadiamo sanguinanti a terra, ma quando riusciamo a scivolare attraverso quelle sbarre, per inoltrarci nell’ignoto che è al di là di esse, possiamo volare per sempre nel glorioso azzurro, non vedendo altra cosa se non la nostra ombra. E così un’epoca si sostituisce all’altra e un sogno si sostituisce a un altro e nessuno conosce le gioie del sognatore se non è egli stesso un sognatore.
I nostri padri avevano i loro sogni; noi abbiamo i nostri; la generazione che verrà avrà i propri sogni. Senza sogni e fantasmi l’uomo non può vivere.�
Figlia di un missionario tedesco e di una donna inglese, Olive Schreiner cresce in Sud Africa dove trascorrerà la maggior parte della sua vita.
Attiva politicamente in difesa dei diritti delle donne, contro la guerra ed il razzismo, conoscerà il successo proprio con indicato come uno dei primi romanzi femministi.
Pubblicato nel 1883 con lo pseudonimo maschile di Ralph Iron (Il nome in onore di Emerson, il cognome probabilmente riconducibile alla gabbia di ferro in cui sono costrette le donne), il romanzo racconta la vita di tre personaggi principali: le due cugine Em e Lyndall e il Waldo un pastore apparentemente selvatico ma con le mani e l'animo di un artista.
� Le vicende della vita possono essere dipinte in due modi. Si può adottare il metodo teatrale: esso ci permette di predefinire e schierare in scena ogni personaggio con la sua bella etichetta; sappiamo con immutabile certezza che, al momento giusto, ognuno di loro interverrà a svolgere il proprio ruolo e che, una volta calato il sipario, tutti si presenteranno alla ribalta con un inchino. Questo metodo senza dubbio procura in noi un senso di soddisfazione e di completezza. Ma c’� anche un altro metodo, quello comunemente adottato nella nostra vita di tutti i giorni. In esso non è dato profetizzare nulla. I percorsi s’intrecciano in modo strano e casuale.�
Cosi la Schreiner scrive nella prefazione della ristampa dopo il successo della prima pubblicazione (1883) e dove svelò il suo vero nome.
Il tema della casualità fa sì che nella fattoria governata dalla grassa boera Tant� Sannie (rappresentante la tipica coloniale limitata dai pregiudizi e dalle superstizioni) si presentino, a volte, personaggi misteriosi e bizzarri.
Da bambini a giovani adulti seguiamo i tre protagonisti nei loro percorsi di crescita.
Un racconto in cui si passa facilmente dal riso alla commozione e dove i meravigliosi paesaggi acuiscono il senso di solitudine.
Una storia dove assistiamo tanto all'estenuante ricerca di un dio amorevole quanto alla presa di coscienza delle ingiustizie e all'affermazione dei diritti delle donne.
Si ride anche per le caricature di uomini e donne che abitavano quelle sperdute colonie.
E ci si sorprende di trovare, in un romanzo di fine ottocento, pensieri così apertamente agnostici (“Dio non esiste!�) e uomini che fanno emergere la propria femminilità travestendosi.
Un libro dei sogni.
Di quelli che si fanno, però, ad occhi aperti e delineano le forme di un mondo più giusto.
Intanto attorno a queste bianche vite girano presenze nere, indigeni con cui ci si rapporta come strumenti da lavoro e chiamati con dispregiativo boero “cafri�.
L’autrice non li fa parlare e questo rende ancora più vivida l’atroce realtà della colonia sudafricana.
Lettura, per me, molto soddisfacente per il coinvolgimento e la sorpresa
Non mi aspettavo, infatti, una trama così ricca di movimento forse perché credevo che un romanzo ambientato nel karoo riflettesse l’aridità statica del suo ambiente.
Ad Olive Schreiner ci sono arrivata tramite Janet Frame che ne parla nella sua autobiografia .
Dopo vari anni che ci giro attorno finalmente l’ho letto e il gradimento è stata completo.
� Le sbarre della realtà ci premono da vicino e non c’� concesso aprire le ali perché le urtiamo subito e ricadiamo sanguinanti a terra, ma quando riusciamo a scivolare attraverso quelle sbarre, per inoltrarci nell’ignoto che è al di là di esse, possiamo volare per sempre nel glorioso azzurro, non vedendo altra cosa se non la nostra ombra. E così un’epoca si sostituisce all’altra e un sogno si sostituisce a un altro e nessuno conosce le gioie del sognatore se non è egli stesso un sognatore.
I nostri padri avevano i loro sogni; noi abbiamo i nostri; la generazione che verrà avrà i propri sogni. Senza sogni e fantasmi l’uomo non può vivere.�
March 7, 2023
3.5 stars. An interesting novel about three characters, Lyndall, Waldo and Em, growing up together on a farm in South Africa in the 1860s. Lyndall is quite a forthright person who questions the values of men, the expected role of women, religion and the social classes. She asks why can’t she be educated like men and have a job.
An original novel for the times it was first published. It is a little clunky in parts, focusing on Boers, the English, a German trickster and an Irishman.
