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Η μακριά σιωπή του Μάριο Σαλβιάτι
Η ηρωίδα, μια νεαρή ζωγράφος που εργάζεται στην Εθνική Πινακοθήκη του Κέιπ Τάουν, φτάνει σε μια μικρή πόλη των Καρού για να αγοράσει ένα γλυπτό για τη Βουλή της Νότιας Αφρικής. Το άγαλμα, που θα αντιπροσωπεύει και θα τιμά το πνεύμα μιας νέας Νότιας Αφρικής, έχει βρεθεί, αλλά ο καλλιτέχνης δε φαίνεται διατεθειμένος να το πουλήσει. Η πρωταγωνίστρια θα μείνει στην πόλη προσπαθώντας να κερδίσει την εμπιστοσύνη του γλύπτη και κατά τη διάρκεια της παραμονής της θα αποκαλυφθούν τα μυστικά και τα σκάνδαλα που κρατούν δέσμια της σιωπής ολόκληρη την κοινότητα. Πιο σιωπηλός από όλους ο Μάριο Σαλβιάτι, τεχνίτης της πέτρας, Ιταλός αιχμάλωτος πολέμου, με μόνες αισθήσεις για να έρχεται σε επαφή με τον κόσμο την αφή και την όσφρηση.
Ένα διεισδυτικό, ποιητικό μυθιστόρημα γραμμένο με ευαισθησία, που διατρέχει όλη την περίοδο από τον Πόλεμο των Μπόερ έως το απαρτχάιντ και τη μετα-απαρτχάιντ εποχή. Μια αποκάλυψη των παθών που πυροδοτούν τις πιο εξαίσιες αλλά και τις πιο ποταπές πράξεις των ανθρώπων.
Νερά-Αστραπές που ανεβαίνουν σε λόφους, στοιχειωμένα αγάλματα, χρυσός, μεγιστάνες έμποροι στερών, οραματιστές κατασκευαστές φραγμάτων, ονειροπόλοι καλλιτέχνες κι ένας άγγελος επί γης συνθέτουν το σκηνικό για να αναδυθεί ο μαγικός ρεαλισμός του Βαν Χέερντεν που θυμίζει έντονα Γκαμπριέλ Γκαρσία Μάρκες.
Ένα διεισδυτικό, ποιητικό μυθιστόρημα γραμμένο με ευαισθησία, που διατρέχει όλη την περίοδο από τον Πόλεμο των Μπόερ έως το απαρτχάιντ και τη μετα-απαρτχάιντ εποχή. Μια αποκάλυψη των παθών που πυροδοτούν τις πιο εξαίσιες αλλά και τις πιο ποταπές πράξεις των ανθρώπων.
Νερά-Αστραπές που ανεβαίνουν σε λόφους, στοιχειωμένα αγάλματα, χρυσός, μεγιστάνες έμποροι στερών, οραματιστές κατασκευαστές φραγμάτων, ονειροπόλοι καλλιτέχνες κι ένας άγγελος επί γης συνθέτουν το σκηνικό για να αναδυθεί ο μαγικός ρεαλισμός του Βαν Χέερντεν που θυμίζει έντονα Γκαμπριέλ Γκαρσία Μάρκες.
650 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
8 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Etienne van Heerden
40 books48 followersEtienne Roché van Heerden grew up in a dual medium household. After matriculating he decided to join the navy, but since he is blind in the right eye, was not called up for combat duty. Instead he served as a dog handler, playing his alsatian at major festivals.
Van Heerden initially studied law, and was admitted to the South African Side Bar as attorney. He freelanced as deputy sheriff for the Civil Court, and moved about in the townships around Cape Town, dispensing civil summonses and learning a great deal about life in these suppressed communities. As a young practitioner, his clients were mostly from the black and coloured crime-ridden communities around Cape Town.
Van Heerden also lectured Legal Practice at the Peninsula Technikon and spent two years in advertising. At age thirty, with the birth of his eldest daughter, Van Heerden left the routine of a budding Cape Town advertising agency. He and his family relocated to northern Natal where he started out on his academic career in Literature at the University of Zululand. His PhD was a study on engagement and postmodernism.
During the eighties he was member of a group of Afrikaans writers secretly meeting the banned ANC of Mandela and exiled writers at the (now famous) Victoria Falls Writers’ Conference, held in Zimbabwe.
He regularly teaches at universities in Europe, and has been Writer in Residence at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He was a member of the University of Iowa’s prestigious International Writing Program in 1990, and has been back on visits to this university, of which he is an Honorary Fellow in Writing. He regularly reads his fiction at events such as the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the Winter Nights Festival in the Hague, Netherlands, the Time of the Writer Festival in Berlin, Germany, the Zimbabwe Book Fair and other festivals and events internationally.
Van Heerden now teaches at the University of Cape Town, where he is the Hofmeyr Professor in the School of Languages and Literatures, and chairs the Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies Section. He is also the brain behind the literary e-zine "LitNet".
Van Heerden is married to Kaia, a practising doctor, and lives in Stellenbosch. The couple has two daughters, Imke and Menán.
Van Heerden initially studied law, and was admitted to the South African Side Bar as attorney. He freelanced as deputy sheriff for the Civil Court, and moved about in the townships around Cape Town, dispensing civil summonses and learning a great deal about life in these suppressed communities. As a young practitioner, his clients were mostly from the black and coloured crime-ridden communities around Cape Town.
Van Heerden also lectured Legal Practice at the Peninsula Technikon and spent two years in advertising. At age thirty, with the birth of his eldest daughter, Van Heerden left the routine of a budding Cape Town advertising agency. He and his family relocated to northern Natal where he started out on his academic career in Literature at the University of Zululand. His PhD was a study on engagement and postmodernism.
