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The Spiral House
Katrijn van der Caab, freed slave and wigmaker’s apprentice, travels with her eccentric employer from Cape Town to Vogelzang, a remote farm where a hairless girl needs their services. The year is 1794, it is the age of enlightenment, and on Vogelzang the master is conducting strange experiments in human breeding and classification. It is also here that Trijn falls in love.
Two hundred years later and a thousand miles away, Sister Vergilius, a nun at a mission hospital, wants to free herself from an austere order. It is 1961 and her life intertwines with that of a gentleman farmer – an Englishman and suspected Communist – who collects and studies insects and lives a solitary life. While a group of Americans arrive in a cavalcade of caravans and a new republic is about to be born, desire is unfurling slowly.
In Claire Robertson’s majestic debut novel, two stories echo across centuries to expose that which binds us and sets us free.
About the author:
Claire Robertson lives in Simon’s Town. She has spent the past 30 years as a journalist, reporting from South Africa, the US and USSR. She has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television, and now works as a senior copy editor on the Sunday Times. She has won awards for her reporting and her work is carried in several anthologies.
Two hundred years later and a thousand miles away, Sister Vergilius, a nun at a mission hospital, wants to free herself from an austere order. It is 1961 and her life intertwines with that of a gentleman farmer – an Englishman and suspected Communist – who collects and studies insects and lives a solitary life. While a group of Americans arrive in a cavalcade of caravans and a new republic is about to be born, desire is unfurling slowly.
In Claire Robertson’s majestic debut novel, two stories echo across centuries to expose that which binds us and sets us free.
About the author:
Claire Robertson lives in Simon’s Town. She has spent the past 30 years as a journalist, reporting from South Africa, the US and USSR. She has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television, and now works as a senior copy editor on the Sunday Times. She has won awards for her reporting and her work is carried in several anthologies.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2013
12 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Claire Robertson
27 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Claire Robertson is the author of The Spiral House, winner of the 2014 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and a South African Literary Award, and The Magistrate of Gower. She lives in Simon’s Town.
Claire Robertson is the author of The Spiral House, winner of the 2014 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and a South African Literary Award, and The Magistrate of Gower. She lives in Simon’s Town.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 13, 2013
(First: Full disclosure. Claire Robertson works at the Sunday Times where I was, until recently, editor.)
But, in another life, she is a brilliant writer and this is her debut novel. The first thing that strikes you about this book is the author's absolute command of the language. She knows it well enough to play with it, even reinvent it. This playfulness with the language allows her to control the book's two intertwined narratives which occur centuries apart with a deftness that allows the reader to move seamlessly between the two. The first story is that of Katrijn, a freed slave who works as an assistant to a wig-maker. They find themselves on a farm where they are to make a wig for a girl who has mysteriously lost her hair. Katrijn ends up in possession of a dark secret which impels her to break with her life in the interests of justice. I would like to say more, but let's leave that to the book. The other narrative set in 1960s coming-of-age-as-an-Afrikaner-republic South Africa follows members of a rural community confronting the evil of a state that has declared war on its citizens. The lives of a farmer, a nun, a young man and a visiting American are upturned by the emerging security state and its new nastiness. Eventually the two tales find each other through deft prose. This will become a South African classic. Read it for the language, read it for the story, read it for the dark humour. But read it.
But, in another life, she is a brilliant writer and this is her debut novel. The first thing that strikes you about this book is the author's absolute command of the language. She knows it well enough to play with it, even reinvent it. This playfulness with the language allows her to control the book's two intertwined narratives which occur centuries apart with a deftness that allows the reader to move seamlessly between the two. The first story is that of Katrijn, a freed slave who works as an assistant to a wig-maker. They find themselves on a farm where they are to make a wig for a girl who has mysteriously lost her hair. Katrijn ends up in possession of a dark secret which impels her to break with her life in the interests of justice. I would like to say more, but let's leave that to the book. The other narrative set in 1960s coming-of-age-as-an-Afrikaner-republic South Africa follows members of a rural community confronting the evil of a state that has declared war on its citizens. The lives of a farmer, a nun, a young man and a visiting American are upturned by the emerging security state and its new nastiness. Eventually the two tales find each other through deft prose. This will become a South African classic. Read it for the language, read it for the story, read it for the dark humour. But read it.
