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buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

this letter first published on acoustic strings

this review first published on deon skade’s blog acoustic strings

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

dear aryan

I have finished reading Uselessly. What a beautiful and moving ending. It is by far the most accessible work of yours I have read or seen. I think it is because it is an overwhelmingly great gesture of love and affection, and this impulse is responsible for a degree of narrative coherence you’d normally eschew. This love you feel for your father doesn’t soften the edges of the work, but it does make the work peaceful in a way I have not encountered in your other work. If all writing bandages the wound of life (as I think your beloved Cioran wrote), in this book you are not tearing away those bandages yourself. You are not writing against yourself, relentlessly applying and stripping the bandages from the wound. I think this has to do with love and pain and the limits of endurance in the face of these things. But the wound is no less real for this.

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

This is your second novel I have read thus far, and find it exceptionally brilliant. Mind you this is an understatement, because there’s so much to highlight and celebrate from it, I don’t even know where to start – Gees Aryan! The protagonist, the varied narration, the ‘style’ of presentation, the brutal ‘sincerity’ of some characters and the unorthodox presentation of this novel make for a work of art that’s overwhelming to one’s psyche. I’m dumbstruck.

I loved it greatly – well done!

” I think I just became his biggest fan, by the way. Yup, reckon I’m now a sworn devotee. Read Uselessly…twice! The most absorbing book of the year so far; fab!”

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review by Koos Kombuis

Daar is heelwat Suid-Afrikaanse kunstenaars wat baie graag naam wil maak oorsee. Daar is ouens wat liedjies komponeer oor plekke soos Brakpan, maar eintlik droom hulle van ‘n uitverkoop-aand in die Royal Albert. Daar is skrywers wat boeke skryf oor longdrops in die Karoo en drug trips in Seepunt, maar in hulle harte voel hulle dat hulle die script vir “Trainspotting” sou kon doen.

Dan is daar Aryan Kaganof.

Reeds vir jare lank is hy bekend oorsee. Hy hou kunsuitstallings in New York, vervaardig kultus-flieks in Amsterdam. Onder die naam “Ian Kerkhof” behaal hy roem en respek op die internasionale front; helaas nie ‘n huishoudelike naam soos Tretchikoff of Steven Spielberg nie, maar nou ja. Ian Kerkhof is iemand om mee rekening te hou. Hy is cutting edge.

Toe, een dag, ontdek hy sy roots. Toe, een dag, onthou hy dat hy eintlik in Suid-Afrika gebore is. Toe, een dag, word hy “wedergebore” as ‘;n Suid-Afrikaner, verander hy sy naam na Aryan Kaganof, en koop ‘n vliegkaartjie hiernatoe.

In Seepunt word hy herenig met sy biologiese vader, en hy trek by hom in die woonstel in. Hier begin hy sy mees persoonlike gedagtes neerskryf in ‘n reeks notaboekies. Uitiendelik groei hierdie aantekeninge tot ‘n roman; ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse roman. ‘n Roman gevul met karakters uit Seepunt, Stellenbosch, Alberton, en allerhande mundane plaaslike plekke.

As Aryan Kaganof probeer die voormalige Ian Kerkhof nou naam maak as ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse skrywer.

Die roman “Uselessly” is sy eerste vollengte literêre poging.

Daar was ook ander pogings. Hy het ‘n hele rolprent in Johannesburg geskiet op selfone en dit versprei op die Internet. Daar was ook digbundels, uitstallings, selfs pogings tot mode-ontwerp. Aryan Kaganof is ‘n Renaissance-man, en as sulks deel van die Afrika-Renaissance; miskien nie op presies die manier wat Thabo Mbeki dit sou wou hê nie, maar, nou ja, you can’t keep a good man down.

Anders as J.M. Coetzee, wat die Pullitzer-prys gewen het toe hy nog hier gewoon het, en toe Australië toe getrek het om alleen te wees tussen die skape en die kangaroo’s, het Kaganof besluit om hiernatoe te trek en sy inernasionale loopbaan vireers “on hold” te sit.

