 |
| Image copyright SI Brodrick Click on image to enlarge |
Review by Geoffrey Haresnape of SI Brodrick's novel, The Door
Set mostly on the Queenstown/ Grahamstown axis, but also incorporating Johannesburg and other parts of South Africa, The Door is a cleverly written novel dealing with the life and loves of Bing, a young man from a blue-collar family. Bing’s relationship with the drama student, Helen, who comes from an up-market background, is explored. The ways in which the tensions between the two – and their eventual separation - affect Minnie, the daughter and only child from their marriage, is convincingly realized.
Apart from his professional interests as a teacher of English, Bing has a life-long enthusiasm for rock-climbing, a source of bonding with his boyhood friend, Spider. The technical jargon of the hobby is much utilized. Minnie’s eventual ambition to become a cragswoman is an index of her identification with the father [rather than with the mother] figure. The slow degrees by which a second woman, Amanda, enters Bing’s life are outlined.
Although written in the present tense, The Door effectively opens on a vista into the past, showing the reader how even liberal whites were contained in a net of ideological and legal restrictions, making it difficult for them to reach out to fellow black South Africans. To realize the manner in which icons of the present day such as Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela were viewed in the 1970s through white eyes is a mind-bending exercise.
The novel is pleasingly divided into many sections, some of these bearing witty sub-titles. A variety of literary allusions, ranging from Dante to Dhlomo is invoked by these sub-titles. These allusions do not seem forced in the context of Bing and Helen as cultural custodians. The novel’s principal title derives from a passage in Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country in which opening a door creates a consequent need for exploration and advance. S I Brodrick has a fine command of English and a true novelist’s eye for significant detail.
Geoffrey Haresnape July 2010
