The Promise
Ratings17
Average rating3.9
A masterpiece of a family in crisis from twice Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut- 'one of the world's great writers' (Edmund White) and 'the bold, fresh voice of South African fiction' (Observer) A masterpiece of a family in crisis from twice Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut 'Emotionally powerful and thrilling,' Gabriel Byrne 'A literary masterpiece' Sarah Hall The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled. The narrator's eye shifts and blinks- moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title. In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest. 'Gorgeous and pleasurable' Tessa Hadley 'The most important book of the last ten years' Edmund White 'Simply- you must read it' Claire Messud
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This is the third South African book I've read, all of which have dealt with apartheid, and all of which have been written by white people. Which isn't meant as a criticism, I quite enjoyed this book. It chronicles the downfall of the Swartz family, Afrikaaners who own a farm. The novel opens immediately after the death of the mother, Rachel, and the promise she extracts before she passes from her husband to give the family's longtime Black servant the title to the home she lives in. This promise is witnessed by the youngest of the family's three children, Amor, but is not immediately fulfilled and remains unresolved over the years as the remaining members of the family move on with their lives. The prose is the highlight of this book, filled with sharp, witty observations and insights, while the characters (particularly Amor) remain at a sometimes-frustrating remove.
A woman dies, and a husband remains with a promise, that gets passed on throughout the decades, while South Africa experiences violent and revolutionary changes. The family slowly crumbles, and the unkept promise is the bad taste that remains.
And not even when it's finally kept, you get much satisfaction from it, as it's too little too late.
This won the Booker prize so it's fine for me not to be a fan. I've argued with some people about it to try and understand why it's liked, and I just can't get there.
Everyone acts like the narrative style is new but it's such a clear comparison with Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, a comparison that does nothing but harm to this book.
You would think the point of constantly switching to show different characters inner lives is to show the complexity of being human and interacting with others, how people appear on the outside vs their inner thoughts, but I genuinely think you could write this book with literally no internal monologue from anyone and you would still know everything about each character. This narrative style didn't actually add anything which makes me wonder if the point was just to...be......different?
Nice to read something so South African, that's something.
