Monday, October 6, 2008

Everybody's Love Triangle

Many years ago, I read Peter Abrahams’s ‘Mine Boy’. Even then, its rich ménage of themes came to life for me, but what really struck a chord was the racial bigotry that ran through everyday life, from the paper pass, to a simple drink of beer. And the sadness in the novel leapt out and gripped my heart in a vice for many long days.

Last weekend, I read Mine Boy again, and savoured, once more, its clean and colourful characters: Xuma, Leah, Elisa, Maisy, Daddy, The Red One, The Fox, that sonofabitch, J. P. Williamsom et al. But, in the simple plot, this time, my now-older mind fixated on the theme of love, and of wishes and reality.

Powerfully-built Xuma loved the dainty Eliza. She loved the trappings of the white man’s world. She wanted a gentleman (like the doctor); a man who could read. Who would have clever-clever conversation with her in the night, and not just the raw, physical thrust of simple love. So, although Eliza loved Xuma back, and became his woman for a short while, she left him like a twilight thief. And she was never seen again.

Maisy was not quite a finished work of art, but she had warm laughter in her eyes and a lot of sugar in her heart. She loved Xuma, and he liked her. She made him happy, and, with her, he saw his worldly woes fly away. But he felt he loved her not.

In the end, Eliza stole away. Xuma was going to jail for co-leading a strike at the deathtrap which was also called a mine (a thing a black man had no donkey’s right to do). Before turning himself in, Xuma fled to Maisy, and beseeched her to wait for him. Maisy said she would, and we are all sure that she could and would.

Somewhere in that triangle, I learnt a lot about love, and what it really means. It means being at ease, being at peace, and having free fun with whoever is the one it happens with. That is love!

Postscript: Thank you, Peter Abrahams. This was too special to edit. It had to be read raw!

8 comments:

  1. Until today I had never heard of Mine Boy, but after reading this, I feel compelled to read the book. Got a copy to spare?

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  2. Yes, Maya, I have a copy and you can read it.

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  3. okayeeeeee...

    Nana, thanks for helping me re-read this one...however summarized. i did my first read when i didn't even know what reading was all about...lol

    i got it more now...i guess i'd just do another read later...

    i'm trying now to read more of africans...putting aside the Grishams, Kontzs, Clancy's and Steels (for now)...

    I've just done Weep not Child by Ngugi- it's a touching one. Then The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayikwei Armah-hah! this one is marked for it's raw nature(made me wonder why we make so much farce about decorum and so on and reminded me of your post about the woman with the big (?) bum doing the scratch in her behind...

    and then i've done Fragments by same man...and here he just takes my mind into the abstract while trying to deal with the complexity of man's expectations of fellow relations...and here too there is some raw descriptions of the body and its motions...and makes me question what is aesthetic or porn?

    is it different when it's read from what is seen?

    i love this world for many more things...

    cheers!

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  4. Bravo, Novisi. I am going through a similar phase, i.e re-reading African writers. I aim to discover Ama Ata Aidoo (the novelist as against the Playwright) in a big way.

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  5. Nana Yaw, needless to say I am going to go back and read Mine Boy again. I did enjoy it the first time around and it's still on my bookshelf somewhere.
    Have you been down to EPA - they have about 30 titles in the African Writers series for GH 3 each - a bargain if there ever was one!

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  6. Thanks, Denise. I will find my way to the EPA, 'soonest'.

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  7. Beauriful...just beauriful!

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  8. Thanks, Kiz. Your comments were missed here.

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