During the eighties he was member of a group of Afrikaans writers secretly meeting the banned ANC of Mandela and exiled writers at the (now famous) Victoria Falls Writers’ Conference, held in Zimbabwe.
He regularly teaches at universities in Europe, and has been Writer in Residence at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He was a member of the University of Iowa’s prestigious International Writing Program in 1990, and has been back on visits to this university, of which he is an Honorary Fellow in Writing. He regularly reads his fiction at events such as the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the Winter Nights Festival in the Hague, Netherlands, the Time of the Writer Festival in Berlin, Germany, the Zimbabwe Book Fair and other festivals and events internationally.
Van Heerden now teaches at the University of Cape Town, where he is the Hofmeyr Professor in the School of Languages and Literatures, and chairs the Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies Section. He is also the brain behind the literary e-zine "LitNet".
Van Heerden is married to Kaia, a practising doctor, and lives in Stellenbosch. The couple has two daughters, Imke and Menán.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
November 11, 2016
This is a big-screen multi-generational novel in the style of James Michener and with an atmosphere of the American Wild West. But it’s set in South Africa and translated from the Afrikaans. We get a lot of local color of the Little Karoo, a unique landscape, a semi-arid steppe area that had its 15 minutes of fame and prosperity in the late 1800s’ when it exported ostrich and other bird feathers to European fashion capitals. And how’s this for a cast of characters: Titty X!am; Lost Cause Moloi; Dumb Eyetie; Obliging Edith; Jonty Jack; Freckleface Pistorius; Granny Soulful Pedi. There’s a genealogy chart to help keep track.
The story begins when an improbable artist claims that a wooden carving magically appeared outside his rural isolated studio. A young Jewish woman who works for an art museum comes out from the big city to investigate and gets caught up in the surreal world of these backlanders living in quasi-isolation and still fighting family feuds and holding family secrets that go back a century.
It’s a book about blacks and whites, mixed-race folks and class. A search for lost gold. Stories of great men and their big engineering schemes. The transition from horses to cars. Italian POWs who were housed in the area in World War II who stayed on and blended into the population. There’s a touch of magical realism – folks get visited by a sulfur-smelling angel. The specter of the century-old Boer War (Dutch settlers vs. the English) hangs over the story. The author’s earlier work, Ancestral Voices, which I also reviewed, is kind of a “dry run” for this more fully-developed and much longer story.
The story begins when an improbable artist claims that a wooden carving magically appeared outside his rural isolated studio. A young Jewish woman who works for an art museum comes out from the big city to investigate and gets caught up in the surreal world of these backlanders living in quasi-isolation and still fighting family feuds and holding family secrets that go back a century.
It’s a book about blacks and whites, mixed-race folks and class. A search for lost gold. Stories of great men and their big engineering schemes. The transition from horses to cars. Italian POWs who were housed in the area in World War II who stayed on and blended into the population. There’s a touch of magical realism – folks get visited by a sulfur-smelling angel. The specter of the century-old Boer War (Dutch settlers vs. the English) hangs over the story. The author’s earlier work, Ancestral Voices, which I also reviewed, is kind of a “dry run” for this more fully-developed and much longer story.
March 27, 2019
When I first joined GR and starting rating and reviewing books, I vacillated whether to assess books by my personal enjoyment of them or by their literary merit. After a while I settled on rating them by personal enjoyment, since I’m not a professional reviewer and needn’t pretend to be. This is one of those books where there was a gap between the two.
This ambitious novel is set in South Africa in the late 90s and written in the magic realist style. It was originally published in Afrikaans and I read the English language translation. That may be important as most reviewers who read the original seem to have rated it more highly than me, so possibly the translation was a bit flat.
Ingi Friedlander, the Director of an art gallery in Cape Town, journeys to the remote (fictional) Karoo town of Yearsonend to check out reports of an outstanding sculpture produced by a local artist, Jonty Jack Bergh. Yearsonend turns out to be a place with a lot of secrets, and Ingi finds her planned stay lengthening as she delves into the town’s stories. We are taken back through the generations to the ancestors of the present-day inhabitants, and especially those of the town’s two dominant families. The edition I read includes a family tree and I found myself resorting to it frequently to understand all the connections.
The magic realism is strong in this one, and all sorts of fantastical events take place. I don’t think there’s any point trying to rationalise any of them. The reader just needs to accept it’s that sort of book and “go with the flow.” The ancestors of the modern townsfolk continue as spirits within the town, as if hidden behind a veil, but their presence can sometimes be sensed. There’s also a strong theme around art and creativity, especially things fashioned by hand. Painting, sculpture, stonemasonry, and fashion design all feature prominently.
At 435 pages this is a longish novel and I found it slow paced. That combination meant it took me 5 weeks to finish the book. There are some good points but overall this one wasn’t for me.
This ambitious novel is set in South Africa in the late 90s and written in the magic realist style. It was originally published in Afrikaans and I read the English language translation. That may be important as most reviewers who read the original seem to have rated it more highly than me, so possibly the translation was a bit flat.
Ingi Friedlander, the Director of an art gallery in Cape Town, journeys to the remote (fictional) Karoo town of Yearsonend to check out reports of an outstanding sculpture produced by a local artist, Jonty Jack Bergh. Yearsonend turns out to be a place with a lot of secrets, and Ingi finds her planned stay lengthening as she delves into the town’s stories. We are taken back through the generations to the ancestors of the present-day inhabitants, and especially those of the town’s two dominant families. The edition I read includes a family tree and I found myself resorting to it frequently to understand all the connections.