This book was first published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was an immediate success and has become recognized as one of the first feminist novels.
An original novel for the times it was first published. It is a little clunky in parts, focusing on Boers, the English, a German trickster and an Irishman.
This book was first published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was an immediate success and has become recognized as one of the first feminist novels.
March 14, 2019
"The Story of an African Farm" is a novel narrating episodes from the lives of three children as they grow up on a farm in South Africa: through dreamy yet visceral prose, the reader learns of Waldo’s spiritual unrest, Lyndall’s fierce and far-reaching ambitions, and of the stolid Em, who is sweet but no fool. The narrative is evocative in its description of a different time and place and a unique culture.
But "The Story of an African Farm" is a mess. There is good material to excerpt as food for thought but the narrative is disjunct and the reader is hard-pressed to find much of a cohesive narrative thread.
The book is, ostensibly, divided into two parts; in Part I, the reader struggles through episodes wherein the children fight an evil and corrupt man who is trying to take over the farm. Yet they don't really fight. They hunker down and wait for it to be over which, eventually, it is. And when it is over, Part II begins with a waxing, verbose first-person-plural description of Waldo's journey from utterly faithful Christian to atheist. It is a great read, but it doesn't fit. At all. Then, the plot continues moving along but, like the plot prior to the grandiloquent philosophical section, the ensuing storyline is rife with narrative holes and difficulty. And interrupted with more rhapsodic philosophical episodes. It's almost as if Schreiner couldn't decide what kind of book she really wanted to write. She rushes the reader through life experiences in a way that highlights that she is not so interested in what the characters are doing but what they are thinking. Or highlighting what she thinks WE should be thinking.
So, in this sense, it isn't the story of an African farm at all (though there are some fantastic descriptions of a Dutch wedding and the landscape of the farm and its surrounds, the dust, the dirt, the lifestyle) but a story of the confusion of coming of age. And written, it seems, by one who was still confused about coming of age and what that really means. Schreiner says it best herself in the words of a stranger talking to Waldo in the karoo; "A confused and disordered story - the little made large and the large small, and nothing showing its inward meaning. It is not till the past has receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into co-ordinate pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased to exist that it takes its place among other objective realities, and finds its true niche in the picture. The present and the near past is a confusion, whose meaning flashes on us as it slinks away into the distance."
In reading the above quote, one begins to wonder if Schreiner structured her book to purposefully fulfill the sentiment expressed. And if not, one wishes she had written her book, put it away, and come back to it 20 years later to edit and reorder before publishing.
Nevertheless, it was a read I'm glad I undertook. And scattered throughout are wonderful food-for-thought-and-reflection moments;
"All things on earth have their price; and for truth we pay the dearest. We barter it for love and sympathy. The road to honor is paved with thorns; but on the path to truth, at every step you set your foot down on your own heart."
"In the end, experience will inevitably teach us that the laws for a wise and noble life have a foundation infinitely deeper than the fiat of any being, god or man, even in the groundwork of human nature. She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man his blood be not shed, though no man avenge and no hell await, yet every drop shall blister on his soul and eat in the name of the dead. She will teach that whoso takes a love not lawfully his own, gathers a flower with a poison on its petals; that whoso revenges, strikes with a sword that has two edges - one for his adversary, one for himself; that who lives to himself is dead, though the ground is not yet on him; that who wrongs another clouds his own sun; and that who sins in secret stands accused and condemned before the one Judge who deals eternal justice - his own all-knowing self."
In describing Em, the stolid, sweet character, Lyndall says, "(She is like the) accompaniment of a song. She fills up the gaps in other people's lives, and is always number two; but I think she is like many accompaniments - a great deal better than the song she is to accompany."
"There must be a Hereafter because man longs for it? Is not all life from the cradle to the grave one long yearning for that which we never touch? There must be a Hereafter because we cannot think of any end to life? Can we think of a beginning? Is it easier to say 'I was not' than to say 'I shall not be?'"
But "The Story of an African Farm" is a mess. There is good material to excerpt as food for thought but the narrative is disjunct and the reader is hard-pressed to find much of a cohesive narrative thread.
The book is, ostensibly, divided into two parts; in Part I, the reader struggles through episodes wherein the children fight an evil and corrupt man who is trying to take over the farm. Yet they don't really fight. They hunker down and wait for it to be over which, eventually, it is. And when it is over, Part II begins with a waxing, verbose first-person-plural description of Waldo's journey from utterly faithful Christian to atheist. It is a great read, but it doesn't fit. At all. Then, the plot continues moving along but, like the plot prior to the grandiloquent philosophical section, the ensuing storyline is rife with narrative holes and difficulty. And interrupted with more rhapsodic philosophical episodes. It's almost as if Schreiner couldn't decide what kind of book she really wanted to write. She rushes the reader through life experiences in a way that highlights that she is not so interested in what the characters are doing but what they are thinking. Or highlighting what she thinks WE should be thinking.
