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Flip Lochner--embittered boozer, self-described loser, burnt-out crime reporter, would-be historian, failed husband and father--finds himself on the farthest edge of civilization one day, descending on foot into a region that lies so deep within the walls of wild mountains it is all but impossible to reach. The Devil's Valley has been home for 160 years to a breakaway sect of inbred Boers shut off from the rest of the world, and Lochner has come to dig into their stories, to establish their history, to know their truth.
With Devil's Valley, South African writer André Brink, author of A Dry White Season, takes the reader on a wild ride into all the dark places of human nature that people most like to avoid. He makes a landscape and social history of these dark places as he brings his protagonist face to face with an agrarian community sternly committed to keeping outsiders out and inner secrets in. It's a place where dream worlds, death worlds, and this world blur and blend, where God and the Devil daily wrestle for the souls of the inhabitants, where simple human dignity is all but out of reach. What is history in such a place? What is truth? "The problem is that I have no bloody way of making sure what I have to show for my efforts," Lochner muses on his experience. "Statements, testimonies, accounts, or just a damn handful of ravings?"
Devil's Valley asks the reader to wonder about his or her own history, especially those parts we all like to leave out yet mutter silently to ourselves, the parts that skitter through our own moonlit night lives accompanied by owls and baboons. --Schuyler Ingle
413 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 1998
12 people are currently reading
298 people want to read
About the author
André Brink
116 books259 followersAndré Philippus Brink was a South African novelist. He wrote in Afrikaans and English and was until his retirement a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.
In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.
Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.
In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.
Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.
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August 8, 2019This book is bonkers, and unlike his others I have read thus far. I enjoyed the theatrics and the outlandish "quotable" lines.
October 1, 2019
I seriously loved this book. Perhaps it's because I'm from South Africa and have met people like the characters in this story first hand, but it was raw and truthful and I thought it was genius.
May 29, 2018
Andre Brink, on his birthday May 29
"There are two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing." Andre Brink, A Dry White Season, p.304
An African magical realism of huge interlinked narratives, history and myth, the multilevel richness of the archetypal feminine, brilliant and strange fables of identity, justice. and power in both race and gender, ambiguity and the totalizing amorality of passion; Andre Brink charts the course of South Africa through both a perilous and tumultuous sociopolitical historicism and an inner universal human landscape.
A Dry White Season, also a wonderful Marlon Brando film , must lead the roster of Anre Brink's Great Books and masterpieces; fiery with anger and sweeping in its denunciation of racism, a work which merits its status as a common reference of world literature. These include Death's Valley, The Other Side of Silence, The Blue Door, and The Cape of Storms.
Also notable are Imagings of Sand and The Rights of Desire (written at the same time as J.M. Coetzee's Desire as collaborative twin novels) , Rumors of Rain with its deeply flawed but complex protagonist who embodies Boer values and contain the seeds of their own destruction, Praying Mantis and its satire of religious colonialism, Philida and its unconquerable black woman who sets out to reclaim her stolen soul.
Devil's Valley is my favorite, imaging a fantastical aboriginal tribe I'd love to claim as a common human ancestor. I actually went in search of it once; it lives just below the surface of our illusions if nowhere else, waiting for us to find our way home.
The horror of patriarchy and colonialism and the hope of renewal through rebellion in The Other Side of Silence, a poetry of terror and what I would call unimaginable dehumanization except that it depicts historical events . Vivid, brutal, superbly written, and perhaps necessary lest we forget our past and come to this crossroads once again, don't read this one before dreaming.
The Blue Door references Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart and Kafka's Metamorphosis in a marvelous allegory of truth and illusion, memory, history, identity, and divisive power asymmetries. It's a coda on the themes that run through his entire literary horde, clearly Existentialist in outlook and a development of Sartre's Nausea. An important difference is that Sartre formulated his ideas as a resistence under foreign occupation; Brink is more complex and ambivalent as the occupying army claims to represent those like himself. As Peter Carey said, "You wake up one day and find you are the beneficiary of a genocide".
The Cape of Storms, and his memoir, Fork in the Road, together provide ariveting and luminous history of his nation and its peoples.
