Life Times: Stories, 1952-2007

by Nadine Gordimer

A stunning selection of the best short fiction from the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature

This collection of Nadine Gordimer's short fiction demonstrates her rich use of language and her unsparing vision of politics, sexuality, and race. Whether writing about lovers, parents and children, or married couples, Gordimer maps out the terrain of human relationships with razor-sharp psychological insight and a stunning lack of sentimentality. The selection, which spans the course of Gordimer's career to date, presents the range of her storytelling abilities and her brilliant insight into human nature. From such epics as "Friday's Footprint" and "Something Out There" to her shorter, more experimental stories, Gordimer's work is unfailingly nuanced and complex. Time and again, it forces us to examine how our stated intentions come into conflict with our unspoken desires.

This definitive volume, which includes four new stories from the Nobel laureate, is a testament to the power, force, and ongoing relevance of Gordimer's vision.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Africa, South Africa, Literature

560 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Harper :D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was like eating your vegetables as a child who doesn’t like vegetables.

[David Lum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, the writing! “Edgar Hicks, after a few trying minutes with Eileen, who found it difficult to respond to any of his conversational gambits, discovered that Alice Raines rode horses and, like a swamp sucking in fast all around its victim, involved her in a long, one-sided argument about the merits of two different types of saddle.” The description in this sentence is fantastic, but the exciting mystery of what a “one-sided argument” could be really draws you ahead.

Generally I liked the earlier stories better than the later ones— with the critical exception of the late one told from the POV of a tapeworm, which was great. And generally I liked the relationship stories better than the political ones, since those require a lot more context to understand.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection seems like a great way to get introduced to Gordimer's work. It contains almost 40 short stories from throughout her career, all of them remarkably competent, some of them brilliant. Aside from her consistency, the thing that impressed me most about Gordimer's work was her absolute refusal to simplify or to accept easy answers to moral questions. Favorite stories include: "Friday's Footprint," "Livingstone's Companions," "Town and Country Lovers," "The Ultimate Safari," and the novella "Something Out There."

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a pleasure reading Nadine Gordimer... learning new words and different situations.

The effect of travel on a man whose heart is in the right place is that the mind is made more self-reliant; it becomes more confident of its own resources - there is greater presence of mind.

Letter from His Father

My dear son,

You wrote me a letter you never sent.
It wasn't for me - it was for the whole world to read (You and your instructions that everything should be burned. Hah!) You were never open and frank with me - that's one of the complaints you say I was always making against you. You write it in the letter you didn't want me to read; so what does that sounds like, eh? But I've read the letter now, I've read it anyway, I read everything, although you said I put your books on the night-table and never touched them. You know how it is, here where I am: not something that can be explained to anyone who isn't here - they used to talk about secrets going to the grave, but the funny thing is there are no secrets here at all. If there was something you wanted to know, you should have known, if it doesn't let you lie quiet, then you can have knowledge of it, from here. Yes, you gave me much credit, you said I was a true Kafka in 'strength... eloquence, endurance, a certain way of doing things on a grand scale' and I've not been content just to rot. In that way, I'm still the man I was, the go-getter. Restless. Restless. Taking whatever opportunity I can. There isn't anything, now, you can regard as hidden from me. Whether you say I left it unread on the night-table or whether you weren't man enough, even at the age of thirty-six, to show me a letter that was supposed to be for me.

I write to you after we are both dead. Whereas you don't stir. There won't be any response from you, I know that. You began that letter by saying you were afraid of me - and then you were afraid to let me read it. And now you've escaped altogether. Because without the Kafka will-power you can't reach out from nothing and nowhere. I was going to call it a desert, but where's the sand, where're the camels, where's the sun - I'm still mensch enough to crack a joke - you see? Oh, excuse me, I forgot - you didn't like my jokes, my fooling around with kids. My poor boy, unfortunately you had no life in you, in all those books and diaries and letters (the ones you posted, to strangers, to women) you said it a hundred times before you put the words in my mouth, in your literary way, in that letter: you yourself were 'unfit for life.' So death comes, how would you say, quite naturally to you. It's not like that for a man of vigour like I was, I can tell you, and so here I am writing, talking... I don't know if there is a word for what this is. Anyway, it's Hermann Kafka. I've outlived you here, same as in Prague.

