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I read this book a few months ago and didn't add it til now. It's Coetzee's first book. Not that memorable as I had to look up what it was about. Ah ha! Sort of interesting, two books. First one about a guy putting together a psychological study of the Vietnam war. He goes nuts. The second part if an adventure about a white hunter going, well, hunting in the wilds of South Africa. A better story than the first. He gets his comeuppance, as well. His native carriers get tired of him after a while.
More recently, I read Coetzee's second book, In the Heart of the Country. A real struggle to finish. So I'm saying Mr. Coetzee is 0 for 2!
More recently, I read Coetzee's second book, In the Heart of the Country. A real struggle to finish. So I'm saying Mr. Coetzee is 0 for 2!
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J.M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. I know this as a fact as every work published by him after this date is plastered with this fact. Two things are wrong with this statement: 1) you don’t win a Nobel Prize, you are awarded one, and 2) having a Nobel Prize conferred on you doesn’t automatically make all of your work wondrous.
I have always admired Coetzee – and admired is so the right word. You don’t love Coetzee, in fact sometimes he repels you; sometimes he spits in your face and expects you to like him for it. His prose is deliberately provocative, and it can be notoriously difficult. I read Disgrace in hardback, in 1999, and about six years later I read Life & Times of Michael K. Each successive new novel since Disgrace I’ve put on my ‘to read list’ and never gotten around to. There always seems to be some other author I should buy first, read first, and be angered by first. Then, the other day browsing a charity shop, I saw a collection of four early Coetzee novels and, on impulse, bought the lot. You don’t see any Coetzee’s, other than Disgrace, in charity shops very often. So last night, looking at these four Coetzee novels, I told myself I better start reading them, before they slip into my books cupboard along with all those other unread novels that gather there, waiting for me to read them.
I started with Dusklands. It seemed appropriate, being his first novel. I thought it might be interesting to see what protean Coetzeean elements were imbued in this novel. Quite a few, as it happens.
Dusklands is essentially two short stories. The Vintage edition I read clocked in at a meagre 125 pages. The first tells the story of Eugene Dawn, a man hired by Coetzee to write a report into the Vietnam War and who is edging into madness. The second tells of a different Coetzee, who is tasked with exploring South Africa in the 18th century, and who becomes embroiled in conflict with the indigenous peoples. Though they are separate stories, there are overlaps between the two in terms of theme and these thematic elements reverberate throughout the novel, building up depth and power.
Of the two pieces, I found the second more interesting. Both are very well written – you’d expect nothing less from a Nobel Prize ‘winner’ – but the story of Jacobus Coetzee has more visceral impact, and the historical questions raised seem pertinent even today (which is Coetzee’s point).
Dusklands is not always an easy read, but it is an ultimately rewarding one (even if not all its elements work as well as they should). I firmly believe that literature should challenge ones preconceived notions, as well as entertain, and Coetzee’s debut novel does both these things. Of course we know he will go onto to do this sort of thing better, and with more style and power, but for the beginning of a career, Dusklands is pretty heady stuff.
I have always admired Coetzee – and admired is so the right word. You don’t love Coetzee, in fact sometimes he repels you; sometimes he spits in your face and expects you to like him for it. His prose is deliberately provocative, and it can be notoriously difficult. I read Disgrace in hardback, in 1999, and about six years later I read Life & Times of Michael K. Each successive new novel since Disgrace I’ve put on my ‘to read list’ and never gotten around to. There always seems to be some other author I should buy first, read first, and be angered by first. Then, the other day browsing a charity shop, I saw a collection of four early Coetzee novels and, on impulse, bought the lot. You don’t see any Coetzee’s, other than Disgrace, in charity shops very often. So last night, looking at these four Coetzee novels, I told myself I better start reading them, before they slip into my books cupboard along with all those other unread novels that gather there, waiting for me to read them.
I started with Dusklands. It seemed appropriate, being his first novel. I thought it might be interesting to see what protean Coetzeean elements were imbued in this novel. Quite a few, as it happens.
Dusklands is essentially two short stories. The Vintage edition I read clocked in at a meagre 125 pages. The first tells the story of Eugene Dawn, a man hired by Coetzee to write a report into the Vietnam War and who is edging into madness. The second tells of a different Coetzee, who is tasked with exploring South Africa in the 18th century, and who becomes embroiled in conflict with the indigenous peoples. Though they are separate stories, there are overlaps between the two in terms of theme and these thematic elements reverberate throughout the novel, building up depth and power.
Of the two pieces, I found the second more interesting. Both are very well written – you’d expect nothing less from a Nobel Prize ‘winner’ – but the story of Jacobus Coetzee has more visceral impact, and the historical questions raised seem pertinent even today (which is Coetzee’s point).
Dusklands is not always an easy read, but it is an ultimately rewarding one (even if not all its elements work as well as they should). I firmly believe that literature should challenge ones preconceived notions, as well as entertain, and Coetzee’s debut novel does both these things. Of course we know he will go onto to do this sort of thing better, and with more style and power, but for the beginning of a career, Dusklands is pretty heady stuff.
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دو داستان با مضمون مشتركِ استعمار.داستان اول،پروژه ي ويتنام شرح زندگي يك متخصص آمريكايي طراحي جنگ هاي رواني است كه در ميانه ي ساخت و پرداخت يك جنگ رواني تمام عيار عليه ويت-كنگ ها، در اثر فشار هاي رواني دچار فروپاشي رواني شده است.بخشي از داستان در مورد روش هاي جنگ رواني است كه براي من خيلي جالب بود.داستان دوم حكايت ياكوبوس كوتسي شكارچي فيل كه اردوي شكاري خود را در سرزمين هاي كشف نشده آفريقاي جنوبي ترتيب مي دهد و به قبيله بدوي ناماكوآ برخورد مي كند
كوتسي در اين دو داستان اسنادي از رفتار خشونتبار استعمارگران با مردم سرزمين هاي ديگر ارائه مي كند و به بررسي پوچي قدرت و آسيب پذيري صاحبان قدرت مي پردازد
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كوتسي در اين دو داستان اسنادي از رفتار خشونتبار استعمارگران با مردم سرزمين هاي ديگر ارائه مي كند و به بررسي پوچي قدرت و آسيب پذيري صاحبان قدرت مي پردازد
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Well worth reading, and rereading, within the context of Coetzee's oeuvre despite its obvious experimentation with fictional form. I'm also old enough now to be able to better connect the first story of suffering with the pseudo-historical second one!
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I was stunned by Coetzee's first novel. Of course, we could object that this is but the rough sketch of the vision and the power of the following of his works, or that the construction is wobbly, as it is made of two short stories in different times and settings.
I cannot deny all that, but I think I read the book at the right moment, as I was researching how war narratives question gender, and more particularly masculinity. The two main characters fed my research, and teach the reader about the modalities of war, be it a psychological one, carefully planned and observed from a safe distance, or a conflict stemming from the quest for revenge of a man who seems himself as a paternal and morally authoritative figure, against the village dwellers who humiliated him.
^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
J'ai été frappée par cette première œuvre de Coetzee. Bien sûr, on pourra objecter qu'elle n'est que l’ébauche de la vision et de la puissance des œuvres qui vont suivre, ou que la construction en est bancale, reposant sur deux nouvelles séparées géographiquement et temporellement.
C'est assurément vrai, mais je pense l'avoir lue au bon moment, en pleine recherche sur les interrogations sur le genre et la masculinité dans les récits de guerre. Les deux personnages principaux ont amené de l'eau à mon moulin, en plus d’éclairer le lecteur sur les différentes modalités de la guerre, qu'elle soit psychologique, planifiée stratégiquement et vue de loin, ou un conflit de revanche d'un homme qui se voit comme représentant d'une autorité morale et paternelle sur les villageois qui l'ont humilié.
