Professor David Peimer
Cry, the Beloved Country
Professor David Peimer - Cry, the Beloved Country
- Okay. Going to dive into this fascinating, intriguing, puzzling, partly irritating, and yet endlessly, well, I suppose, enduring novel by Alan Paton, one of the great South African writers, going way back to early times. Alan Paton, who wrote this, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” everybody, I’m sure, knows the phrase, in 1948. And what I want to do is, because this is such a seminal work, and later, I’m going to go on with others into some of the more, the later work by South African writers, J.M. Coetzee, some of the musicians, Johnny Clegg and others. But this piece really, I guess together Olive Schreiner, who is obviously of a different generation, is really the first of the modern period, post-Second World War, “Cry, the Beloved Country,” which Paton writes in 1948, and it’s published, but he writes it a couple of months before the National Party, you know, obviously, introducing Apartheid, actually gained power and begin instituting the policy of apartheid. So he actually, he finished it and got it to the publishers about three, four months before. So what’s fascinating is that it’s, he is almost, I wouldn’t say, prophetic, but I would say, he intuits, in a way, what has happened, and obviously what’s going to come in the future of apartheid in this novel. I’m going to talk a little bit about his life, not much, and then go into the novel, and then look at just a couple of clips from some of the films. There’s one with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris, another one with Sidney Poitier.
Anyway, and a couple of short clips from the films of the novel. And then of course, the wonderful musical theatre piece with Judy Garland singing one of the songs from “Lost in the Stars,” which was the adaptation by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson and their early ‘50s adaptation of this novel, “Cry, the Beloved Country.” And I want to try and tease out the main, there’s one question when I was thinking of today, and the one question is, what is the role, if any, of the liberal today? Because Alan Paton is so located in the liberal, liberalism as an ideology, as a political belief, as a human belief, and of course, heavily influenced by his Christian faith, very strong Christian faith. So I want to look at the role of liberalism in his times, because I think we can really see his work and his life shaped by that vision. And question, is it naive today? Is it sentimental? Is it so out of touch as, you know, it belongs to another era, possibly post-Second World War, pre-second World War? You know, that is long gone and that we live in a totally different world of increasingly, in creeping authoritarianism all over. And, you know, the not only conspiracy theories and lies and fake news, et cetera, but are we seeing the end for our period, our era of liberalism, and the liberal attitude as a way of living, a way of believing, a way of seeing education, seeing society, social relationships everywhere? And, you know, the sense of social justice and that link to the liberal idea, is it gone completely? Is it going? Is it what Alan Paton called, reached a stage of tragic liberalism? Does it still exist, but only in a sentimental, naive form, in some way?
Or, you know, there are a few threads, but the rest would be seen, as I was saying, sentimental, naive vision of life. Okay. So I want to, that’s the main context is this question of the liberal, which I think is a powerful and really important question for us today. And what his novel throws out at us with that precise question, I think, because I do think that he’s so deeply entrenched in that vision of social relationships and the hope or idealism that goes with it. Okay, and I want to then, later, going to come to just a few very contemporary thoughts on him as well and the novel. So the liberal tradition, you know, and it, to even use those words makes me a little bit cautious. But I do think we can say it in South Africa and locating, again, his novel and his life in that. Richard Reeve, one of the really interesting American writers, thinkers, you know, he said that “Cry, the Beloved Country” was a watershed, soon, and I’m quoting, “Soon after which liberal writing was on the wane.” Now, he wrote this decades ago. Liberal writing was on the wane. Liberal thinking, on the wane. It’s going. It has a moment of flourishing. And then it’s going to, perhaps in our time it’s vanished, gone. Maybe it’ll come back, maybe not. And he also argues that between, it’s interesting to look at between “Cry, the Beloved Country” and Nadine Gordimer’s “The Late Bourgeois World,” which she wrote in 1966. So that’s quite a while after “Cry, the Beloved Country” in 1948. And Richard Reeve talks about the crisis at the heart of post-war South African liberalism. And I think, not only post-war South African liberalism, but as a microcosm of the world.
