Portrait of the Artist as a Young Sixtyish (Sunday Times, 1982-08-22)
Vanuit Digitale Etienne Leroux Projek
Etienne Leroux, regarded as the finest novelist writing in Afrikaans today, celebrated his 60th birthday this year. MADELEINE VAN BILJON spoke to him at his holiday house in Onrust.
--
"It feels awful to be 60," says Leroux. "In more or less 10 years you can expect to die."
He adds, rather irritably: "I don't know why reaching this age should be regarded as a milestone. Ostensibly, I suppose, because one should have achieved maturity and wisdom."
If Etienne Leroux has acquired either of these attributes he wears them with grace. There is certainly no grandstand play of the Great Literary Guru about Leroux. Nor does he look like the traditional farmer. The beard recalls Paul Kruger, but the dark, dark glasses, black polo neck sweater, the baggy pants and the leather satchel bulging on his hip are symbols, in a restrictive society, on the individualistic man.
"The satchel, bought in Aegina, contains notes," he explains. "I make notes all the time. About strange happenings, social situations, the conversations behind conversations."
Some 20 percent of these copious jottings will find their way into one of his novels. Given his present age, Leroux believes he has another five books to go before ceasing production.
"I'm busy with my 11th novel. It takes me two years to complete a book. So, in theory, I have five to go."
Leroux is working on a satire "but our South African situation is so bizarre and changes so rapidly that by the time the book appears it probably won't be funny any more."
He lights another cigarette, checks on the time. It's noon and he calls to his wife Elizabeth to open a beer.
At Koffiefontein, where Leroux farms, he and Elizabeth wake at 6am.
"She gets up to go to school. She has to teach to support me. I lie in bed and listen to Springbok Radio until 9:15 when that man tells you how to live a better life. This depresses me so that I can barely drag myself out of bed."
Leroux spends the rest of the morning on farming affairs and he and Elizabeth have a late lunch, after which he again takes to his bed for a rest.
"This is why I am standing, not sitting down. I'm horizontal too often."
After supper he watches the 8pm news on television and then starts writing.
"I never stop before midnight, very often much later."
Leroux types his copy on quarto sheets because this gives a visual impression of the shape and size the eventual book will have. He works slowly, averaging 300 words a night and always works to music, anything from the Go-Go Kid to the "Death of Boris Goudonov".
"For 'Magersfontein' I listened to Noel Coward."
When his books are published, Leroux reads them through once - and then never again.
"In the first place," he explains, "I know them so well I don't need to read them again. And, then again, I might well want to write them differently today."
He never reads Afrikaans novels.
"I'm frightened of being influenced, or of seeing in print something that I may have wanted to formulate."
That's about all he doesn't read. He subscribes to almost every known literary magazine - "it costs me a small fortune" - and his library holds thousands of books.
"I collect writers, not books. If I like an author I'll acquire everything that's been written about him. I've never forgotten the impact 'The Great Gatsby' had on me and I've tried to read everything published on Scott Fitzgerald."
Leroux throws away nothing, admits that he also has a huge collection of tripe.
"But I might just need the information," he says defensively. "If an elephant came into the house I would have to know where it stood in relation to this room."
He gestures upwards. "Wold you believe that its back would be against the ceiling?"
I note that an elephant wouldn't be able to get through the door.
"Oh lord, now I'll have to get a book about doors!"
Tartly Elizabeth points out that her husband is mad and that a book about washing machines would be a great deal more welcome. She's just acquired one and doesn't know how it works.
Leroux might not be as batty as his wife says, but he does believe in psychic phenomena and extra-sensory perception without making a big deal about either.
Another glass of wine? Leroux insists that I do.
"I love corrupting people," he says with relish and goes on to elaborate that "corrupt" is the one English word that has completely different meanings for different people. It's a good time to ask him whether he meant it when he said, some years ago, that he wouldn't allow his children to read his books.
Alas, for the furore that remark caused and for the fuel it gave his detractors. The statement was a Leroux tease.
So might his pet hate be.
"I can't stand small children. If a toddler comes near me we generate hate. They're well aware of it and stay clear. They know an enemy when they see one."
Etienne Leroux likes people but crowds intimidate him and he's incapable of signing his name in the presence of witnesses.
"I can't stand those eyes staring at me. I try and I try to sign, but my hand slips and the signature becomes a squiggle. I once had visions of starving in Athens because we had used up all of Elizabeth's travellers' cheques and I couldn't bring myself to sign mine under the eyes of the teller."
Over lunch with Graham Greene (a close friend), they worked out an elaborate ploy "otherwise we'd still be stranded in Athens."
While Leroux enjoys travel - "it's necessary to get away from South Africa to gain perspective" - the farming part of his life is essential to him.
"it's not just a cliché to say that it's important to live close to the soil. One needs the city environment and so-called 'intellectual' conversations, but only for brief periods."
When Etienne and Elizabeth talk about the farm, one is away of just how closely he's bound up with that part of his life.
He's proud of the fact that his wife, a former concert pianist, now makes boerewors with the best of them. He speaks of the "feudal system" which, for him, means interdependence, caring.
Inevitably the conversation comes back to his novels.
"I inherited the farm. The books I made. They're a personal achievement. To write a really good novel is my main ambition. To get critics to admire it, another."
He smiles the sardonic, Leroux smile.
"Fame is not the spur. Recognition is. That can only come from the critics because the people out there don't read my books. Even my most doughty defenders very often haven't read anything I've written."
The elegant, limpid prose of Etienne Leroux describes a subtle, satirical, fantastical and psychologically-layered world. The complex novels are the complex man. Both his defenders and his detractors are the losers when they speak about Leroux without knowledge of his work.