That is what you really accuse me of, you know, for sixty or so pages (I notice the length of that letter varies a big from language to language, of course, it's been translated into everything - I don't know what -- Hottentot and Icelandic, Chinese, although you wrote it 'for me' in German). I outlived you, not for seven years, as a n old sick man, after you died, but while you were young and alive. Clear as daylight, from the examples you give of being afraid of me, from the time you were a little boy: you were not afraid, you were envious. At first, when I took you swimming and you say you felt yourself a nothing, puny and weak beside my big, strong, naked body in the change-house - all right, you also say you were proud of such a father, a father with a fine physique... And may I remind you that a father was taking the trouble and time, the few hours he could get away from the business, to try and make something of that nebich, develop his muscles, put some flesh on those poor little bones so he would grow up sturdy? But even before your barmitzvah the normal pride every boy has in his father changed to jealousy, with you. You couldn't be like me, so you decided I wasn't good enough for you: course, loud-mouthed, ate 'like a pig' (your very words), cut my fingernails at table, cleaned my ears with a toothpick. Oh yes, you can't hide anything from me, now, I've read it all, all the thousands and thousands of words you've used to shame your own family, your own father, before the whole world. And with your gift for words you turn everything inside out and prove, like a circus magician, it's love, the piece of dirty paper's a beautiful silk flag, you , and so - what? You tell me. You couldn't be like him? You wanted to be like him? The ghasa, the shouter, the gobbler? Yes, my son, these 'insignificant details' you write down and quickly dismiss - these details hurt. Eternally. After all, you've become immortal through writing, as you insist you did only about me, 'everything was about you, father'; a hundred years after your birth, the Czech Jew, son of Hermann and Julie Kafka, is supposed to be one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Your work will be read as long as there are people to read it. That's what they say everywhere, even the Germans who burned your sisters and my grandchildren in incinerators. Some say you were also some kind of prophet (God knows what you were thinking, shut away in your room while the rest of the family was having a game of cards in the evening); after you died, some countries built camps where the things you made up for that story 'In The Penal Colony' were practised, and ever since then there have been countries in different parts of the world where the devil's work that came into your mind is still carried on - I don't want to think about it.

You were not blessed to bring any happiness to this world with your genius, my son. Not at home either. Well, we had to accept what God gave. Do not ever stop to think whether it wasn't a sorrow for me (never mind - for once - how you felt) that your two brothers, who might have grown up to bring your mother and me joy, died as babies? And you sitting there at meals, always with a pale, miserable, glum face, not a word to say for yourself, picking at your food... You haven't forgotten that I used to hold up the newspaper so as not to have to see that. You bear a grudge. You've told everybody. But you don't think about what there was in a father's heart. From the beginning. I had to hide it behind a newspaper - anything. For your sake.

Because you were never like any other child. You admit it: however we had tried to bring you up, you say you would have become a 'weakly, timid, hesitant person'. What small boy doesn't enjoy a bit of rough-house with his father? But writing at thirty-six years old, you can only remember being frightened when I chased you, in fun, round the table, and your mother, joining in, would snatch you up out of my way while you shrieked. For God's sake, what's so terrible about that? I should have such memories of my childhood! I know you never liked to hear about it, it bore you, you don't spare me the written information that it 'wore grooves in your brain,' but when I was seven years old I had to push my father's barrow from village to village, with open sores on my legs in winter. Nobody gave me delicacies to mess about on my plate; we were glad when we go potatoes. You make a show of me, mimicking how I used to say things. But wasn't I right when I told you and your sisters - provided for by me, living like fighting-cocks because I stood in the business twelve hours a day - what did you know of such things? What did anyone know, what I suffered as a child? And then it's a sin if I wanted to give my own son a little pleasure I never had.

And that other business you schlepped up out of the past - the night I'm supposed to have shut you out on the pavlatche. Because of you the whole world knows the Czech word for the kind of balcony we had in Prague! Yes, the whole world knows that story, too. I am famous, too. You made me famous as the father who frightened his child once and for all: for life. Thank you very much. I want to tell you I don't even remember that incident. I'm not saying it didn't happen, although you always had an imagination such as nobody ever had before or since, eh? But it could have been the last resort your mother and I turned to - you know that your mother spoilt you, over-protected they would call it, now. You couldn't possibly remember how naughty you were at night, what a little tyrant you were, how you thought of every excuse to keep us sleepless. It was all right for you, you could nap during the day, a small child. But I had my business, I had to earn the living, I needed some rest. Pieces of bread, a particular toy you fancied, make wee-wee, another blanket on, a blanket taken off, drinks of water - there was no end to your tricks and whining. I supposed I couldn't stand it any longer. I feared to do you some harm. (You admit I never beat you, only scared you a little by taking off my braces in preparation to use them on you.) So I put you out of harm's way. That night. Just for a few minutes. It couldn't have been more than a minute. As if your mother would have let you catch cold! God forbid! And you've held it against me all your life. I'm sorry, I have to say it again, that old expression of mine that irritated you so much: I wish I had your worries.