May 18, 2016
I read this in hardcover, a signed first edition on loan from a friend. What struck me was not having access to the Kindle’s built-in dictionary and annotation functions. Not to mention translate, if you are non-South African (meaning cannot understand Afrikaans), and are attempting to read this.
It staggers me that there is no glossary for international readers. I suppose it is quite an irony, an example of the high-handed colonialist attitude that Claire Robertson dissects in The Spiral House. As hulle nie die moeite vat om te verstaan nie, is dit hulle eie skuld. (If they do not make the effort to understand, it is their own fault).
The lack of a glossary points not only to the insularity of this novel, but also curiously dates it: in a time when the very essence of what it means to be a South African author – with the very recent international success of Lauren Beukes and Sarah Lotz – Robertson wins the 2014 Sunday Times Fiction Prize with a decidedly retrograde novel.
From Cry, The Beloved Country to The Story of a South African Farm, there is nothing blindingly original about The Spiral House. Which beggars the question: should readers, writers and publishers still be interested in books so firmly entrenched in our past?
The dual narrative strands of the novel take place in 1794, when slavery was still institutionalised, and in 1961, when the Union of South Africa becomes a Republic; when its (white) subjects became citizens.
Towards the end, Robertson comments: “It is the fashion these days to share those wrenching tales of slavery escaped...” One immediately thinks of the international artistic success of 12 Years A Slave, and then are left to ponder the recent race riots in the US.
Given the simmering xenophobia in South Africa, Frank’s comment that “everyone here, every group, hates the other one” rings sadly true, especially today, a couple of decades after democracy, when politicians are quick to point the race finger at every little problem that bedevils our Rainbow Nation, from the high unemployment and murder rate to the lack of infrastructure.
Robertson’s novel, depressingly, seems to suggest that these current problems are indeed inseparable from race issues, and that the racial divide extends beyond the dark pall cast by apartheid to the very founding of our country. There is a telling scene where a bunch of English expats lazily extol the virtues, or lack thereof, of their various domestic servants with the same kind of casual crudity that one can hear today.
What Robertson also seems to suggest is that the English/Afrikaner divide – it is a deeper irony that race is not our only great division, of course – became entrenched with the founding of the Republic, nurturing a bitter hankering for revolution and separation that burns in the Afrikaner breast to this very day, under the double yoke of English and black hegemony.
These are just my own thoughts upon reading this wonderful novel, of course. I think it is the mark of a great book if it interrogates your own assumptions and underlying tenets. What is clear is that The Spiral House forms part of a larger national literary debate about both our past and our future.
A note: The plot is quite minimalist, with Robertson concentrating on evoking farm life in the 1700s and a small South African dorp on the cusp of Union. The evocation of detail, of sight and sound and smell, is intense and remarkable.
The writing is quite layered, with such eccentricities as compound words like ‘therefore’ written out as ‘there for’. Robertson has a formidable vocabulary, and tends to put words in the mouths of her characters that one instinctively feels do not belong there. The overall effect, however, is an intense synaesthesia that propels the novel along to its quietly hopeful coda.
It staggers me that there is no glossary for international readers. I suppose it is quite an irony, an example of the high-handed colonialist attitude that Claire Robertson dissects in The Spiral House. As hulle nie die moeite vat om te verstaan nie, is dit hulle eie skuld. (If they do not make the effort to understand, it is their own fault).
The lack of a glossary points not only to the insularity of this novel, but also curiously dates it: in a time when the very essence of what it means to be a South African author – with the very recent international success of Lauren Beukes and Sarah Lotz – Robertson wins the 2014 Sunday Times Fiction Prize with a decidedly retrograde novel.
From Cry, The Beloved Country to The Story of a South African Farm, there is nothing blindingly original about The Spiral House. Which beggars the question: should readers, writers and publishers still be interested in books so firmly entrenched in our past?
The dual narrative strands of the novel take place in 1794, when slavery was still institutionalised, and in 1961, when the Union of South Africa becomes a Republic; when its (white) subjects became citizens.
Towards the end, Robertson comments: “It is the fashion these days to share those wrenching tales of slavery escaped...” One immediately thinks of the international artistic success of 12 Years A Slave, and then are left to ponder the recent race riots in the US.
Given the simmering xenophobia in South Africa, Frank’s comment that “everyone here, every group, hates the other one” rings sadly true, especially today, a couple of decades after democracy, when politicians are quick to point the race finger at every little problem that bedevils our Rainbow Nation, from the high unemployment and murder rate to the lack of infrastructure.
