kagablog

Aryan Kaganof, wat pas ‘n omstrede boek oor Suid-Afrika in Nederland die lig laat sien het, gedurende ‘n onlangse besoek aan Kaapstad afgeneem.

STEPHANIE NIEUWOUDT

DIE Engelse manuskrip Hectic! lees vinnig. Dis amper soos tonele uit ‘n rolprent ‘n nihilistiese orgie van seks, drank en ander vergrype. En dan kom jy by die laaste hoofstuk. En jy is lus om lank en hard te ween.

Die Engelse manuskrip deur Aryan Kaganof is deur ‘n plaaslike uitgewer afgekeur, maar onmiddellik deur die Nederlandse uitgewery Podium opgeraap en onder die titel Hectisch uitgegee 15 000 eksemplare is met die eerste oplaag gedruk.

“Die boek maak geld vir my,'’ sê Kaganof, terwyl hy agteroor leun op ‘n rusbank in ‘n kuierplek in Melville.

Jy trap in die strik om iets van die hoofkarakter in die skrywer te soek. Maar Kaganof lyk asof hy gereeld bad, daar is geen opsigtelike tekens van dwelmmisbruik nie kortom, hy lyk doodgewoon.

“Red is ver verwyderd van wie ek is. Ek hou daarvan om by die huis te wees. Ek maak huis skoon. Ek is baie huislik,'’ sê Kaganof droogweg.

Maar as deel van sy navorsing het hy baie tyd in kroeë en biljartsale deurgebring saam met mense soos die karakters in die boek. Die hoofkarakter, Red, is ‘n ankerlose man van Kaapstad wat op 36 nog by sy tante bly. Sy beste vriend is ‘n neo-Nazi wat sy argwaan op swart mense uithaal en sy meisie, Spacey, drink te veel en gebruik dwelms.

“Ek was baie verlig toe ek uiteindelik kon terugkeer na my gewone huislike omgewing,'’ sê Kaganof.

Dis ‘n nihilistiese verhaal wat nie veel hoop laat vir die Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskap nie, met taal wat as haatspraak beskou sal word.

“Daar is ‘n moontlikheid dat die boek in die hande van ‘n ongesofistikeerde regse leser kan beland wat dit kan gebruik om sy eie agenda te bevorder,'’ sê Kaganof. “Maar die boek kan nie sonder die woorde bestaan nie. Die mense met wie ek uitgehang het, praat so.

“Hulle is deel van ‘n bepaalde kultuur. As skrywer wil ek die karakters se werklikheid weergee. My taak is nie om ‘n morele teks te skryf nie of om die regering se norme te bevorder nie. Ek gee vir die leser hakies wat hy kan gebruik om vir homself te dink.

“My boek is nie op die onkritiese massamark gerig nie. Wetgewing spreek nie die werklikheid aan dat daar mense is wat dié woorde gebruik nie.'’ Hy sien die boek as ‘n metafoor vir die groot groep blanke Suid-Afrikaners onder wie die mat ná 1994 uitgetrek is.

“Dis mense wat niks het nie nie die kerk, die politiek, of ‘n werk om aan vas te hou nie. Die veranderings in die land het so vinnig plaasgevind dat hulle nie kans gehad het om tot verhaal te kom nie.

“Red is een van dié mense. Hy wil nie voel nie en gebruik dwelms en alkohol om homself af te stomp. Maar jy kan nooit heeltemal afgestomp raak nie. Die woede moet uiteindelik uitkom.

“In dié subkultuur is daar nie werklike kommunikasie nie. Dis karakters wat roep om terapie.'’

Hou Kaganof van sy hoofkarakter? “Ek het empatie met hom, want hy beskik nie oor die emosionele gereedskap om die verlede of die hede te hanteer nie. Net so is duisende Suid-Afrikaners nie in staat om met die nuwe Suid-Afrika vrede te maak nie. Hulle ly aan ‘n vorm van post-traumatiese stres.'’

Hy het die gebeure in Kaapstad laat afspeel omdat hy ná jare in die buiteland met sy terugkeer gevind het dié stad het die minste van al die Suid-Afrikaanse stede verander.

“Kaapstad is amper reaksionêr. Dis ironies, want in die jare sewentig was Kaapstad aan die snykant van verandering. Dis beslis nie so interessant soos Johannesburg nie.'’

Kaganof, wat as die filmmaker Ian Kerkhof groot lof ingeoes het vir onder meer Nice to meet you, please don’t rape me, Wasted/Naar de Klote! en die dokumentêr Western 4.33, het Suid-Afrika in 1983 verlaat om diensplig te ontduik en het baie jare in Nederland deurgebring.

“My tyd in Europa het my sinies gemaak oor die konsep van ‘n nie-rassige wêreld. Wat rassisme betref, is dinge maar oral ter wêreld baie soortgelyk. Die Nederlanders was net baie goed daarmee om die swart-wit-kwessies te kamoefleer.

“Die gebeure om Pim Fortuyn en die regses is ‘n bewys daarvan. Die kultuur van weerstand wat in die jare tagtig in Nederland opvallend was, het dramaties verander.

“Dis ironies dat die Swede en die Dene, wat miljoene rande gewerp het in die stryd teen apartheid, ‘n rassistiese agenda het. Ek is in Denemarke gevloek terwyl ek met ‘n swart vriend in die straat gestap het. In Suid-Afrika is ‘n skoner en meer naakte verwoording van wat hier gebeur het. Dis waar ek wil wees.'’