So, in this sense, it isn't the story of an African farm at all (though there are some fantastic descriptions of a Dutch wedding and the landscape of the farm and its surrounds, the dust, the dirt, the lifestyle) but a story of the confusion of coming of age. And written, it seems, by one who was still confused about coming of age and what that really means. Schreiner says it best herself in the words of a stranger talking to Waldo in the karoo; "A confused and disordered story - the little made large and the large small, and nothing showing its inward meaning. It is not till the past has receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into co-ordinate pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased to exist that it takes its place among other objective realities, and finds its true niche in the picture. The present and the near past is a confusion, whose meaning flashes on us as it slinks away into the distance."
In reading the above quote, one begins to wonder if Schreiner structured her book to purposefully fulfill the sentiment expressed. And if not, one wishes she had written her book, put it away, and come back to it 20 years later to edit and reorder before publishing.
Nevertheless, it was a read I'm glad I undertook. And scattered throughout are wonderful food-for-thought-and-reflection moments;
"All things on earth have their price; and for truth we pay the dearest. We barter it for love and sympathy. The road to honor is paved with thorns; but on the path to truth, at every step you set your foot down on your own heart."
"In the end, experience will inevitably teach us that the laws for a wise and noble life have a foundation infinitely deeper than the fiat of any being, god or man, even in the groundwork of human nature. She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man his blood be not shed, though no man avenge and no hell await, yet every drop shall blister on his soul and eat in the name of the dead. She will teach that whoso takes a love not lawfully his own, gathers a flower with a poison on its petals; that whoso revenges, strikes with a sword that has two edges - one for his adversary, one for himself; that who lives to himself is dead, though the ground is not yet on him; that who wrongs another clouds his own sun; and that who sins in secret stands accused and condemned before the one Judge who deals eternal justice - his own all-knowing self."
In describing Em, the stolid, sweet character, Lyndall says, "(She is like the) accompaniment of a song. She fills up the gaps in other people's lives, and is always number two; but I think she is like many accompaniments - a great deal better than the song she is to accompany."
"There must be a Hereafter because man longs for it? Is not all life from the cradle to the grave one long yearning for that which we never touch? There must be a Hereafter because we cannot think of any end to life? Can we think of a beginning? Is it easier to say 'I was not' than to say 'I shall not be?'"
October 22, 2024
What a totally depressing, pesimistic and overall boring book. This is definitely only a South African ‘classic� because we don’t have many authors writing fiction.
That woman must have been incredibly negative or just totally miserable to be around.
Only the Germans are capable of writing fiction as depressing without any humour or happiness such as this.
Anyway it’s probably obviously for the best that most modern South Africans have probably never heard of, let alone wasted their time reading this crap.
Even my own English teacher I had totally hates the book as well as the author and her philosophy.
That woman must have been incredibly negative or just totally miserable to be around.
Only the Germans are capable of writing fiction as depressing without any humour or happiness such as this.
Anyway it’s probably obviously for the best that most modern South Africans have probably never heard of, let alone wasted their time reading this crap.
Even my own English teacher I had totally hates the book as well as the author and her philosophy.
July 31, 2018
Hinter dem unschuldigen Titel “Geschichte einer afrikanischen Farm� verbarg sich eine mitreißende Geschichte über die Möglichkeiten der Frau in einer von Männern geprägten Welt. Wir begleiten drei elternlose Kinder beim erwachsen werden und erfahren dadurch wie schön Afrika aber auch die Liebe sein kann. Besonders die starken Gefühle und die philosophischen Weisheiten der Farmbewohner haben mir gut gefallen.
October 31, 2024
fascinating novel at points but any feminist sentiment is so radically attenuated by the complete lack of compassion & total erasure of african women from the same cateogory of womanhood as the white woman/girl at the centre of this novel. glad to have finally read it. i kinda luv waldo lol ?!
December 29, 2016
The first part of this book was a three star read for me, alright but didn't really connect with me. Then the second part came along and blew me away.
The title of the novel is not misleading, exactly, but not entirely accurate. It is not the story of a farm. It is the story of a group of people living on an African farm. It covers several segments of their lives around the 1860s. It is the story of a farm in the sense that everything is set at the farm. When people leave, we only hear about them in letters, or in their stories once they return.
The novel was published in 1883, under a male pseudonym that apparently didn't fool anyone. I guess it might have been the eloquent championing of women's rights by one of the female characters, although Schreiner was clearly modelling her arguments on those of John Stuart Mill whose other works also feature in the book. Schreiner goes somewhat further, and mixes up the gender roles in unexpected ways. Her male characters are certainly not what I have come to expect from Victorian novels. But this is late Victorian writing, and times were a-changing. Schreiner was simply a good way ahead of the heat.
In addition to early feminism we get a fable about the search for Truth, and the end-of-Victorian era upheaval of science contradicting religion. A considerable amount of the second part of the book is given over to soul searching and long monologues, but it is riveting reading. For the rest, the book is episodic, with lapses of time between chapters and with characters showing who they are in activity rather than words. The effect is quite modern, and again rather different from the usual 19th century style.