I cannot deny all that, but I think I read the book at the right moment, as I was researching how war narratives question gender, and more particularly masculinity. The two main characters fed my research, and teach the reader about the modalities of war, be it a psychological one, carefully planned and observed from a safe distance, or a conflict stemming from the quest for revenge of a man who seems himself as a paternal and morally authoritative figure, against the village dwellers who humiliated him.
^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
J'ai été frappée par cette première œuvre de Coetzee. Bien sûr, on pourra objecter qu'elle n'est que l’ébauche de la vision et de la puissance des œuvres qui vont suivre, ou que la construction en est bancale, reposant sur deux nouvelles séparées géographiquement et temporellement.
C'est assurément vrai, mais je pense l'avoir lue au bon moment, en pleine recherche sur les interrogations sur le genre et la masculinité dans les récits de guerre. Les deux personnages principaux ont amené de l'eau à mon moulin, en plus d’éclairer le lecteur sur les différentes modalités de la guerre, qu'elle soit psychologique, planifiée stratégiquement et vue de loin, ou un conflit de revanche d'un homme qui se voit comme représentant d'une autorité morale et paternelle sur les villageois qui l'ont humilié.
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«Después de eso me di cuenta de que ya no había más razón para ser blando. Las balas son demasiado buenas para los bosquimanos. Una vez, después de que los bosquimanos mataran a un pastor de rebaños, los granjeros atraparon a uno vivo, lo ataron a una fogata y lo asaron. Hasta lo rociaron con su propia grasa. Después se lo ofrecieron a los hotentotes.»
¿Hubo alguien en Sudáfrica, en 1974, que al leer la opera prima de un tal J.M. Coetzee entreviera o sospechara lo que en los años por venir sería una de las obras literarias más lúcidas y originales que el mundo ha podido apreciar? Seguramente no, sólo divago.
Sin embargo, fuese en Johannesburgo en 1974 y sin saber nada de él, o en México en 2009 luego de conocer toda su obra, aquel que se haya acercado a Tierras de poniente habrá podido sentir con claridad los ejes principales sobre los que se desarrollaría la narrativa posterior de Coetzee: la soberbia del poder y la inconmensurable desgracia humana que de forma inevitable acarrea.
Para ser honestos, más que la prosa escueta, libre de adornos que el autor sudafricano ha ido cultivando (no sé si «perfeccionando») a últimos tiempos, yo en lo particular prefiero al primer Coetzee, el de En medio de ninguna parte, Esperando a los bárbaros y La edad de hierro, que se ocupaba todavía de la música y la poesía de sus escritos tanto como de la concisión, y que, contrario a lo que pudiera parecer, en modo alguno servía para atenuar los horrores que sus historias mostraban.
Aquí, en Tierras de poniente, aún hay anhelos de poeta. En las dos historias independientes de que está conformada la novela, se le da tanta importancia al ritmo como al contenido, esas «superficialidades líricas» de que el autor se deshará en el futuro aquí todavía se muestran con orgullo, te mecen, te acompañan, realzan la riqueza de lo narrado y hasta el mero placer de la lectura.
No sé si me estaré contradiciendo, dado que en otras ocasiones he alabado la capacidad de Coetzee para decirlo todo en muy pocas palabras, pero es que, ¿es necesariamente mejor un escrito escueto (como Hombre lento) que En medio de ninguna parte, la más «musical» de las obras de Coetzee?
Supongo que, independientemente del tema o trama de cada una, ambas tienen su valor intrínseco. En realidad, creo que a lo que me refería entonces con capacidad de concisión, no es un escrito libre de poesía sino lo opuesto a la sobreabundancia, tal y como ocurre (en ocasiones) en Carlos Fuentes o Umberto Eco, quienes sin llegar a ser malos escritores, sí llegan a acumular una enorme cantidad de paja en algunas de sus novelas.
En fin.
En el primer relato, "El proyecto Vietnam", el tema es sin duda la culpa, la forma en que un ser humano común y corriente pierde la razón al sumergirse en las entrañas de la guerra, cómo su psique se quiebra al darse cuenta de las atrocidades que ella misma ha ayudado a perpetrar, y que además, supongo, era una abierta crítica a la por entonces (1974) todavía activa campaña estadounidense en Vietnam.
En el segundo, "La narración de Jacobus Coetzee", la perspectiva cambia radicalmente. No es ya el arrepentimiento o remordimiento sino la soberbia, el orgullo y hasta inconsciencia de la crueldad en su más cruda expresión. Para el Hombre Blanco, sea bóer o británico, sólo existen sus prerrogativas y derechos, mismos que le fueron otorgados por Dios y gracias a los cuales no tienen porqué responder ante nadie de sus actos y en cambio puede juzgarlos a todos. La respuesta de los nativos a los abusos de los colonos son para éstos nada más que muestra fehaciente de su salvajismo, ingratitud y hasta carencia de alma, sin darse cuenta siquiera de la cruel inhumanidad con que ellos mismos se comportan.
Como en ninguna otra de sus novelas, en ésta Coetzee lo narra todo desde el mismo corazón del mal, no son las víctimas sino los victimarios quienes se hacen oír. El mal destruye al primero enloqueciéndolo, mientras que al otro lo reafirma y da justificación a su existencia.
¿Hubo alguien en Sudáfrica, en 1974, que al leer la opera prima de un tal J.M. Coetzee entreviera o sospechara lo que en los años por venir sería una de las obras literarias más lúcidas y originales que el mundo ha podido apreciar? Seguramente no, sólo divago.
Sin embargo, fuese en Johannesburgo en 1974 y sin saber nada de él, o en México en 2009 luego de conocer toda su obra, aquel que se haya acercado a Tierras de poniente habrá podido sentir con claridad los ejes principales sobre los que se desarrollaría la narrativa posterior de Coetzee: la soberbia del poder y la inconmensurable desgracia humana que de forma inevitable acarrea.
Para ser honestos, más que la prosa escueta, libre de adornos que el autor sudafricano ha ido cultivando (no sé si «perfeccionando») a últimos tiempos, yo en lo particular prefiero al primer Coetzee, el de En medio de ninguna parte, Esperando a los bárbaros y La edad de hierro, que se ocupaba todavía de la música y la poesía de sus escritos tanto como de la concisión, y que, contrario a lo que pudiera parecer, en modo alguno servía para atenuar los horrores que sus historias mostraban.
Aquí, en Tierras de poniente, aún hay anhelos de poeta. En las dos historias independientes de que está conformada la novela, se le da tanta importancia al ritmo como al contenido, esas «superficialidades líricas» de que el autor se deshará en el futuro aquí todavía se muestran con orgullo, te mecen, te acompañan, realzan la riqueza de lo narrado y hasta el mero placer de la lectura.
No sé si me estaré contradiciendo, dado que en otras ocasiones he alabado la capacidad de Coetzee para decirlo todo en muy pocas palabras, pero es que, ¿es necesariamente mejor un escrito escueto (como Hombre lento) que En medio de ninguna parte, la más «musical» de las obras de Coetzee?
Supongo que, independientemente del tema o trama de cada una, ambas tienen su valor intrínseco. En realidad, creo que a lo que me refería entonces con capacidad de concisión, no es un escrito libre de poesía sino lo opuesto a la sobreabundancia, tal y como ocurre (en ocasiones) en Carlos Fuentes o Umberto Eco, quienes sin llegar a ser malos escritores, sí llegan a acumular una enorme cantidad de paja en algunas de sus novelas.
En fin.
En el primer relato, "El proyecto Vietnam", el tema es sin duda la culpa, la forma en que un ser humano común y corriente pierde la razón al sumergirse en las entrañas de la guerra, cómo su psique se quiebra al darse cuenta de las atrocidades que ella misma ha ayudado a perpetrar, y que además, supongo, era una abierta crítica a la por entonces (1974) todavía activa campaña estadounidense en Vietnam.