Om nog romans te skryf en rolprente te maak en kunsuitstallings te hou wat die dikwels onsmaaklike waarhede van Suid-Afrika oopkloof.

this interview first appeared in dieburger

One of the main problems of the picaresque is what to do with the hero, who is moving from episode to episode. Should he be a picaro, that is, a more or less mild rogue, who comes to a good or bad end, thus exemplifying various kinds of achievement or failure? Should he be put through an education sentimentale, or should he remain a mere cypher linking the satirical sketches together?

Kaganof adopts the most poetic solution by giving his anti-hero Cool Red an incorruptible purity, which represents the hope for good that springs eternal in every breast. The character becomes a symbol of the soul voyaging naively through the welter of the Absurd world, and the various forms of evil fall into a pattern in relationship to his central innocence. Cool Red, undergoes some curious changes. At first, he is an average no-go-getter with moments of boyish decency; later he turns into a more deliberate rogue; but then – just when he is at his most roguish – the book ends.

Kaganof leaves us screaming for more. Hectic! cries out for a sequel.

cècile lomer
the african book publishing record

hi aryan

had a dream last nite
of Hectic!
i was walking down Raleigh Street, Yeoville
and went into the FNB
and there was a copy of
Hectic!
on a display stand
so i picked it up and it was
a printer’s proof
with your corrections and
loads of annotations
in the margin
i then asked a woman at
the enquiries desk
if it was for sale and if i
could buy it
but she said: ‘ we’d have to ask
the credit department about that.’

gary cummiskey

“i want to let out a fart but this is the non-smoking section…”

jeez, ive only read 3 pages and already i can see why this book has attracted attention. its SIZZLINGLY funny…
koos kombuis

Aryan Kaganof, previously known as filmmaker Ian Kerkhof, offered his debut Hectic! to various established publishing houses - in vain. ‘We can’t publish this book, they said, because we’re not sophisticated enough to read it, because we’ll think you’re an AWB-writer. I couldn’t believe it’, says Kaganof. He then ended up publishing it himself, followed by a Dutch translation.
With Hectic! Kaganof further penetrated the literary space that Coetzee had opened up. He wrote an anti-moralistic novel that is set in Cape Town, and deals with the subculture of young people who hang out in pool halls. That’s where Kaganof found the essence of the white South African. ‘The whites in this country are all white trash. No European who was on any level a worthwhile human being came into this country. The shit, the detritus and the dirt came here and invented the Negro, the kaffir, because then they could feel better about themselves. So if you want to find those things out you have to go to the lower classes, because that’s the history of the country, all the rest is affectation. Culture is very skin-deep with the white South Africans, all ersatz culture. Real South African culture is fighting and drinking and sports.’
He wanted to get to the heart of a subculture he was part of. ‘There was no other mission. To show people as they really are, not these people talking political things of change and all this rubbish. And nothing about guilt from the past. Most of the people I know live their life and don’t give a fuck about anything. They’re pissed off with all that shit.’

this interview first published by the muse apprentice guild

http://www.uwc.ac.za/arts/bushvibes/index.htm

REVIEW

Possibly the most daunting postcolonial novel to emerge from South Africa, Hectic most certainly lives up to its name.

The main character in the novel is a character called Cool Red Kowalski and all of the action is seen through his eyes. 

Cool Red is his 30s, but with no job, no money, no driver’s licence, no girlfriend and positively Neanderthal attitudes to other people,  his prospects are, ah, limited shall we say ?  Yet Kaganof uses this horribly flawed character to take us on a gut-wrenching picaresque journey through the various subcultures that inhabit the low life part of Sea Point,  Cape Town.

Kowalski lives on Carling Black Label, cadged sex, whatever drugs are going and through all this, he nurtures an ambition to marry the bizarre Miss Absa Mallurby, the barmaid queen of Stones pool hall.  Along with his buddy Sven and occasionally the ugly and horribly screwed up girl, Spacey, Cool Red Kolwalski endures a number of excruciating incidents, all of which are building towards the novel’s explosive ending.

Couched in a deliciously wicked ironic framework, this novel blazes along at warp speed.  Beware though, it’s not for the faint hearted as Kowalski appears to have a full frontal go at anything that crosses his path.  Car guards, Afrikaners, politicians, Rasta’s, the magic mushroom Observatory hippy types and pretty much everybody in between, are pulled apart by a character with no obvious moral framework.  This, ironically, is what gives the novel its strength.  The humour borders on the grotesque most of the time, but in fine postcolonial style, the function of the humour is to subvert entrenched conservative values and challenge supposedly enlightened or democratic attitudes.

Hectic is tough meat.  Some will find the text too “18 SVL” for their liking.  But Hectic needs to be read; it deserves to be on an underground list of “must reads” along with Bitterkomix and the recent stuff by Koos Kombuis.  If there was a single novel that could signal a spiraling breakaway direction in SA postcolonial writing, then Hectic must rank as the groundbreaker.

The writer, Aryan Kaganof, is a South African filmmaker who went into exile during the apartheid years.  Whilst living and working in the Netherlands, he established a global reputation for aggressive underground documentaries and in your face short films.  Hectic represents something of a first for independent or self publishing in SA.  It has been through 5 printings since 2002 and is a product of the new technology of print-on-demand.  Basically print-on-demand requires that a text be completed in digital format and copies are printed as and when required; there being no need for vast print volumes as in a conventional print run.  This process permits an author to bypass traditional publishing routes and take control of the entire book production and marketing process for him/herself. 

I bought my copy at Exclusive Books, ironic proof that even the most radical and subversive things run the risk of being embraced by the establishment!

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