Husvapnet

by Nadine Gordimer, Eva Sjöstrand (Translator)

Harald Lindgard, framgångsrik försäkringsbolagsdirektör, och hustrun Claudia, läkare, konfronteras en kväll med det otänkbara: sonen Duncan har arresterats, anhållen för mord. Nyheten skakar det välbärgade vita medelklassparets tillvaro den tvingar dem att rannsaka sina brister som föräldrar och blir en prövning inte bara av kärleken de känner för sin son, utan även av kärleken dem emellan.

Nobelpristagaren Nadine Gordimers roman utspelas i ett Sydafrika där apartheidsystemet formellt är upplöst, men år av rasmotsättningar vibrerar under ytan. Det är ett samhälle där våldet har blivit en del av vardagen och husvapnet fått en lika självklar plats i hemmet som husdjuret.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, South Africa, Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, African Literature

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist, and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".

Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not the gun. It's the human holding it, right?

Well, let's be honest here. There is a family. There is complicated sexual desire between lovers. There is shame. There is pain. There is life. There is passion. There is jealousy. There is envy. There is a gun? There might be murder.

This is the story of the most common, everyday kind of family conflict and drama. It gets intense at times. There are moments when some members of the family feel despair and hopelessness, or anger and wild resentment. Add a House Gun, and the house turns into a crime scene.

I wish Nadine Gordimer were required reading in all political committees debating gun control.

It's human failure to cope with life plus the availability of guns in combination that generate gun violence.

Which one of those two is possible to control?

[Graham · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to state up front that from the first paragraph, I did not enjoy the style in which this book was written. It irritated me.

Nadine Gordimer is an incredible icon of South African literature, and although this review might come across as disrespectful, it was my honest reaction to reading the book.

I found this work difficult to read - contrived. The redeeming feature of the book, for me, was that it caused me to once again consider some of the sad realities of life, and specifically the brokenness of family ties, in South Africa (my home).

It is a pity that the book failed to capture my senses. The narrative style the author adopted did not allow me to relate to any of the characters. A book can only hope to reach its audience through the use of plain and accessible illustration. It is through causing the audience to identify with the humanity of each character involved, that the writer can convey a message.

This story was more like a detached description of events, rendered in a disjointed and, at times, deliberately sterile, or at times deliberately chaotic style.

It's like an art film that went too far so as to become untouchable.

Sometimes the artistic filming style actually kills the story being told. Have you ever seen a movie that was filmed with a shaky documentary style? It makes it plain old too hard to follow.

This book was like that, the style the author used actually got in the way of simply telling the story.

There are moments where the author's unquestionable brilliance is allowed to shine through.

The ending is particularly disappointing - difficult to understand and unravel. Over my head perhaps? Could I respectfully ask that the director please refrain from "shaking the camera", so the audience can actually see what's going on?

[Ivana Books Are Magic · Rating 4 out of 5]

The House Gun is a relatively slow paced psychological novel that opens with a murder case. When I started reading this novel, I was blissfully unaware of anything about this writer, including the fact that Nadine Gordimer is a recipient of a Nobel prize for literature. The cover didn't give me much to work with either, but sometimes it is refreshing to read something without prior research. It gives you a sort of fresh perspective. Based on the cover, The House Gun could have been a crime novel for all I knew. Once I settled into the narrative, I could tell it was not a typical murder story but I like how it kind of starts off as a crime novel. The difference is not only in that it focuses on the question 'why?' more than on 'who?', but in the way it focuses on that 'why?' question. I found the writing style quite captivating in its curiously distant way. Fascinating how the writing both hides and reveals the characters, manages to be both incredibly distant and intimate- all at the same time. I imagine this book will be too slow paced and subtle for some readers to fully enjoy, but I found it to be an extremely satisfying read that kept my attention from start to finish.

What does goodreads tells us about this book? ...The respected Executive Director of an insurance company, Harald, and his doctor wife, Claudia, are faced with something that could never happen to them: their son, Duncan, has committed murder. What kind of loyalty do a mother and father owe a son who has committed the unimaginable horror? How could he have ignored the sanctity of human life? What have they done to influence his character; how have they failed him? So, this is a novel about a man and a women who discover their son is murderer. They have gave life to someone who has taken somebody's life. The horror and the shock creep slowly in them. Is it really possible? If yes, who is to blame? Themselves? Their son? The society?


In many ways this novel has reminded me of American Pastoral by Philip Roth, one of his best works if not the very best. I would say both novels are studies not only of the individual crime committed but of the society the crime is committed in. In the way the concept of 'American dream' is relevant for understanding of the American Pastoral, so is the 'post apartheid dream' important for the understanding of this novel. When I started reading this novel and saw that it is set in the South Africa of the nineties, I wondered would the country and the period themselves play an important part? Would South Africa be a character (of sorts) in the novel in its own right? South Africa and its politics might be in the background but they do play an important part in this novel, just like USA does in the American Pastoral.

Moreover, both focus on a successful married couple whose only child has done the unthinkable- taken a human life. The Swede, a successful Jewish immigrant who played mean basketball and the Miss America, an Irish catholic beauty who married him are a happy couple. How could the product of such love go so wrong? Similarly, Harald a religious (Catholic) but successful business man and his atheist doctor wife seem to be the rare thing: a genuinely happy married couple. Harald and Claudia are living the South African dream. Despite not being involved in the fight for equality, they seem to do well in the new post apartheid world, they seem to at least want to be the part of the new and more equal society. Both couples share something in common- one of them is a believer, the other isn't and this creates a sort of cultural difference between them. How does this affects a child? The daughter of the American couple grows up in a young girl that kills several people in cold blood. Was it truly cold blood or was the young lady insane? Could a sane person do it? Kill in the name of activism? The son of the South African couple grows up in a young man who kills a man. Does he kill him in cold blood? That's the big legal question but also a moral one. Both of these individuals, son and daughter of highly functional families, seem to be profoundly unhappy. Indeed, does a happy person take a life? There are many literary references in this novel, the author quotes Dostoevsky on a number of occasions. The father Harald is a reader and so is the son. They try to find answers in the books, the way many of us do. When we try to kill and destroy somebody, literary references in this novel suggest, we are trying to kill ourselves. I wonder if Philip Roth has read this novel and if yes, what did he think of it? If I had to choose a word to describe the nineties, I would have to go with violence. These two novels do reflect the nineties, the feeling on chaos and hopelessness that has crept into our lives back then and hasn't left since.

This novel made me ponder about a great number of things, the Western dream of liberty most of all. The conflict of traditional and modern. We are thought that modern liberalism is the holy grail that will save us all, but look at what it has done to the Western societies. Moreover, this novel made me think about the question of faith and liberty. The promised liberty of the French Revolution that lead to unimaginable bloodshed and horrors we so easily discard, the 'justice' that lead to Napoleon wars and violence that spread like circles through Europe. All in the name of liberty, the new, the modern and the better way of life. The dream of justice and equality for all. How seductive such ideas are! I wonder whether the modern atheism isn't a sort of religion in itself.

This young man Duncan lives in a house populated with individuals who indulge in promiscuous behavior they call freedom. But what is freedom truly? What is love? How many people get traumatized because they believe that freedom is indulging our every desire and forever rebelling like children? Duncan is in a relationship with a young neurotic woman Natalie who cheats on him but does that free him from responsibility? Does it make sense to say that it is somehow Natalie's fault as the author herself sometimes (it seems to me) implied? It is true that a mentally ill and destructive person might turn against the very person who is trying to help her, but if Duncan truly loves Natalia why does he stay in such a destructive relationship? Isn't it a bit to convenient to blame her for everything? Duncan is a character I couldn't make sense of not even at the end of the novel itself. He remains forever distant. We do get in his head more and more but at the end of the novel I was still left perplexed. The psychological portrayal of his parents and the examination of their marriage following the shock was excellent, but Duncan himself remains something of a mystery. I felt there was a bit of potential lost there.

The novel's subtle writing is wonderful, but a bit more information wouldn't have hurt it. I kept waiting for some grand reveal, for example the discussion of the letter (in which Duncan informed his parents as a kid of a suicide incident) that might have given us the readers more insight. We don't really get an examination of Duncan's relationship with his parents. Was there ever truly one? Or theirs was a highly functioning family that was somehow empty on the inside? In addition, I didn't like the way the victim was treated a bit like a nonhuman entity. I think it would made sense to know more about him, this Norwegian guy Duncan shot in the head. How deep did the betrayal really go? Was the Norwegian really insensitive or did he act with the purpose to hurt? When I finished the book I was left with impression that some things were left unsaid. Nevertheless, this novel is certainly impressive with its examination of love in its many manifestations. I'm glad I read this fascinating book and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