You know, it’s an era, of course, the '60s is an explosion of idealism, romantic, some would say naive, some would say not. John Lennon, 1971, said, “The dream is over.” But the '60s are certainly, but the '60s are also, of course, the Vietnam War and many other wars happening all over. So it’s this, and then, in terms of literature, how liberalism is taken over by modernism. And what do I mean by that? It’s influenced by James Joyce, stream of consciousness writing. It’s the focus on the unconscious, irrational impulses, which are not allied, they are not the secret ally of a liberal philosophy. They are the allied of the irrational, darker forces, the Dostoevsky type forces in us, of Joyce, stream of consciousness. The unconscious takes hold. And the writing, especially post-Second World War, the horror and trauma of the war comes out, the beat generation, the '60s, the rebellious, the attack on societies, the questioning at least, you know? And spreading all the way through. And in South Africa, of course, the entrenchment of apartheid and all these attempts to either chip away or confront apartheid directly. Is liberalism enough? Isn’t it? What are the changes? And I think more than being on the wane, there is a crisis. And I think Richard Reeve puts his finger on it, between “The Late Bourgeois World” of Nadine Gordimer’s and “Cry, the Beloved Country” and its modernism, which is fractured writing, which is memory. And, you know, you jump in space and time in the story and in location, in novel structure and in novel storytelling, as opposed to a clear, linear, beginning, middle and end structure of “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
This sense of romanticism, of idealism, using so much of Christianity and the Bible inside that the way of writing it, you know, and appealing to those aspects of humanity, love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, et cetera, as opposed to a much harsher, grittier sense of life. And of course, so many other writers anyway, but looking at South Africa, and you see it in literature written by Black South Africans, white, Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Zulu, et cetera, becomes a tougher, harder writing. So that’s the idea of modernism, actually in literature, together with a liberalism in a kind of, I suppose, social attitude to life. It’s, with Alan Paton, the liberal ideal is, as I said, fundamental. Social consciousness, justice, forgiveness, reconciliation, obviously, totally anti-violence. All of these qualities, we can say, part of the liberal attitude. Is Alan Paton become dated in a post-apartheid world? It’s an important question for us. Is he utterly dated? Is it pointless to even look at it in post-apartheid? Since 1944, 1994, the first Democratic elections, Mandela’s elected, is he just dated and belongs to a, some sort of sentimental, historical era of the past or not? The world of modernism, modernism is also characterised by irony, sometimes a bitter irony. You get in the works of J. M. Coetzee.
You know, there’s a tough, hard edge that’s clawing at at human life and stories of a bitter, ironic attitude, the opposite of what we expect, surprising, strange, mysterious things keep going in, feeding in, which are completely irrational from the unconscious. In a world of what he called, what Paton called, the tragic realism. Is it dated in the 21st century? Paton himself was born in Pietermaritzburg, literally 50 miles inland from where I grew up in Durban, of course, son of a civil servant. And he was a teacher at the Ixopo High School and then at Pietermaritzburg College, very strong Christian, which is fundamental to his approach, and his faith was one of the main reasons why he was so strongly opposed to apartheid, which, again, comes after he’s finished the novel in 1948. He becomes principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for young African offenders from 1935 to 1949. And he introduces, at the time, inverted commas, “Controversial,” in more inverted commas, “Progressive” reforms, such as to open the dormitory, so, you know, these young guys working, you know, going off to wherever, working in the, can go in and out. They’re not guarded at the entrance, work permits, home visits, which are all, in inverted commas, “Controversial, progressive reforms” at the times he introduces. And he based the decision on who could have access to the reforms on who was more trustworthy.
After the Second World War, he tours correctional facilities, Scandinavia, Britain, Europe, America, and Norway. And it’s in Norway that he really begins writing “Cry, the Beloved Country,” as he’s travelling around looking at prisons and how they treat prisoners and rehabilitation and within the Christian ethos. And he finishes it in San Francisco in 1946 and he gets a publisher, a guy called Maxwell Perkins, who also happened, interestingly, to be the editor of Hemingway’s novels. And then finally, in 1948, the publication of “Cry, the Beloved Country.” And then four months later, the National Party, which introduces, of course, the concept of apartheid, were elected and come into power in South Africa. But of course, they are taking the policies of British colonialism, which are not quite as rigidly entrenched, but you know, they’re working on those policies that are already there from the colonial era, of course. In 1953, he’s part of the Liberal Party of South Africa. And Alan Paton is one of the founding co-presidents. It lost until the late 1960s, when it had to be disbanded, because they insisted that the membership was open to Black and white South Africans, which of course, would never be allowed once apartheid became entrenched in the '60s in South Africa. His passport was confiscated by the South African government in 1960, and it was only returned in 1970. Okay, can we go onto the next page, please, on the next slide? Thanks.
This is an image from the 1995 film, which a guy, which I know who I used to know more in South Africa, Darrell Roodt made, James Earl Jones playing Reverend Steven Kumalo, and Richard Harris playing Mr. Jarvis. You know, this is the white guy, I’m going to come to his story in a moment, and Kumalo. But the two of them are central. The two father figures are absolutely central. And I like this image, because it sets them apart, and yet, you see the questioning, the doubting, thinking, especially Richard Harris’s eyes and James Earl Jones, you know, trying to feel it and think it through, set in the beautiful rolling hills of KwaZulu-Natal, as you know, today. So it’s set in this period that I mentioned. And the story follows the, just to remind us all of the story, 'cause it might’ve been a long time since we all read it. The essence of the story is that there’s a Black South African, the James Earl Jones character, who is a village priest, and a white farmer, Mr. Jarvis, the Harris character, who must deal with a murder, and in the village of Ixopo. And he’s a Christian priest, obviously, Mr. Kumalo, who’s Zulu as well. He gets a letter from a priest friend in Johannesburg that he must go to Johannesburg to find his son. So Kumalo goes to, Reverend Kumalo goes to Johannesburg to find his son Absalom. Absalom obviously, you know, King David’s son as well, the rebellious son of King David. The biblical references are endless in the novel. Now, his son had gone already to the big city before, but never came home and lost touch with his own father. It’s a long journey.