"There are two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing." Andre Brink, A Dry White Season, p.304
An African magical realism of huge interlinked narratives, history and myth, the multilevel richness of the archetypal feminine, brilliant and strange fables of identity, justice. and power in both race and gender, ambiguity and the totalizing amorality of passion; Andre Brink charts the course of South Africa through both a perilous and tumultuous sociopolitical historicism and an inner universal human landscape.
A Dry White Season, also a wonderful Marlon Brando film , must lead the roster of Anre Brink's Great Books and masterpieces; fiery with anger and sweeping in its denunciation of racism, a work which merits its status as a common reference of world literature. These include Death's Valley, The Other Side of Silence, The Blue Door, and The Cape of Storms.
Also notable are Imagings of Sand and The Rights of Desire (written at the same time as J.M. Coetzee's Desire as collaborative twin novels) , Rumors of Rain with its deeply flawed but complex protagonist who embodies Boer values and contain the seeds of their own destruction, Praying Mantis and its satire of religious colonialism, Philida and its unconquerable black woman who sets out to reclaim her stolen soul.
Devil's Valley is my favorite, imaging a fantastical aboriginal tribe I'd love to claim as a common human ancestor. I actually went in search of it once; it lives just below the surface of our illusions if nowhere else, waiting for us to find our way home.
The horror of patriarchy and colonialism and the hope of renewal through rebellion in The Other Side of Silence, a poetry of terror and what I would call unimaginable dehumanization except that it depicts historical events . Vivid, brutal, superbly written, and perhaps necessary lest we forget our past and come to this crossroads once again, don't read this one before dreaming.
The Blue Door references Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart and Kafka's Metamorphosis in a marvelous allegory of truth and illusion, memory, history, identity, and divisive power asymmetries. It's a coda on the themes that run through his entire literary horde, clearly Existentialist in outlook and a development of Sartre's Nausea. An important difference is that Sartre formulated his ideas as a resistence under foreign occupation; Brink is more complex and ambivalent as the occupying army claims to represent those like himself. As Peter Carey said, "You wake up one day and find you are the beneficiary of a genocide".
The Cape of Storms, and his memoir, Fork in the Road, together provide ariveting and luminous history of his nation and its peoples.
October 17, 2012
Not as good as I expected. In order to set main character up as jaded and cynical, author uses a great deal of vulgarity and crudeness. Not really necessary and clashes with later role of character. As story is told in 1st person, vulgarity of character is not in line with any change he may have undergone through unfolding of events.
Also, all of the characters came across as unbelievable to me. They were not well developed, even the love interest of the main character. As she was important to the development of the story, the climax comes across as trite.
Finally, I found Devil's Valley to be very disappointing. The main character goes through numerous powerful experiences but, as mentioned in my earlier comment above, undergoes no change. Perhaps the book would have been more successful had Brink used a 3rd person narrator who could have addressed the changes in the character. As it stands, my response is, "Who cares?"
Not to be recommended.
Also, all of the characters came across as unbelievable to me. They were not well developed, even the love interest of the main character. As she was important to the development of the story, the climax comes across as trite.
Finally, I found Devil's Valley to be very disappointing. The main character goes through numerous powerful experiences but, as mentioned in my earlier comment above, undergoes no change. Perhaps the book would have been more successful had Brink used a 3rd person narrator who could have addressed the changes in the character. As it stands, my response is, "Who cares?"
Not to be recommended.
April 5, 2017
Die boek was nie 'n verrassing nie, want dit is 'n tipiese André P. Brink roman: daag die leser uit met eie voorkeure en afkeure, en versin 'n verhaal wat 'n mens laat steier - van bewondering, van stoute lagbuie of onverbloemde woede oor die 'misbruik' van volkseie mites en mores. Die verrassing lê egter daarin dat die skrywer so 'n biejtjie afgewyk het van sy veldtog teen Apartheid en nou speels, en ernstig aandag gee aan ander gebruike en stories in die Afrikanergeledere. Net 'n opregte Afrikaner kan sy eie mense se siele so onnutsig verniel, dit met 'n tong in die kies doen en 'n uiters spannende storie daarondom bou. Voorwaar 'n uitstekende boek in die Brink-genre! Maar bygesê: jy moet 'n goed-ontwikkelde sin vir humor hê om dit te oorleef. Anders los liewer.