The magic realism is strong in this one, and all sorts of fantastical events take place. I don’t think there’s any point trying to rationalise any of them. The reader just needs to accept it’s that sort of book and “go with the flow.” The ancestors of the modern townsfolk continue as spirits within the town, as if hidden behind a veil, but their presence can sometimes be sensed. There’s also a strong theme around art and creativity, especially things fashioned by hand. Painting, sculpture, stonemasonry, and fashion design all feature prominently.
At 435 pages this is a longish novel and I found it slow paced. That combination meant it took me 5 weeks to finish the book. There are some good points but overall this one wasn’t for me.
August 4, 2017
Dié roman is blykbaar binne agt weke geskryf, en die narratiewe energie werk aansteeklik op die leser. Dit is - van die Van Heerden-romans wat ek reeds gelees het - een van die leesbaarste romans, 'n boek wat popel van stories en interessante karakters, met verskeie geslagte wat hulle verledes kom vertel. Beslis 'n titel om aan te beveel aan lesers wat nog nooit 'n roman van hierdie skrywer in die hand gehad het nie.
An energetically told novel, a narrative tsunami carrying the reader to story-related bliss. One of Van Heerden's best novels.
An energetically told novel, a narrative tsunami carrying the reader to story-related bliss. One of Van Heerden's best novels.
July 25, 2017
This was one of the best books I have read in a while. Set in the Karoo, in the imaginary town of Yearsonend, it is the story and mystery of its people, spanning several generations, including the arrival of two Italian prisoners of war. The structure of the story cleverly weaves its way between present, past and further past in an easy and accessible way. Two main families - the Bergh's and the Pistorius - are central to the plot and their history is told and discovered by an outsider, Ingi Friedlander, who comes to Yearsonend with the intention of buying a famous local sculpture, known as the Staggering Merman, for the National Gallery in Cape Town where she works. In gaining an understanding of the people, she initiates the uncovering of the town's history and well-guarded secret. Etienne van Heerden's writing is evocative and his characters are so well crafted that I suspect that they will live with me for some time to come. Highly recommended
May 8, 2015
It is an interesting reading if you are in South Africa. A few plots intersect and develop slowly. Less clear is Ingi's freedom from her own ties and the way this process mingles with the developments in Yearsonend. I like the historical touches such as the Kruger gold, the Italian prisoners of war and ostrich feather fashion.
December 20, 2019
Misties, boeiend, n verkenning van die siel van n kunstenaar
April 10, 2023
A book I wish I'd written. One I will keep re-reading.
June 24, 2023
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters.
Mario Salviati is an Italian stonecutter in South Africa.
The biggest turn-off in this novel is the constant infantilization of Mario.
He was brought there as a POW, tethered by rope to another soldier because he was (apparently totally) deaf. But he’s not blind, and there is no reason that he could not follow what everyone else is doing by sight. Why would Mario ever tolerate being put on a leash? Makes absolutely no sense.
It also turns out that he’s never learned to speak, which suggests either congenital or pre-lingual deafness. How, then, did he make his way into the Italian military? If he was unable to hear from the beginning and had to be led around on a leash, how was he participating? Sure, you don’t need to hear to load or shoot a gun, but in a battle situation, being tied to a fellow soldier, deaf or hearing, is a liability.
Historically, sometimes deaf people managed to pass physicals and get into the military, as was the case for Harry Ward (UK, WWI). But it’s crucial to note that these deaf men could speak intelligibly enough to “pass” as hearing. Mario, who cannot speak at all, is not such a person. It's also incredibly strange given that the author himself was not able to join the Navy due to blindness in one eye, so he would know that disabled people are usually turned away by recruiters.
To show he is a stonecutter, Mario kisses a rock. Can he not write? The magistrate has pen and paper. There is earth beneath their feet. He could arrange pieces of gravel for god's sake. Even if he only knows Italian, they have an interpreter who is likely able to read at least a little of it. But since he never learned to speak, perhaps the author assumes it was impossible for him to learn to write, either. Which once again begs the question how he got into the military.
I can believe that Mario doesn’t have access to a full language. Maybe he doesn’t know how to read or write Italian. Maybe he doesn’t know a signed language. But if that is the case, I cannot fathom how he ever got to the front lines. Someone had to have taken him there, and he would have had no idea where he was going until he arrived. If he is as languageless as van Heerden wants us to believe, he would have never left his stonecutting family in Italy, especially considering how valuable his skills were. Maybe he was taken to cut stone somewhere other than Italy. But then how did he end up tethered to a regiment of soldiers? And why would they bring him into all this?
Absolutely none of that makes any sense.
Mario isn't totally languageless, though. He and Big Karl work out a system of gestures to communicate while on the job. This system is described as “sign language,” which it is not. Signed languages are full languages in which you can discuss as many concepts as you would in spoken languages. The gestures they use to communicate can only be used to discuss the work they do. There are repeated references to “sign language” throughout the novel but it is used interchangeably with “gestures” and “hand signals,” making it clear that they’re probably mostly miming at each other. So while Mario doesn't have access to a full language, he is able to express himself in some way.
Mario's wife Edith “talks him with her eyes.” Barf. No gestures? Signs? Writing? Drawing? Just nothing but eye contact, seriously? Also, she needed silence so badly that when the baby was born, she would cover its mouth to stifle cries or lock it into cupboards. Aside from how horrific that is, I bring it up because van Heerden obviously has no idea that deaf people are actually incredibly loud—even if they don’t voice involuntarily, they’ll still stomp, slam doors, set things like cups down loudly, and myriad other sounds that hearing people often find grating. Edith’s life would have been a hellscape long before baby came along.