Everything that went wrong for you is my fault. You write in down for sixty pages or so and at the same time you say to me 'I believe you are entirely blameless in the matter of our estrangement.' I was a 'true Kafka,' you took after your mother's, the Löwy side, etc. - all you inherited from me, according to you, were your bad traits, without having the benefit of my vitality. I was 'too strong for you.

...

Rest in peace, my son. I wish you had let me.

Your father,
Hermann Kafka

--
“Yes, thank you.” And then, the usual phrase from white people, who are always in a hurry to get things over, who don’t seem to know or take any pleasure in the lingering disengagement that politely concludes a discussion: “All right, then, eh?”

But the writer knows something no one else knows; the sea-change of the imagination.

[Vera VB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Korte verhalen van Nobelprijs winnaar Literatuur Nadine Gordimer.
De meeste verhalen bevatten sociaal geëngageerde thema's en uiteraard is de apartheid en discriminatie nooit ver weg.
Niet alle verhalen zijn even sterk, het gaat een beetje op en af.

Zo is er een verhaal over een vrouw die een zwarte jongen op een elitaire school helpt, hij is slim maar heeft onvoldoende geld voor zo'n school. Of de jongen wel gelukkig is, daar staat ze niet bij stil. Het lijkt meer alsof haar geweten gesust is dat ze iets goed gedaan heeft.

Verder staat me ook nog een verhaal bij van een vrouw die mee gaat protesteren met de zwarten, maar alhoewel ze dezelfde dingen doet, wordt ze toch anders behandeld wanneer de politie optreedt. Het onderscheidt blijft bestaan.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This remarkable collection spans about fifty years of writing—it delivers a compelling testament not only to Gordimer’s activism in the anti-apartheid movement, but her growth and evolution as a writer.

Of particular fascination on this first read-through: Gordimer’s development and utilization of space as pertaining to a character’s epiphany or revelation.

Some short stories read like macabre shaggy dogs with emotionally resonant punchlines (particularly “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” and “Why Haven’t You Written?”).

Will return to this one not only to study Gordimer’s style in manufacturing and maintaining space; but also for her conciseness in language.

[George Gonzaga Deoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

That book you will read for an extended period (at least four months, in my case), read slowly, sometimes even taking two or three times of going over to understand a single sentence, and yet, you won't mind. The politics and milieu rendered so elegantly through words it didn't even matter for me if I barely understand at once each story's implications. Maybe someday I would.

[Juma Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read July’s People before starting on Life Times, and I found her writing esoteric and sometimes difficult to follow. This is reflected in the stories in Life Times. The writing is almost always detached and dispassionate; the prose-poetry is thick for long periods and is layered by complicated sentence constructions; and the stories are heavily theme and plot-based. Characters are almost always relegated in relation to theme and plot, and this renders many of the stories impersonal and therefore difficult to connect with. I thus found just a handful of characters memorable. In addition, there is heavy contextualization as a technique of building the plots. I have seen some reviews referring to the writing in this collection as ‘dry’, and it’s hard to disagree. It indeed acquires a pseudo-intellectual hue, and it tests the limits of normal fiction writing.

However, much of the writing is ethical and conscientious. Apartheid and related themes, such as interracial relations, feature prominently, as can be expected of a Nobel laureate from South Africa writing in that era. I was most impressed by Something Out There, which brings forth the raw fear among white people of black people, using parallel stories of a baboon on the loose in white suburbs and the constant threat of sabotage from Black freedom fighters. In Town and Country Lovers (Two), we see the distortion, by apartheid, of normal relations among humans on the basis of colour. It conveys the near totalitarianism of apartheid in all spheres of life from the get go:

“The farm children play together when they are small; but once the white children go away to school they soon don’t play together anymore…so that by the time early adolescence is reached, the black children are making, along with bodily changes common to all, an easy transition to adult forms of address, beginning to call their old playmates missus and bassie—little master.”

