vanishing point

Two explanations before going into the analysis of the book provide certain keys of interpretation. The first is that the surname of the hero family is Swart, which means black in Afrikaans. This use of the speaking name illuminates the paradoxical nature of South African history between 1948 and 1992, when a 20% minority of the population imposed a system of apartheid on the remaining majority. The second point is that, despite the four funerals that feed and support the structure of the novel, The Promise is ironic, cynical and at times comical, turning into an unexpected, subtle optimism in the balance of its dramatic adventures. novel. . I point to this quality because they tried to compare The Promise to JM Coetzee’s Misfortune and the operation is arrogant. In The Promise, Galgut leaves the bridges standing and gives reasons, if not for hope, at least for decency; Unfortunately, not even dogs (which can be said better) survive the Hobbesian beliefs of the 2003 Nobel Prize. Perhaps for the reason that encourages these connections between authors from the same country we should look to the laziness of criticism when judging a work alone, but the comparison is clearly inappropriate here. Among other things, beyond Misfortune’s superhuman nature, Galgut’s stone alone is sufficient, and more than enough, to defend itself with something more than honor. In truth, The Promise is a wonderful, beautiful and powerful contemporary novel, and it also hides an exercise in virtuosity.

The decisive question is how this virtuosity is applied and what it is used for. The key to the novel is found in the narrative voice of Galgut, a brave third person who turns into a permanent surprise spectacle in his hands. There is something irresistible for the pleasure of reading in the South African author’s treatment of a kind of coral us and/or them, a kind of relentless and incorruptible collectivity, a sensitive, poetic, mystery-solving, epic creature. It is transparent and at the same time very complex, which not only supports the framework of the work in terms of form, but also adds a rhythm to the narrative that works the geniuses. We could give various examples of this, but to admire the author’s ability to manage to solve such a complex problem, it will suffice to point out how Galgut solves one of the classic problems of novel prose, the problem of continuity between scenes. like realism. Not only does this omniscient narrator’s task never pause, but his resilience (a voice that enters the body of a coyote, a corpse, or a minor character with the same resonance that it explodes in each of the main characters of the Swart family) makes the reading of The Promise the reader as if it were a platform. He turns it into a gigantic sequence shot that he can’t get out of, as if he’s standing on it, watching a wonderful train of endless wagons pass before his eyes.

But majestic as it is (and it is), this voice could only be a show of skill if it wasn’t in the service of an appropriate story. It is the emotional impact and the underlying ethical issue that makes The Promise part of a great play, a deep, urgent literature. Because what Galgut describes is the loss of privilege, the reversal of orders, the transition from a fascist State with its loyalty and dogmas to a democratic one with its flaws and blessing of equality. In short, the transformation of apartheid South Africa into Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma’s South Africa. And in the midst of that earthquake in a history of 40 years of political and social ups and downs, the determination of a girl named Amor was injured twice in her childhood: the first time, at the age of 6, from lightning; second, due to the death of her mother Rachel at the age of 13. Two wounds that Amor relive every moment of his life, the first because of the miraculous side of surviving, the second because of the boundless orphanage he placed in his days, and the two wounds that Amor found only one stubbornness to move on. The answer, true to her mother’s words on her deathbed, was that the house where the family’s black maid, Salome, lived, was given to her at the time of Rachel’s death.

This promise runs like a whirlpool of drama, an escape from the private and the collective, the private and the public, the history of Swarts and modern South African history, embodied in the suffering woman. it gives property from one good to the other, the pariah, the nameless, the inhuman, the excluded. From this promise arises a commitment that goes beyond the framework of the death chamber and invades the entire nation, emerging as a perfect metaphor for a country’s failure (as well as the possibility of salvation). Galgut uses this metaphor from the first page and does not leave it until the last page. In between, we will witness, extremely quickly, the collapse of blood and the reinvention of a country, and meanwhile, an author will have proven once again that the novel, after its many and announced demise, remains one. The happiest promises of humanity to itself.