One word of warning at the end: The book was written in the 1880s and is set in South Africa. It is littered with terms that are today considered highly offensive racial slurs. In the book they are, however, used simply as descriptive terms. The author seems to have subscribed to a type of Social Darwinism that sees people of colour as inferior, but not inherently so. They are inferior as a result of the same sort of circumstances that kept women inferior: Lack of education and opportunity. This is only vaguely explored in the book, and I am a bit unclear on whether she thought that skin colour actually gets lighter with "civilization" so that eventually there would be no people of colour left once equal opportunity had existed for a few generations. But on the whole, this is a book about white people. About Boers, the English, the odd German and Irishman, and the various people of colour are simply there, a part of daily life but yet apart from the human relations, connections, and sympathies of the white people.
The title of the novel is not misleading, exactly, but not entirely accurate. It is not the story of a farm. It is the story of a group of people living on an African farm. It covers several segments of their lives around the 1860s. It is the story of a farm in the sense that everything is set at the farm. When people leave, we only hear about them in letters, or in their stories once they return.
The novel was published in 1883, under a male pseudonym that apparently didn't fool anyone. I guess it might have been the eloquent championing of women's rights by one of the female characters, although Schreiner was clearly modelling her arguments on those of John Stuart Mill whose other works also feature in the book. Schreiner goes somewhat further, and mixes up the gender roles in unexpected ways. Her male characters are certainly not what I have come to expect from Victorian novels. But this is late Victorian writing, and times were a-changing. Schreiner was simply a good way ahead of the heat.
In addition to early feminism we get a fable about the search for Truth, and the end-of-Victorian era upheaval of science contradicting religion. A considerable amount of the second part of the book is given over to soul searching and long monologues, but it is riveting reading. For the rest, the book is episodic, with lapses of time between chapters and with characters showing who they are in activity rather than words. The effect is quite modern, and again rather different from the usual 19th century style.
One word of warning at the end: The book was written in the 1880s and is set in South Africa. It is littered with terms that are today considered highly offensive racial slurs. In the book they are, however, used simply as descriptive terms. The author seems to have subscribed to a type of Social Darwinism that sees people of colour as inferior, but not inherently so. They are inferior as a result of the same sort of circumstances that kept women inferior: Lack of education and opportunity. This is only vaguely explored in the book, and I am a bit unclear on whether she thought that skin colour actually gets lighter with "civilization" so that eventually there would be no people of colour left once equal opportunity had existed for a few generations. But on the whole, this is a book about white people. About Boers, the English, the odd German and Irishman, and the various people of colour are simply there, a part of daily life but yet apart from the human relations, connections, and sympathies of the white people.
August 23, 2019
Hmmm...this is a strange one. Written in 1883, it caused quite a stir, which I can believe, because of its radical views on religion (against) and feminism (for); also the roles of men and women (there is a male character who pretends to be a woman, and a woman who refuses to marry the man she loves, but agrees to live with him and has his child, then leaves him.
I was interested in this book because of something Jerome K. Jerome says in his Idle Ideas of 1905. It is fascinating to read an opinion of a reader of this book in 1905 - the book was still causing a stir 25 yrs later! In his words, "...when reading Emily Bronte my thoughts always run on to Olive Schreiner. Here, again, was a young girl with the voice of a strong man."
This book is not about an African Farm. It pretends to be about some women (a widow, her step-daughter, and step-niece) and some men (the overseer, his son, and some other men that show up at the farm). These characters fall in & out of love with each other, and generally treat each other badly. When she is writing this story about the people on the farm, it is very good. She is very good at telling a story. The evil Englishman who intrudes himself on the farm and wheedles his way into the widow's good graces is excellently done. The widow is also done very well, with some great humor.
About halfway through, the author either forgets what she was writing about, or gets bored with the story, or wants to torture her readers. I'm not sure what happened, but she drops the story and begins preaching these long, rambling, incoherent sermons about religion and feminism. So here we see what she really wants to write about, but sadly enough, who would want to read this heavy-handed harangue? Presumably other atheists and feminists.
The story sort of picks up after this, but never really becomes coherent from this point on. I don't think she knew what she wanted to do with the characters. They start wandering around acting lost and mentally unstable. This serves to bring on another long diatribe about death and the futility of life.
Overall I think Schreiner had some real potential as a storyteller but not as a social thinker. This book is certainly interesting and valuable, because of the time in which it was written.
I was interested in this book because of something Jerome K. Jerome says in his Idle Ideas of 1905. It is fascinating to read an opinion of a reader of this book in 1905 - the book was still causing a stir 25 yrs later! In his words, "...when reading Emily Bronte my thoughts always run on to Olive Schreiner. Here, again, was a young girl with the voice of a strong man."
This book is not about an African Farm. It pretends to be about some women (a widow, her step-daughter, and step-niece) and some men (the overseer, his son, and some other men that show up at the farm). These characters fall in & out of love with each other, and generally treat each other badly. When she is writing this story about the people on the farm, it is very good. She is very good at telling a story. The evil Englishman who intrudes himself on the farm and wheedles his way into the widow's good graces is excellently done. The widow is also done very well, with some great humor.
