No moral centres
ANITA ROY
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`South Africa is no longer a place where the issues are black and white. Hardly surprising, that out of this landscape comes a writer whose canvas is every shade of grey in between.'
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R.V. MOORTHY
For DAMON GALGUT, author of The Good Doctor which was short-listed for the Man Booker 2003, the reality of a new South Africa seems at this point caught up in a series of power conflicts. Galgut, whose novel focuses on the moral bankruptcy of his two main characters, in some way reflects the current happenings in South Africa. He is categorical that he is not ashamed to be part of that society and would never consider living elsewhere, "except perhaps if I had to, India. This is the only place I feel some affinity to," but is deeply concerned about the direction in which South African society is headed. In India on a visit, Galgut spoke with SUCHITRA BEHAL. Excerpts from the interview:
OF the two characters in your book, one is caught up in the conflict between the ideal and the real while the other accepts the situation. Which of the two is more representative of post-apartheid South Africa?
I guess that both are and that's the point. The split between the two is a split in my own psyche really and I think it's a split in the white South African psyche. Frank, the narrator is a burnt-out, cynical relic of the past but his vision of how things work is more realistic than Lawrence's. Lawrence is really too young to know what the apartheid has meant to South Africa so he doesn't carry that baggage, his idealism is naïve and blinkered and it leads to his downfall. I wanted those two opposing elements, pulling in two different directions to represent the way White South Africa is; I don't feel qualified to speak for Black South Africa in any profound way.
Through this book are you taking a moral position vis-à-vis the two?
A lot of people have been disturbed by the fact that the book doesn't really have a moral centre. There isn't a character in the book with whom you ultimately feel comfortable and neither is there a character with whom you can identify, who is inspiring and can carry you with him. A lot of people are bothered by it. Both our central characters are morally flawed actually and fail in some ways. Some people think that's a moral failure on my part. I object to that. I am trying to be as true as possible to what I am seeing in South Africa and I don't see many inspirational moral icons. There is Nelson Mandela but everyone is not like him — he can walk on water — but aside from him who are the struggle heroes who are inspirational? They are all very human and very fallible, they are all being caught up in scandal. Fraud. Corruption. So I struggle with the notion of taking a moral position because it means that I think that there is a kind of superior moral way to be whereas I think that everybody fails to achieve any admirable moral position.
Does this mean that you are disturbed by a lack of character?
I think there's something very dark in the South African psyche, I think we live a lot of the time in a state of a very low-grade civil war; the levels of violence in South Africa are extremely high. In a way the civil war that never happened is being played out in a covert way, so we live with a lot of very ugly things. Yes I am disturbed and it feels a lot of the times like the fabric of society is unravelling. I think a lot of Black South Africans will tell me that that's my White stuff but I can't come to terms with the new South Africa. I'm not actually seeing it moving forward. Let me put on record that I'm very glad that we are where we are, I'd much rather be where we are but it's a sign of my commitment to the new country that I want to be as critical of it as possible because that's the only way we can make it achieve things right, make a country that we all do want to. To answer your question, morally speaking the boat is rocking in South Africa and it's a matter of crisis but we do have to offload some things, otherwise the boat will sink.
Is there a new South African literature reflecting the present concerns or do writers face an ideological vacuum now that concerns which influenced writers like Nadine Gordimer no longer hold sway?
I don't think there is an ideological vacuum but let's say that the kind of broad-based ideologies that had shaped around the apartheid have broken up, so there are far more fragmented ideologies and people have retreated to their own little cocoons. South Africa is highly politicised, even small issues become politicised and it becomes quite bitter . As far as books are concerned everyone gets rated according to who has written something, where they stand, where they fitted into the whole structure and where they seemed to be fitting into the new structure rather than just the writing itself. So there is certainly not an ideological vacuum. Instead it is pulling more viciously in different directions. I long for a South African society that's free of ideological forces — no society can ever really be free of ideological forces — but I wish it was free of power.
What are the new issues that writers and intellectuals are talking about? What are their immediate concerns?
Now it's trying to shape a viable country. On paper we have one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. So on paper all the apartheid laws have gone and everything is possible. But of course the reality on the ground doesn't match up with the laws. We've got all these great aspirations but it doesn't function like that... the whole country is in turmoil trying to redistribute jobs; redistribute wealth; get the economy going on some kind of equality-based track. So I suppose the current trend in literature is to reflect what White writers, and I speak for myself, are more concerned with — OK, the white community used to be more centre stage, now we are marginalised; how does that feel? What does it mean to go from being the boss to being nothing? Black writers are trying to deal with the opposite of having the steering wheel in their hands and what that means.
Is there a sense of disillusionment with how things have turned out?
I guess if I'm going to be honest — yes on my part there is a sense of disillusionment but I want the book to be a warning, I want it to shock people to think about these issues. In other words I do think there is time — we still have a period of grace and we have to think about some of these very pressing problems because if we don't we are in very deep trouble. I think the real revolution lies ahead of us. It's in the nature of delayed revolutions to be especially brutal but I hope we can make the difference in the time that we have. And really arrive at a new country. It's not there yet.
Were you disappointed at not winning the Booker? What do you think of the book that won it?
I did not feel in my bones that it was going to go to me... I thought Monica Ali was going to get it — I haven't had time to read her book though. Her book looked really, really good to me so it was a surprise to me, the announcement.
What did you think of the other book?
I haven't read it (laughs). I'm not evading your question...
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