Before I Forget: A Novel

by André Brink

An unforgettable story of a man's reflection on the a spent loving and the last great love of his life. Chris Minaar is a distinguished South African writer who has lost his gift for the word. That is, until, he meets Rachel, a woman destined to become the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled. Before I Forget is the final act of Chris's creative life; it is the coming together of all the chaotic pieces of his existence. It is much more than the story of how he met Rachel; it is the story of his life and his lifetime of loves. There are brief affairs, extended affairs, even a marriage and in all of them we find Chris retelling his joys and pains in such a way that they move us to tears and beyond. Erotic, searingly honest, and a profoundly moving novel, this is the history of a life set against the history of a nation and, more than anything, a tribute to lost lovers and our very ability to love at all.

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

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

André 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.

Reviews

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one of the finest erotic books I have ever read. It offers unique and beautiful descriptions of sex and body parts, with stories about current events interwoven with the memories of an old man. Exquisite writing.One of the things I loved about the book is his treatment of older women as lovers. You don't see that often in any novel.

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brink is a good writer, but this book is a bit of a bore. An old, leading South African writer, after the sudden death of a young female friend, tries to come to terms with his life through the many fucks he has had over the course of his life.
The book is full of fucking and it appears Brink wrote the book primarily to shock his prudish South African audience. The twist at the end is reasonably surprising, but by the time I got there, I just didn't care enough. I bought the book after I asked an older woman working at a local Exclusive Books what she thought was Brink's best book. Well.

[Uma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda hated this book but also I was interested enough to finish it so there must have been something to keep me reading. Overall it was weirdly sexual and a bit pretentious? I guess the book is meant for an older audience so it didn’t appeal to me at all.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

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. This is the slightly erotic story of an older man with his younger lover. As with all Brinks work the backdrop is apartheid South Africa and the stuggles of white and black alike.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure Brink is an amazingly skilled wordsmith but this book left me cold. It seemed to be a vehicle for his writing ability - a subject who is an author (!) rather tediously remembering, in his ripe old age, all of his various conquests. Good, you can write and describe endless different female forms. A plot would have been welcome.

[Adri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brink's prose is beautiful, but I found this book a complete drag. It had the feel of an autobiography about it and also felt like one man's brag fest about all his sexual exploits. I can't say that I enjoyed this and feel let down.

[Kel Sta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although perhaps a little self-indulgent, this is quite a beautiful book with fascinating, well-developed characters, and an interesting attempt to mention the political and the personal in parallel.

[Ilyhana Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this slow to start, not easy to get into and quite a long wade through to the conclusion.
Set against the struggles of South Africa's liberation, it seems to contrast a life lived indifferently with the same life lived with purpose. Yes it's odd.
The trivia of the memories of countless sexual escapades contrasts with the brutality of the oppression in South Africa and then a step further with the invasion of Iraq.
I couldn't help but wonder about the attitudes of the main character, the gender bias, the age bias. The author has painted a picture of a totally unlikeable character (I thought so anyway) and extraordinary stereotypes emit from the character's psyche. He is painted as a Casanova.
The writing style tends to affirm the indifference of the central character to his own behaviour ...he acts as though it is his personal privilege to taste every feminine dish on the menu of his life. And then he voyeuristically berates the partner of a love interest for infidelity. Hardly in the moral position to take the higher ground.
Eventually he is challenged to realise his own hypocrisy.
I wonder about authors who write books about thoroughly unlikeable people.
The writing style is very dry and heady. The dialogue sounds unnatural, almost stilted.
At best I found the novel a study of shallow character, a man attempting to justify his existence.
Before the novel concludes, the reader may be entirely bored by descriptions of pubic hair, but eventually the author resolves things somewhat.

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must say this before I forget. Brink is good. Definitely.

I have liked very much Brinks's novels about apartheid in South Africa. In later novels it is not that much in leading role but it is always there like dark backround vocals. In this novel a bit more once again as this was "memoirs" covering a long period in South Africa's violent history - not directly Brink's own memoirs but obviously very close.

A long series of women and romances. Very different women from different periods of life. All described with love and affection; even the deceitful ones. A dash of melancholy as everything is bygones - the narrator is over 80 years old.

Absolutely worth reading. As all Andre Brink's novels.


Kun vielä muistan.
WS Bookwell Oy, 2006

[Rebecca Woodall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite an appropriate title as most of the book read like the ram lungs of an old man. Even more, a man who has never been able to commit to one woman. Luckily for him, it seems most of the women in his life don't mind. Too and he couldn't grow up & find a woman his own age instead of continually describing his past sexual encounters. With a political backdrop as tumultuous as South Africa you would expect a more intellectual storyline but you will be disappointed.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Have you changed the substance of my life or just the contours?"

Chris is a South African Writer who finds love at a time in his life where he can only begin to go back in time to all the women he loved and the choices he made.
I do not know much about weaving, but Andre Brink did spin such a tale that I could not put this book because I was curious to know whether Chris' love was fulfilled.

[Yuliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice mix of sexual encounters and history of South Africa. well written. Makes you interested to read to the end with all those stories jumping back and forth from the past to the future. I liked a lot the parallels between relationships with different women and connection of all of them in a woman of all life.