Robertson’s novel, depressingly, seems to suggest that these current problems are indeed inseparable from race issues, and that the racial divide extends beyond the dark pall cast by apartheid to the very founding of our country. There is a telling scene where a bunch of English expats lazily extol the virtues, or lack thereof, of their various domestic servants with the same kind of casual crudity that one can hear today.
What Robertson also seems to suggest is that the English/Afrikaner divide – it is a deeper irony that race is not our only great division, of course – became entrenched with the founding of the Republic, nurturing a bitter hankering for revolution and separation that burns in the Afrikaner breast to this very day, under the double yoke of English and black hegemony.
These are just my own thoughts upon reading this wonderful novel, of course. I think it is the mark of a great book if it interrogates your own assumptions and underlying tenets. What is clear is that The Spiral House forms part of a larger national literary debate about both our past and our future.
A note: The plot is quite minimalist, with Robertson concentrating on evoking farm life in the 1700s and a small South African dorp on the cusp of Union. The evocation of detail, of sight and sound and smell, is intense and remarkable.
The writing is quite layered, with such eccentricities as compound words like ‘therefore’ written out as ‘there for’. Robertson has a formidable vocabulary, and tends to put words in the mouths of her characters that one instinctively feels do not belong there. The overall effect, however, is an intense synaesthesia that propels the novel along to its quietly hopeful coda.
June 26, 2017
I really struggled to get into this book because of the archaic language. The characters and story unfolds very slowly and there is a complexity that I found really challenging. However, there was quite an ethereal quality to the story telling that eventually becomes quite compelling. The 2 main characters are cleverly paralleled and the 'truths' that are revealed are difficult to confront.
The main story line is 'to expose that which binds us and sets us free' (quoted from the dust cover!) and uses slavery, convent life, race classification, and 2 main historical events in South Africa - the Republic of South Africa (1961) and post apartheid South Africa (1994) - as the canvas for the story.
Whatever the circumstance, one's freedom is defined by God, Nation and Family - as stated by one of the characters in the book.
The main story line is 'to expose that which binds us and sets us free' (quoted from the dust cover!) and uses slavery, convent life, race classification, and 2 main historical events in South Africa - the Republic of South Africa (1961) and post apartheid South Africa (1994) - as the canvas for the story.
Whatever the circumstance, one's freedom is defined by God, Nation and Family - as stated by one of the characters in the book.
July 9, 2016
I almost gave up on this one and started skim-reading to the end but then one or two sections drew my attention and I went back and read it properly. There are two stories set around 200 years apart with a number of clear links and parallel themes (one of the more obvious is that the two narrators were both named [Ka]Trijn/Catherine). These links only become clear towards the end of the book though, and at first I kept wondering what the connection might be. But each story ultimately explores themes of belonging, exclusion, identity, violence and the hierarchy of a racially divided society. Robertson has an evocative, haunting style of writing and an impressive command of language - the earlier story is written in an archaic form of English- which is impressive and yet often alienating. I never really cared about any of the characters and as a result I struggled to reach the end.
September 4, 2013
Readers of The Spiral House might at first battle to get used to the archaic language and some of the expressions, but once you have settled in, prepare yoursel for a story about the very foundations upon which skin colour was based. Intermingled with the status of the whites versus that of the coloured people you will be drawn into the heartaches and joys they suffer through the course of the story. Claire Robertson's research is sound and forms the backbone of the various threads which culminate inn the ending of the novel. Characterisation and plot is handled deftly.
August 23, 2013
A delicate, clever, clever complex and beautifully wrought read. At first I didn't quite know what I was reading and wrestling with it to reach an understanding was not just rewarding but somewhat transporting: having read The Spiral House I'm in a different place. There's many layered magic here. Well done Claire and thank you.
January 22, 2018
Historical. A novel that takes hold slowly, and then tightens its grip. Stories, and glimpses of stories, lives shaped or misshapen by the monstrous cruelties of South Africa’s past – slavery and ignorance in the 1700s, and in 1961 brutality becoming the norm as a section of the population believes its racism legitimized by the advent of the Republic.
May 12, 2018
This is a great read. Good research. I will definitely read more of the author’s books in future.
March 15, 2023
Beautiful and powerful storyline, but tedious sentences made it quite a struggle to get through. Maybe worth a second read in distant future.