And we go through, Kumalo sees the wonders and the changes of the modern world, going from this very rural part of KwaZulu-Natal to Jo'Burg for the first time. So it’s one of these, what became known in South Africa as Jim comes to Jo'Burg stories, you know, rural person goes to the big city, very similar and influenced by John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and others who would write about going from the farm to the big city or, you know, somewhere to seek a better life or to find the truth. In this case, it’s to find the truth. So the Reverend Kumalo goes on a search for Absalom, his son, but his son has been arrested for murder. And the victim is Arthur Jarvis, who’s the Richard Harris character’s white son. He is a white man who was killed by, in a burglary. Turns out, he was killed by the Reverend Kumalo’s son. Nevermind the reasons at the moment, but so you can imagine that this is set up. Is it a sentimental? Is it an easy, ridiculous set of coincidences story? You know, well, Charles Dickens has many coincidence and so many others, you know? And many novelists would use that device. Jarvis, the Harris character, the father is an engineer. Sorry, the son, the son in Jo'Burg is an engineer and an activist for racial justice. So the irony is that Absalom, the, you know, the priest’s son ends up killing a white man who is a, who is trying to help justice and is an activist for racial equality in Johannesburg, part of the irony set up inside the novel. Jarvis, the Harris father, the Harris character, hears of his son’s death. And he goes to find out more about his son in Johannesburg, and he starts to read his son’s writings and discovers, he has to go through his own transformation, discovers his son’s passion for social justice, the liberal attitude, you know?
And starts to see a whole new side to his son who’s been killed by the young Black South African, who is the son of Reverend Kumalo. So he is, at the beginning, classic South African of the times and of many times during apartheid, you know, who has the stereotyped attitude towards Black South Africans, you know, primitive, savage. No, you know, all the rest of those terrible stereotypes, you know, set up during the apartheid, pre-apartheid and apartheid era. So Jarvis discovers this about his son. The Reverend Kumalo discovers also about, this is the young white guy who’s been killed by his own son. He’s a Christian priest. So these are the two fathers towards the end of the novel and end of the film where they come back to meet each other in the farmlands of Ixopo. Because it turns out that the farm that Jarvis owns is near to where the Reverend Kumalo lives, so which is a bit of a forced coincidence in the story, but it turns out that they, you know, are at least in the same vicinity, really. The two, it’s a real story of father and son as well and this conflict between the two fathers. Absalom is sentenced to death for the murder of Jarvis’s son. And finally, at the end, we get reconciliation between these two in the ethos of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I guess, much, much later.
But primarily, for Alan Paton, it’s in the ethos of Christian forgiveness. It’s very deeply rooted in Christian forgiveness and the Christian sense of justice and reconciliation and, certainly, forgiveness. So they have to forgive each other. Is it sentimental? Is it naive? Is it ridiculously idealistic? These are the questions that endlessly reverberate for our times today and I’m sure when Alan Paton wrote it as well, and he was heavily criticised for that, you know, when he wrote it, and much later. And that’s been the endless debate. And for me, it’s the debate between the what could be seen, some would argue, as the naive of idealism, of liberalism, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, within a very Christian type of context or not. And Jarvis, in the end, they forgive each other and help, et cetera. And he even ends up building a dam nearby this farm where Absalom, where Reverend Kumalo lives and helps them with new farming methods. And the novel ends in the morning of Absalom’s execution. The fathers of the two sons are devastated, as we see in this image. They know what’s going on in this moment in the prison cell in Johannesburg. It’s the morning of the hanging and the execution and what they have gone through to understand it. Both their sons are dead now. It’s obviously an allusion to Absalom, as I said, the biblical son, the rebellious son of the biblical King David.
And there’s so many other references to the Bible, the phrases, most importantly, not only the references, because many novels use references from the Bible, but it’s the way of writing. He almost writes in a way that could come from the King James version of the Bible, which he’s also been criticised for, Alan Paton, because people say, hang on, this belongs to a whole different era. This is a different century. What are you doing, Alan Paton? Again, implicit is the attack on his writing because it’s not part of modernism, stream of consciousness, jump cut, space and time, jump the scenes, jump the images, you know, much more jagged, fragmented style of writing, almost seemingly, apparently from the unconscious, a much grittier, harsher style. It’s this constant search for identity, search for understanding, search for where to belong deep inside it. The realisation of guilt that Jarvis comes to is the realisation of the guilt of the white and colonialism, and can he forgive or can’t he? And Reverend Kumalo comes to realisation of the anger of his son, you know, of, I guess centuries of slavery and colonialism or semi-slave, colonialism, and then obviously, the beginnings of apartheid. Can he forgive? You know, but it’s his own son, you know, being executed. So all these liberal attitudes are deep inside the novel. If I can just quote from one of the pieces in the novel, get a sense of the way that Alan Paton writes, “Cry, the beloved country, cry for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply, or when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.
