A History of Afrikaans Literature
Vanuit Digitale Etienne Leroux Projek
A History of Afrikaans Literature: Etienne Leroux (J.C. Kannemeyer)
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The first novel of Etienne Leroux - the pseudonym of S.P.D. le Roux (1922-1989) - was Die Eerste Lewe Van Colet (1955) (Colet's first life), a developmental novel which traces the growth of a boy from childhood to early adulthood, frequently focusing on sexual experiences. From his earliest years, he is aware of the good and evil which dominate his life, while the surrounding characters serve, in a certain sense, as guides to the central experiencing character. Hilaria (1959), its sequel, tells Colet's story after his return from the war when, as an employee of the manufacturer Julius Johnson, he helps organise a week-long campaign to advertise plastic blinds.
The use of the stream of consciousness technique and flashbacks accentuate Colet's reliving of the past, while the short sentences continue the staccato-style of the last chapter of Die eerste lewe van Colet. The use of a mythic parallel (the rebirth of Cybele and Atys and the Eleusinian Mysteries) to interpret events makes this novel an important stage in Leroux's development as a writer. The two-day wandering quest of Gysbrecht Edelhart through the streets of Cape Town in Die Mugu (1959) (The 'square') is to some extent reminiscent of Joyce's Stephen Dedalus' in his day-long peregrination through the city of Dublin in Joyce's Ulysses. Gysbrecht Edelhart, a fifty-year-old shop assistant whose life is locked into a set daily routine, learns that he has won a sweepstake worth 50,000 pounds, which gives him the chance of escaping his narrow world. In his journey to the city centre to fetch his sweepstake ticket, he meets a number of different characters and experiences a series of grotesque events which, taken together, constitute a complete microcosm of modern life. In his peregrinations he is made particularly aware of the ossified artificial order of Julius Johnson as against the chaos represented both by the anarchistic Juliana Doepels, who seeks to destroy the dead mythless order, and by the ducktails, who are 'the wandering, dancing final dissolution' of order, the forces of disintegration which reject the obsolete myths but do not as yet have any new symbols with which to replace them. Gysbrecht Edelhart is therefore a figure who wishes to escape the sheltered security of his middle-class existence to become part of the 'wilderness' of the ducktails, but his individuation can never be fully achieved and he is doomed to remain an 'outsider', a somewhat passive, pathetic figure who is basically lonely and who has no way of communicating or using language to reach the figures who surround him.
The Silberstein-trilogy which followed - published in English translation in the Penguin Modern Classics series as To a Dubious Salvation - is in many ways the central work of Leroux's oeuvre. Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins (1962) (Seven days at the Silbersteins), like the earlier novels, concerns itself with the good and evil or order and chaos, and uses the passive 'outsider' and a concrete point of departure (the search for an invisible loved one) in the tradition of peregrination literature. The novel tells the story of the seven-day visit of Henry van Eeden, a young, innocent and ignorant man, to the estate of the rich Silbersteins, in order to meet his fiancee Salome, whom he does not yet know, and to become familiar with his future in-laws' life-style. In the course of his seven-day visit, he spends the mornings - accompanied by Jock Silberstein -being introduced to the highly industrialised farming operations, and every evening he meets groups of people at parties who, in effect, represent different levels of society, periodically revealing yet another facet of modern man and his problems. Apart from these external experiences there is a strong focus on Henry's inner development. Although he arrives at Welgevonden as 'a flawless little robot' as 'the angel-faced young man' with the 'silver soul' he has to undergo a process of initiation in the course of seven days. For instance, he has to lose his innocence and become aware of the inextricable intertwining of good and evil, the anonymity of Existence, chaos and loneliness, in order that he will be worthy of meeting Salome.
The great diversity of characters and situations in this novel make Welgevonden virtually a miniature world, a microcosm in which not only a number of topical issues and problems of our time present themselves, but in which, at the same time, the universal dilemmas of modern man in his relationship with a depraved society and a faceless God in a compelling way demand attention. In addition, Leroux draws upon a variety of sources for his material, while the Jungian world view provides the warp and woof of the novel.
The large variety of material poses the very real danger that the novel, which is divided into seven days, each of which covers one day of Henry's visit to the estate, could become a mere stringing-together of different episodes which in a chronological order relate to the experiences of the main character. Leroux addresses this problem by using very skilfully a fixed pattern in every chapter, a series of images, themes and situations which -often in altered form - circulate through the book, as well as parallel situations in and direct links between the different chapters, giving the whole a ritual flavour. With occasional subtle changes to the basic structure, every chapter has a morning section in which Henry wakes up, drinks his coffee and has a bath, and then strolls around the farm with Jock (in the seventh chapter he strolls on his own). On these strolls, they visit various places and he is introduced by his 'meturgeman' (the person who 'interprets' everything for him) to the problem of good and evil and the anonymity of Existence. After the morning stroll they return to the house for lunch and an afternoon nap, after which Henry usually baths, sometimes drinks wine from a carafe and prepares for the evening party for which he is always (except on the seventh day) incorrectly dressed. In the evenings he repeatedly meets a variety of people who represent different groups in society, but there is always a number of characters present who appear at every party, thus fulfilling an important structural purpose. At the end of the party, the evening's proceedings are concluded by a speech and a gift presented to Henry and Salome, and the expectations are raised that Henry is about to meet his future bride. When he eventually gets to bed, there is just a suggestion that Salome appears briefly or enters his room - without his ever meeting her, however. While he sleeps, fans blow the 'stale air' out of his room.
