I see no 'role' for the novel - Leroux (Weekend Argus, 1979-05-05)

Vanuit Digitale Etienne Leroux Projek

By Etienne Leroux

ETIENNE LEROUX has been the centre of many controversial debates regarding his novel Magersfontein O Magersfontein! The latest of these has revolved around the award of the Hertzog Prize for this novel. Many claim the award was a blow to the South Africa's censorship machinery. Others, such as Dr Koot Vorster, former moderator of the Ned Geref Kerk, rejected the award. Dr Vorster promised a new prize for literary works of a 'high moral standard'. In this article the author looks at the role of the novel in South Africa.

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The role of a novel in any society is rather unpredictable and I have my doubts whether a novel has that much influence on the psycho-dynamics or the socio political aspect of man's estate.

I can only think of one serious novel in the last decade that has had some profound contact with the public mind and that was Elsa Joubert's Poppie Nongena.

For the rest only a small percentage of the people in this country really read a serious novel unless it is set reading for schools.

Strangest form

Furthermore we have very strict censorship laws that eliminate the best novels very efficiently and I am afraid that it does not concern the man in the street much.

The novel is one of the strangest forms of communication.

There is sometimes very little consideration for the reader's capabilities to understand Finnegan's Wake etc.

On the other hand Dickens and Kipling had an immediate socio-political impact in their times but whether they actively contributed to the climate of thinking I doubt very much. That is the field of the news media and non-fictional works.

Spokesmen

I think in South Africa people are looking for spokesmen on their behalf - preferably spokesmen who can describe their visceral agony.

But the novel must not be too prophetic or too mentally disturbing. It must be a form of escape. I think a lot of group thinking is involved with the acceptance of a novel that has a role to play. The private ache of the writer is lower down on the scale of acceptance of South African novel writing. The novelist must be involved and his political and social views must fit in with the proper climate of his group.

Hunting season

It is now hunting season for South African novelists because the farce and the tragedy of the local scene lies abegging to be exploited.

That accounts for the sameness that is particular to South African novels.

If the novel plays a role then it is purely by divine accident.

I don't like the idea of a 'role' for the novel.

It smells too much of a kind of inverted censorship.

I won't write Africa because I must write Africa.

One does not want to be typecast. Each novel implies its own kind of involvement.

So, the novel has really no significant role in South Africa or elsewhere.

A novel is a novel is a novel is a novel. Perhaps I belong to that lost breed of non-conforming individualists of decades ago.

I see no 'role' for the novel. I do not write for a body politic or anybody for that matter.