But let's get back to the crux of the issue: Mario being treated as a literal baby (and sometimes a dog) by Ingi, whom I consider to be a predator.
For context, by the time Ingi meets Mario, he is in his eighties or nineties. A few decades previously, he had been totally blinded by a stroke (but it's later revealed that he was blinded by a man urinating in his face, which makes NO SENSE). He has a Great Dane who serves as a seeing-hearing dog that helps him around the house (even though if he’d been living there for decades, he wouldn’t have any trouble navigating the house).
When Ingi first encounters him, she openly stares at him while he minds his own business. She waxes poetic on how utterly lonely he must be and how he has nothing but memories to experience. She assumes that: “He had to fight off the madness of utter silence and darkness.” Because of course he is both TOTALLY deaf and TOTALLY blind, the rarest of the rare. Ingi forces his existence into the limitations of her own imagination and assumptions, having never bothered to interact with him.
The worst, for me, is that Ingi decides to sneak into his room at night to “give him” her oh-so-sexy body. She pushes her chest against his face and he essentially suckles at her nipple through the nightdress until he falls asleep with his mouth still drooling on her breast. I can’t even articulate how disgusting this is, that a woman would satisfy her own curiosity and needs by taking advantage of an elderly deafblind man. That anyone would behave so despicably toward anyone else, regardless of age, gender, or ability. Ugh!
After pitying him and sexually assaulting him for a while, Ingi decides she will “save” him by taking him for a walk. So generous, eh? Ingi walks right up to him and touches his face (rather than his arm or hand like a normal human being). When he recoils from the unexpected touch, she thinks: “I must be the first person to have touched him in years.” Seriously?
She takes him the local bar and gives him a glass of beer, which he wraps his hand around. Before giving him a chance to smell the drink, she dips her finger in it and swipes it across his lips. It actually made me want to vomit. It’s so disgusting.
Later, Ingi brings him the dinner table so he can eat soup, and he spills the bowl into his lap after accidentally dipping his hand into it—even though he had already been sipping with the spoon a few times, so he obviously knew exactly where it was, and what it was. Van Heerden acts as though blind people are incapable of eating soup. Seriously?
INFANTILIZATION. Plain and simple.
At another point, Ingi drenches herself in perfume and walks circles around Mario outside, then watches him stagger around trying to find her. But when she's distracted, she runs off and leaves him there by himself. Just disgusting behavior.
Ingi thinks she loves him, but then realizes she loves that he makes her remember to use her own eyes and ears. When he dies, leaving her the stone he carried 24/7, she throws it away. Sure, rocks represent immovability, inflexibility, but it also underscores that she never actually cared about Mario. She just liked the story she got from interacting with him and the people who knew him.
At one point, van Heerden presents us with a first POV Mario passage. When everything else is third POV. There's no first POV for Ingi or for Big Karl or Edith or any of the other myriad hearing characters. Why are hearing authors so obsessed with writing from a deaf point of view, especially when they don't actually know what they're doing?? (Tim Lebbon, Yaara Shehori, and Rosamund Lupton also did this, among others.)
Terminology: “deaf and dumb” and "deaf-mute" appropriate to the period. The nickname “Dumb Eyetie” is also par for the course—in the US “Dummy” was common. But considering how poorly the author handles deafness and deafblindness in this novel, I have to go ahead and assume that he was just using these terms as a matter of stereotype, having done zero research on whether it would actually be the appropriate terminology.
According to the acknowledgements, van Heerden got the idea for Mario from an old photo with a caption identifying an Italian stonemason who was “unable to communicate with his fellow workers”—the workers being tribal African language and/or Dutch speakers. There's no indication that this photographed stonemason was deaf. Nor is there any mention of any deaf-related research or consultants. It’s safe to say the author is totally ignorant about not only deaf people, but also deafblind people.
While the ableist and infantilizing ways the other characters treat him may be accurate, this is overall a poor representation of a deaf character, especially given the context (historical realities) of the story.
Mario Salviati is an Italian stonecutter in South Africa.
The biggest turn-off in this novel is the constant infantilization of Mario.
He was brought there as a POW, tethered by rope to another soldier because he was (apparently totally) deaf. But he’s not blind, and there is no reason that he could not follow what everyone else is doing by sight. Why would Mario ever tolerate being put on a leash? Makes absolutely no sense.
It also turns out that he’s never learned to speak, which suggests either congenital or pre-lingual deafness. How, then, did he make his way into the Italian military? If he was unable to hear from the beginning and had to be led around on a leash, how was he participating? Sure, you don’t need to hear to load or shoot a gun, but in a battle situation, being tied to a fellow soldier, deaf or hearing, is a liability.
Historically, sometimes deaf people managed to pass physicals and get into the military, as was the case for Harry Ward (UK, WWI). But it’s crucial to note that these deaf men could speak intelligibly enough to “pass” as hearing. Mario, who cannot speak at all, is not such a person. It's also incredibly strange given that the author himself was not able to join the Navy due to blindness in one eye, so he would know that disabled people are usually turned away by recruiters.
To show he is a stonecutter, Mario kisses a rock. Can he not write? The magistrate has pen and paper. There is earth beneath their feet. He could arrange pieces of gravel for god's sake. Even if he only knows Italian, they have an interpreter who is likely able to read at least a little of it. But since he never learned to speak, perhaps the author assumes it was impossible for him to learn to write, either. Which once again begs the question how he got into the military.