The relationship between Paulus (white) and Thebedi (black) however persists beyond this social construct, and they become lovers. Nevertheless, when Thebedi becomes pregnant with Paulus’ child, they cannot escape it anymore, and what happens is the stuff of heartbreak. Gordimer doesn’t present a one-dimensional story of apartheid however. In The Moment Before the Gun Went Off, a white farmer is genuinely distraught—and this puts off a white police officer—when he accidentally shoots dead one of his black farm ‘boys’ because he considers him a son. In Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black, a white professor decides to visit a town his great-grandfather lived in for five years in the hope he might meet relatives his great-grandfather might have sired with black women.

There are stories beyond the apartheid narrative. One that tugs at the heart is The Ultimate Safari, about a poor family escaping the civil war in Mozambique and seeking refuge in South Africa through the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga. Some are personal, poignant and poetic, leaving a lasting impression. I very much liked the uplifiting The Soft Voice of the Serpent, about a man having to adjust to life after losing a leg. In an idyllic garden so poignantly portrayed, he notices a locust with a broken leg, facing a similar struggle.

“In a week or two he did not have to read all the time; he could let himself put down the book and look about him, watching the firs part silkily as a child’s fine straight hair in the wind, watching the small birds tightroping the telephone wire, watching the old dove trotting after his refined patrician grey women, purring with lust…”

Just lovely. Why Haven’t You Written is also inward, depicting a man in mid-life crisis who almost leaves his wife and children in a fit of discontent with his life. In short, the stories Gordimer has written span a wide spectrum of imagination beyond apartheid: an extramarital affair in Rain-Queen; a return to history in Livingstone’s Companions; post-struggle politics in A Soldier’s Embrace and At the Rendezvous of Victory; mild eroticism in The Diamond Mine; and even the life of a tapeworm in Tape Measure. Religion is also not spared—Second Coming imagines the second coming of Christ, who finds no life waiting for him (ouch). Curiously, Letter From his Father imagines a letter by Franz Kafka's father in response to Franz's real life open letter to him. It's pretty much a father's scorn at an unappreciative and wayward child. Franz's fans wouldn't be too happy reading or re-reading it.

I noticed too that Gordimer deftly applies biting irony in most of the stories. For instance, in A Soldier’s Embrace, a white couple has helped a liberation struggle in an African country, and as freedom dawns for the country, it doesn’t in the real sense for their manservant of 21 years, who they leave behind with nothing. Irony cuts through Which Era Would That Be?, in which a group of friends—black, white, coloured—interact.

It is impossible to discuss here all the stories, but they are all interesting in their own ways once one is able to overcome the somewhat difficult writing style that narrates them. If you haven’t read this collection, and are looking for a sturdier challenge than the usual easy reads, by all means, try it.

[TBos · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderfully unusual story. I have never read anything like it and could not put it down. There are several interesting characters and storylines that end up intersecting and connecting in unique and mesmerizing ways that leave you breathless. Amazing. 5 stars!!!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've loved Nadine Gordimer's writing since I first read her novel "The Pick-Up" years ago before I had any idea who Nadine Gordimer was and what an inspiring person she was.

This book is a massive collection of her short stories, and they cover a wide range of topics, characters, time periods, locations, and issues. I've read in some reviews that people find Gordimer's style dry at times and "boring," and I can understand how that might seem. Her stories are not stories that one flies through in one sitting. I find her writing very precise and carefully constructed - nothing wasteful or melodramatic or purely decorative. She is masterful at evoking the dynamics of relationships between people without boxing them into an archetype or a pattern or giving them any kind of label at all. To me, her writing is like an expert photograph - she captures the image exactly, but she doesn't explain why this image was the one she took. That sounds pretentious, but it's not. Instead, her writing places the reader fully into the story without any didactic guidance.

My favorite story of this collection is towards the beginning and is titled "Face From Atlantis." It tells the story of a newlywed couple, Eileen and Waldeck, who, on their honeymoon to Europe and NYC, run into Waldeck's old friends from his university days in Europe. Eileen has seen photos of these friends, but when she meets the friends in the flesh, the narratives that she has created in her mind of them must be reconciled with her experiences face to face with these people. One friend in particular, Carlitta, clashes strongly in reality with the narrative that Eileen has written about her based on photos and stories. Gordimer does an amazing job of allowing us access to Eileen's inner thoughts and process as she grapples with how to match the old photos of Carlitta to the actual Carlitta whom she meets. This quote is one of my favorites of all time, because it describes perfectly my own discomfort with a certain favored selfie pose and also shows how Eileen's relationship as an outsider to this world of her husband's past also gives her a clearer perspective on both the present and the past:

“Eileen knew Carlitta well, in picture and anecdote. Eileen had a favourite among the photographs of her, too… The photograph was taken in Austria, on one of Waldeck’s skiing holidays. It was a clear print and the snow was blindingly white. In the middle of the whiteness stood a young girl, laughing away from the camera in the direction of something or someone outside the picture. … In none of these pictures did she face the camera. If, as in the ski picture, she was smiling, it was at someone in the group, and if she was not, her black pensive eyes, her beautiful little firm-fleshed face with the short chin, stared at the toes of her shoes, or at the smoke of her cigarette, arrested in its climbing arabesque by the click of the camera. The total impression of all these photographs of the young German girl was one of arrogance. She did not participate in the taking of a photograph; she was simply there, a thing of beauty which you could attempt to record if you wished.” (p. 37)

[D.A. Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nadine Gordimer is a master storyteller. It may not appeal to those with a need to be entertained but what makes it masterful is the way complex characters are displayed with subtlety and powerful issues are handled without preaching. Once Upon A Time will change the way you look at the fairytale and racism/xenophobia's destructive effects. Each word used to describe the scenery is necessary part that holds this tapestry together. Some of the chilling parts of a story like Beethoven Was One Sixteenth Black come in a spare poetic lines that seem to be normal thoughts on the surface until one goes back to see the layers they open, "Caches of old papers are graves . . ." A great collection that has much to offer for the complex multi-faceted problems of race and stereotyping in the States as well as South Africa. Not only covers overt racism but the complicity of the so called upper class.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life Times: stories 1952-2007
This has a few selected stories from a large number of her story collections.

This is NOT CHEERFUL reading, for the most part. Gordimer tells it like it is, and life is full of hardship and bad relations between people. ON the other hand, you probably can't say Gordimer is pessimistic.

It amazes me that she can portray convincingly such a very wide range of characters -- women, men, old, young, children, rich folks and poor folks, urban, rural, educated and uneducated, black, white, and other [e.g. Anglo South AFricans, Afrikaners, 'coloreds'].

She does not belabor her points. The reader needs to pay attention and work out what to think/feel. In rather few words, she can sketch a situation, an exchange between people, and bring it to life in a hard-hitting way.


Actually I got only halfway, and read only half of the long long story 'Something Out There' [to p 410].

So I want to check it out of the library again, to finish it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection a bit of a long slog but now that I have finished it, I can look back on a worthwhile read. I don't think reading Nadine Gordimer's work in this format was ideal - the pages were filled with only a line or two before the next short story began. I need more literal space in order to reflect on what I have just read and to be ready for the next.

Many, if not most, of the stories, especially the early ones are pretty downbeat and cynical, at best bittersweet. Perhaps writing about apartheid South Africa could not be otherwise. However, the quality of the writing and the vivid pictures it produces help to counteract the effect.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this massive, comprehensive tome of Gordimer's collected short fiction. Normally I'd be frustrated at the pace it took me to complete, but it's tough to be upset when the reading experience is so rewarding. Many of these stories are richer, leaguer offerings than many novels I've read.

[Leah Huff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadine Gordimer, her writing style is amazing and truly changed throughout her more then 40 years of writing. She is the kind of author who creates change through her writing and I believe that is special. She shows how writing is an art-form. I do however, like her shorter stories which she wrote later on better.

[Mary Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had tried reading Nadine Gordimer years ago, but somehow didn't quite get her until I picked up these stories. Wow...the woman can write! She has such a sharp eye for detail and character, that she places you at the center of an unfamiliar world (pre-Mandela South Africa) and makes you feel you've been living in it your whole life and that the struggles involved are your own.

[Leslea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, I did.

Gordimer's style is just so dry. It's almost boring in a sense. I didn't feel the tension of the characters and I had a hard time feeling for any of them. The oppression and devices used throughout the stories showed chance for emotional depth but I just couldn't find it myself. Shame.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So sorry I did not know of the author before she passed. This collection of stories have a fascinating order which requires that lead to the insightful closure of the book. While some sentence structure due to cultural and language differences can be difficult to follow, they are well worth the reread.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine collection of short stories by an authoress with a good command of the language and plot. Occasionally, she fails to make sentences in favour of sound bytes. A prosetry, a pathologicum, a practical plan. I like stories, but not all of hers.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories that I read were excellent but this is really a tome. It would take a couple of times renewing before I could get through all of them. It includes all if not most of her short stories.

[Andrea]

This South African author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Another one to look at is her recent collection of nonfiction, Telling Times.

[Laura de Leon]

I didn't read the entire collection, but was impressed by the stories I read.

[Liz Wager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful collection