The Later Fiction of Nadine Gordimer

254 Pages·1993·25.023 MB·English

by  Bruce King (eds.)

THE LATER FICTION OF NADINE GORDIMER
Also by Bruce King
THREE INDIAN POETS: Ezekiel, Ramanujan and Moraes
MODERN INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH
THE NEW ENGLISH LITERATURES:
Cultural nationalism in achanging world
CORIOLANUS
HISTORY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH
LITERATURE
MARVELL'S ALLEGORICAL POETRY
DRYDEN'S MAJOR PLAYS
Books edited by Bruce King
POST- COLONIAL ENGLISH DRAMA: Commonwealth
drama since 1960
THE COMMONWEALTH NOVEL SINCE 1960
WEST INDIAN LITERATURE
A CELEBRAT ION OF BLACK AND AFRICAN WRITING
LITERATURES OF THE WORLD IN ENGLISH
INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATRE
DRYDEN'S MIND AND ART
TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERPRETAT IONS OF
ALL FOR LOVE: A colleetion of critical essays
Series editor
MODERN DRAMATISTS
ENGLISH DRAMATISTS
The Later Fiction of
Nadine Gorditner
Edited by
Bruce King
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-22684-9 ISBN 978-1-349-22682-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22682-5
© The Maemillan Press Ltd 1993
Editorial matter, seleetion and Introduetion © Bruee King 1993
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1993
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Referenee Division,
St. Martin's Press, Ine., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of Ameriea in 1993
ISBN 978-0-312-08534-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data
The Later fietion of Nadine Gordimer / edited by Bruee King.
p. em.
Inc1udes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-08534-6
1. Gordimer, Nadine-Criticism and interpretation. 2. South
Africa in literature. I. King, Bruee Alvin.
PR9369.3.G6G76 1993
823---de20 92-13518
CIP
This book is dedicated to the memory of Michael Wade who
died, an exile from South Africa, in Jerusalem, September
1990. He was an excellent critic, author of three books about
South African literature, a revolutionary and a friend. The
essay included here was edited, with his wife' spermission,
from a longer version. B. K.
Contents
Notes on the Contributors ix
Introduction: AChanging Face 1
Bruce King
Part I General Essays
1 'Nobody's Children': Families in Gordimer's
Later Novels 21
John Cooke
2 Collector' s Art, Collective Action: The Search for
Commitment in Nadine Gordimer's Fiction 33
Graham Huggan
3 Black and White in Grey: Irony and Judgement in
Gordimer' s Fiction 45
Rowland Smith
4 Placing Spaces: Style and Ideology in Gordimer's
Later Fiction 59
Brian Macaskill
5 Landscape Iconography in the Novels of
Nadine Gordimer 74
Kathrin M. Wagner
Part 11 The Novels
6 The Conservationist and the Political Uncanny 91
Lars Engle
7 The Interregnum of Ownership in July's People 108
Rosemarie Bodenheimer
8 The Politics of Place in Burger's Daughter 121
Daphne Read
9 Making Metaphors/Moving On: Burger's Daughter
and ASport o[ Nature 140
Susan Winnett
vii
viii Contents
10 ASport of Nature: Identity and Repression of the
Jewish Subject 155
Michael Wade
11 ASport of Nature and the Boundaries of Fiction 173
Stephen Clingman
12 My Son's Story: Drenching the Censors - the Dilemma
of White Writing 191
Susan M. Greenstein
Part III The Shorter Fiction
13 Feminism as 'Piffling'? Ambiguities in Gordimer's
Short Stories 213
Karen Lazar
14 Once More into the Burrows: Gordimer's Later
Short Fiction 228
Alan R. Lomberg
15 Archive of Apartheid: Nadine Gordirner's Short
Fiction at the End of the Interregnum 237
Jeanne Colleran
Index 246
Notes on the Contributors
Rosemarie Bodenheimer is Professor of English at Boston College
and author of The Politics 01 Story in Victorian Social Fiction.
Stephen Clingman, a South African, is Professor of English at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His publications inc1ude The
Novels 01 Nadine Gordimer: History from the Inside and the editing of
Gordimer' s The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places
Jeanne Colleran teaches English at John Carroll University, Cleve
land, Ohio. Her interests inc1ude drama, 50uth African and Renais
sance literature.
John Cooke is Professor of English at the University of New Or
leans, author of The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: Private Lives/Public
Landscapes and editor of the four volumes of New Orleans Ethnic
Cultures.
Lars Engle is Assistant Professor of English at the University of
Tulsa. He is the author of the forthcorning Shakespearean Pragmatism
(Chicago, 1993), and numerous articles on Early English and recent
50uth African literature.
Susan M. Greenstein taught English at Western Washington Uni
versity and 5t Mary' s College of Maryland, and currently is an
administrator with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
5he often writes about 50uth African and women authors.
Graham Huggan is English, studied for his doctorate in Canada and
teaches English at Harvard University. He is editing a collection of
essays on J. M. Coetzee to be published by Macmillan.
Bruce King is the author of New English Literatures, Modern Indian
Poetry in English, Three Indian Poets, Coriolanus and other books.
Among the books he has edited are The Commonwealth Novel since
1960 and Contemporary American Theatre. He is editor of the English
Dramatists series and co-editor of the Modern Dramatists series.
ix
x Notes on the Contributors
Karen Lazar is a South African who teaches English at the Univer
sity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Alan R. Lomberg is from South Africa, has taught at the University
of Malawi and now teaches English at Algoma University College in
Canada.
Brian Macaskill, from South Africa, teaches English at John Carroll
University in Ohio. His interests are South African literature, the
novel and theory.
Daphne Read wrote her doctoral thesis on Gordimer' s Burger' s Daugh
ter. She teaches English at the University of Alberta, Edmonton,
Canada.
Rowland Smith is McCulloch Professor in English at Dalhousie
University, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Dean of Arts and Sodal Sci
ences. His publications include The Literary Personality of Roy Campbell
and the editing of Critical Essays on Nadine Gordimer and Exile and
Tradition: Essays in African and Caribbean Literature.
Michael Wade was Professor of English and African Studies at the
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. He wrote the first books on
Gordimer and Peter Abrahams. He lived in exile from South Africa
after his involvement in revolutionary activities; he was wanted by
the South African police and banned from entry into his native land.
Kathrin Wagner writes regularly on South African fiction. She is
from Gerrnany and Senior Lecturer in English at the University of
the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Susan Winnett teaches English and Comparative Literature at Co
lumbia University, New York. Her Terrible Sociability: The Text of
Manners in Laclos, Goethe, and Henry James was published by Stanford
University Press.