August 18, 2011
This is my third novel by the South African writer Andre Brink, and I am taken by the pains he takes to include women's stories, even acknowledges that there is such a thing. Brink follows a failed historian-cum-journalist as he tracks down the mysterious and reclusive clan of Devil's Valley, after witnessing the death of a rare breakaway member. He struggles to memorialize the clan's history. I usually despise magical realism but the fantastical elements of the tale are woven well into the stories of the individual members and their peculiarities.
October 30, 2015
"(...) Er ligt een verschrikkelijke stilte over de bergen. Ik ben onverwacht een flink eind gevorderd. Het wordt al moeilijk om te geloven wat daarbeneden is gebeurd. Alles waarover ik beschik, ik de geschiedschrijver, ik de misdaadverslaggever, op zoek naar feiten, feiten, feiten, is een onmogelijke knoop van tegenstrijdige verhalen. En toch heeft ze gezegd: Dat wil niet zeggen dat er nooit iets gebeurd is. Dat mag ik niet vergeten.(...)"
p. 385
Noot: Wie niet houdt van open eindes, raad ik ten stelligste af dit boek te lezen. (Maar niet heus.)
p. 385
Noot: Wie niet houdt van open eindes, raad ik ten stelligste af dit boek te lezen. (Maar niet heus.)
May 7, 2009
This is my favourite book of all times... I've read it about 20 times, I think it might be because it feels a bit like visiting my granny's house again, comfortable, old school and smells like cookies... I've read most of his books subsequently, always searching for the same magical high that I found in this one, but I've never been able to find it again anywhere else...
July 8, 2007
I am the biggest Brink Fan on the planet. He is my favourite author so I am biased with all of his work. Don't expect a balanced review from me. As with all Brinks work the backdrop is apartheid South Africa and the stuggles of white and black alike.
May 5, 2008
This is one of those books you become so involved in reading it takes you a minute to return back to reality. It is fantastic, it is probing, it makes you think. It allows you to go to the brink and peer in without fear of falling.
August 12, 2008
A long, tiring read that keeps you hoping for more, but ultimately ends disappointingly without climax, chocked full of cliche. If I hadn't been reading it for a book club, I'd have put it down less than a 1/4 of the way through. I had to force myself to keep coming back. Very disappointing.
September 18, 2009
This was a great book. It is a mythology of sorts. Your never sure which bits are concretely anchored and which are hallucination. It is like a portrait of the Boers who settled South Africa done by the Mad magazine artist. I almost swallowed this book whole. Could not stop reading it.
July 7, 2012
Kind of a creepy book. Not sure what actually happens to the protagonist in the end. He either escapes or dies - Ha! Of course - those are the two options. Well written, keeps you reading, but not very satisfying in the end.
August 22, 2014
An interesting story illustrating the mindset of the Boer community during apartheid by using an isolated settlement representing the isolated South Africa. Truly frightening when one realises the oppression this political party enforced as a minority government.
January 2, 2008
This book will shake you up. It is spooky and beautiful, a fantasy that also seems really true.
October 13, 2011
I read this book when I went to South Africa in 2000. I ready it again before returning this year - it's weird...lotta stuff comin' outta left field. I loved it again.
July 29, 2012
i kept trying to get into this, but failed. too much exposition and i didn't feel any of the tension. gave up by page 53.
July 15, 2014
Poor, havent finished, only suffered thriugh 2/3 of it. Flat and unbelievably vague characters, boring, obscene language and plot full of nonsense. Sorry.
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May 17, 2015Gave up on this one about 50 pages in. It never grabbed me and my mind kept wandering which is never a good sign. Time to pick another off the shelf.
August 28, 2024
“Nell’aria si sentiva l’odore della siccità, un curioso agrodolce, come di mele cotogne polverose, l’odore dell’Africa.”
Questa è una grande storia,fatta di molte storie; di donne spezzate e piccoli uomini e di leggende e credenze e rituali e magie e di religione e religioni e di un Dio che si dimentica il suo dovere e di un Diavolo molto più efficiente e manifesto.