Let him not love the earth too deeply, cry, cry the beloved country.” There is a sense of semi-lamentation, a sense of biblical chanting almost. You know, you can feel religious experience inside the very way he’s phrased the sentences. Even that phrase “Cry, the Beloved Country,” which has become so iconic. But in context, it’s got the religious biblical rhythms inside the language. And when you read it, it’s either highly irritating and off-putting, or one surfs the wave of religious phraseology. The book sold over 15 million copies before Alan Paton’s death in 1983, 15 million. That’s extraordinary. The guy wrote it in 1948, you know? And it’s on so many school curricula. It’s studied so many places. Why? Why is it studied in so many schools internationally? You know, I don’t want to go into other things that are studied, you know, but there’s so many others. But this is one that so many people have studied and known from when they were teenagers or whenever, at high school, school. There’s also a reference to the New Testament, Book of Acts, because the very name Stephen, with the James Earl Jones character, Stephen Kumalo. And of course, Stephen was the martyr in the Book of Acts in the New Testament. 1951, the novel was adapted to the first movie by Zoltan Korda with Sidney Poitier. I’ve got a clip there, 1949, it’s only a year after it was published, was the Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson musical theatre piece, which was based on the story. And I’m going to play the one song “Lost in the Stars” with Judy Garland singing.
And it had two, when it was first a musical in New York, it had 273 performances. That’s an extraordinary amount. And the novel had just been out for a year in the late '40s. In Israel, there was a staged version by Habima Theatre in 2004. Let’s go back right to the beginning of the novel. And let’s try and feel the phrasing of how he writes. “There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. There, the grass is rich. Keep it, guard it, for it cares for you, but down in the valleys, the soil is barren. The men and the children have left. The soil cannot keep them.” You feel that language is, belongs to an ancient time, a biblical time. Does it feel sentimental, naive, that romantic echo? Or can we sense it still today? It’s an endless debate. Alan Paton’s role as a writer, as a prison reformer, as the principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for young, you know, African boys is inseparable from his Christianity. It’s inseparable from his biblical total connection. It, obviously, became at odds with the armed struggle, which became the ANC policy after 1961. Alan Paton was attacked. His solution, liberal solutions, seemed to many to be hopeless, inadequate, and really ridiculous. He feared, Alan Paton wrote about it. He feared a fatal and bloody collision between white and Black nationalism, division, brutality, and obviously, South Africa might end up. This is 1948, before apartheid instituted, you know, he’s writing it in the book. And this is from the book again. “Cry for the broken tribe. Cry for the man who is dead. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that the man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his own heart.” It’s the fear. Fear is such a motif inside the novel. It goes endlessly. You know, the Black fears the white, the white fears the Black.
They both fear history. The two fathers fear each other. It goes on and on. He goes on, “We do not know. We do not know. We live from day to day, and we put more locks on doors. We get a fine, fierce dog to guard us. We’ll put even more locks on doors. Our lives will shrink, and we shall live with fear. Our lives will shrink, and we will live with fear.” God, it’s so, for me, it still resonates, today’s time, and of course, obviously for him. He goes on, another phrase, “Who knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage that we all go through? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such a comfort when one’s own child, one’s own son is lost?” And then the big phrase that is quoted so often from the novel, “I have one great fear in my heart, that one day, when we are turned to loving finally, we will find that so many are turned to hating.” It’s this idea of, is it too simplistic? Love, hate, you know, it’s, when they have turned to loving, finally, forgiving, he means, justice, he means, by loving, we’ll discover that they’re already turned to hate, too late. I think that shows he’s aware of the criticisms of the liberal attitude. Okay, if we can show the first clip, please. This is from the Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson.
[Narrator] One of the most powerful masterpieces of the modern theatre becomes a triumphant screen event. Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “Lost in the Stars.”
It is in the air we breathe, the life we live. Here, we have nothing.
Absalom, this Earth is yours, this air, this life.
[Narrator] Brock Peters, Melba Moore, Raymond St. Jacque, and Clifton Davis star in “Lost in the Stars,” the passionate drama of fathers, sons, and lovers thrust into an alien world.
What if I desired you with my whole body? What if I desire you now?
That would not be right.
[Stephen] Was it right before, with the others?
Person, there are two races in South Africa. Whether it were my son or yours, I would’ve said, let him answer to the law.
I read my testament carefully. Jesus has not said this.
