Uselessly - Aryan Kaganof (Jacana)
buy uselessly now (in south africa) (in united kingdom)
KAGANOF, we are told on the back cover, is the “foremost counter-culture revolutionary in South Africa” and a one-man cultural industry, producing paintings, books, clothes, films, music, photographs and criticism.
This novel is based around a set of letters to God, written by JJ Uselessly, 39, whose estranged father is dying. Through a series of reminiscences, meetings, journeys, conversations and reflections we are asked to engage with “being” in South Africa today – with whiteness, with being Jewish and with various social and personal family relationships. There is little in the novel, though, to confirm the claim about Kaganof being a foremost counter-culture writer, except for a series of rather unimaginative and contrived rebellious attitudes, events and imaginings.
Gary Minkley
this review first appeared in the dispatch
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