En el segundo, "La narración de Jacobus Coetzee", la perspectiva cambia radicalmente. No es ya el arrepentimiento o remordimiento sino la soberbia, el orgullo y hasta inconsciencia de la crueldad en su más cruda expresión. Para el Hombre Blanco, sea bóer o británico, sólo existen sus prerrogativas y derechos, mismos que le fueron otorgados por Dios y gracias a los cuales no tienen porqué responder ante nadie de sus actos y en cambio puede juzgarlos a todos. La respuesta de los nativos a los abusos de los colonos son para éstos nada más que muestra fehaciente de su salvajismo, ingratitud y hasta carencia de alma, sin darse cuenta siquiera de la cruel inhumanidad con que ellos mismos se comportan.
Como en ninguna otra de sus novelas, en ésta Coetzee lo narra todo desde el mismo corazón del mal, no son las víctimas sino los victimarios quienes se hacen oír. El mal destruye al primero enloqueciéndolo, mientras que al otro lo reafirma y da justificación a su existencia.
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L’Histoire, celle que nous lisons dans les livres de classe, celle fabriquée pour nous donner belle figure et fierté, est-elle fidèle à la réalité? C’est la question que soulèvent ces deux nouvelles.
Un homme réinvente des mythes pour en faire de la propagande au fond d’une bibliothèque états-unienne, s’inspirant d’atrocités de guerre photographiées au VietNam. Il devient si obsédé par cette guerre et son dénouement, sans même y avoir physiquement participé, qu’il en perd la tête et commet un acte effroyable.
Un colon hollandais raconte son voyage de chasse dans une région encore “intacte” d’Afrique du Sud. Une traduction du même voyage relativement semblable mais aux particularités notables permet de mettre en doute tous les documents officiels. Notre homme se raconte malade, souffrant d’un furoncle, se vidant de ses trippes, battu par un groupe d’aborigènes, trompé et trahi par ses compagnons, image bien lointaine du maître colonial tout puissant.
Déconstruction du récit officiel, ce qui est vécu par les individus ne fait pas toujours partie de la grande Histoire, celle qui reste et celle à laquelle nous sommes tenus de “croire”.
Un homme réinvente des mythes pour en faire de la propagande au fond d’une bibliothèque états-unienne, s’inspirant d’atrocités de guerre photographiées au VietNam. Il devient si obsédé par cette guerre et son dénouement, sans même y avoir physiquement participé, qu’il en perd la tête et commet un acte effroyable.
Un colon hollandais raconte son voyage de chasse dans une région encore “intacte” d’Afrique du Sud. Une traduction du même voyage relativement semblable mais aux particularités notables permet de mettre en doute tous les documents officiels. Notre homme se raconte malade, souffrant d’un furoncle, se vidant de ses trippes, battu par un groupe d’aborigènes, trompé et trahi par ses compagnons, image bien lointaine du maître colonial tout puissant.
Déconstruction du récit officiel, ce qui est vécu par les individus ne fait pas toujours partie de la grande Histoire, celle qui reste et celle à laquelle nous sommes tenus de “croire”.
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I almost wish Coetzee had been a little more oblique in his critiques! But it’s a fascinating, very well-researched book with two intriguing male characters at its centre.
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Two stories are narrated from the first-person perspective of two men, the first one a U.S. warfare psychologist in support of the Vietnam War and the second one a Dutch farmer in South Africa in his hunting journey into the depths of the country. In both cases the victims (the Vietnamese and the indigenous people of South Africa) are straight out denigrated and dehumanized, talked about as if they actually deserved all the horrors inflicted upon them.