Questa è una storia d’ Africa, di un Sudafrica ancestrale, di Ottentotti, Boeri e Afrikans, di sangue puro e separazione delle razze, di magiche creature e creature malvagie, di un piccolo territorio maledetto, dove una comunità di uomini si trincera dietro inaccessibili barriere di misteri e antichi segreti.
“Se un Dio esistesse davvero, li avrebbe annientati già tanto tempo fa”
“Non sei una gran credente, non è cosi?”
“Tu potresti credere in un Dio come il loro?”
Libro che farà sicuramente parte dei cinque migliori letti quest’anno, uno stile di scrittura e di narrazione magnetico, che cresce con il trascorrere delle pagine. È un romanzo che tratta temi importanti e forti ma lo fa a volte ammiccando col suo linguaggio irriverente, spinto, che trasuda mistero, simbologie, realismo magico e storia, tragico e potente, ammaliante come un’antica medicina.
“Ma i suoi occhi erano scuri per un genere di conoscenza che veniva da ben più lontano dei suoi anni, se questo non vi sembra un fottuto preziosismo.”
Ho scoperto André Brink grazie al bellissimo e duro film ‘Un’arida stagione bianca’ tratto dal suo omonimo romanzo. Scrittore sudafricano di cui non avevo mai sentito parlare, eppure insignito di molti prestigiosi premi letterari e di diverse nomination al Nobel per la letteratura, è stato un autore prolifico tradotto in trenta lingue in tutto il mondo, professore emerito presso l’Università di Città del Capo, grande contestatore dell’Apartheid.
Dei suoi numerosi romanzi e saggi, solo 5 sono le opere tradotte in italiano.
Da leggere e approfondire!
Questa è una grande storia,fatta di molte storie; di donne spezzate e piccoli uomini e di leggende e credenze e rituali e magie e di religione e religioni e di un Dio che si dimentica il suo dovere e di un Diavolo molto più efficiente e manifesto.
Questa è una storia d’ Africa, di un Sudafrica ancestrale, di Ottentotti, Boeri e Afrikans, di sangue puro e separazione delle razze, di magiche creature e creature malvagie, di un piccolo territorio maledetto, dove una comunità di uomini si trincera dietro inaccessibili barriere di misteri e antichi segreti.
“Se un Dio esistesse davvero, li avrebbe annientati già tanto tempo fa”
“Non sei una gran credente, non è cosi?”
“Tu potresti credere in un Dio come il loro?”
Libro che farà sicuramente parte dei cinque migliori letti quest’anno, uno stile di scrittura e di narrazione magnetico, che cresce con il trascorrere delle pagine. È un romanzo che tratta temi importanti e forti ma lo fa a volte ammiccando col suo linguaggio irriverente, spinto, che trasuda mistero, simbologie, realismo magico e storia, tragico e potente, ammaliante come un’antica medicina.
“Ma i suoi occhi erano scuri per un genere di conoscenza che veniva da ben più lontano dei suoi anni, se questo non vi sembra un fottuto preziosismo.”
Ho scoperto André Brink grazie al bellissimo e duro film ‘Un’arida stagione bianca’ tratto dal suo omonimo romanzo. Scrittore sudafricano di cui non avevo mai sentito parlare, eppure insignito di molti prestigiosi premi letterari e di diverse nomination al Nobel per la letteratura, è stato un autore prolifico tradotto in trenta lingue in tutto il mondo, professore emerito presso l’Università di Città del Capo, grande contestatore dell’Apartheid.
Dei suoi numerosi romanzi e saggi, solo 5 sono le opere tradotte in italiano.
Da leggere e approfondire!
November 23, 2025
1. To know who we are, we must forget who we think we are.
2. There is no devil but us.
3. We use God as a method to destroy what we do not like.
4. We are liars, always. It can make us more than what we are, and less.
5. A closed system will eventually die.
6. The dead are always among us.
7. History is both the lies and the truth--what we wish we were regardless of what we are or have become.
8. You cannot escape history--it is the ground itself on which we live.
2. There is no devil but us.
3. We use God as a method to destroy what we do not like.
4. We are liars, always. It can make us more than what we are, and less.
5. A closed system will eventually die.
6. The dead are always among us.
7. History is both the lies and the truth--what we wish we were regardless of what we are or have become.
8. You cannot escape history--it is the ground itself on which we live.
May 17, 2019
Nog 'n treffer uit die pen van A.P. Brink, en baie gepas in hierdie dae wat ons met herniede ywer kyk na die keuses van mense van Oranië, sekere groepe in die Wes-Kaap of diegene in die valleie met die baie heuwels, en in hoe vêr ons as geïsoleerde groepe kan leef sonder om te leen of te absorbeer van daardie groepe rondom ons. Nie vir diegene met noupassende onderklere.
October 15, 2019
I got this book from my MIL so naturally felt I had to read it. Well it was pretty dang good! If you like mysteries, you will enjoy this book. Wish I wrote the review soon after I finished the book so I could give more detail.
June 22, 2020
Godt nok er fortælleren en desillusioneret, afdanket, ældre journalist, men mængden af bandeord og eder, måtte nok kun begrænses. Bare en lille smule. Det bliver faktisk lidt trættende. Ellers en udmærket historie.
January 21, 2021
Read this book actually a while ago. A little weird and disturbing for me. Unsure I'll read another. The story is about the community in De Hel and being inter bred families with twisted religious views. Not my cup of tea
January 13, 2024
Inside this book is a 300-page book trying to get out.
I’ve read a lot of Brink’s work and I think the conceit and concept here are really interesting and frankly, deeply unsettling. It’s just far too long. The story could be even more unsettling were it more tightly controlled.
I’ve read a lot of Brink’s work and I think the conceit and concept here are really interesting and frankly, deeply unsettling. It’s just far too long. The story could be even more unsettling were it more tightly controlled.
August 30, 2019
Obscene. Tossed into the bin.
January 19, 2025
André Brink seems to have stood on the shoulders of giants to write this dark tale, apparently prompted by several generations of stories about isolated ravine life in the South African ravine called Die Hel Gamkaskloof, here renamed euphemistically Devil’s Valley.
Brink reimagined the convoluted ravine lives in retrospect because all the real inhabitants of the slit in the earth had skedaddled several decades previously, as soon as the semblance of an inhumane, precipitous, hairpin, winding gravel track was jackhammered and bulldozed out of the rock faces of the ravine, giving them a way in and out, other than by rappelling or donkey-trains. So the oh-so-unwelcome settlers had all left the place many years prior to his writing up their fictional story, way before a recent out-of-control wildfire ravaged the actual entire ravine floor.
The novel’s protagonist, Flip Lochner, an unhappy, pushing-sixty, self-reported has-been crime reporter, is addressed either as Neef Flip or Oom Flip depending on the age of the supporting character in Devil’s Valley, to where he’s travelled to write a history of the place. The history’s going to be his big news scoop, solidifying his journalistic career and reputation forever.
Nice for the reader, and as an excellent how-to-write tip for prospective writers, Brink gave us, not just chapter titles, but a title to every one of the scenes of this story. I guess all we’re missing is a nice, pertinent black and white line drawing at the start of each chapter.
One salient feature of this novel, written from the first person point of view, is that Brink’s got Flip cursing f*****g or b****y with every thought. It’s a bit disconcerting and, after a while, gratuitous. The written story probably could have bypassed 95% of the expletives and kept the reader hooked, in my opinion.
I did read another novel many years ago in which the characters cursed as much as Flip in Devil’s Valley, i.e. in Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night. But there the characters were soldiers and sailors at war, so the cursing was more in character, and it was always spelled f*g and f*gg**g, as if literary censors had struck out offending words to save the innocent readers’ baby ears.
Another salient feature of Devil’s Valley is that the tale is rather oneiric. Whether it’s because Flip’s personality just kicks against the pricks of reality remains to be decided by readers. But, dreamlike, the novel’s alternative title could’ve been something like Emma of the Four Tits.
To get a better grasp of this novel, here are some analogies to consider from other novels written by some of those giants of writing referenced above :
Start with the perspectives of Lemuel Gulliver’s tall tales of his sojourns among the Lilliputians and the Brobdingnagians.
Add handmaid Offred’s tales of women’s reproductive experiences in the revolutionary Republic of Gilead.
Add some tragic tales of mountain climbers falling into and gruesomely perishing in unexpected alpine or Himalayan crevasses and ravines.
And add some analogies to Pilgrim’s Progress and some sagas of biblical proportions. It’s as if the biblical canon, as we know it, were merely a come-by-chance, will-of-the-wisp sort of thing that Brink himself could make up on the spot just as well.
I did learn a few things about people from this book. One of them is that words can sometimes be too shockingly ‘naked’. Is that the opposite of constant dissimulation in social interactions? I guess the pendulum can swing both ways.
Another thing is that one can believe in and live unfailingly in one’s freedom of association with one’s fellowmen and in one’s freedom to tell and retell their stories. But upon encountering the high stone walls of people’s lies, sins and crimes, one might have to take a hiatus from exercising one’s rights and freedoms and go for one’s safety instead.
Here’s another oneiric mystery of life , in my considered opinion : both André Brink and J.M. Coetzee were, for practically decades each, affiliated with the English Department at the University of Cape Town, like they both taught there for years , and they broadcast that they never met and didn’t know each other. I say ! Who’re ya gonna believe ?
Brink reimagined the convoluted ravine lives in retrospect because all the real inhabitants of the slit in the earth had skedaddled several decades previously, as soon as the semblance of an inhumane, precipitous, hairpin, winding gravel track was jackhammered and bulldozed out of the rock faces of the ravine, giving them a way in and out, other than by rappelling or donkey-trains. So the oh-so-unwelcome settlers had all left the place many years prior to his writing up their fictional story, way before a recent out-of-control wildfire ravaged the actual entire ravine floor.
The novel’s protagonist, Flip Lochner, an unhappy, pushing-sixty, self-reported has-been crime reporter, is addressed either as Neef Flip or Oom Flip depending on the age of the supporting character in Devil’s Valley, to where he’s travelled to write a history of the place. The history’s going to be his big news scoop, solidifying his journalistic career and reputation forever.
Nice for the reader, and as an excellent how-to-write tip for prospective writers, Brink gave us, not just chapter titles, but a title to every one of the scenes of this story. I guess all we’re missing is a nice, pertinent black and white line drawing at the start of each chapter.
One salient feature of this novel, written from the first person point of view, is that Brink’s got Flip cursing f*****g or b****y with every thought. It’s a bit disconcerting and, after a while, gratuitous. The written story probably could have bypassed 95% of the expletives and kept the reader hooked, in my opinion.
I did read another novel many years ago in which the characters cursed as much as Flip in Devil’s Valley, i.e. in Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night. But there the characters were soldiers and sailors at war, so the cursing was more in character, and it was always spelled f*g and f*gg**g, as if literary censors had struck out offending words to save the innocent readers’ baby ears.
Another salient feature of Devil’s Valley is that the tale is rather oneiric. Whether it’s because Flip’s personality just kicks against the pricks of reality remains to be decided by readers. But, dreamlike, the novel’s alternative title could’ve been something like Emma of the Four Tits.
To get a better grasp of this novel, here are some analogies to consider from other novels written by some of those giants of writing referenced above :
Start with the perspectives of Lemuel Gulliver’s tall tales of his sojourns among the Lilliputians and the Brobdingnagians.
Add handmaid Offred’s tales of women’s reproductive experiences in the revolutionary Republic of Gilead.
Add some tragic tales of mountain climbers falling into and gruesomely perishing in unexpected alpine or Himalayan crevasses and ravines.
And add some analogies to Pilgrim’s Progress and some sagas of biblical proportions. It’s as if the biblical canon, as we know it, were merely a come-by-chance, will-of-the-wisp sort of thing that Brink himself could make up on the spot just as well.
I did learn a few things about people from this book. One of them is that words can sometimes be too shockingly ‘naked’. Is that the opposite of constant dissimulation in social interactions? I guess the pendulum can swing both ways.
Another thing is that one can believe in and live unfailingly in one’s freedom of association with one’s fellowmen and in one’s freedom to tell and retell their stories. But upon encountering the high stone walls of people’s lies, sins and crimes, one might have to take a hiatus from exercising one’s rights and freedoms and go for one’s safety instead.
Here’s another oneiric mystery of life , in my considered opinion : both André Brink and J.M. Coetzee were, for practically decades each, affiliated with the English Department at the University of Cape Town, like they both taught there for years , and they broadcast that they never met and didn’t know each other. I say ! Who’re ya gonna believe ?