[Judge] Absalom Kumalo, have you anything to say before I pronounce sentence?
My God, man, why should your son tell the truth in a white man’s court?
Will they kill him?
[Absalom] Father.
But I want him to live.
Oh, Absalom.
We are nothing.
A terrible thing has happened. Little by little, he will shrink away from me and away from this church. Stones will break those windows still unbroken. I am lost. I am not sure that we are not all lost here. My son.
[Narrator] “Lost in the Stars,” based upon Alan Paton’s classic novel, “Cry, the Beloved Country.” ♪ Lost now here in the stars ♪
[Narrator] A great work of the theatre is now even greater on the screen. “Lost in the Stars.”
Thanks, Lauren. Thanks. If we can put up the next one, please. Okay, this is the trailer from the 1995 version. Thanks, Lauren. And if we could just put up the image for the, yeah, just the image of the next slide, please. But just hold it there. Thank you. So this was directed in South Africa, as you can see from the landscape, by Darrell Roodt, a really interesting and good South African film director. And it’s quite interesting. Quite a few of my ex-students from Wits, or some of them anyway, are, you know, have some smaller roles in the movie. So this is a story also about the fathers. For me, it’s also going deeper than the obvious South African racial conflict and the liberalism debate. But it’s also fathers and sons. And I think that’s what his movie brings out, the 1995 movie brings out so strongly is the clash between the fathers who have very different attitudes. You know, the Kumalo character is imbued with Christian forgiveness, justice, reconciliation, et cetera. And the Jarvis one is imbued with, I suppose, fairly stereotypical white South African, farmer, English, in this case, English farmer, you know, with the legacy of colonialism inside his attitude. What’s also interesting to me is that Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, they decide in the late '40s, in America, to make a musical out of this novel written by, at the time, it would’ve been a completely obscure South African writer, which has just been published.
What did they sense in their own zeitgeist, in their own era, that made them want to write it? I mean, these are, this is Kurt Weill, you know, who’s really well known in, I mean, these people are known. What did they sense in the late '40s that made them want to do the whole thing? And Weill spent a lot of time writing the music. So there’s something in all of this that obviously struck a chord for them at the time in America, from a total unknown writer, as I said. And then much later, it keeps coming. There is something about this novel, there is something about the story, which is partly sentimental. It is partly a bit too linear and a bit too logical and unfragmented for our times, I think. It doesn’t have that modernist, more jagged, rough feel, you know? And it’s full of the Christian ethos and forgiveness. There is something simple about it. And yet, it is taught everywhere. It’s been translated into so many languages. Millions and millions of copies had been sold already, you know, by the mid, late '80s, by the time of Paton’s death, even more since, it’s studied in high schools. Why? What is it that, if it is so sentimental and out of date, why would all of this be happening? Why would movies be made of it again in the mid '90s? One can say, okay, that’s linked to the Mandela period in South Africa, a bit more hope and more, maybe more idealistic, and a sense of hope because, you know, civil war with, racial civil war with possibly millions being killed is, apparently been, you know, has been held off. Why? And yet, it goes all the way back to the mid-century and then it goes on later. You know, why is, what is it? What about other very sentimental novels and films made of them? Why have they lasted? Why have they continued?
And I think, somewhere deeper in all of us, the there is, because it’s partly the liberal attitude, but partly not, because I think it does go deeper. And it’s that phrase, when we turn to loving, can we turn to, will we find it’s too late? 'Cause we already turned to hating. What about when fascism or totalitarianism starts to encroach, like a vulture’s claws onto the liberal attitude more and more? Is that not echoing of our times, similar to what he’s sensing even after the end of the Second World War? So he goes on, just, I want to give another phrase from the novel. “What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another man? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust a knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?” Does that writing work today? Does it feel too many words, too many adjectives? Is it too much filled with that rhythm of a Bible, biblical ethos? Or is there some sort of way of using this mythic, ancient quality that it still holds? It’s a fascinating debate. So it’s this idea, of course, of reconciliation over revenge for the Kumalo character, the James Earl Jones character. It’s also the idea of reconciliation over revenge for the Jarvis character, Richard Harris. Both have to change in the novel if they’re going to have any hint of, I don’t think it’s just a complete naive, you know, okay, I’ll forgive you, forgive me, you know, it’s all over goodbye.