I am struggling a bit to rate this book because of the mixed feelings it rose in me. On the one hand it is not a book I would read again or keep in my library, possibly because of the dry and straightforward style of writing, my lack of connection to the characters, and the disgust/sadness/anger I felt. On the other hand, I admire how well this style of writing reflects a way of thinking (almost(?)) pathological and very unfortunately real. It is a sad truth that behind all the colonialist and imperialist violences that have occurred and continue occurring there must be minds that work in like these, and the author greatly achieves their portrayal.
It makes me think of the people who named the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man . What were these people like?
I am struggling a bit to rate this book because of the mixed feelings it rose in me. On the one hand it is not a book I would read again or keep in my library, possibly because of the dry and straightforward style of writing, my lack of connection to the characters, and the disgust/sadness/anger I felt. On the other hand, I admire how well this style of writing reflects a way of thinking (almost(?)) pathological and very unfortunately real. It is a sad truth that behind all the colonialist and imperialist violences that have occurred and continue occurring there must be minds that work in like these, and the author greatly achieves their portrayal.
It makes me think of the people who named the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man . What were these people like?
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Es increíble la contradicción entre ambos relatos, la dicotomía entre la víctima y el victimario, entre la guerra organizada y el conflicto local. Las letras de ambos son increíbles, así como el desenlace brutal, real y sin timos de los problemas individuales.
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Edited 12/22/2021]
This was the author’s first book, 1974. It’s two works: an extended short story and a 70-page novella. It’s not a pretty book and in fact, I’d say you have to have a strong stomach to get through the novella.
The first story, The Vietnam Project, has some memorable opening lines: “My name is Eugene Dawn. I cannot help that. Here goes.” The main character is an employee or perhaps a contractor for the US government writing about how to change the US propaganda approach to winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese peasants.
He keeps a file of violent pictures and atrocities from the war. He is focused on abstract theories of myth and ‘father figures’ and even creates a mathematical formula. We can tell that this is the last thing any military leader out in the field is going to even read, never mind take into account. As he ruminates about his attitude toward his boss and his wife, we can also tell he has serious mental issues.
Sure enough he later kidnaps his young boy away from his wife. The theme seems to be that he became saturated with the violence he is absorbing every day in his work. When police surround the motel he is staying at, he stabs, but does not kill his son. He ends up in a mental hospital or prison discussing his myth theories with the psychologists there.
The novella is a purported journal of the author’s Dutch ancestor, The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee, going back to 1760 and translated from the Afrikaans.
The ancestor has a large farm with Hottentot slaves. He takes them on a hunting expedition into unexplored (by Europeans) Bushman territory looking for elephants to kill for their tusks. Without getting into all the gory details of the racist stereotypes, the white man considers the Hottentots “subhumans” and the Bushmen “animals,” useless even as slaves. The Bushmen are ‘fair game to kill.’
(In modern times, anthropologists no longer support this racial distinction between Hottentots and Bushmen. Both groups are of the Khoisan language group. Hottentot is now considered a racist term, although Bushman is still used but the phrase ‘San people’ is preferred. )
As a geographer, I appreciate one section where he offers some heavy-duty philosophy about the spatial process of settlement. From Capetown, early settlers could basically only go North, a parallel to the American dream of go West. “We cannot count the wild. The wild is one because it is boundless. We can count fig-trees, we can count sheep because the orchard and the farm are bounded. The essence of orchard tree and farm sheep is number. Our commerce with the wild is a tireless enterprise of turning it into orchard and farm. When we cannot fence it and count it we reduce it to number by other means. Every wild creature I kill crosses the boundary between wilderness and number.… I am a hunter, a domesticator of the wilderness, a hero of enumeration. He who does not understand number does not understand death….Now that the gun has arrived among them the native tribes are doomed, not only because the gun will kill them in large numbers but because the yearning for it will alienate them from the wilderness. Every territory I march through with my gun becomes a territory cast loose from the past and bound to the future.”
