Nadine Gordimer - Living in Hope and History - Notes from Our Century

Our century has been ‘without doubt the most murderous century of which we have record, both by the scale, frequency and length of the warfare which filled it, barely ceasing for a moment in the 1920s, but also by the unparalleled scale, frequency and length of the human catastrophes it produced, from the greatest famines in history to systematic genocide.’

I quote here one better able to judge objectively, perhaps, than I — an eminent historian, Eric Hobsbawm.

It is also the century in which greater technological advance and greater knowledge of human intelligence have taken place in a shorter span than any other century. The conclusion — and our existential conclusion as creatures of our time — is that humankind has not known how to control the marvels of its achievements. What was written in prison by the great leader and thinker, Jawaharlal Nehru, remains for us. He defined this as ‘the problems of individual and social life, of harmonious living, of a proper balancing of an individual’s inner and outer life, of an adjustment of the relation between individuals and groups, of a continuous becoming something better and higher, of social development, of the ceaseless adventure of man.’

Now that the deeds are done, the hundred years ready to seal what will be recorded of us, our last achievement could be in the spirit of taking up, in ‘the ceaseless adventure of man’, control of our achievements, questioning honestly and reflecting upon the truth of what has been lived through, what has been done. There is no other base on which to found the twenty-first century with any chance to make it a better one.

— Jawaharlal Memorial Lecture, 1995

THREE IN A BED: FICTION, MORALS, AND POLITICS

[4] ‘The whale is the agent. .’ Harry Levin, ‘The Jonah Complex’, The Power of Blackness (Vintage Books, 1960), p. 215.

[7] ‘My book is going to sell. .’ Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830–1857 , selected, edited and trans. by Francis Steegmuller (Belknap Press, Harvard, 1990), p. 224.

[8] ‘undirected play. .’ Seamus Heaney, The Government of the Tongue (Faber & Faber, 1988), p. 96.

[9] ‘as not having to do. .’ From a quote in my notebooks, source not noted.

[9] ‘Russia became a garden. .’ Bely quoted by Peter Levi in Boris Pasternak (Hutchinson, 1990), p. 142.

[9] ‘We want the glorious. .’ Quoted by Evgeny Pasternak, Boris Pasternak: The Tragic Years 1930-60 (Collins Harvill, 1990), p. 38.

[10] ‘A sincere but perverted. .’ Claudio Magris, Inferences from a Sabre , trans. Mark Thompson (Polygon, 1990).

[10] ‘I told him My Sister, Life. .’ Quoted by Peter Levi in Boris Pasternak (Hutchinson, 1990), p. 100.

[11] ‘The lie is quite as real. .’ Magris, Inferences , p. 43.

[11] ‘We page through . .’ Mongane Wally Serote, A Tough Tale (Kliptown Books, 1987), p. 7.

[11] ‘We want the world. .’ Ibid.

[12] ‘a disease at the very centre. .’ Harold Pinter, broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 programme Opinion , May 31, 1990.

[14] ‘guerrillas of the imagination. .’ Seamus Heaney, ‘Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam’, The Government of the Tongue , p. 73.

[15] ‘help people. .‘ Per Wastberg, addressing PEN International Writers’ Day, June 2, 1990.

[15] ‘When seats are assigned. .’ Quoted by Peter Levi in Boris Pasternak, p. 159

THE STATUS OF THE WRITER IN THE WORLD

TODAY: WHICH WORLD? WHOSE WORLD?

[19] they show both the writer and his or her people what they are. . Paraphrased by Vladimir Nabokov in Nikolai Gogol (New Directions, 1961), p. 129.

[20] the first congress . . Congress of African Writers and Artists, the Sorbonne, Paris, under the auspices of Presence Africaine , 1956.

[25] ‘imaginary history. .’ Lebona Mosia, ‘Time to Be Truly Part of Africa’, The Star , Johannesburg, September 26, 1997.

[28] With the exceptions of the pre-Hispanic civilisations . . Octavio Paz, In Light of India , trans. Eliot Weinberger (Harcourt Brace, 1997).

[28] ‘Every civilisation. .’ Henri Lopès, Le Lys et le Flamboyant (Editions du Seuil, 1997). My translation from the French.

[29] ‘What you expect. .’ Amu Djoleto, ‘A Passing Thought’, Messages: Poems from Ghana , ed. Kofi Awoonor and Adali-Mortty (African Writers Series, 1971).

REFERENCES: THE CODES OF CULTURE

[39] ‘to make the reader. .’ S/Z , trans. Richard Miller, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974).

[39] As Richard Howard sums up . . ‘A Note on S/Z’ , by Roland Batches, p. X1.

[40] ‘To survey his writings. .’ Harry Levin, ‘From Obsession to Imagination: The Psychology of the Writer’, Michigan Quarterly Review X11:3 (Summer 1974), p. 90.

[40] to survey his . . Harry Levin, ‘From Obsession to Imagination’, p. 90.

[40] to make the reader . . Barthes, S/Z , p. 21.

[40] ‘Words are symbols. .’ Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Congress’, The Book of Sand , trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni (Penguin, 1979), p. 33.

[42] Italo Calvino wrote . . ‘Whom Do We Write For?’, The Literature Machine , trans. Patrick Creagh (Secker & Warburg, 1987), p. 86.

[45] ‘another body of knowledge . .’ John Berger, ‘An Explanation’, Pig Earth (Pantheon, 1980), p. 9.

[45] ‘She writes the kind of fiction. .’ Lorrie Moore, review of Bobbie Ann Mason’s Love Life in The New York Times Book Review , March 12, 1989.

[45] there has been demonstrated recently . . 1996 census records population as 40,583,573, of whom 4,434,697 are white. An officially unconfirmed census in 1998 gives a figure of 46 million.

THE LION, THE BULL, AND THE TREE

[50] ‘The African Apprehension of Reality’ , from Senghor: Prose and Poetry , ed. John Reed and Clive Wake (Heinemann, 1976).

[52] ‘Lord God, forgive. .’ Ibid.

[52] As Claude Wauthier remarks. . The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa (Pall Mall Library of African Affairs, 1966).

[53] ‘Senghor sees Chaka. .’ Ibid.

[54] ‘unity is rediscovered. .’ ‘New York’, Senghor: Prose and Poetry .

THE DIALOGUE OF LATE AFTERNOON

[59] the latest work . . Naguib Mahfouz, Echoes of an Autobiography (Anchor Books, 1997).

[60] he has the gift . . ‘Zaabalawi: The Concealed Side’, Nadine Gordimer, Writing and Being (Harvard University Press, 1995).

[65] ‘Zaabalawi’, The Time and the Place, and Other Stories (Doubleday, 1991).

JOSEPH ROTH: LABYRINTH OF EMPIRE AND EXILE

[69] ‘Je travaille, . ’ In a letter to his translator, Blanche Gidon, quoted by Beatrice Musgrave in her introduction to Weights and Measures (Everyman’s Library, 1983), p. 9. Roth lived in Paris for some years and two of his novels, Le Triomphe de la Beauté and Le Buste de L’Empereur , were published first in French, not German. Le Triomphe de la Beaute probably was written in French; it appears not to have been published in German.

[70] ‘One can’t be angry. .’ Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities , trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser (Secker & Warburg, 1961). Musil was born in 1880, and though long neglected, he was not forgotten as long as Roth. Musil became a figure in world literature in the fifties; Roth’s work had to wait another twenty years before being reissued in Germany, let alone in translation. A new and more complete translation of Musil’s novel, by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike, was published in 1995.