January 20, 2014
I cringe when I think it took me a month to finish reading this one. The archaic language, although astonishingly beautiful, makes this book quite the challenging read. Please don't be discouraged to read it. It is a very satisfying story once you allow the words to take you. After reading some of the reviews on this book I have come to the conclusion that one either loves this book in its entirety or hate it as such.
I think the dislike towards the book stems from impatience with the writing.
We (I, myself, at first) question the necessity of such writing in these modern times, but to question anything so artfully wrought takes away some (if not all) of the enjoyment of such a work.
I for one think this was a brilliant story of our South Africa and I second anyone's notion of it becoming a ccelebrated classic.
I think the dislike towards the book stems from impatience with the writing.
We (I, myself, at first) question the necessity of such writing in these modern times, but to question anything so artfully wrought takes away some (if not all) of the enjoyment of such a work.
I for one think this was a brilliant story of our South Africa and I second anyone's notion of it becoming a ccelebrated classic.
February 12, 2015
The Spiral House tells two stories. The first: The year is 1794 and Katrijn van de Caab, a freed slave, travels with her wigmaker employer/friend from Cape Town to the remote Vogelzang. It is here, on the beautiful, verdant farm, where Katrijn (or Trijn, then) makes friends and enemies, falls in love, and in truth comes to learn who she is.
The second story takes place 200 years later, and tells the tale of Sister Vergilius, a nun at a mission hospital in the northern reaches of South Africa–a South Africa on the precipice of Apartheid.
Read the full review on Atlas House: http://atlashouse.me/2014/07/11/spira...
The second story takes place 200 years later, and tells the tale of Sister Vergilius, a nun at a mission hospital in the northern reaches of South Africa–a South Africa on the precipice of Apartheid.
Read the full review on Atlas House: http://atlashouse.me/2014/07/11/spira...
February 1, 2015
I wanted to like this book which exposes parts of white South Africa's past in alternating chapters. The back and forth between Katrijn's life, a slave in 1794, and Vergilius, a white nun living in 1961, made it a very disruptive read. I felt that it could have easily been written as two books instead. The lack of a narrative line did not help either. Most reviewers say read it twice, and sure I would read it a second time for the wonderful descriptive language but I fail to understand why the story telling that eventually becomes compelling read only towards the end.
March 26, 2016
I came really close to abandoning this one, and I almost never abandon books. I just couldn't get into either of the two stories woven into this book. I kept waiting for something really big to happen or to at least figure out how the stories connect. There were so many characters that I had trouble keeping track of everyone and there was a lot of unfamiliar language and terms that made it hard to just settle into the story. I feel like perhaps there is something deeper going on here that just went totally over my head. Perhaps if I knew more about South African history?
October 15, 2013
Three of my regular book reviewers returned this novel. They all struggled to read it. I decided to try it to see what the problem was. The Spiral House is almost impossible to get into. It is full of long-winded descriptions and characters who are far too introspective. This is sad because the story is an interesting one.
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February 2, 2014- There was an impulse that ran through me in those days, a question, a quest, that coloured how I saw myself and other people, other women and girls in particular, and it was this: how to be. -
- He was the instrument of her mother's devisings and his a mother's dilemma: by disguising her child's flaw she made known that she saw there was a flaw to be hid. -
- He was the instrument of her mother's devisings and his a mother's dilemma: by disguising her child's flaw she made known that she saw there was a flaw to be hid. -
June 21, 2014
Brilliant. So moving and economically narrated. Even among the most appalling circumstances and injustices there are those who are blessed with the spirit to fight and take action. Really worth getting to know the characters and sharing their lives for a short while.
March 17, 2015
Took a long time to get into this book, but so pleased I did. One of the most beautifully crafted stories I've read in a long time. Yet another great South African talent. Also a reminder that I haven't been reading enough fiction lately. Claire Robertson - keep writing.
October 25, 2015
I really enjoyed the beautiful language here (and I'm fortunate to have an Afrikaans translator close at hand!) but I never fully 'got' the connection between the linked narratives, nor did I think there was quite enough narrative urgency.
May 4, 2013
The best book to come out of Africa in a while
June 24, 2013
Incredible! I totally lived this book while I was reading it. Descriptive writing was breathtaking. It's the kind of book that you wished you had written yourself.
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August 24, 2013Fantastic! I loved it.
June 20, 2014
A superb tale of parallel lives separated by 200 years.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews