The Beadle by Pauline Smith
When Little M and I first started blogging about books, I
found that all my recommendations were from my own childhood, teenagehood and
even early university years. I also kept referring to some of these books as
must-reads and using them as benchmarks. But, it’s been years since I’d read
them and I really didn’t have any idea of whether or not they would still stack
up.
Since reviewing, I started noticing things about my own reading habits, and the sorts of
themes or aspects of a novel that I would pick out in comparison to Little M
and other book bloggers. It really hit home that context and life-stage affect
my reading experience (not much a revelation in theory but it is in practice).
Then I came across the Classics Club
where you have to read at least fifty classics in five years (the definition of
classics is left up to each individual reader). That’s what gave me the final
push to rereading. My first re-read and my first read for the Classics Club is
The Beadle by Pauline Smith.
But my review of it has a long, contextual story.
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| The Beadle by Pauline Smith |
However, The Beadle is out of
print and buying a secondhand copy of it in the UK was rather too pricey. Lo and behold, what do I find on holiday in the middle of
South Africa’s Klein Karoo (Little Karoo)? Dustcovers, a secondhand,
collectibles and antique bookshop in the middle of the now trendy but still
rural karoo town of Nieu Bethesda. Yes, there it was. A copy of The Beadle.
So the scene for my re-read has been perfectly set. I’ve
just stayed in the middle of the karoo on a farm. I’ve bought the book in the
karoo too. And of course, The Beadle is set in a little karoo valley.
Review
The Beadle is set in the very rural karoo when carts were
still the main means of travel and when the role and standing of the church was
paramount. It is a poignant and softly biting portrayal of coming-of-age in
rural South Africa The story is about Andrina who lives with her aunts and the surly
old beadle, Aalst Vlokman, on the Harmonie farmland. Her mother, Klaartje, ran
away for home and died in childbirth, and there are all sorts of family secrets
lurking in the background. Andrina is sweet and seventeen and she’s just about
to join the church. And then an Englishman arrives at the farm.
Published in 1926, the language as well as the story are
almost of a completely bygone time but it is still an easy but evocative read. Having
read a little of Olive Schreiner’s The Story of An African Farm, the vocabulary
and language use is similar.
The Beadle's story, on one level, is a very simple one about
sin, moralities, taboos, betrayals, love and religion.
I remember feeling terribly sorry for some of the characters
when I first read this book. The kind of feeling that must be empathy because
how they must have felt gets right into the pit of your stomach and refuses to
leave you. The effect of the story this time around wasn’t as intense – I’m
older and wiser and the story is nothing new. Not like it would have been when
I was a teenager.
Second time around, yes, I enjoyed The Beadle. For anyone
interested in South African literature (or young adult literature from another time and place), I’d definitely recommend this. As a
novel, it has been heavily negatively criticised since the 1970s by the likes
of Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee for its portrayal of the rural Afrikaner and
promoting the need for nationalist ideology in South Africa (and this critique may have been vital at that time in Sputh Africa's history). Pauline Smith may well do that, and if you’re
looking for this, you’ll find it – the Englishman certainly doesn’t come off
well. However, that’s not how I saw The Beadle at all (but I wasn’t especially
looking for it).
For me, The Beadle, as it was on my first reading, is Andrina
and Klaartje’s story. And theirs is a story that we still find today in all
sorts of settings.
Publication details:First published 1926.
This edition: 1990, David Philip, Cape Town, paperback, my own
It seems as if you were meant to pick this up!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds very interesting and seems like a really good read. It's lovely to hear the story behind it, as well. Thanks for sharing! :)
Thank you, Lucy, I'm really glad you enjoyed hearing the story too.
DeleteI loved your little story of how you found the book. Not quite decided about when but I think I will put it on my list of Someday Reads. Thank you - great writing as well as reviewing.
ReplyDeleteThank you Candy, how kind of you. My someday list is huge too but just the process of having one is enriching for me.
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