I can believe that Mario doesn’t have access to a full language. Maybe he doesn’t know how to read or write Italian. Maybe he doesn’t know a signed language. But if that is the case, I cannot fathom how he ever got to the front lines. Someone had to have taken him there, and he would have had no idea where he was going until he arrived. If he is as languageless as van Heerden wants us to believe, he would have never left his stonecutting family in Italy, especially considering how valuable his skills were. Maybe he was taken to cut stone somewhere other than Italy. But then how did he end up tethered to a regiment of soldiers? And why would they bring him into all this?
Absolutely none of that makes any sense.
Mario isn't totally languageless, though. He and Big Karl work out a system of gestures to communicate while on the job. This system is described as “sign language,” which it is not. Signed languages are full languages in which you can discuss as many concepts as you would in spoken languages. The gestures they use to communicate can only be used to discuss the work they do. There are repeated references to “sign language” throughout the novel but it is used interchangeably with “gestures” and “hand signals,” making it clear that they’re probably mostly miming at each other. So while Mario doesn't have access to a full language, he is able to express himself in some way.
Mario's wife Edith “talks him with her eyes.” Barf. No gestures? Signs? Writing? Drawing? Just nothing but eye contact, seriously? Also, she needed silence so badly that when the baby was born, she would cover its mouth to stifle cries or lock it into cupboards. Aside from how horrific that is, I bring it up because van Heerden obviously has no idea that deaf people are actually incredibly loud—even if they don’t voice involuntarily, they’ll still stomp, slam doors, set things like cups down loudly, and myriad other sounds that hearing people often find grating. Edith’s life would have been a hellscape long before baby came along.
But let's get back to the crux of the issue: Mario being treated as a literal baby (and sometimes a dog) by Ingi, whom I consider to be a predator.
For context, by the time Ingi meets Mario, he is in his eighties or nineties. A few decades previously, he had been totally blinded by a stroke (but it's later revealed that he was blinded by a man urinating in his face, which makes NO SENSE). He has a Great Dane who serves as a seeing-hearing dog that helps him around the house (even though if he’d been living there for decades, he wouldn’t have any trouble navigating the house).
When Ingi first encounters him, she openly stares at him while he minds his own business. She waxes poetic on how utterly lonely he must be and how he has nothing but memories to experience. She assumes that: “He had to fight off the madness of utter silence and darkness.” Because of course he is both TOTALLY deaf and TOTALLY blind, the rarest of the rare. Ingi forces his existence into the limitations of her own imagination and assumptions, having never bothered to interact with him.
The worst, for me, is that Ingi decides to sneak into his room at night to “give him” her oh-so-sexy body. She pushes her chest against his face and he essentially suckles at her nipple through the nightdress until he falls asleep with his mouth still drooling on her breast. I can’t even articulate how disgusting this is, that a woman would satisfy her own curiosity and needs by taking advantage of an elderly deafblind man. That anyone would behave so despicably toward anyone else, regardless of age, gender, or ability. Ugh!
After pitying him and sexually assaulting him for a while, Ingi decides she will “save” him by taking him for a walk. So generous, eh? Ingi walks right up to him and touches his face (rather than his arm or hand like a normal human being). When he recoils from the unexpected touch, she thinks: “I must be the first person to have touched him in years.” Seriously?
She takes him the local bar and gives him a glass of beer, which he wraps his hand around. Before giving him a chance to smell the drink, she dips her finger in it and swipes it across his lips. It actually made me want to vomit. It’s so disgusting.
Later, Ingi brings him the dinner table so he can eat soup, and he spills the bowl into his lap after accidentally dipping his hand into it—even though he had already been sipping with the spoon a few times, so he obviously knew exactly where it was, and what it was. Van Heerden acts as though blind people are incapable of eating soup. Seriously?
INFANTILIZATION. Plain and simple.
At another point, Ingi drenches herself in perfume and walks circles around Mario outside, then watches him stagger around trying to find her. But when she's distracted, she runs off and leaves him there by himself. Just disgusting behavior.
Ingi thinks she loves him, but then realizes she loves that he makes her remember to use her own eyes and ears. When he dies, leaving her the stone he carried 24/7, she throws it away. Sure, rocks represent immovability, inflexibility, but it also underscores that she never actually cared about Mario. She just liked the story she got from interacting with him and the people who knew him.
At one point, van Heerden presents us with a first POV Mario passage. When everything else is third POV. There's no first POV for Ingi or for Big Karl or Edith or any of the other myriad hearing characters. Why are hearing authors so obsessed with writing from a deaf point of view, especially when they don't actually know what they're doing?? (Tim Lebbon, Yaara Shehori, and Rosamund Lupton also did this, among others.)
Terminology: “deaf and dumb” and "deaf-mute" appropriate to the period. The nickname “Dumb Eyetie” is also par for the course—in the US “Dummy” was common. But considering how poorly the author handles deafness and deafblindness in this novel, I have to go ahead and assume that he was just using these terms as a matter of stereotype, having done zero research on whether it would actually be the appropriate terminology.
According to the acknowledgements, van Heerden got the idea for Mario from an old photo with a caption identifying an Italian stonemason who was “unable to communicate with his fellow workers”—the workers being tribal African language and/or Dutch speakers. There's no indication that this photographed stonemason was deaf. Nor is there any mention of any deaf-related research or consultants. It’s safe to say the author is totally ignorant about not only deaf people, but also deafblind people.
While the ableist and infantilizing ways the other characters treat him may be accurate, this is overall a poor representation of a deaf character, especially given the context (historical realities) of the story.
