J. M. Coetzee

Stifled by the torpor of colonial South Africa and trapped in a web of reciprocal oppression, a lonely sheep farmer seeks comfort in the arms of a black concubine. But when his embittered spinster daughter Magda feels shamed, this lurch across the racial divide marks the end of a tenuous feudal peace. As she dreams madly of bloody revenge, Magda's consciousness starts to drift and the line between fact and the workings of her excited imagination becomes blurred. What follows is the fable of a woman's passionate, obsessed and violent response to an Africa that will not heed her.

In the Heart of the Country

heleen de boever

It took me a while to settle into the rhythm of this novel, but after I did I was hooked. The consistent first-person narrative absorbs you in Magda's head, while the author never allows you to return to normality/rationality through other point of views. Magda's mad voice started to make more sense (I don't know if that should make me question my own sanity). She became worthy of my pity, while simultaneously remaining absolutely repulsive. There was something very human about her madness; a deep-rooted desire for company, communication, confirmation about who she is as a woman. I don't think her madness was innately part of her, but rather a product of her environment. She condemns language because it's a language marked by master-servant dynamics, while all she longs for is to converse on equal levels. This idea is however rejected by both her father and the servants, who are neither capable of acting on a level outside the colonial power system. Loneliness, unfulfilled desires and boredom drive her crazy. It brilliantly shows how the structures of colonial opression affect both parties.

In the Heart of the Country

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