Although the unity of Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins is exceptionally tight, there are of ten subtle deviations from the basic pattern, in that certain circulating themes, situations or characters reach full development in different chapters, gaining prominence at those points. In addition, Leroux also makes frequent use of parallel scenes that bring about certain balance or polar tension between the two sections of a chapter: one scene usually involves Jock and Henry in the morning and the complementary scene takes place in the evening during one of the parties. Its continuities with peregrine literature, special presentation of the 'outsider' figure, telescoping of different layers, adaptation of a great variety of sources, and circulation of images, motifs and situations make Sewe dae by die Silbersteins one of the most tightly constructed of all Afrikaans novels.
The main theme of Een vir Azazel (1964) (One for the Devil), the sequel to Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins, is the problem of guilt and moral judgment, particularly as expressed in a community's need and even imperative to find a scapegoat which can be sacrificed to the forces of fate, a person 'who takes guilt upon himself to make valid for ourselves our hate or sorrow'. Leroux intertwines the objective and subjective symbolic levels. The community at Welgevonden is shaken by the murder of Lila who is 'loved by all'. Joined by the loquacious Dr Johns as guide, Detective Sergeant Demosthenes H. de Goede (Demosthenes because of his speech defect, H for Hercules, the Greek mythic hero who, among other things, helped the Olympian gods in their battle against the giants, and De Goede - the good one - who protects the community against the forces of evil) sets about tracking down the murderer. This hunt ends when the giant Adam Kadmon Silberstein is fatally wounded by the servant of the law and the 'guilty one' dies, as he is borne away by the floodwaters at the spring. The events take place eighteen years after those in Sewe dae by die Silbersteins. During that period, the marriage between Henry van Eeden and Salome Silberstein, which should have been the ideal relationship, had issued in the birth of a feeble-minded giant. Seven days after the birth Salome died and Jock Silberstein donated Welgevonden to a Foundation, in order to enable the residents to free themselves ritualistically from evil and to enable man to escape 'from the uncomprehensive abstraction of the world' within himself. In comparison with the Welgevonden of the earlier novel the Foundation shows signs of dilapidation and neglect. This is to be seen in the aged characters and the numerous scenes which are an 'echo' or 'repetition' (but repeatedly with the emphasis on disintegration and disillusion) of those which occur in the first Welgevonden novel.
In Een vir Azazel, Leroux uses Quintilian rhetorical sequences, elements of the detective novel and Greek tragedy in developing the structure and field of reference. The blameless figure introduces the possibility of a tragic situation developing from the antagonism between a pure will and a disjointed world order. It is this disjointed world of Welgevonden, where everyone has had sexual intercourse with the 'loved by all ... loose' Lila and is thus guilty of adultery or incest, which now awaits its nemesis. It elevates the prostitute to the status of a virgin, and makes a vampire, rapist and murderer of the: subnormal and innocent moron, chasing him into the 'wilderness' as a scapegoat.
Apart from the features drawn from the detective novel and Greek tragedy, one of the basic structural patterns of the novel is constituted by the double significance of people and things, a pattern of polarity and circularity. This double significance and circularity is particularly evident in the sequence of events. At the level of the detective story, the sequence is chronological and Lila's body is found at the beginning of the story, but certain allusions make it possible to read the first three sections having been written retrospectively, and that the body which Jock finds is that of Adam Kadmon Silberstein. In addition to the juxtaposition of plot material, Leroux achieves a climax in the final scene by the combination of a boxing match, a wrestling match and a bullfight to travesty the age-old stoning and scapegoat ritual. Simultaneously, the description of the myth of Hercules' battle against the giants engages further with this theme, while the telescoping of classical antiquity and modern day banality adds a painful and grotesque dimension to the story. One is particularly struck by Leroux's exquisite blending of the funny and humorous with the gruesome, bizarre and absurd so that there is ultimately something intensely pitiful in the manner in which the Giant meets his end.