September 28, 2007
Several months ago, I was perusing the new books section of Barnes and Nobles, and this book stood out to me. It’s a little larger than a regular trade paperback, and has a bright yellow and orange spine, with bold, black, gothic script writing. The back sounded interesting, and the reviewers compared it favorably with 100 Years of Solitude, one of my favorite books. So, I decided to pick it up. I’d never heard of the author before.
Etienne van Heerden is Afrikaans; thus, this book is set in South Africa in a time just after the Apartheid. The reviews are correct in that this book is told in the tradition of 100 Years of Solitude. In the same way that 100 Years of Solitude is both a story about a town and a family, so is The Long Silence of Mario Salviati. The town is called Yearsonend, and the book tells the story of this town as it is framed by its two most notorious families, the Bergs and the Pistoriuses. Also like 100 Years of Solitude, there is an element of the fantastic to some of the stories of the town. For instance, it is said that Big Karl Berg, one of the main players in the book, was born with a small gold nugget clutched in his hand.
The book is somewhat through the eyes of Ingi Friedlander, an outsider from the Cape Town National Gallery who first comes to Yearsonend to buy a statue supposedly carved by Jonty Jack Berg. However, Ingi soon loses sight of the reason that she has come to Yearsonend, and instead begins to piece together the history of the town as it is told by its inhabitants. The Long Silence of Mario Salviati tells the story of Yearsonend through three familial generations, starting around the turn of the century. The main portions of the book tell of Big Karl Berg’s efforts to bring water to Yearsonend (Lighting Water) and the search for the mythical Kruger gold and the black ox wagon. But, alongside of the main story, Van Heerden touches upon other more realistic themes, such as the racial issues present in South Africa before the Grand Apartheid, and the role that art and music play within a community.
This book is not another 100 Years of Solitude. It lacks Garcia Marquez’ lyrical writing, and the parts of the story that center around Ingi Friedlander take away from the stories of the past which is where the real interest of this novel is. That being said, it’s a good read and I recommend it.
Etienne van Heerden is Afrikaans; thus, this book is set in South Africa in a time just after the Apartheid. The reviews are correct in that this book is told in the tradition of 100 Years of Solitude. In the same way that 100 Years of Solitude is both a story about a town and a family, so is The Long Silence of Mario Salviati. The town is called Yearsonend, and the book tells the story of this town as it is framed by its two most notorious families, the Bergs and the Pistoriuses. Also like 100 Years of Solitude, there is an element of the fantastic to some of the stories of the town. For instance, it is said that Big Karl Berg, one of the main players in the book, was born with a small gold nugget clutched in his hand.
The book is somewhat through the eyes of Ingi Friedlander, an outsider from the Cape Town National Gallery who first comes to Yearsonend to buy a statue supposedly carved by Jonty Jack Berg. However, Ingi soon loses sight of the reason that she has come to Yearsonend, and instead begins to piece together the history of the town as it is told by its inhabitants. The Long Silence of Mario Salviati tells the story of Yearsonend through three familial generations, starting around the turn of the century. The main portions of the book tell of Big Karl Berg’s efforts to bring water to Yearsonend (Lighting Water) and the search for the mythical Kruger gold and the black ox wagon. But, alongside of the main story, Van Heerden touches upon other more realistic themes, such as the racial issues present in South Africa before the Grand Apartheid, and the role that art and music play within a community.
This book is not another 100 Years of Solitude. It lacks Garcia Marquez’ lyrical writing, and the parts of the story that center around Ingi Friedlander take away from the stories of the past which is where the real interest of this novel is. That being said, it’s a good read and I recommend it.
January 12, 2020
Beautiful novel set in South Africa. This book pretty much has it all: buried treasure, romance, tragedy, landscapes, racial tension, an angel, magic. The town of Yearsonend is the setting: deep in the Karoo, effectively the end of the line. Ingi Friedlander, a young art curator, has heard about a mysterious merman sculpture that, according to Jonty Jack, appeared one day in his yard. She travels to Yearsonend to convince Jonty to sell it to the gallery, and she ends up staying longer than expected as the town and its citizens draw her into their deep and dark history. Van Heerden brings multiple story strings together in a riotous kaleidoscope of intrigue, romance and adventure. This book is incredible; it is the kind of book that reminds us why we love to read.
Yearsonend has always been a place of misunderstanding and bloodshed and colliding cultures. The San were the first people there, leaving only cave paintings behind. The nomadic Khoi were next. One day Brit painter and explorer Captain Gird and his African guide stopped at a riverbed to paint a giraffe; he returned to the same spot many years later, getting in a dispute w/ the local Khoi over trade of livestock; bloodshed ensued, and thus was born the tiny outpost of Yearsonend. The legend is that somewhere in the desert outside town is buried gold: Between 1899 to 1901, Great Britain and South Africa were fighting a war over gold. The Boers, itinerant farmers of Dutch and other European descent, were unhappy w/ Britain, esp the abolition of slavery. President Kruger dictated that a wagon filled w/ gold, worth millions of dollars, stay on the move and away from the British, so that after the war, the republic would have some of its treasury. They also travelled w/ five salted childrens' hands from the concentration camps that they hoped to use to convince the Queen of the atrocities of war. After an exhausting journey lasting 16 months, the wagon and its fiercely loyal crew ended up in Yearsonend where they meet one-legged Meerlust Berg (grandfather of Jonty Jack), rich from selling ostrich feathers to wealthy Europeans. In an intricate plan, the leader of the wagon guard and Berg hide the gold, neither man knowing exactly where the gold is located.
Dreams of water, gold, and feathers are the impetus for great triumph and tragedy.
