: Novels by Mark Behr and Ian McEwan
Barbara Durlacher introduces us to novels by South African author Mark Behr and Englishman Ian McEwan.
The Smell of Apples and Embrace by Mark Behr.
I've recently read two very different books, one by a South African author and the other by the well-known British writer, Ian McEwan.
The South African author, Mark Behr, is a young, fairly recently published find who made his name with his first novel, The Smell of Apples, an insightful, perceptive and very clever 'I was there' story of a young child growing up in the apartheid-style South Africa of the 1960's – a period I well remember. The story is set in the Cape Peninsula and many of the scenes and incidents rang true as I knew exactly what the author was saying and what the circumstances were that he was describing. It tells a story on two levels, that of a young boy growing up in apartheid era Cape Town, the son of conventional and strict Afrikaans parents. His father is a senior officer in the South African Defence Force and the threads of the parents behaviour, only dimly understood by the boy, resonate through the years to the final shattering conclusion. This is a marvellous book, and I have it as one of my 'to keep' books on my shelf.
The book I particularly want to recommend now is Behr's second big novel published in 2000 by Little, Brown and Company. The title is 'Embrace' and is set in the Natal Drakensberg in an [actual] very famous boys only music school known as the Drakensberg Boys Choir School. For years they have nurtured a wonderful choir which has toured extensively, giving concerts all over the world, and is acknowledged to be the South African equivalent of the Vienna Boys Choir. ‘Embrace’ is a long book, over 700 pages, densely written, and tells the story of a young boy, the last born after two sisters, who - whilst longing to be an 'alpha male' like his game ranger father, harbours secret desires to be little and girlish and pretty like his eldest sister. This may sound trite, but the telling of the story is very powerful, especially the passages describing his burgeoning sexuality and need for love and recognition from the other boys and his teachers; a love he does not receive from his father, who – unknown to the boy – recognizes that the child has homosexual tendencies, and fears for him as he grows up, feeling that he has dishonoured the family by his behaviour.
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
The Ian McEwan story is something quite different and quite fascinating. The Innocent was published in 1990 by Jonathan Cape. Set in Berlin immediately post-WW2 it tells the story of a young, innocent and impressionable Englishman employed by the British Post Office at Dollis Hill near London. He is an expert in wiring and the primitive recording apparatus of those days. Recruited by the British Army he is secretly flown to Berlin to work on a top-secret Anglo-American job against the Russians. What follows is a roller-coaster ride into a vastly different sexual initiation and the complications which flow from his involvement with the first [and only] real love of his life.