In Die Derde Oog (1966) (The Third Eye) Demosthenes de Goede - cured of his speech defect and promoted to captain - is assigned to the case of the 'tycoon', Boris Gudenov, and instructed 'to bring him to light'. In his novel Leroux telescopes two versions of the Hercules myth, as presented by Sophocles and Euripides, thus providing two literary 'interpretations' of the myth as the framework for Die derde oog. Leroux combines the two Greek plays and transposes the material to modern society in which man's search becomes a simultaneous search for his alter ego. This is clearly evidenced in the external similarities between the two central figures and the relationship between the names De Goede and Gudenov (The Good One and Good Enough). In addition to the two Greek plays, Leroux includes yet a third field of reference as the basis for De Goede's peregrinations into the city, namely Dante's Divina commedia, thereby suggesting that De Goede's descent into the city is a journey into hell. The Oita centre, which he visits, with its glorification of transient values, ducktails, sexgoddesses, and so forth, reflects contemporary life in all its perversity.
18-44 (1967), published in English translation under the same title, is the first in a new trilogy in which the earlier guiding character is replaced by a 'hack' who tries through his writing to recreate life as something whole. The novel deals with the year-long correspondence between Mr Y, the forty-four year-old 'hack' and the eighteen year-old Miss X whom he does not know and never actually meets. In the course of the novel the whole of Mr Y's life gradually unfolds: his ghastly marriage to his 'deaf, crippled and manic depressive wife', who eventually commits suicide. There is a suggestion of a musical structure in the circulating refrains, repetitions and resumptions, while the ironic narration with its transitions between present and past builds up a mosaic pattern. The whole novel moves between definitive points: the year 1844, in which nothing of importance happens except that the exchange of letters between Y and X commences and 1945 with its catastrophes and 'birth of a new tragedy'.
Isis Isis Isis (1969) describes the hack's attempt to put together the fourteen pieces of the mutilated Osiris to make a new whole by means of a tour through Europe and coming to know a number of women. As so frequently happens in Leroux's novels, the purpose of the wanderings is actually a process of individuation, an attempt on the part of the hack to restore his mutilated self. Again and again particularly bizarre and even grotesque effects result from the juxtaposition of action and mythological interpretation, or the description of two events which occur simultaneously. The external events of Na'va (1972), the third novel in the trilogy, centre on Georgie, the hack's cousin, who has killed himself with a Greener shotgun. Much of the story unfolds at the protracted funeral reception where the hack has to answer his uncle George's refrain-like questions on the reasons for Georgie's suicide by referring to the four women in his cousin's life. A whole phalanx of characters from Leroux's earlier novels are also present at the reception: figures from his entire oeuvre, now virtually mythic in their own right. To provide the primary field of reference in this case, Leroux brings together the myth of the Hindu god Shiva and the Jewish 'state of shava', the nil point, the collective nothing. However, the novel basically draws on a whole complex of allusions which collectively makes the cycle of creation, destruction and rebirth the structuring dynamic of the work.
In Magersfontein, o Magersfontein! (1976), the first of Leroux's published novels which is not an integral part of trilogy, the writer draws his material partly from the disastrous flood of 1974 when the Riet and Modder Rivers near Magersfontein overflowed their banks and more particularly from the historical events of the Battle of Magersfontein during the Anglo-Boer War. In this battle, during a night march, Major-General Wauchope of Britain was defeated by the Boers who were able to fire on the British from favourable defensive positions in the trenches. Against this historical background, Leroux's novel describes a foreign film and TV company's attempt to recreate the historic battle using actors and actresses, but who during the re-enactment are caught by the flash flood.
In blending the tragic and the ironic, Leroux repeatedly emphasises the parallels between the historical events and the contemporary reconstruction of these, particularly in the discrepancy between expectation and reality, illusion and fact, something which is also reflected in the 'stylisation' of events. He uses these to illustrate the 'malady of our time' and the 'corruption of conscience'. In the end, as the flood swells to grotesque dimensions, limited man accustomed to mundane and worldly simplicity, is confronted by the infinite and the universal design and experiences existential fear, the meaninglessness of his symbols and a sense of nada or overwhelming nothingness. The 'ascension' of Lord Sudden and Gert Garries in a balloon, with its blend of the comic and the tragic, represents one of the major achievements in Leroux's oeuvre: The balloon gives the pair a panoramic view of the whole massacre and they experience an ecstatic 'feeling of complete liberation' as they rise into eternity and as their hearing becomes more and more defective in the thinning air.
Onse Hymie (1982) (Our Hymie), the story of a Jewish peddler's wanderings and death in the Karoo, recalls the figure of the Wandering Jew, while the 'flesh palace', in which most of the events occur gradually becomes a microcosm of modern, more specifically South African, society. In addition to many allusions to topical events Leroux achieves a particularly humorous effect through the juxtaposition of very different groups of people. In the face of such variety, apartheid legislation is shown to be manifestly dated and obsolete and the computer which has to process the information cannot handle the complexities and breaks down.