[Julie Tridle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book keeps the reader at such a distance from the story that I never connected with the characters or their situation. First of all, the focus of the story is on the parents of a man who has murdered one of his close friends over a woman. The parents know little about their son's life and even less about his relationship with the victim and the woman the feud was over. Instead, much of the book focuses on the parents as they grapple with how a person they had raised could possibly have taken a human life. The father is a devout Christian and the mother is a medical doctor who has devoted her career to preserving life. I could accept this particular line of questioning for a while, but for me it went overboard and made me dislike the parents quite a bit. It felt to me like they were making themselves and the son's betrayal of them the main issue while a man-- who they don't seem even remotely interested in knowing anything about, lies dead.

I also didn't like how the characters were drawn. I didn't feel we were shown much about the parents, but instead were told how they felt-- told how their feelings changed toward each other and their son. I never got much of an impression of how they felt about their son at all. He seemed like a product the two had produced rather than a person in their eyes.

And I also really hated the complete lack of quotation marks and speaker tags. I don't know why all the Nobel Prize-winning writers I've read lately have such an aversion to punctuation-- quotation marks especially.

[Noella · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ik heb niet veel gelezen in dit boek. De schrijfstijl beviel mij totaal niet. Dat kan ik geen 300 bladzijden volhouden. Op naar de volgende!

[Zeynep T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hangi tarihsel koşuldan kaynaklanırsa kaynaklansın, bir toplumdaki insanlar, acının, yılgınlığın, umarsızlığın üstesinden gelmek için şiddete başvuruyorlarsa, o toplumda şiddete karşı duyulan doğal tepki askıya alınır. İster şiddetin kurbanı, ister uygulayıcısı, ister tanığı olsun, bütün insanlar şiddet yöntemiyle çözüm aranmasına alışırlar. Şiddetle birlikte yaşamaya alışırlar.

Bir cinayet çerçevesinde Güney Afrika toplumundaki şiddet sarmalı, aparteid rejimi sonrası ırkçılığın izleri, dinsel inancın sorgulanması, hümanizm, idam cezası, yaşam hakkı, insan hayatının kutsallığı, adalet gibi konular tartışılıyor. Yazarın anlatım dili herkese hitap etmeyebilir. Yazım tarzını duygusuz, mesafeli, kopuk bulanlar olmuş. Ben anlatılan konuya cuk oturduğunu düşünüyorum.

Kitabın en sevdiğim kısmı, biri dini inancı bir diğeri de mesleği gereği insan hayatının kutsallığına gönülden inanan ebeveynlerin yetişkin çocuklarının işlediği cinayet sonrası yaşadıkları travmanın ve sorgulamanın psikolojik çözümlemesinin tüm kitap boyunca çok başarılı bir şekilde yapılması oldu. Ayrıca yazarla adalet hakkındaki görüşlerimiz oldukça uyuşuyor. Bu bakımdan da hem şaşırtıcı hem de keyifli bir okuma oldu benim için.

[John F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I found the novel thematically and stylistically clunky: the key characters and their concerns never fully engage or seem plausible; the syntactical handling of direct speech is unnecessarily confusing; and there is an intrusive authorial presence.

The novel is set in post-apartheid South Africa and provides a glimpse into the emerging dialogues about race, gender, culture and politics. In particular, it touches on white anxiety concerning the developing black political and economic class at the birth of the Rainbow Nation. Sadly, this social context is sketchily drawn and is primarily encapsulated in the role reversal of an articulate and highly educated black man (their London educated Barrister, Motsamai) holding the fate of three white middle class South Africans in his hands. Motsamai may be seen as a broader reference to that other South African lawyer, Nelson Mandela.

Fundamentally, there is a moral lacunae at the heart of the novel -the parents' moral introspection is self absorbed and self serving - they never demonstrate any concern, understanding, or compassion for the victim and his family and friends. I assume this is deliberate on Gordimer's part and this may be seen as an indictment of those white South Africans who concerned themselves with their own well-being rather than with the victims of the physical, economic and cultural devastation wrought by Apartheid. In this sense, while not morally or politically equivalent, the "victims" of Apartheid were not only the black population but were also sections of the white population whose moral sensibilities were neutered, debased and blinkered to permit the human suffering and inequality of that white supremacist regime.

The novel raises many tantalizing questions about the personal and the political, reconciliation and the need to overcome old certainties and the need to embrace new uncertainties but for me the novel did not sing.