But coming through the bitter fruit of experience, something, there’s a hint of the end of “Romeo and Juliet’ almost, you know, the two mafia families hate each other so much, "Romeo and Juliet,” that the teenage kids kill themselves for their love rather than follow what their daddy and mommy say. And there’s the, not, I wouldn’t say naive reconciliation, but there’s that sense at the end, my God, what have we done to our kids? What world have we created that our teenage kids have got to kill themselves for a bit of love? There’s also, compared to the works of these other writers who came much later, Nadine Gordimer, Coetzee, as I mentioned, Mpahlele, and many others, it can appear, this novel can appear morally simplistic. It can appear politically misguided, socially dated. Harold Bloom, the fascinating critic, in 2006, he wrote, “‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ is a humane period piece. Its humane sentiments remain admirable but in themselves do not constitute an aesthetic achievement. Yes, it has wonderful intentions, but minimal characterization and altogether unsurprising narrative development. It is as artless as it is benign.” That’s from a very important critic in 2006. What I think Bloom misses is that, underneath it, he’s really attacking the liberal attitude tied with Christianity. What’s interesting, in 1998, Alan Paton’s, this is after his death, of course, and after the end of apartheid, Alan Paton’s wife, Anne, flees, and I’ve used the word thoughtfully here, flees to London.
And she writes in the “London Sunday Times” an article entitled, “Why I’m Fleeing South Africa.” And she reminds that, readers, that the novel has sold over 50 million, and it sells a hundred thousand copies a year. But she also says, that she’s been a victim of the violent post-apartheid crime levels in South Africa. She says, “I’m glad Alan is not alive now. He would’ve been so distressed to see what has happened in his beloved country,” which of course echoes with many people in South Africa and everywhere. Perhaps what’s interesting is that she, is she still clinging that Alan Paton would hold that liberal ideology? Or let’s go back to that phrase that he wrote. “I have one great fear in my heart, that one day, when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.” It’s too late, too late for the liberal attitude. Is it? That’s from the novel in 1948. Okay, I’ve mentioned a lot about the Christian Church. I’ve mentioned a lot about the story of the two fathers and, which I think is really, really central to the whole novel. Okay? If we can show the next clip, please. This clip. It’s from the end of the movie
Go well .
[Stephen] Who knows for what we live and struggle and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort when one’s own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle is beyond all human wisdom. Oh God, my God, do not thou forsake me. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil if thou art with me.
What is it my daughter?
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Thanks, Lauren. We can hold that image, please. So that’s obviously at the end of the novel and end of the film. And like in all good filmmaking, Darrell Roodt, you know, it gives the juxtaposition of imagery, you know, from the father to the son and the two stories of what’s happening in the inner life of what’s happening in the two characters, as he juxtaposes, in the classic filmic tradition, juxtapose the images to tell the story emotionally without needing many words. Okay, so what’s interesting is that Nadine Gordimer’s, when you think about his, Alan Paton’s influence, in Nadine Gordimer’s novel “July’s People,” she uses the plot of Alan Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country,” almost in reverse, because in “July’s People,” that novel, the Black protagonist is bewildered by contact with the white city and, sorry, in “Cry, the Beloved Country,” the Kumalo character is bewildered as he goes into the white world and the big city from the rural area. And in “July’s People,” what she does is that, and Nadine Gordimer takes the white protagonist who’s forced into very intimate contact with Black rural culture. So she inverts the plot and the story fascinatingly. J.M. Coetzee, he does a similar set of plot reversals to Paton’s novel in “Life & Times of Michael K,” and of course, you know, the truly great novel, I think, of South Africa, “Disgrace,” which we’ll look at, you know, later in the series. I want to just contrast a couple of things, just to give us, now, come back, zoom out into the big picture. Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, who at the time was the editor of “Die Transvaler.”
He wrote in 1945 about Alan Paton’s work at Diepkloof. So this is before the novel has come out. Verwoerd wrote, “Diepkloof, as an institution to reform young Black delinquents, is a colossal failure.” 1945, Verwoerd is writing about Paton. So it shows already the influence, before he wrote one word, the impact he’s having in South Africa, just by reforming one small prison centre for young Black offenders. And then Verwoerd goes on to write, “Mr. Paton’s molly-coddling theories are really about the loafing about on the farms of Black ladies and gentlemen.” That’s Verwoerd. So look at the attitude towards liberalism and the Christian approach yet again, okay? We have it, and what’s fascinating to look at this novel in relation to, which during a separate time, maybe we’ll look at America. Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” now, he writes that in 1940. It’s a brilliant novel. James Baldwin, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” 1953. Ralph Ellison’s fantastic “Invisible Man,” 1952. So there’s an ethos happening in the States, obviously, around Black, white relationships happening around this time that Alan Paton’s obviously aware of and picking up on. In 1990, J.M. Coetzee, a novelist who I admire enormously, I think he’s brilliant. He writes that, and I’m quoting, “Our South African history is such that, all of a sudden, ordinary people are confronted with major decisions in a way that ordinary people are not usually faced by. I think South Africa has been a place where people have been faced with really huge moral debts.”
