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NEW ON THE BOOKSHELVES:South African Writes Well Of Youth“THE LYING DAYS, by Nadine Gordfmor. .140 pp. New York; Simon and Schnster. $3.05.Rarely does a young writer manage to combine realism and honesty with a never-failing sense of beauty. Today’s young writ* ing shows a tiresome tendency toward the pessimistic and ugly side of life. In a field overflowing with this youthful bitterness, it Is indeed refreshing to read a first novel handling all the problems of youth and still maintaining' the beauty and adventure of life.The Lying Days/’ a first novel by Nadine Gordimer, is a pleasure to read. Miss Gordimer remembers. Children and young adults often sa.v to their parents, 'you don’t remember what It was like to be a child, and generally they're right. Miss Gordimer has the unusual quality of remembering chiidhood and emotional awakening with great detail—and from the viewpoint of the child and adolescent undergoing these »x-experiences.The novel's setting is South Africa where Miss Gordimer was horn and has always lived. Unlike Alan Patou, who pjpneered in the field of South African literature, Miss Gordimer Is not writing with a social message. She simply and honestly slates facts as she relates the story of a British mine executive’s young daughter growing up in an alien world. The child is torn between the staid and over regimented social life of the ver3’ British mine community and the real and passionate country surrounding her.Prejudice is. of course, touched upon. Rut It attains r.o more importance than it does ir. ihe life of any thinking young person groping for truths.Helen, the teller of the tale, leaves her family, discarding the false mine existence, on the excuse that her mother would not allow her to have a Negro girl friend live with her. With this excuse, and In the argument with her mother, she believes she has proven she has no prejudice. But the Negro girl, much wiser than she. says, The fact that I’m not good enough doesn’t mean that she’s got to want me. If I were a white girl she could say no. if she felt like it. But because I’m black she’s got to say yes. Don’t you see. if I am good enough, I’m good enough not to go where I’m not wanted.Although she never stresses the need for non-segregation, Miss Gordimer shows deep perception anti ar. acute sympathy toward the problems of her native land.Helen's prejudice, drilled into her by Rrilish upper class snobbery is first lorn when she meets and becomes friends with a Jewish boy, later when she lives with a couple who do not serve dinner on a white tablecloth, and again ir. the Negro problem. Each is equal in creating the heroine's mature thinking.Miss Gordimer is gifted with an unfailing ability lo choose the right words to describe any event—from the pleasure of doing the forbidden at eight, to the first love affair in college.The novel is olive, bright andNAD1NE GORD1MERis a tendency to wonder if perhaps the first part Is autobiographical, and the last, from the college days and love affair to the end, fictional, Realism seems replaced by the question of what is real. Perhaps this is due to the understandable ability to comprehend the past better than the present. Discovering that the author is still in her twenties helps make the reader feel that perhaps In Miss Gordimer will young adulthood as does childhood, this Is Miss Gordi-novel she has had stories of her native The Virginia Yale Review,”her thirties understand well as she Although mer’s first mar.y short land published in Quarterly. fheHarper’s” and The New Yorker,” anti a collection of them, The Soft Voice of the Serpent,” was published in 1052.Miss Gordimer is an artist and apart from the vnung writers who appear for a few years and then vanish. She gives the impression that this is not going to be a first novel never equaled. She is an expert craftsman and her sensitive ability to portray the most delicate emotions should place her among the most promising newcomers today.—JOAN POLLACKinquiring and pictures with a masterly touch the young girl in the pangs of growing up. Unhappily Llio reader feels that perhnp.s Miss Gordimer was r.ot able to cope finite as well with the problems of adulthood as she was with ihosr of childhood anrl adolescence. Vlrlinui'h (hr novel keenc ih«
Newspaper Details
Petersburg Progress Index
Petersburg, Virginia, US
Sun, Oct 18, 1953
Page 24
Full Page
Clipped by
Bruce T.
ZA 05 Nov 2015
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