“Statutes and laws and pronouncements may pass over the heads of the people whom they concern, but shame does not need the medium of literacy. Nadine Gordimer's first novel, published in 1953, tells the story of Helen Shaw, daughter of white middle-class parents in a small gold-mining town in South Africa. KIRKUS REVIEW. The awards are easy to understand – her writing is very simply brilliant, and I look forward to reading more. On one side is the lush, green jungle, on the other the pounding waves. Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged All Virago all august, book reviews, Nadine Gordimer, The Seven Ages of Women, VMC | 23 Comments. A detailed description of this black world follows, with its smeary shop windows, chickens underfoot, rotting oranges, flies, disorder, and vitality. It’s funny that I also own one of her novels and think it’s been on my TBR pile now for at least 15 years. About the Book: The Lying Days Nadine Gordimer's first novel, published in 1953, tells the story of Helen Shaw, daughter of white middle-class parents in a small gold-mining town in South Africa. It’s so important that these books exist and are still read, isn’t it. Green. Richard . Helen spends her time with her mother, dressmaking, shopping, and coveting various objects in the stores of Atherton. 25 January 1954. [8] But Ehmann was critical of her "experimental prose" at the beginning, saying that "this maladroit display of implied symbolism, disjointed reverie and rhetorical questions is both unnecessary and badly disjointed. "[7] Rogers complimented Gordimer on the way she "brings her characters so surely to life", and on how she "writes so moving of love". Raleigh. In this paradisal, natural environment Helen finds an alternative mother in Mrs. Koch, who is similarly white and middle class but demonstrative and sentimental where Helen's own mother is cool and reserved. Gordimer is a great writer, but I haven’t read her first novel! Robert. The Lying Days is the debut novel of Nobel winning South African novelist, Nadine Gordimer.It was published in 1953 in London by Victor Gollancz and New York by Simon & Schuster.It is Gordimer's third published book, following two collections of short stories, Face to Face (1949), and The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952). New York Times critic James Stern compared the novel favourably to the works of Alan Paton, especially Cry, the Beloved Country, describing The Lying Days as the better of the two novels. As a first novel it is extraordinary – there is a slow, dreamlike quality to much of the narrative, sections where little happens, and in that perhaps we see the inexperience of a first time novelist. The Lying Days is divided into three books: “The Mine,” “The Sea,” and “The City.” “The Mine” is a short section concerning Helen's childhood. [1][2][3] The novel is semi-autobiographical, with the main character coming from a small mining town in Africa similar to Gordimer's own childhood. “An Analysis of The Lying Days, by Nadine Gordimer.” In Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. We wanted a quick shock, over and done with, but what we were going to get was something much slower, surer, and more terrible: an apparent sameness in the conduct of our lives, long periods when there was nothing more to hurt us than words in Parliament and talk of the Republic which we laughed at for years and, recurrently, a mounting number of weary battles – apartheid in public transport and buildings, the ban on mixed marriages, the Suppression of Communism bill, the language ordinance separating Afrikaans and English-speaking children in schools, the removal of coloured voters from the common electoral roll and the setting aside of the Supreme Court judgment that made this act illegal – passionate debated in the Parliament with the United Party and Labour Party forming the Opposition, inevitably lost to the Government before the first protest was spoken.”. Helen decides to move more permanently to the city. [6] In a review in the Fitchburg Sentinel, W. G. Rogers wrote that in The Lying Days Gordimer shows that South Africa "is a land not of a single problem, race, but of many problems which that one central issue seems to magnify and intensify. Analysis Of Nadine Gordimer 's ' The Lying Days ' 2296 Words10 Pages Nadine gordimer was born on November 20, 1923 in Springs, South Africa, a gold mining town east of Johannesburg. Sharing a flat with a young married couple, Helen begins to move within a circle of bohemian dissension. Other people Helen comes into contact with in Johannesburg further help to shape her new emerging view of the world, Mary, one of just a few black students at the University, comes from a very different world, her living conditions making it increasingly difficult to study. Today's blog post: Midweek bookish Miscellany – reading woes and acquisitions. The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents. "[5], Reviews of The Lying Days in 1953 were generally positive. Twenty-eight outstanding books of the previous quarter. Of course nothing happened. I have The Conservationist on my TBR list for way too long as well. […] is for VIRAGO. The family have a large, comfortable house, a black servant, Anna looks after the domestic tasks, but she lives outside the house in a small dwelling behind the main house. 160, edited by Tom Burns and Jeffrey W. Hunter. The unthinking life of adolescence—the first dance, the first corsage, and, as World War II impinges, boys in uniform at dances—unrolls before her. This sounds like an excellent place to start. There is however, still so much to admire in this, South African novel of a young woman’s political and emotional emergence into a complex, divided society. CRITICAL SUMMARY The Lying Days has attracted much critical attention, but, unusually perhaps for a South African novel, remains readily accessible to the general reader. Spring 1954. It was published in 1953 in London by Victor Gollancz and New York by Simon & Schuster. [4] The novel is also a bildungsroman "about waking up from the naivete of a small colonial town. I read a couple of her short stories in anthologies and they were brilliant. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Change ). [6] Stern described the novel as less "novel" and more "biography", following the style and form of biographical writing. 4. 246–252. Bookish kismet. The Lying Days, by Nadine Gordimer. (Later the reader learns that he is Joel Aaron.) An A to Z: Of Life, Books, Yarn, and a Certain Small Brown Dog ….. | Beyond Eden Rock, Ali Hope Reviews Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer | Books LIVE, Jozi Book Fair Reader’s List 2018 – Jozi Book Fair, Midweek bookish Miscellany – reading woes and acquisitions, The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman (2020), A Game of Snakes and Ladders – Doris Langley Moore (1955), The Last Resort – Pamela Hansford Johnson (1956), kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/cla…, Adventures in Reading, writing and working from home. You could well be right Bridget. When the whistle blows on this day, a Sunday, it signals an event outside the normal routine: a strike by the black workers over their diet. The family and the other white people associated with the mine, socialise only with one another. I was at boarding school with white and Asian girls from South Africa when Nadine Gordimer first published, around the same time as Alan Paton’s heartbreaking Cry the Belived Country, and remember the amount of discussion these writers generated. Her stories concern the devastating effects of apartheid on the lives of South Africans—the constant tension between personal isolation and the commitment to social justice, the numbness caused… Some grew flowers instead; as it was winter, rings and oblongs of white stones marked out like graves the place where they would come up again. New York Times critic James Stern compared the novel favourably to the works of Alan Paton, especially Cry, the Beloved Country, describing The Lying Days as the better of the two novels. Our narrator is Helen Shaw who grows up in the white community that surrounds the Atherton gold mine where her father is secretary. In 1953 a novel, The Lying Days, was published. 23 October 1953. Thanks, Ali, for drawing such a vivid picture of this novel. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Cambridge University Press. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. The Lying Days, by Nadine Gordimer. Humiliation goes dumbly home – a dog, a child too small to speak can sense it – and it sank right down through all the arid layers of African life in the city and entered the blood even of those who could not understand why they felt and acted as they did, or even knew that they felt or acted.”. SOURCE: Newman, Judith. A large crowd of mine workers invades the lawns of the manager's garden but is swiftly dispersed. 1 April 1988. Powerful stuff. The Lying Days, by Nadine Gordimer. You have me thinking now that maybe I should. GET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS: Email Address Subscribe. Concerned for Mary, Helen suggests that Mary should come to the mine, and be allowed to study in a room on their property, a plan greeted by horror by her parents. By . Posted on September 19, 2006 | 1 Comment. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Reading it is like a time travel to a South African from before most of the events that make up the contemporary memory of South Africa have taken place. As Helen comes of age, so does her awareness grow of the African life around her. Delaying for a while in the turmoil she brings back with her from the coast, she eventually decides to go, surprising her parents and herself with her sudden decision. My husband says it’s great and got it off the shelf for me so thanks for the review. It is Gordimer's third published book, following two collections of short stories, Face to Face (1949), and The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952). Wow. “The City” is a longer section about the university, radical bohemians in Johannesburg, Helen's first sexual experiences, and urban and racial questions. Thanks for the review. The Lying Days NPR coverage of The Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer. The only Gordimer I’ve read is ‘July’s Children’ and I can heartily recommend that if you are looking for somewhere to go from here. At first Helen travels back and forth by train, and it is on the train that she meets Joel Aaron, a young Jewish man around her own age. Thank you. I’ve never come across any of Nadine Gordimer ‘s books, and I got it into my head somehow that they might be difficult and so I’ve never sought them out. 66. This is only Gordimer’s second novel. “We followed Mary’s directions past decent little houses, each as big as a tool shed with a tin chimney throbbing out the life of the house in smoke. The Lying Days is the debut novel of Nobel winning South African novelist, Nadine Gordimer. And some grew only children, crawling and huddling in the dust with only eyes looking out of dust.”. "[9] Pollack said Gordimer "is an expert craftsman and her sensitive ability to portray the most delicate emotions should place her among the most promising newcomers today".[9]. I suspect her novels written in the 60’s and 70’s will paint an even more extraordinary picture though. Here Helen meets Paul, a man actively working for change, and despite her parents’ outrage, sets up home with him. Immediately download the The Lying Days summary, chapter-by-chapter analysis, book notes, essays, quotes, character descriptions, lesson plans, and more - everything you need for studying or teaching The Lying Days.