What I love about Coetzee is that he’s able to put it into this language, which just cuts to the chase, to share with us what he thinks, you know, I think South Africa’s been a place where people have been faced with really huge moral debts. It’s a stunning way of putting it, without getting into all the jargon of ideology, philosophy, et cetera. Ordinary people confronted with such big decisions that most ordinary people are not facing. So he’s trying to find, as a really brilliant writer, a novelist’s emotional way in as well. “The New York Times” wrote about the motion picture, that it touched the heart deeply, and there was no hint of artifice or manipulation. “The Chicago Sun Times” had the opposite approach, you know, and accused it of, it had far less negative. And it wrote, yes, the film has genuine qualities. Photography evokes a South Africa that is indeed beloved by its inhabitants, and it goes on and on and on. But it’s a critique of the liberal attitude, the simplicity, the simpleness, rather, and the naivety that goes on with it. And, you know, should the Black character have this quiet dignity?
And that the film reflects a sentimentality that may motivate people, but fail as a portrait of what it used to be like in South Africa, what really happened during apartheid, and what it’s like now. So from the Chicago newspaper and “The New York Times,” we get two very different approaches to even a much later version of the film of the novel. So what has happened to liberalism in the end? I leave it as an open debate, because I really think it’s one of the crucial debates of our times even now. In terms of literature, it’s modernism versus pre, the early, the pre-modernist approach to writing novels. And then in terms of philosophy, what I’ve spoken about liberalism versus, you know, a very different approach. And I think it goes to that heart of how we understand our own times. And that’s why I think the novel’s important ‘cause it throws out the question, what do people do if they still identify, as some do, if they still identify with the liberal attitude? What do they do about it today or not? Okay, I want to, like a good DJ, play out with Judy Garland singing from Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, “Lost in the Stars,” an amazing and beautiful song. Thanks, Lauren.
- You know, some of the most beautiful poetry ever written in America can be found in the lyrics of our popular songs. One of the most outstanding examples can be found in a song called “Lost in the Stars.” Maxwell Anderson’s lyric attempts to explain the universe and its creation to a small child in the simplest of terms. And I think you’ll find his words to be as inspired and as touching as I always have.
♪ Before Lord God made the sea and the land ♪ ♪ He held all the stars in the palm of his hand ♪ ♪ And they ran through his fingers ♪ ♪ Like grains of sand ♪ ♪ And one little star fell alone ♪ ♪ Then the Lord God hunted through the wide night air ♪ ♪ For the little dark star on the wind down there ♪ ♪ And he stated and promised ♪ ♪ He’d take special care so it wouldn’t get lost again ♪ ♪ Now a man don’t mind if the stars grow dim ♪ ♪ And the clouds blow over and darken him ♪ ♪ So long as the Lord God’s watching over him ♪ ♪ Keeping track how it all goes on ♪ ♪ But I’ve been walking through the night and day ♪ ♪ Till my eyes get weary and my head turns grey ♪ ♪ And sometimes it seems maybe God’s gone away ♪ ♪ Forgetting the promise that we all heard him say ♪ ♪ And we’re lost out here in the stars ♪ ♪ Little stars ♪ ♪ Big stars ♪ ♪ Blowing through the night ♪ ♪ And we’re lost out here in the stars ♪ ♪ Little stars ♪ ♪ Big stars ♪ ♪ Blowing through the night ♪
We can hold it there. ♪ And we’re lost ♪
Thank you. Okay, let’s hold it there. Thank you very much. And we can go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Anna, the two actors, Sidney Poitier, Canada Lee were not allowed to sleep in Jo'Burg while filming, so they lived on my cousin John Stationer’s weekend cottage between Muldersdrift and . That’s fascinating. Lockdown is extraordinary, the links that we all have and make. Thanks, Anna, that’s really interesting.
So the title is apt for what’s happening in Israel today. Pray for Israel, absolutely, and Thelma, totally apt, I agree.
Mona, essence to me, those who see the problem absent or not involved, those who don’t know the problem, the father unaware, so universal. That’s a great way of seeing it, who’s aware and who is denying or unaware, as you said.
Rose, thanks for the distraction after this morning’s terrible war in Israel. I agree. Well, about the terrible war. I got the book is a prize in Cape Town that I matriculated. Fascinating.
Rita, thank you, for your kind comment.
Howard, my cousin, how are you in Washington? Read the theme of Absalom father son’s relationship, David’s reaction to Absalom’s death. Yeah. Fascinating. Exactly. Which obviously Alan Paton’s totally aware of and totally using, adapting. Oh, my son, Absalom. My son, my son Absalom. Would I have died instead of you? Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. Absolutely Howard. Thank you. Hope you’re well there in Washington.
David, I think the book was revolutionary for South Africa at the time. Yes. It was the first novel, well, there was Olive Schreiner, Roy Campbell as a poet. There were others that had, but they’d never gone in such an in-depth way with the racial experience as Alan Paton did. At the time, yeah, gave a human picture to African individuals. Yes. And human is why it’s, this was unique in my memory of the time, not a stereotype figure as hitherto. Yeah, great point. Hillel. In the left Zionist summer camp in New York, the early '50s, a memorable performance of “Lost in the Stars” was done as a form of identification with the struggle against apartheid and for equality in America. Fascinating, Hillel. Thank you.