[Fadillah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The courtroom is a present so intense it is eternity; all that has passed since that Friday night is made one in it, there is nothing conceivable after it. There are many to bear witness. Not in the empty stand in the well of the court; all around Harald and Claudia. A murder trial, out of the common criminal class, with a privileged son in the professions accused of murder has provided the Sunday papers with a story of a 'love triangle' calling up not only readers' conscious sense but also some shallow-buried prejudices: the milieu is described as a 'commune', 'a pad' where blacks and whites, 'gay and straight', live together, and there have been photographs somehow got hold of—large ones of Natalie James and the reproduction of an itinerant photographer's nightclub group in which Carl Jesper-sen appears with Khulu. All around: the curious, who may or may not be able to identify the parents. Within the whispering, shuffle and creak, they are not obvious among strangers; as for themselves, theirs is a single identity they now have that years of marriage never achieved. There is only this court, this time, this existence, mother/father.
- House Gun by Nadine Gordimer

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The House Gun is a psychological novel with a relatively slow pace that begins with a murder case. It portrays the aftermath of the murder committed by the son of a white South African couple in the post-apartheid era. The son is defended by a black lawyer in the criminal court. While this serves as the central focus of the story, Nadine Gordimer skillfully integrates it with the fascinating South African environment, providing details about people's daily lives, such as their food, clothing, and décor. These details add depth to the story, making it feel more authentic. I know many authors attempted this but somehow the novel ended up being so long winded. At least, we knew why she won the nobel prize in literature. The book also highlighted an ambiguity of racial relations in South African Society via the characters in the book. It was hinted subtly given the time which the murder was committed. Alongside the racial politics, the prevalence of violence, symbolized by the presence of guns, serves as a prominent backdrop in the novel. However, it is important to note that The House Gun is not a traditional whodunit, as the reader is already aware that Duncan committed the murder. Instead, the novel delves into the impact this event has on the parents. It explores how their feelings change towards each other and their son, ultimately leading to the breakdown of their marriage and the emergence of self-blame. The writing style of The House Gun can be challenging to navigate. The absence of dialogue markers makes it difficult to follow conversations and events. Gordimer incorporates lengthy philosophical asides and frequent commentaries throughout the narrative, which can be overwhelming for some readers. Despite these challenges, the book offers a visceral and gripping experience. Towards the end, however, it may become somewhat repetitive. We all knew the motives, the intentions and the justifications but to keep circle back to it seems pointless (at least
to me). Overall, if you appreciate deep psychological insights into complex characters and the moral dilemmas they face, I would recommend giving The House Gun a read, despite its initial difficulty to engage with.

[PJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Observations of a South African professional couple whose son admits to murder and hires a black attorney during the time when the courts were deciding upon the legality of capital punishment. While Gordimer's descriptions of thoughts and emotions most of us have are spot on, she writes with such remoteness that I found myself not caring about the characters or the outcome of the story. After taking a break from the book I finished it with more enthusiasm in part due to the fact that I decided the author's emotional removal was intentional, in part because the last few chapters actually have some action in them, and finally because I was not able to let such a slim little book get me down.

[Ricki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant study of the discovery of a murder and the effects it has on the lifes of the family of the murderer. Gordimer, as usual, presents psychological insights within the framework of a well-written story which unfolds in a natural manner. One to devour slowly.

[Mish Middelmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

At one level, as the title suggests, it is about the gun – a symbol of the cycles of violence in society having a very personal impact. Gordimer very explicitly recognises that these cycles have extended globally for millennia, even as she highlights South Africa’s particular structural and personal violences. But where it hit me hardest is the very personal. What can be more personal than your own child losing their way? And what can be worse than killing another human being?

This is a portrait of a very comfortable, proper and loving couple and their son being torn apart. The collapse is searing, as the most fundamental assumptions of love and faith and reason are ripped away from a quintessential liberal family. Layers upon layers of pain and violence are laid bare.

In the end, there is a level of acceptance that it is what it is – not altogether a pretty picture, but somehow we have to stitch together life and death, love and anger, despair and hope.

Gordimer editorialises along the way. One of her concerns is about liberalism. Another is about restoring personal accountability in a situation (apartheid South Africa) where structural violence has been so massive for centuries that full personal accounting “was not in question compared to state crime.”