[Arja-täti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kirja johon tartuin täysin sattumalta mutta joka vei minut mennessään. Rakkautta, suhteita, rakkautta ja suhteita. Iäkkään miehen kertomus elämänsä naisista.

Tätä lukiessa täytyi ottaa lasi konjakkia ja nauttia. Aivan jotain muuta mitä yleensä luen.

[Nana Fredua-Agyeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

An old man recollects his life with the women he came across... before he dies...

Follow the link to read my review on my blog.

http://freduagyeman.blogspot.com/2010...


thanks

[Jan Razny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very elegant and beautifull. It was one of the best books I've read in last 2-3 years. Action is secondary, emotions and reflection on delicate nature of relationship between men and women and passage of time are primary subject.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could barely get through this. is this guy brilliant? i am missing something.

[LISA · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK I'm not having a good run on books completed ....
I got about 1/3 of the way through and could not continue ... again, I didn't care of the characters and was disappointed!

[Nimisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

so far, so good

[Tiah]

An exquisite portrait of one man's passed loves intertwined with the complicated tapestry of South Africa's political history.

[Ronel · Rating 3 out of 5]

'n moet lees vir alle vroue...so sal ons dan verstaan wat in die manne se koppe aangaan...ek het baie gehou van die boek...die misterie van vrouwees en alles daarmee saam word baie goed vasgevang....

[Marina]

I read the Afrikaans version, and absolutely loved it. It was so reminiscent of a life full of vitality and sexual encounters.

[Del · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a yellowed out love letter this bittersweet novel tugs at the heart of a reader. One of my favourite books from this home-grown author.

[Amanda Patterson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to read the book. Forgot about it immediately.

[Sonja Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

'n Meesterwerk!

[Bettie]

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Recato · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 35 year's of age I am still a virgin, and plan to be so until I die.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This involving story captivated me more as I kept reading. At first it was a bit difficult to cope with no chapters but the stories of Chris' meetings and life organised it just fine. At the beginning I began to wonder if I was reading an exploitation diary but then it became so much more: a revelation of women (on a par with Pablo Neruda's poetry) diverse, loving, funny, erotic and (infrequently) quite nasty. But intruding on all of Chris' remembering about the loves in his life, is the horror of apartheid South Africa. This system brutalises everyone: the oppressors, the oppressed, the bystanders. Even now the damage is irrefutable and probably irreparable. As Chris is remembering he is watching on the news the unfolding of another horror that totally ruined Iraq and eventually, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan - another 'conquering' oppressor nation forcing their views onto peoples and cultures they knew nothing about. Chris makes frequent correlations between the 2nd Gulf War and what men do in their own lives. It makes for a chilling comparison. Eventually I couldn't put the book down. Which is why the ending left me broken and in tears. The major thread of Chris' loves is his love for Rachel, half his age, yet a love that continues to grow but is never physically fulfilled. What happens at the end to Rachel left me utterly shocked and devastated. We have been ready for her death from the first page, but actually, we weren't. Twenty years on from the events in this novel the world has not got better, not got wiser, not become a better place to live. This is an incredibly important story. Please read it with an open mind but know your heart will ache.

[Jonathan Widell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brink writes so well that it is difficult to miss the point, namely that he is not only writing but writing about writing. Even when Chris Minnaar ("minnaar" means "lover" in Afrikaans) is writing about his most intimate sexual experiences (which he does a lot and as exhaustively as possible), he mentions that, while "doing" it, he already saw himself writing about those experiences afterward, as he was doing now. What was happening? The characters' discussions on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni provide some psychological insights. However, he was still in the process of discovering himself. Although he had thought women's bodies would help him to understand himself, he realized that was only part of the process. The other part was to take distance from what he had come to understand about himself so far. He did it by writing. That, in itself, was something that he was only discovering. He was still at the stage of comparing storytelling to making love. Now that he was old, he had no choice but to write.

I think the references to the history of South Africa and to the war in Iraq serve as reminders of the passage of time that he needs to underline the fact that he has seen a lot but not enough until he has learned to take photos without a camera, as he puts it. Rachel, whom he is addressing in this book, was his human equivalent of dispensing with the camera.

[Rachelle Arkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andre Brink is a masterful wordsmith. The language is mesmerizing. The main character, Chris, is a writer whose creative well has run dry. This is his memoir. The story of his life is told by his recounting of the loves and lovers (many, many) of his life. The counterpoint to this is his watching the first Gulf War on TV. Written as a man who is over seventy; his literary drooling over the women he has known and had affairs with had a pretty big ick factor for me. So why did I continue reading it?
Because the writing is exceptional, it provides a picture of what life under apartheid in S Africa was like for a writer and a liberal. I would definitely read something else by this writer.

[Noura Aljoaib]

Simply one of the most mesmerizing books I've read; a troubled and jaded writer decides to tell the tale of the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled. Through exploring the triangle of this love for this woman, and the deep friendship he develops with her husband, he begins unraveling the many relationships his life is composed of. Deep, heart-wrenching and bursting with beautiful reflection, this book will remain