On the trip he falls ill for a long period of time and is tended to by a Bushman tribe. Many of his Hottentots slaves leave him to stay with women in the tribe. The Bushmen steal his wagon, pack animals, guns, food and food cattle, and supplies. He gradually recovers but gets into a fight and is expelled from the village. His last slave dies on the way home as he walks back hundreds of miles. But that's not the end. Even though they saved his life, he returns with more slaves to find and massacre the entire Bushmen tribe including women and children as well as the slaves who deserted him.
(Edited 7/10/19 to add the 8th paragraph)
Top photo: Sa Pa town, Vietnam from wikipedia commons
San family home in Tsumkwe, Namibia from jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu
Photo of the author (1940-), winner of Nobel Prize 2003, from wikipedia commons
This was the author’s first book, 1974. It’s two works: an extended short story and a 70-page novella. It’s not a pretty book and in fact, I’d say you have to have a strong stomach to get through the novella.
The first story, The Vietnam Project, has some memorable opening lines: “My name is Eugene Dawn. I cannot help that. Here goes.” The main character is an employee or perhaps a contractor for the US government writing about how to change the US propaganda approach to winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese peasants.
He keeps a file of violent pictures and atrocities from the war. He is focused on abstract theories of myth and ‘father figures’ and even creates a mathematical formula. We can tell that this is the last thing any military leader out in the field is going to even read, never mind take into account. As he ruminates about his attitude toward his boss and his wife, we can also tell he has serious mental issues.
Sure enough he later kidnaps his young boy away from his wife. The theme seems to be that he became saturated with the violence he is absorbing every day in his work. When police surround the motel he is staying at, he stabs, but does not kill his son. He ends up in a mental hospital or prison discussing his myth theories with the psychologists there.
The novella is a purported journal of the author’s Dutch ancestor, The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee, going back to 1760 and translated from the Afrikaans.
The ancestor has a large farm with Hottentot slaves. He takes them on a hunting expedition into unexplored (by Europeans) Bushman territory looking for elephants to kill for their tusks. Without getting into all the gory details of the racist stereotypes, the white man considers the Hottentots “subhumans” and the Bushmen “animals,” useless even as slaves. The Bushmen are ‘fair game to kill.’
(In modern times, anthropologists no longer support this racial distinction between Hottentots and Bushmen. Both groups are of the Khoisan language group. Hottentot is now considered a racist term, although Bushman is still used but the phrase ‘San people’ is preferred. )
As a geographer, I appreciate one section where he offers some heavy-duty philosophy about the spatial process of settlement. From Capetown, early settlers could basically only go North, a parallel to the American dream of go West. “We cannot count the wild. The wild is one because it is boundless. We can count fig-trees, we can count sheep because the orchard and the farm are bounded. The essence of orchard tree and farm sheep is number. Our commerce with the wild is a tireless enterprise of turning it into orchard and farm. When we cannot fence it and count it we reduce it to number by other means. Every wild creature I kill crosses the boundary between wilderness and number.… I am a hunter, a domesticator of the wilderness, a hero of enumeration. He who does not understand number does not understand death….Now that the gun has arrived among them the native tribes are doomed, not only because the gun will kill them in large numbers but because the yearning for it will alienate them from the wilderness. Every territory I march through with my gun becomes a territory cast loose from the past and bound to the future.”
On the trip he falls ill for a long period of time and is tended to by a Bushman tribe. Many of his Hottentots slaves leave him to stay with women in the tribe. The Bushmen steal his wagon, pack animals, guns, food and food cattle, and supplies. He gradually recovers but gets into a fight and is expelled from the village. His last slave dies on the way home as he walks back hundreds of miles. But that's not the end. Even though they saved his life, he returns with more slaves to find and massacre the entire Bushmen tribe including women and children as well as the slaves who deserted him.
(Edited 7/10/19 to add the 8th paragraph)
Top photo: Sa Pa town, Vietnam from wikipedia commons
San family home in Tsumkwe, Namibia from jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu
Photo of the author (1940-), winner of Nobel Prize 2003, from wikipedia commons
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