She reflects with anguish about the suspension of humane conventions in wars – even when, as in South Africa, we were fighting against the inhumane structure and daily practice of apartheid violence. She keeps wondering if the struggle-time “rejection of all that is humane” somehow explains post-apartheid violence from taxi violence to the love triangle in this story. I don't think there is a pat answer and I felt as if Gordimer was a bit disappointed by this.

I was touched by her examination of the liberal European-rooted culture of holding emotional distance and space for others. “They show no emotion, just a distanced kindness towards one another.” Not for this family (and the one I grew up in) the weeping and wailing or ululating to mark the big disasters and triumphs of its loved ones – with the twin consequences that their son goes extraordinarily deep in his explorations, while being deeply isolated from his family about what really matters in his life.

Before the book begins, Duncan had been exploring the complexities of both sexuality outside the tramlines, and the edges of suicidal madness, love and hatred of self and other – and all his parents saw were occasional polite tea afternoons with their son and an apparently demure girlfriend.

“He had not told them,” the parents discover in their agony, the really important stuff. Even though they promised him he could tell them anything and they would always be there for them. For me the most powerful theme was this: the tragedy of the limits of parenting and family.

[Gopal Vijayaraghavan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subject of crime is an inexhaustible source for literary works. When such crimes are crimes of passion, the literary creations can be made more riveting and interesting. ‘The House Gun’ by Nadine Gordimer is an addition to the innumerable works of literature on the subject of crime of passion. Such an age old theme is well handled by the author with new insights into the mind of the murderer, the psychological explorations of anxieties and doubts of the parents of a murderer, the acts leading to a crime with the underlying intentions of a crime. The story starts with the grim sentence “ Something terrible happened’ setting the mood of the parents of Duncan when the devastating message of arrest of their son for a murder is conveyed to them. With this grim beginning, the author delves deep into the minds of Harald and Claudia exploring their doubts, fears and apprehensions. As they gradually come to know the circumstances leading to the murder, they come to realize that they know little of their son. They are dismayed that they have to depend upon Hamilton, a non white native lawyer “ the stranger from the other side of the divided past” for defending Duncan. With this background, the author expounds her ideas on the issues faced by South Africa coming out of racial segregations of the past, the issue of death sentence and the gun culture giving rise to the widespread violence prevalent in society. The House Gun ‘’casually accepted as a part of the household” is a symbol of the violence pervading the society. To put it in the words of the author “ A house gun if it hadn’t been there how could you defend yourself, in this city, against losing your hi-fi equipment, your television set and computer, your watch and rings, against being gagged, raped, knifed”. It is also “a symbol of the shared interchangeable relationship” prevailing in the house where the murder was committed. The first part of the novel, depicting the inner conflicts of the characters, is slow moving but the pace of the novel gathers momentum in the second and concluding part containing court room scenes. Nadine Gordimer has been successful in giving a great work of literary merit.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book together with someone.
As far as I can remember, this was the first work I read by Gordimer. Her writing is demanding, not easily accessible. There are many words, sometimes too many and the style is bulky and distant.
Nevertheless, this book has drawn me in relatively quickly. But it also challenged me and I was not always sure why Gordimer has presented to me what I found in there. Was it meant as a provocation? Or even as a kind of satire on the South African society of that time?
And I had my problems with some of its parts. The book shows homophobia and racism through the behaviour and statements of some characters. But there are also phrases that are formulated from a narrative perspective, and these not only serve clichés, they also paint a very one-dimensional picture of homosexuality.
This book has impressed me, both by his topic and by the quality of the writing. But in the end, this aftertaste has made me rating it lower than I probably would have otherwise.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected a lot this being my first novel by Nadine Gordimer, and for the most part she delivered. I say for the most part, because I want to be honest, her grammatical style, which actually worked very well for the court room scenes, drove me crazy at other times. I got tired of trying to figure out who was saying what to whom. That stated, the novel raises some very interesting questions about race and justice, love and the different ways we try to, successfully or not, structure our relationships with one another. But at its core, this is a story about human frailty. The central question for me was: are our values and beliefs reflected in the people we are, the people we present to the world? Can love sustain the unimaginable? On some level the characters, though well crafted, seemed too far removed for me to allow them to really come alive, and perhaps in the end this is the real quibble with this book for me.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't so much a legal thriller - the crime is in the past and the revelations are minimal - as a tale of class and racial distinctions in post-apartheid South Africa, as well as the problems in a society where violence or murder is so common an occurrence that no one takes much note. This was Nadine Gordimer's strength, remarking on South Africa, not writing thrillers, and in the form in which the accused's parents are forced to look at their past and present experiences with race, class and the judicial system, you can get a snapshot of South Africa after apartheid. I can't say that I found the writing style always easy to follow with so many thought fragments and so much unreferenced speech - who's talking? Aloud or to themselves? - but I gained a lot of perspective on an uneasily-changing society.

