This is the story of Mehring, a wealthy high class businessman and landowner from Transvaal who narrated his life throughout internal monologues, reflections and fragment of conversations with the distant son, lovers, friends and acquaintances, and the workers of his farm, giving us and idea of how empty and lonely is his life ,without love or illusions which is nevertheless at the same time full of wealth and privileges.
Gordimer's Booker-prize winning novel is one of the least overtly political of her works--at least in the most traditional understanding of "political fiction" (fiction about the machinations of state power). Yet the Book remains a forceful, intricate exploration of power, as timely today as it was in 1974, as relevant to contemporary America as it was to minority-ruled South Africa. Nowhere else in contemporary English-language fiction have I found such memorable passages about landscape; nowhere else have I found such a subtle exploration of self. I recommend the novel to anyone remotely interested in the modernist novel, to anyone who has ever sat under the spell of Virginia Woolf (Gordimer, too, is a Woolf reader), to anyone who turns to literature for both Beauty and that old hound Truth
Ms Gordimer - using Mehring character - gave us a portrait of a South Africa divided by the Apartheid where social status is linked with the color of the skin and at the same time gave us an idea of the idiosyncrasy of all the characters mentioned in this story, the Boers, Indians and blacks who interact and live together but separated by the racial laws of South Africa.
What sticks in the memory vividly is the portrait of a self-satisfied, white property-owner in apartheid-era South Africa. We see the world through his eyes, and we see how well it serves him, keeping him wealthy and comfortable. While he may notice that some suffer and are oppressed, he is not moved to do anything that would make a difference for them. Instead, he justifies his indifference with a sense of racial and class superiority.
Gordimer captures the mental framework of someone who feels little or nothing for the misfortunes of others. What is interesting for the reader is that it requires an effort to step out of his mind and see his thoughts and behavior for what they are -- insensitive, self-serving, and at times brutal.
Gordimer finds him at a time in his life when he is middle-aged and living alone, no longer married, his grown son estranged from him, and his mistress not all that endeared to him. While money, property, and influence keep him at a safe distance from the political troubles slowly encroaching on his private world, Gordimer reveals his physical and emotional isolation. His defense is to cut his losses and retreat even farther into his solitary world. It's a fascinating, well-written character study
This book depicts this country from sides, the blacks and the whites, in a very realistic way. It seems like both people don't really make it work, because of mistakes they both make out of their own culture. It is one of those books that you will not forget, and for a good reason it is one of her most famous ones.
The main character of the book, Mehring, is a wealthy businessman who owns a farm in the veld, mostly just to be able to says he owns the farm. His relationships are probed in the book... including relationships with his teenage son, his mistress (who is somewhat of a liberal supporting equality for the South African blacks.) Gordimer is most adept at exposing some of the hypocrisy inherent in these people's dealings.
Gordimer, as always, provides the reader with stunning, vivid descriptions; living imagery. She describes life on the South African veld, the contrasts between city and country life, and the relationships among people that inhabit this backdrop. Gordimer is always subtle and endows her characters with a realism that illustrates her mastery of perspective and point of view. She intrinsically unstands the different people about whom she writes and expertly conveys her understandings to people like me, who can only imagine a world in which daily, mundane details of life are shocking but accepted in apartheid-era South Africa.
Like much of Gordimer's work, The Conservationist starts out slowly, but draws the reader into its intricacy with its exploration of the human mind and the development of human relationships.
Dr. Bikram Lamba, an international management consultant is Chairman & Managing Director of Tormacon Ltd,, a multi-disciplinary management consultancy organisation. He can be contacted at
[email protected]; web www.torconsult.com.