About halfway through, the author either forgets what she was writing about, or gets bored with the story, or wants to torture her readers. I'm not sure what happened, but she drops the story and begins preaching these long, rambling, incoherent sermons about religion and feminism. So here we see what she really wants to write about, but sadly enough, who would want to read this heavy-handed harangue? Presumably other atheists and feminists.
The story sort of picks up after this, but never really becomes coherent from this point on. I don't think she knew what she wanted to do with the characters. They start wandering around acting lost and mentally unstable. This serves to bring on another long diatribe about death and the futility of life.
Overall I think Schreiner had some real potential as a storyteller but not as a social thinker. This book is certainly interesting and valuable, because of the time in which it was written.
March 8, 2021
La lettura di questo libro ha cominciato a irritarmi sin dalle prime pagine. Ciò che ho trovato insopportabile è il razzismo che pervade la narrazione. Avendo letto che Olive Schreiner si era battuta contro il razzismo ho deciso di continuare a leggere. La storia si svolge in una fattoria boera del Karoo sudafricano, dove i personaggi centrali sono tre giovani: Em la futura erede della fattoria, sua cugina Lyndall - insofferente alla condizione della donna di fine '800 - e il pastore Waldo, impegnato in una costante ricerca spirituale. La popolazione nera che ruota attorno ai bianchi - padroni o poveri che siano - non ha né nomi né la dignità di personaggi: i sudafricani neri infatti sembrano più che altro far parte della fauna locale, sono i "servi cafri" o la "ragazza ottentotta", hanno visi malvagi e istinti selvaggi; il cane Doss ha una vita interiore molto più complessa di loro e a livello narrativo ha uno spessore maggiore. Da questo presupposto tutto quello che di buono poteva esserci in questo libro viene meno. La prospettiva coloniale è preponderante. Le riflessioni sulla religione per esempio o sulla condizione femminile non hanno senso se non includono le donne nere, le donne ebree o quelle di qualunque altra parte del mondo. Non so se le idee dell'autrice sono cambiate nel tempo o se hanno continuato ad avere la stessa impronta che si trova in questo romanzo. Ma se il femminismo significa qualcosa, non bisogna appoggiare questo tipo di donna e di scrittura, che racchiudono una mentalità antiquata e non condivisibile.
August 6, 2013
This is a peculiar book by any account, but in its time, peculiarly influential. It's a shame that today more people haven't heard of it.
Olive Schreiner was the first well-known South African writer, and this book literally marks the dawn of South African literature. Schreiner wrote it when she was 18, and it has the exploratory feel of a writer trying out different styles to see what she can do; they never entirely meld by the end of the book, but it nonetheless paints a portrait of growing up wrestling with religious doubt that still has surprising resonance.
Its unusual 3-part structure is said to have influenced Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; its comic yet disturbing portrait of a charlatan taking over life on the farm may have helped Mark Twain write Huckleberry Finn; and the World War I poets had read and admired the book. For what's today an unknown work by an unknown author, this is quite a distinguished series of connections to have.
Olive Schreiner was the first well-known South African writer, and this book literally marks the dawn of South African literature. Schreiner wrote it when she was 18, and it has the exploratory feel of a writer trying out different styles to see what she can do; they never entirely meld by the end of the book, but it nonetheless paints a portrait of growing up wrestling with religious doubt that still has surprising resonance.
Its unusual 3-part structure is said to have influenced Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; its comic yet disturbing portrait of a charlatan taking over life on the farm may have helped Mark Twain write Huckleberry Finn; and the World War I poets had read and admired the book. For what's today an unknown work by an unknown author, this is quite a distinguished series of connections to have.
November 2, 2024
let me not say of my Dead that it is dead! I will believe all else, bear all else, endure all else!
A powerful book.
It was hard to believe that was written in the Victorian era because the literature of that period I associate with different styles and topics.
Your immortality is annihilation, your Hereafter is a lie
There were two or three moments when philosophical arguments dragged a bit. Nonetheless, the messages about immortality and women's rights were brilliant and valid. Neither new nor original to me, but still important and truthful.
Our fathers had their dream; we have ours; the generation that follows will have its own. Without dreams and phantoms man cannot exist.
A gem worth reading.
Only then, when there comes a pause, a blank in your life, when the old idol is broken, when the old hope is dead, when the old desire is crushed, then the Divine compensation of Nature is made manifest
May 21, 2022
This is a strange book to try and encapsulate in a review. There are some excellent parts early on that make me think of Nabokov’s Pnin or anything by Flannery O’Connor (both of which it predates) but then it veers into more existentialist territory (which it also mostly predates). It’s simultaneously progressive and conservative which is probably a good balance for a colonial novel. The characters are almost interesting but never quite endear themselves. A dog named Doss and an abused ox will capture your heart more than any human character in the story.
February 13, 2013
I got this book a couple of years ago--the first edition, no less--and began to read it. The style of writing was good, but that's the best I could say. The atheistic ideas, the socialist tendencies, and the sad elements were not at all rewarding. I read the first half in an hour, skimmed the second half, and shamelessly returned the book to the store the next day. After my experience, I am not surprised that the author is so little known.
December 11, 2020
December 11, 2020 will mark the 100 year anniversary of this author's death, a fact I only became aware of when I started reading about Schreiner after finishing the book. This book gets four stars from me but not without hesitation. I was plagued by cognitive dissonance while reading.
On the positive, Schreiner's descriptions of South Africa, the natural beauty of the land and the time period are breathtakingly beautiful. Where else is herding a flock of ostriches part of everday life, no different than the herd of sheep? Stunning.
Approach the storytelling with an open mind and go with it. It can be meandering but there's so much joy to be found along the way one wants the flow of words to go on and on. At one point it occurred to me that it's much like reading the Bible. There's spiritual teaching and earnest seekers trying to understand God and man and nature. There are allegories. There is inspiration and sutras. There is the historical and factual and petty. If one reads the Bible the texts are sometimes spiritual teachings, sometimes human angst and woe, sometimes a study in history. There is allegory. There is striving and sometimes glimpsing that ultimate peace and understanding of man and place and being and Being.
This is a bildungsroman of a boy, Waldo, and a girl, Lyndall. A companion girl, Em, grows up through the course of the book as well, but I found her mostly to be a minor character. Schreiner is known as an early feminist and the feminist ideals are brilliantly conveyed via the characters. Most interesting to me, though, was the spiritual journey of Waldo. Beyond the feminist or individualist theories which Schreiner seems most well-known for, the spiritual quest to me is where the strongest writing could be found and was, I think, the main point of the novel. The strain of ideas running through the novel reminded me greatly of Eckhart Tolle, a non-denominational sort of spirituality, the spirituality that is found when one strips away religious performance.
But back to that cognitive dissonance. The writing is brutally racist. I say brutal because the racism is so unconscious, so unaware if itself. The book is filled with perjoratives, not just about the native black inhabitants of the land, but of the many colonists occupying southern Africa. The terms were not, mostly, viewed as perjorative in her age but it is jarring to read them now. Schreiner was a progressive in the author's time. She wanted women's rights, animal rights, and generally for people not to be down-trodden. However, it is evident in the writing that the black natives were not seen as capable of being intellectually equal to whites. The view (and it seems the view of not just the characters but the author) is that kindness should be shown to all living creatures. The black natives occupy a place in the minds of the characters that is more similar to oxen or other livestock in the book. Perhaps Schreiner did not hold that view herself - essays I've read on her life say she fought for the equality of black persons as well as women - but that did not come across to me at all in this Story of an African Farm.
Would I recommend this book? I want to were it not for the careless representation of black persons in the story. But surely there are more modern pieces of literature where one can find an equivalent beauty in the descriptions of that part of Africa, of spiritual journeys that span childhood to adulthood. Maybe it's time for classics like this one to stay on the shelf.
P.S. The introduction to this edition of the book contains a major spoiler!
On the positive, Schreiner's descriptions of South Africa, the natural beauty of the land and the time period are breathtakingly beautiful. Where else is herding a flock of ostriches part of everday life, no different than the herd of sheep? Stunning.
Approach the storytelling with an open mind and go with it. It can be meandering but there's so much joy to be found along the way one wants the flow of words to go on and on. At one point it occurred to me that it's much like reading the Bible. There's spiritual teaching and earnest seekers trying to understand God and man and nature. There are allegories. There is inspiration and sutras. There is the historical and factual and petty. If one reads the Bible the texts are sometimes spiritual teachings, sometimes human angst and woe, sometimes a study in history. There is allegory. There is striving and sometimes glimpsing that ultimate peace and understanding of man and place and being and Being.
This is a bildungsroman of a boy, Waldo, and a girl, Lyndall. A companion girl, Em, grows up through the course of the book as well, but I found her mostly to be a minor character. Schreiner is known as an early feminist and the feminist ideals are brilliantly conveyed via the characters. Most interesting to me, though, was the spiritual journey of Waldo. Beyond the feminist or individualist theories which Schreiner seems most well-known for, the spiritual quest to me is where the strongest writing could be found and was, I think, the main point of the novel. The strain of ideas running through the novel reminded me greatly of Eckhart Tolle, a non-denominational sort of spirituality, the spirituality that is found when one strips away religious performance.
But back to that cognitive dissonance. The writing is brutally racist. I say brutal because the racism is so unconscious, so unaware if itself. The book is filled with perjoratives, not just about the native black inhabitants of the land, but of the many colonists occupying southern Africa. The terms were not, mostly, viewed as perjorative in her age but it is jarring to read them now. Schreiner was a progressive in the author's time. She wanted women's rights, animal rights, and generally for people not to be down-trodden. However, it is evident in the writing that the black natives were not seen as capable of being intellectually equal to whites. The view (and it seems the view of not just the characters but the author) is that kindness should be shown to all living creatures. The black natives occupy a place in the minds of the characters that is more similar to oxen or other livestock in the book. Perhaps Schreiner did not hold that view herself - essays I've read on her life say she fought for the equality of black persons as well as women - but that did not come across to me at all in this Story of an African Farm.