[Cynthia Paschen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gripping story that will probably give me nightmares. What happens to a privileged white couple when their son is accused of murder? Harald and Claudia end up running into a long list of their own prejudices and things they have never managed to discuss.

I especially liked the way the couple went through their son's murder trial without a sense of time passing. (page 182): "All around: the curious, who may or may not be able to identify the parents. Within the whispering, shuffle and creak, they are not obvious among strangers; as for themselves, their is a single identity they now have that years of marriage never achieved. There is only this court, this time, this existence, mother/father."

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her own unique style, Gordimer presents a taut portrait of a white South African mother and father dealing with the aftermath of a murder committed by their son, defended by a black lawyer in the criminal court in the post-apartheid world. The intricate web of relationships - the son, his lover, his friend who has betrayed him and been killed, the parents, the lawyer - is beautifully weaved, the dialogue sparse but revealing, the thoughts of each actor behind the voices and actions, compelling and intimate. An excellent read, thank you Katherine (and Paul Theroux, who introduced me to Gordimer's writing).

[Mary K · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an odd book. It took me forever to follow her, to grasp her manner of communicating dialogue, which didn’t occur much throughout the book anyway. I thought there might be a surprise ending, something she was building toward, but no. I hoped maybe she’d get into some deep psychological stuff, but no on that subject, also. This was simply a book about a couple who struggles to come to terms with their otherwise good son committing a murder, and there was nothing deep or profound about any of the characters.

[David Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a while to get into but once I was hooked - and I was indeed hooked - I couldn't stop. Worthwhile for anybody who has ever had a difficult relationship, which I imagine means the entire world. Finished on a Sunday afternoon by myself at a hotel pool in Monrovia.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing was really tough to get into; with no markers for dialogue, it's hard to follow the conversations and events taking place. I didn't find myself engaged with the book until about half way through, but it was worth the effort to get there.

[Kieran Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the turmoil one family experiences when their son is tried for murder. The complex court scene drama intertwined with backstory was really well done. A little longwinded though.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled through this. Writing, particularly at the start, felt pretentious. Was also quite repetitive. Just didn't engage at all or care about the characters. If it hadn't been so short I probably would've dnf'd.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do we ever know what the ones closest to us are thinking, what they are made of? An incisive examination of a house murder and its underlying motivations in post-apartheid South Africa.

[Pao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Letto (e comprato dopo poche pagine) grazie al gruppo Libri dal mondo.
È stata la prima volta con Nadine Gordimer e ora ho voglia di leggere qualsiasi cosa abbia scritto.
Partendo da un crimine violento l'autrice analizza come questo evento tragico ed inaspettato spezzi le certezze dei protagonisti (i genitori) e li trascini in territori inesplorati sia fisicamente come frequentare la casa di un avvocato nero sia emotivamente se nostro figlio uccide una persona, chi ha sbagliato a crescerlo? Io o la mia metà? Ma è davvero colpa nostra? Ma questo è davvero nostro figlio? Ma quanto sappiamo di lui?. Tuttavia non ci si ferma qui, Gordimer è bravissima a mescolare storia particolare e Storia del Sudafrica e riesce ad allargare il discorso a temi universali come la difficile amministrazione della giustizia (quanto è sottile il confine fra punire per riabilitare e punire per vendicare?) o gli effetti nefasti di una società in cui ci si arma per difendersi e si finisce così per aumentare le probabilità di atti violenti anche in situazioni apparentemente lontane dall'illegalità.
Ho apprezzato anche la scrittura, non semplicissima, che mi è sembrata perfetta nel sottolineare la confusione e il disorientamento dei protagonisti.
Conclusa le lettura si ha voglia di riflettere sul tema della giustizia magari (ri)leggendo Sulle regole.

