Damon Galgut- The Promise
This is Damon Gaulgut’s 2021 novel, The Promise. This actually won the 2021 Booker Prize, the same prize Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men was up for (check my blog on that).
This novel is incredibly unique, that is, in terms of structure and language, Galgut is an ingenious writer, further than that he has a unique ability to craft words like an artists does with paint on a canvas. Whilst the actual story has a quite a muted narrative thread, Galgut’s story-telling continues to mesmerise.
What is it about?
I do not know a lot of about South African History (I am sorry). But, from what I do know this novel deals with uniquely South-African problems. It follows the fortunes of a white South African family the Swarts. The Swarts own a medium-sized farm outside the city of Pretoria. Working on the farm as a domestic servant is a black woman, Salome and her young son, Lukas.
Rather than beginning with the families origins, the novel begins, and its carried forwards with family deaths. It is an interesting way to chronologise a families story, but what it does do is show the trajectory of this family, slowly being erased. The structure felt honest, we all have those family members we only see at a funeral every 5 to 10 years, and so in that respect it worked.
Beginning with the death of the Mother, when Anton, Astrid and Amor are all children/teens; death slowly sweeps through the family as time moves forward.
The title
The title refers to the ongoing crux of the story. A promise, apparently made on the first deathbed, of the Mother. Ma, makes her husband promise to gift Salome the house she lives in after, she (Ma), dies. The father, agrees. The only witness, to this ‘promise’ is 12 year old Amor and the Father does not fulfil his promise. The proceeding story, is further family deaths over time, that bring the family back together, and allow the issue of this first promise to be raised.
As time transpires, this promise is forgotten or shoved aside at the event of each death.
South Africa and Land
From what I do know about South African history, land and land rights way heavily into the politics and history of this country.
It does in this novel too. The land and property, that was suppose to be given to Salome, was originally black-owned land, that is now through government policies and apartheid, white owned and controlled.
The sweeping moments of South African history are continually alluded too through the book. Apartheid when the world closed its doors to South Africa, Zuma offering, but not delivering what many thought South Africa needed. Then Nelson Mandela, trying to unite a country torn down the middle by land laws and race relations.
All of these divisive eras of South African politics are played out, on a smaller personal scale, with this family and their farm.
Narrative
When talking about literature the ‘narrative voice’ refers too who is telling the story.
In The Promise there is an omniscient narrator. The characters however almost have internal monologues that the reader is invited into, but not so far that you sympathise with anyone fully, everyone stays distant.
Interestingly, and I don’t know how to explain this, the narrative has a continued internal monologue of sorts, as it questions its purpose in telling the reader certain details and why it chooses to tell what it does.
In this mode, the narrative questions itself constantly, It comes back and scrutinises itself, the storyteller basically commenting on their own processes.
For example, at one point the narrative takes a slight digression to talk about, basically a bystander to one of the funerals, finishing with, ‘Really this interlude was not needed, we could have done without it’. It may not be Galgut, but you can imagine a person writing this, and adding this comment after what they have just written, almost as an editing note to remove that section later.
I haven’t encountered this style of writing of before, and it feels clever because many of the comments sound as if they expect you react one way to a situation, and well we are predictable, so we do.
Comparisons
As a I approached the end of this book it reminded me a lot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book One Hundred Years of Solitude. Marquez’s novel is set in a fictitious town called Macondo, in a South American country, most likely Columbia.
Like The Promise, Solitude chronologizes the rise and fall of a family on one set piece of land, over a period of time.
Similarly, both have a character that appears to be writing the novel, that you are reading. In the Promise, Anton, the elder brother, makes it his lives work to write a novel, largely based on his life and family, which he never completes…
There is also the continued theme of the inevitability of death. Death isn’t an upsetting thing in either novel. In The Promise there isn't a great amount of upset over death, rather there is a vacant, blank obscurity when each character looks upon a death or death itself.
It returns to what I believe is central to the plot, the dealings of land. That these lives, lived upon this disputed land are intrinsically tied to this landscape, regardless of deeds or politics, because they have lived upon it, and equally, once they die, they physically return too it.
Whilst I’m saying The Promise is like another book, it is still unique. This is because it is so distinctly South African.
A Winner
So, the only other shortlisted book I read for 2021 booker prize was Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men. They are so different, and both offer something unique, and it is not hard to see why they were nominated. I will not say one should have won over the other, the point is all of those shortlisted were there deservedly.
I will say, I enjoyed the storyline of The Fortune Men more, it stayed engaging, and things were continually happening.
The Promise, was a lot more, almost poetical in its story-telling. Not as much happens, but then again that’s not always the point. The narrative was very focused on which points of this family’s life it wanted to pick up on, and which it wanted to leave. The word-crafting from Galgut, was extraordinary, and this, rather than the storyline keeps the reader interested.
SO, read both hhahahaha !
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