Would I recommend this book? I want to were it not for the careless representation of black persons in the story. But surely there are more modern pieces of literature where one can find an equivalent beauty in the descriptions of that part of Africa, of spiritual journeys that span childhood to adulthood. Maybe it's time for classics like this one to stay on the shelf.
P.S. The introduction to this edition of the book contains a major spoiler!
May 6, 2018
A convict, or a man who drinks, seems something so far off and horrible when we see him; but to himself he seems quite near to us, and like us. We wonder what kind of a creature he is; but he is just we, ourselves. We are only the wood, the knife that carves on us is the circumstance.I don't coddle the books I read, neither their texts nor their authors. It matters not when the author lived, or what language they spoke, neither how they died nor how little they raped during the course of their lifetime. What matters is the quality, the creativity, the complexity and the holism, so when all I hear during the 19th, the 20th, the 21st centuries is excuse after excuse after excuse of this one knew no better, this one was treated too well, this one was on top and thus couldn't be expected to realize that good writing meant good writing, not writing that fared well enough in conjunction with whatever fad of selective humanity was passing through the mainstream. I know that my poor rating of Schreiner will attract the woman haters that mewl and puke their way through this website, but the only reason why their precious white boys aren't suffering the same and/or more is that, having already wasted far too much of my life on brainwashing myself to like said white boys, I am only in the mood to waste a little more once in a blue moon. In any case, when it comes to Schreiner, I found a few tidbits of quality here and there, but mixed in such a fumbling morass that spent too long on certain aspects and too short on vital others that it joins the ranks of classics whose survival I marvel at.
They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, 'Into how little space can a human soul be crushed?' I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move there—wide room. A woman who has been for many years at once of those places carries the mark of the beast on her until she dies, though she may expand a little afterward when she breathes in the free world.'The Story of an African Farm' reads like a wannabe in certain sections and an Evans novel (Mary Ann for those who are content to wallow in their own superficial filth) merged together, with a sprinkle of a ultra simplistic villain straight out of Dickens and a meandering, ultimately futile character developments. Xenophobic antiblackness is there in spades, as mainstream reception attests to, but frankly, I don't care how much humanity Schreiner saw in the indigenous populations of her imperial outpost. Her writing as a whole is too vague in places and too repetitive in others, and this touches upon all her characters, both white focus and black periphery. I see the feminism others talked about, but any humanizing that doesn't follow through on its inherent promises of ubiquity will never be given a free pass should its other narratological aspects be lacking. Monotone characters with a sprinkling of developmental quirks which barely change over the broad spread of time the narrative touches upon, unnecessarily blunt pathos that went on as awkwardly as it concluded, and observations that, while of interest, happened as the result of events that the narrative chose to pass over to its ultimate detriment. All in all, neither a very good story, nor a very good greater message: just another instance of women being allowed to take the forefront in the ivory tower when they're doing the work of imperialism.
I've taken on too many longer works with which I've been too equal in my attention over the past week, so I sped up on the pace on this one out of the petty reasons of personal dislike on my part and relative lack of length on its. My opinion raised a tad between the time I decided on this quickening of pace and the end, but I still wonder at the masochistic acrobatics of the majority of readers who choose to tackle works of this particular breed. Remember, remember, yes, but wounds are never healed by digging them up, plying on white out, and then stringing them up as an example of how one must react in as correct and status quo sucking a manner as possible. If one is so attached to critiquing purely for the sake of correct writing, they are welcome to do so. Just don't expect me to view them as having any credibility if their skills are compromised by an internalized hierarchy of, this is when bad faith is permissible, this is when it's not, cause guess what: compromise enough, and there goes one's edge.
There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, "Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children."
January 12, 2022
A few interesting moments, some interesting monologue about feminism and strong women, generally interesting relationship conflicts, but way too many rambling monologues, stories about nothing, religious zealotry, and racist moments. Was there a farm here?
October 7, 2024
The two chapters focusing on Lyndall I really enjoyed, but the rest really focused on a philosophical religious crisis which wasn’t what I expected. Not a fan.
August 26, 2015
1st read = 4*
2nd read = 4*
Manomanoman. Not easy, this one. From the first paragraph I knew I was in for it. The bleakness of the setting, the ignorant cruelty of the people (not the main characters) - I didn't want to continue. I kept thinking - how on earth did I get through this as a young person, never mind give it 4*?? That question kept me going. (These days I don't like misery for it's own sake, and it sure felt like that for a long time in this book.)
And it turns out, I think the 4* rating was just. It's an amazing unfurling of so many issues - the restrictive role of women at the time (some of which still applies today), the question of the existence of God, the cruelty of humanity - I could go on and on there is such a multitude of questions posed. For that alone it deserves credit. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions (are there conclusions made, though? lets just say I don't hold with the responses of the main characters), but that is a small thing in light of the importance of voicing the questions. This is a book that incites thought and discussion - and, in it's own difficult and bleak way, it's beautiful. It broke my heart. The part where Lyndall says that men's love for women is like someone chasing a butterfly - when they succeed in capturing one, they break it's wings and then lose interest - that sadness pervades every sentence in the book. It felt to me like the failure of love - the lack of it or the twisting of it or its failure to fulfill an individual's deep needs and longings. A book like this doesn't encourage me to go skipping down the lane, that's all.