September 14, 2023
This is the worst book I've ever read in my entire life.
After 20 pages, I have read a lifetime of bad words. I have to read this book for a university class, that is the only reason why I'm reading it entirely. The overly detailed description of a barely adult girl with 4 breasts is not the kind of things I like to read about. I do not like reading first person narrative, but when the character is vulgar every other sentence... It's like this book does not want to be read nor enjoyed. The title every page is almost as disturbing the reading pace as it is unnecessary.
Sensitive topics include blatant racism, blatant sexism including many allusion to women's bodies in a sexual manner and rape, copious mentions of incest and inbreeding, violent agressions, murder and infanticide, animal cruelty, necrophilia and so on. Don't expect to see anything other than morbid curiosity coming from the narrator. He seem to only get outraged when a life is on the line, and this 60 years old man is far too busy being infatuated with a girl who would be his granddaughter. It gets worse the more you read. It starts weird, then it's weird and incestuous, then it's weird, incestuous, sexist and racist. The plot can be summed up like so : "pathetic 60 years old man meets manic pixie dream girl with 4 tits in a racist cult with a history of 150 years of inbreeding"
"As usual with André Brink, you get to learn about the cultural and language features of white South African history. Afrikaans words slip into the text, and having a way to quickly search their meaning is a real plus in reading this book. Brink's bibliography is a great opportunity to learn about white South Africa, but I'd recommend A Dry White Season over Devil's Valley." is what I would say if I was polite. I think every cultures is worth learning about but I really don't want to learn about a culture that excuses racism, sexism, killing, including of children, torturing, raping, and incest just because it is "god's ways".
As a younger person, I never understood how humanity could end up causing as much suffering as apartheid did. If this is really the cultures and values white South African people were raised with, then I understand. What I don't understand though is how this book can be praised so much, without ever having anybody put anything into question. The author, the main character, the people who related and loved this book are frightening. This book made me disgusted with humanity and flabbergasted at the kind of books that people deem a good enough piece to study in a college course. To say I hated every page of it is a understatement. I wish to unread it.
After 20 pages, I have read a lifetime of bad words. I have to read this book for a university class, that is the only reason why I'm reading it entirely. The overly detailed description of a barely adult girl with 4 breasts is not the kind of things I like to read about. I do not like reading first person narrative, but when the character is vulgar every other sentence... It's like this book does not want to be read nor enjoyed. The title every page is almost as disturbing the reading pace as it is unnecessary.
Sensitive topics include blatant racism, blatant sexism including many allusion to women's bodies in a sexual manner and rape, copious mentions of incest and inbreeding, violent agressions, murder and infanticide, animal cruelty, necrophilia and so on. Don't expect to see anything other than morbid curiosity coming from the narrator. He seem to only get outraged when a life is on the line, and this 60 years old man is far too busy being infatuated with a girl who would be his granddaughter. It gets worse the more you read. It starts weird, then it's weird and incestuous, then it's weird, incestuous, sexist and racist. The plot can be summed up like so : "pathetic 60 years old man meets manic pixie dream girl with 4 tits in a racist cult with a history of 150 years of inbreeding"
"As usual with André Brink, you get to learn about the cultural and language features of white South African history. Afrikaans words slip into the text, and having a way to quickly search their meaning is a real plus in reading this book. Brink's bibliography is a great opportunity to learn about white South Africa, but I'd recommend A Dry White Season over Devil's Valley." is what I would say if I was polite. I think every cultures is worth learning about but I really don't want to learn about a culture that excuses racism, sexism, killing, including of children, torturing, raping, and incest just because it is "god's ways".
As a younger person, I never understood how humanity could end up causing as much suffering as apartheid did. If this is really the cultures and values white South African people were raised with, then I understand. What I don't understand though is how this book can be praised so much, without ever having anybody put anything into question. The author, the main character, the people who related and loved this book are frightening. This book made me disgusted with humanity and flabbergasted at the kind of books that people deem a good enough piece to study in a college course. To say I hated every page of it is a understatement. I wish to unread it.
January 11, 2023
Net die moeite werd om te lees as jy al in die Gamkaskloof was 😅
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