Read (and bought after few pages) thanks to the group Libri dal mondo.
First time with Nadine Gordimer and now I want to read everything she wrote.
A violent crime is the excuse to analyse what happen to the protagonists dragged into unexplored territories both physically like the house of the black lawyer and emotionally if our son kills a person, who is to blame? What did we do wrong? We parents? Is this man who killed a person really our son? What do we know about him?. Anyway there is much more: Gordimer succeeds in blending the particular story and the South African History and in facing universal themes like how difficult is to administer justice to punish without seeking revenge and the dangerous results of keeping guns for own defence.
I enjoyed the writing too, it isn't very simple but it's perfect to underline the confusion and the disorientation of the protagonists.
When the book is over you want to think over justice (re)reading Sulle regole.

[Maggie Emmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel set in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1995; published in 1998.
A young man from an upper-middle-class family shoots and kills a housemate. As his case moves towards trial, his parents, Harold & Claudia grapple with how this could have happened and with conflicting emotions towards him and each other. Should they remain loyal to their son when he has done something so unimaginable?How have they failed him? Their anguish is real and it drives them apart
Tense courtroom thriller style.
An engrossing, memorable novel about violence and its consequences.

[Jeffrey Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

The late Nadine Gordimer was both a fine and perceptive novelist and a vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa. This novel, published in 1997, around the time when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is set in the especially chaotic time immediately after the end of apartheid. It places a crisis in a middle class, white family's life, when their adult son, a man with no history of violence or crime, kills a man, against the changes taking place in the society around them. The first half of the book was difficult to read because the material was so painful, but once I overcame that difficulty, I could barely pute the book down.
Gordimer was a bold, outspoken author, both critical of her characters and deeply sympathetic of them.

[Mary Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a nightmarish quality because of the distance between the characters and the events. I enjoyed the writing content but the style -- not so much.

[Yiorgos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much-maligned for her writing style, her books almost never get a score over 3.5 on Goodreads. Why? one wonders. The House Gun was published in the late 90's, when apartheid was - allegedly - a thing of the past and South Africa, the rainbow nation, was moving towards a bright future. As if. Its cities had already been taken over by armed gangs forcing privileged whites to live in gated communities in the suburbs. Barbed wire and house guns were all the rage under the constant threat of house invasions. She skips all that. The violence here is being committed by a privileged white against another privileged white using the aforementioned gun mostly reserved for the aforementioned invasions. What follows is a tale of love, sex and jealousy, slowly unraveling in a courtroom drama and culminating in a Dostoevskyan finale.

[Fiona Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nadine Gordimer made me a part of this family drama. I empathized with almost every character. Thought provoking and educational. A little bit of South African history and a lot of human characteristics we're all exposed to daily.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

So tempting to refer to this book as a devastating bulls-eye shot. Must ... resist ... cliched opening lines.

The House Gun is set in urban South Africa in the mid-90s. I think it's Johannesburg, but can't remember it being clarified at any point in the book. At any rate, it's mostly the story of a wealthy white couple whose lives are thrown into disarray when their adult son is arrested and charged with murder. Turns out the victim was a friend, though the details twist and turn a long way from that little revelation. His lawyer turns out to be an esteemed African man, only recently allowed to practice law legally. Through the course of the trial, the couple are forced to confront and revise their attitudes toward their African neighbors (one of whom is their son's lawyer; another is a close friend of the son), who have recently been granted the right to self-representation in this post-apartheid world.

Gordimer's prose is a little obtuse at first, and it took me a few chapters to feel comfortable with her slipping back and forth between characters with their point-of-view narration. But who's talking gradually becomes clearer, and the portrait that emerges is of two (or three, if you count the son) people dealing with an emotional powderkeg, with complicated race relations as only one factor of many. It's a powerful way to ground a story that could easily seem off-putting.

And I know this isn't possible for everyone, but I happened to read this while I was in Cape Town recently, and I was surprised by the additional depth added by the experience. There are small details—certainly not crucial to the plot—that I wouldn't have understood without being there. When Gordimer talks about Hamilton (the lawyer) as a child looking up to his eventual house from a township yard, I wouldn't have understood the depth of poverty implied by "township" before visiting. Also, Harald nearly forgets to offer a tip to a car guard (sort of like a roving parking attendant). Without having seen these men and boys who roam the streets, offering their assistance to get you into a parking spot and keeping a watchful eye on your car in exchange for a small donation, I wouldn't have understood the significant breach of nearly passing one of these characters by.

So if you can coincide a read of The House Gun with a trip to South Africa, I recommend it. And if you can't travel to SA, read it anyway. It's a powerful story that opens a lot of questions about our tacit implication in unfair, unjust societies.