Yearsonend has always been a place of misunderstanding and bloodshed and colliding cultures. The San were the first people there, leaving only cave paintings behind. The nomadic Khoi were next. One day Brit painter and explorer Captain Gird and his African guide stopped at a riverbed to paint a giraffe; he returned to the same spot many years later, getting in a dispute w/ the local Khoi over trade of livestock; bloodshed ensued, and thus was born the tiny outpost of Yearsonend. The legend is that somewhere in the desert outside town is buried gold: Between 1899 to 1901, Great Britain and South Africa were fighting a war over gold. The Boers, itinerant farmers of Dutch and other European descent, were unhappy w/ Britain, esp the abolition of slavery. President Kruger dictated that a wagon filled w/ gold, worth millions of dollars, stay on the move and away from the British, so that after the war, the republic would have some of its treasury. They also travelled w/ five salted childrens' hands from the concentration camps that they hoped to use to convince the Queen of the atrocities of war. After an exhausting journey lasting 16 months, the wagon and its fiercely loyal crew ended up in Yearsonend where they meet one-legged Meerlust Berg (grandfather of Jonty Jack), rich from selling ostrich feathers to wealthy Europeans. In an intricate plan, the leader of the wagon guard and Berg hide the gold, neither man knowing exactly where the gold is located.
Dreams of water, gold, and feathers are the impetus for great triumph and tragedy.
September 16, 2023
A rich magical tale set in the 'majestic, stony plains of South Africa's Karoo'. Great fiction reaches us on a different emotional plane. The determined young woman sent by the city art museum to buy the extraordinary sculpture known as 'The Staggering Merman' is the archetypal disruptive force that causes the remote community of Yearsonend, linked by a blood tree of mixed blood, to awaken. Inga Friedländer leads the cast of eccentric characters to a reckoning with their uncomfortable history and deeply buried (symbolised by the legendary missing Kruger treasure that drives the suspense) personal tragedies. Van Heerden taps into ancient archetypes by unpicking enigmatic histories, showing the pain caused by the heaping up of small and large indignities, but also that real love can sustain and that there is hope and strength in our contradictions. The astonishing love story at the heart of the book is slowly revealed. Language (and the lack of), and how identity and meaning are forged through our relations with others, are central aspects of this evocative and imaginative novel. I was captivated from beginning to end. P.S. The kokerboom quiver tree cover of this edition is beautiful - it feels completely right for the atmosphere.
May 21, 2021
Eine verwickelte Geschichte, die mit einem ungewöhnlichen Kunstwerk beginnt und endet. Dazwischen komplizierte Familiengeschichten, Geistererscheinungen und Engel, die Gewölle aushusten. Das ganze in einem langsamen Tempo erzählt. Es fällt dem Leseri schwer, nicht den Faden zu verlieren, aber spannend ist der Roman nichtsdestotrotz.
Auerßerdem hat er mich daran erinnert, dass ich die Karoo noch nicht gesehen habe und es freut mich, dass ich immer noch in der Lage bin, einen afrikaansen Roman ohne Schwierigkeiten zu lesen.
Der Roman ist ins Deutsche übersetzt und nicht so langweilig, wie sein deutscher Titel suggeriert: "Das lange Schweigen".
Auerßerdem hat er mich daran erinnert, dass ich die Karoo noch nicht gesehen habe und es freut mich, dass ich immer noch in der Lage bin, einen afrikaansen Roman ohne Schwierigkeiten zu lesen.
Der Roman ist ins Deutsche übersetzt und nicht so langweilig, wie sein deutscher Titel suggeriert: "Das lange Schweigen".
July 15, 2019
I think that my primary issue with this book stems from the translation, rather than the story itself. I found this book to be a total slog--Ingi is annoying, Jonty Jack is annoying, the weird foreboding that occurs throughout the book is annoying, and the attempts at magical realism is annoying. I am so happy to be done with this.
January 22, 2021
Hy weef soveel van Suid Afrika se geskiedenis, hartseer en mooi in een storie in dit is 'n wonder.
Ek kom agter dat van Heerden 'n ding het vir reuk, van Kikoejoe af tot Die Swye, sy gebruik van reuk is uniek en het vir my baie beter gewerk hier as Mario se hoof sintuig.
Die straatname is ook great, Verwydering, Kinderhandjies, etc... nonchalant maar ongelooflik effektief.
Ek kom agter dat van Heerden 'n ding het vir reuk, van Kikoejoe af tot Die Swye, sy gebruik van reuk is uniek en het vir my baie beter gewerk hier as Mario se hoof sintuig.
Die straatname is ook great, Verwydering, Kinderhandjies, etc... nonchalant maar ongelooflik effektief.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2021
One of my high school reads that will stay with me for a long time.
April 29, 2017
Hierdie was een van die beste afrikaanse boeke wat ek nog gelees het. Ek wens ek kon meer van hierdie boek onthou, sodat ek 'n better resensie kon skryf, maar ek dink ek onthou genoeg om iets te sê. (buiten dat dit fantasties was).
Die verhaal is kompleks, met meervoudige storielyne wat verweef word in 'n komplekse geheel. Een van daardie stories wat insig gee oor die geskiedenis, al is die afloop van die verhaal fiksie.
Ek was mal daaroor dat daar nie bloot net altyd droog terugverwys was na gebeure in die verlede nie, maar dat van die geskiedenis En lewens van die karakters plek plek deurgevlek het op n amper spookagtige wyse. Mal daaroor.
Die verhaal was deurgans boeiend, en alle karakters goed ontwikkel. Daar was niemand wat net goed of sleg was nie, en mens wou soms van die goeie ouens 'n skop op die skeen gee, en die slegtes n drukkie saam met n toebroodjie en 'n bietjie warm tee vir troos.