What also really fascinates me, as I said earlier, was that Kurt Weill, you know, this German emigre, maybe it’s not so surprising, the outsider, you know, who’d come from, who escapes the Nazis, is working with Maxwell Anderson, and in the late '40s, write a musical theatre piece on it. Harold, how appropriate a title for a country and luck with Israel, yeah. The same, thank you. Yeah, I agree. It’s a brilliant title. You know, it’s, I’ve known writers and playwrights and others who will spend four months, six months, just trying to come up with a title, because it’s so powerful and important in any time, especially in our time. And it’s a brilliant, endlessly evocative title.
Rita, the music is stunning. Yeah.
Bridget, this brings fantastic memories. I was a child in the Liberal Party household. Alan Paton was a greatly respected man, and the book, must read. That’s fascinating, Bridget. Thank you. Again, Lockdown brings together such extraordinary connections.
Susan, powerful trailer. Yeah, Darrell Roodt, I think really got it. The trailer without the voices, you know, that the emotion would come out through the visual juxtaposition of images and the music. Also, I think he knew that a lot of people would’ve read it or studied it at school, the novel. So, you know, he could play with some of that as well. But he did it superbly, I think, especially in that trailer, as you say.
Q: Yana, with regard to why a musical, allowing for the societal change across two decades. Is there not a societal criticism thread that connects Cry and show bird?
A: Yeah, that’s fascinating, Yana. That’s a really good point. Thank you.
Jill, excellent book, “One Man, One Vote,” “A Liberal Life Under Apartheid,” written by his son, Roy Isacowitz, tracing his roots from Lithuania via communism to the liberal party in South Africa, from anti-Zionism to an admirer of the new Jewish State. That’s a really interesting, I’m going to Google it afterwards. Jill, thank you.
Vra? Read about other country today in Israel. Does man ever change? Yeah, don’t lose hope. Dr. Devora. Sorry, okay. Never lose hope. Never, never surrender to that.
Ron, good to see you. Hope you’re well. I recall that Weill and Maxwell Anderson worked on a musical in the late '30s on the theme of an African Ulysses, ah, that was never finished. Some of the songs of the title “Lost in the Stars” were originally for that work. A number of White American composers, notably, of course, Gershwin, composed music greatly influenced by the Black spirituals.
Absolutely. Gershwin and others. Definitely. And from what I’ve read, Kurt Weill certainly absorbed and understood so many of the American musical genres of the times, certainly Black spirituals.
And Ron, yeah, Maxwell Anderson. Yeah, thank you.
Riva, please define liberalism as understood in this era. We could go in with that, but I think that part of the crucial debate is how authoritarianism is taking hold in the West. Obviously, it’s in countries elsewhere, but in the democracies, I think more and more. I don’t want to go into the reasons that I think it is now. And it is seriously, obviously, under siege, under attack. Ideas of freedom of speech and how to use it, ideas of social justice, ideas of helping improve society, a kind of moral core. And I’m not linking it to the religion of Alan Paton now, or anyone, but liberalism specifically, I’m not linking it to Christianity or any religion at the moment, but it’s a sense of social justice, really. And, you know, not only an acceptance of other groups and other peoples, but a sense, if you broaden out that umbrella phrase of social justice into the ordinary day-to-day experience, the rights of individuals, human rights, all of these things can be, you know, from the end of the enlightenment into liberalism. And some argue it’s gone. You know, it was a phase. Some argue that it is under serious, serious threat, or some say, it’s in a quicksand at the moment. And that’s why the novel interests me.
Q: Joan, would Paton have been influenced by Olive Schreiner?
A: Yes. I don’t think, I think Olive Schreiner and another writer who I love, Herman Charles Bosman, I think they would’ve read and understood and known they were, 'cause at the time, it was such small groups, it still is. But there were such small groups of writers living in South Africa, living in England. And you know, they travelled, and they were educated, very, very few were educated and would’ve understood and connected. I think they would’ve been aware.
Stan, thank you.
Dennis, in the US, Roy Isacowitz’s book, “Telling People What They Don’t Want to Hear,” yeah.
Q: Roger, can you compare this book with the work of Fugard?
A: Whoa, Fugard is another whole world, which we don’t have time for at the moment, but yes. I think all, and I include myself, all of our South Africans are writing, you know, the fault lines and the borders are fluid. They’re porous, and we feed into each other. All writers from that country and elsewhere feed into each other, consciously or unconsciously, certainly Fugard. They would’ve all read Alan Paton, I think.
Susan, pray for Israel. I agree.
Okay. So thank you very much everybody. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend. Hope, a prayer for Israel, as you say. And Lauren, thanks so much, and have a good time. Thanks as always, Lauren. Take care.