2nd read = 4*
Manomanoman. Not easy, this one. From the first paragraph I knew I was in for it. The bleakness of the setting, the ignorant cruelty of the people (not the main characters) - I didn't want to continue. I kept thinking - how on earth did I get through this as a young person, never mind give it 4*?? That question kept me going. (These days I don't like misery for it's own sake, and it sure felt like that for a long time in this book.)
And it turns out, I think the 4* rating was just. It's an amazing unfurling of so many issues - the restrictive role of women at the time (some of which still applies today), the question of the existence of God, the cruelty of humanity - I could go on and on there is such a multitude of questions posed. For that alone it deserves credit. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions (are there conclusions made, though? lets just say I don't hold with the responses of the main characters), but that is a small thing in light of the importance of voicing the questions. This is a book that incites thought and discussion - and, in it's own difficult and bleak way, it's beautiful. It broke my heart. The part where Lyndall says that men's love for women is like someone chasing a butterfly - when they succeed in capturing one, they break it's wings and then lose interest - that sadness pervades every sentence in the book. It felt to me like the failure of love - the lack of it or the twisting of it or its failure to fulfill an individual's deep needs and longings. A book like this doesn't encourage me to go skipping down the lane, that's all.
November 1, 2010
In love with it. I am a fan of any story where a desert is a setting. A warm yet solitary place to be. At any attempt to figure out the best way of coping with it, you just fail, fail, fail. Better back to the novel.
Such an in-depth resolution of a basic story! Waldo, as young as he is, is questioning the religion as complicated as it is. Here is the best quote i find: very thoughtful and true to its core:
Uncle Otto:
"How do you know that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question everything--proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? [...] How do you know that God
talked to Moses, except that Moses wrote it?"
I am a huge fan of Uncle Otto and Waldo. A perfect father and a perfect son. Aren't they just a perfect family? The storyline is all about children's strength when it comes to their dreams. A strength that never seems to fade away. Those children are just a picture of myself as I would like to be, standing for my dreams. Makes me think twice why life is " a rare and a very rich thing."
Definitely an excellent read. Do not miss the movie. It is worth watching.
Are there any novels by Olive Schreiner worth reading?
Such an in-depth resolution of a basic story! Waldo, as young as he is, is questioning the religion as complicated as it is. Here is the best quote i find: very thoughtful and true to its core:
Uncle Otto:
"How do you know that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question everything--proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? [...] How do you know that God
talked to Moses, except that Moses wrote it?"
I am a huge fan of Uncle Otto and Waldo. A perfect father and a perfect son. Aren't they just a perfect family? The storyline is all about children's strength when it comes to their dreams. A strength that never seems to fade away. Those children are just a picture of myself as I would like to be, standing for my dreams. Makes me think twice why life is " a rare and a very rich thing."
Definitely an excellent read. Do not miss the movie. It is worth watching.
Are there any novels by Olive Schreiner worth reading?
February 1, 2021
I really enjoyed the feminist themes and dialogue in this book and the exploration of critical religiosity. This book has many layers and I think it will be most enjoyed by readers who take the effort to engage with the novel beyond it's surface level. Very interesting. I don't believe I've ever read a novel quite like it.
May 19, 2007
someone who really saw me in my writing, all of my hidden concerns nestled, recommended this to me out of the blue. she was spot on. this book, oh this book. millions of papers could be written about this book. in another life i would love to write a dissertation on it, frankly. there's a TON going on here, and it's all hot buzz worthy topics right now i confess--colonialism, gender, property issues...all wrapped in the far away language of childhood and growing up into awareness. fascinating, to use a cliche term.
January 29, 2024
1883. Author 1855-1920
An amazing book. One of a kind. Life on severely isolated South African farms. Unbelievable isolation.
Written when author very young, very painful to read as author feels so keenly the disappointments and disillusions of life and the cruelties people inflict on each other.
The Penguin Classics edition has a good long intro by South African Dan Jacobson
Strangely, in the context of the long write-up of her life in Wikipedia, she seems to have foreseen some of her own life's later tragedies [baby dying just after birth for one].
An amazing book. One of a kind. Life on severely isolated South African farms. Unbelievable isolation.
Written when author very young, very painful to read as author feels so keenly the disappointments and disillusions of life and the cruelties people inflict on each other.
The Penguin Classics edition has a good long intro by South African Dan Jacobson
Strangely, in the context of the long write-up of her life in Wikipedia, she seems to have foreseen some of her own life's later tragedies [baby dying just after birth for one].
February 11, 2016
What a strange book that has not held up well over time. It may have been groundbreaking at the time, but is now dated. There are some lovely descriptions of South Africa.
April 8, 2024
I was wondering why I'd never heard of this book.
Now I know.
Now I know.
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