Tragies, asemrowend, dapper, lieflik. Dit is 'n storie wat handel oor van die groot temas waaronder alle mense gebuk staan: jou plek in die wêreld, jou bestaansreg, jou vooroordele, verdrukking, onderdrukking, woede, etnisiteit, wraak, misverstand, hoop, vergifnis, verlies, wanhoop, aanvaarding en liefde. En natuurlik, die stilswye van Mario Sylviati....lees En vind uit.
Ek sal hierdie boek graag eendag weer wil lees.
Die verhaal is kompleks, met meervoudige storielyne wat verweef word in 'n komplekse geheel. Een van daardie stories wat insig gee oor die geskiedenis, al is die afloop van die verhaal fiksie.
Ek was mal daaroor dat daar nie bloot net altyd droog terugverwys was na gebeure in die verlede nie, maar dat van die geskiedenis En lewens van die karakters plek plek deurgevlek het op n amper spookagtige wyse. Mal daaroor.
Die verhaal was deurgans boeiend, en alle karakters goed ontwikkel. Daar was niemand wat net goed of sleg was nie, en mens wou soms van die goeie ouens 'n skop op die skeen gee, en die slegtes n drukkie saam met n toebroodjie en 'n bietjie warm tee vir troos.
Tragies, asemrowend, dapper, lieflik. Dit is 'n storie wat handel oor van die groot temas waaronder alle mense gebuk staan: jou plek in die wêreld, jou bestaansreg, jou vooroordele, verdrukking, onderdrukking, woede, etnisiteit, wraak, misverstand, hoop, vergifnis, verlies, wanhoop, aanvaarding en liefde. En natuurlik, die stilswye van Mario Sylviati....lees En vind uit.
Ek sal hierdie boek graag eendag weer wil lees.
May 9, 2008
Can a stone really grow into the palm of your hand? And how could you carry on living without a carer if you are both deaf AND blind?
Well, that is the story of Mario Salviati. What's worse is that he has a secret that will blow the whole town inhabitant's minds away. Etienne van Heerden has a knack for going into the history of things. He did the same thing in "Die Stoetmeester", where you don't only find out about the history of one person, but all the characters involved and then get left with a "moral" for it all. You can't solve South Africa's problems by writing about them in this way. A. P. Brink has done it ad nauseum and I feel the time for that is over.
Well, that is the story of Mario Salviati. What's worse is that he has a secret that will blow the whole town inhabitant's minds away. Etienne van Heerden has a knack for going into the history of things. He did the same thing in "Die Stoetmeester", where you don't only find out about the history of one person, but all the characters involved and then get left with a "moral" for it all. You can't solve South Africa's problems by writing about them in this way. A. P. Brink has done it ad nauseum and I feel the time for that is over.
May 4, 2011
The author did a great job of making you feel like you're experiencing Yearsonend, South Africa with all your senses. Interesting story, not sure how to describe it but a story within many stories about a few soldiers that are on a mission to protect a wagon of gold belonging to the government, moving around constantly to not be caught by invading soldiers. The story has many different love stories, story of captivity, of artists and a little of just about everything rolled up in it. I think the author could have shortened it and made it just as interesting though.
March 24, 2013
Een van daai boeke wat jou so boei dat jy al 304 bladsye in 24 uur klaar lees, en dan is jy getraumatiseer omdat die storie verby is en jy weer moet terugkeer na die realiteit sonder die karakters. En nou is ek mos lus om te gaan intrek in 'n ou kliphuis in die Moordenaarskaroo sodat ek kan verlore raak in die eeue oue dramas.
Vervloek is hierdie van Heerden wat mens so betower met sy stories!!!
Vervloek is hierdie van Heerden wat mens so betower met sy stories!!!
June 19, 2015
As the artists in the book chisel away at stone and wood to create wondrous works of art, the author, Etienne van Heerden, carefully chooses and polishes words from the beautiful Afrikaans language and lays them beside each other to build images and tell stories which portray the history of a nation and of a community with amazing empathy, depth and clarity. A wordsmith who touches the soul of the landscape, its people and the reader and even allows ghosts to roam!
June 18, 2013
Mijn eerste boek in het Afrikaans na de Nederlandse vertaling van Agaat en de Engelse vertaling van Triomf. Het viel me moeilijk om het werk te doorgronden, ook al worden er veel gedachten en motieven geëxpliciteerd. Het magisch realisme ligt me niet, vermoed ik. Mooi omdat het me herinnert aan mijn verblijf in Zuid-Afrika, maar het is niet onder mijn vel gekropen.
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February 8, 2011This book by South African author van Heerden is a mythical story of the human quest to know the past and bond with the future. The imagination of the author as he explore the myth of Mario Salviati is spellbinding.
May 27, 2015
It is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Although I read it translated (in Greek)I was fascinated by the whole atmosphere of that country. Excellent insight into the mentality and the behaviour of the people.
January 30, 2018
I have never read a book that so seamlessly intertwines ghosts and people, fact and fiction, myth and legend, past and present. Ettiene van Heerden is a genius! And the ending? One of my favorite endings to a book ever.
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December 14, 2007French editor: Daniel Arsand
July 2, 2008
decent piece set in south africa
August 18, 2020
I loved this book, but read it a while ago so I can’t quite remember why. I think I got absorbed into the world of the book and so wanted to read more by the author.
May 6, 2011
Loved this book. Especially as I lived right next to the canal at the heart of the story.
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November 20, 2012Thoroughly enjoyed this. Read in Afrikaans.
September 10, 2013
A slow burn of a novel but ultimately very satisfying, I would definitely recommend.
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