Hierdie gegewe alleen behoort genoeg te wees om enigiemand se nuuskierigheid te prikkel. Ek moet egter erken dat ek “Uselessly” gelees het voordat ek enige van hierdie feite geweet het. Ek had geen benul Kaganof en Kerkhof is dieselfde persoon nie. Ek was onbewus daarvan dat die grootste deel van die roman inderdaad autobiografies was, en het dit gelees soos fiksie. My reaksie op die teks was totaal en al gestroop van enige vooropgestelde idee’s.

Eerstens: ja, daar was hinderlikhede. Was ek ‘n uitgewer, sou ek ‘n boek soos “Uselessly” dalk ‘n bietjie meer ge-edit het. Daar is geweldig baie herhalings – soms tot ‘n hele bladsy – en die voor-die-hand-liggende woordspeling tussen die titel “Uselessly” en die James Joyce-werk “Ulysses” is ietwat deliberaat en boonop nie vreeslik snaaks nie. ‘n Te groot deel van die boek bestaan uit slimmighede en one-liners; goeie one-liners, okei, maar hel, mens kan net soveel genialiteite hanteer voor jy begin voel dit hinder die verloop van die storie.

Ten spyte van hierdie slaggate (wat Kaganof nie vermy nie, en waarteen sy uitgewers hom klaarblyklik nie gewaarsku het nie), is “Uselessly” ‘n boeiende, eerlike, interessante, en werklik vars leeservaring.

Ek is nie seker presies hoekom ek in die loop van die 192 bladsye verlief geraak het op Kaganof se manier van werk nie. Ek weet ook dis nie enige leser se koppie tee nie. Maar daar is iets in sy prosa – die soort varsgeid wat mens laas ervaar het met die vroeë werk van Kurt Vonnegut, gemengd met die kinderlike sinsime van Darrel Bristow-Bovey, wat jou eenvoudig om die hart gryp en meesleur, meesleur. Aan die einde van ‘n boek soos hierdie is jy of ‘n Kaganof-fan vir altyd, of jy wil jou polse sny. Of beide.

‘n Ou wat dinge kan kwytraak soos die volgende, verdien ons volgehoue aandag:
“Life in Cape Town is an ongoing soap about waiters and menus. It’s a bit like sitting in a Peter Stuyvesant ad.”

“My entire childhood, I longed for abuse. Everywhere I went, I was always hearing how some kid got abused, and gradually I began to believe that I was the ugliest, most unappealing child in the world, because nobody ever took time off from their busy schedules to interfere with me.”

“I have raped, I have battered, I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen, I have betrayed, I have perjured, I have bullied, I have depraved, I have run away. In short, I have led a very normal life. But I have never committed genocide. Not yet.”

Nou ja, wat kan mens hierop sê?

Baie, baie welkom in die Nuwe Suid-Afrika, Aryan Kaganof. Jy sal beslis tuis voel hier.

this review, in a slightly altered form, was first published in the rapport newspaper.

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

great book!

I have been planning to write to you for quite some time now, since I finished reading your book some months back. I enjoyed Uselessly. This book is not just funny. It is also poignant and wise; smartly oxymoronic and brilliantly moronic! Best of all, it is iconoclastic, not only in content but in form. I truly love this book!

Zakes Mda

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

Uselessly / Aryan Kaganof. – Johannesburg : Jacana Media, 2006. – 192 p. – ISBN 978-1-77009-100-9

De kaft geeft als toelichting op de titel de volgende hint: “A very funny book about me, my dad, the Devil and God”. En Koos Kombuis zegt over Uselessly het volgende: “Ek is nie seker presies hoekom ek in die loop van die 192 bladsye verlief geraak het op Kaganof se manier van werk nie. Ek weet ook dis nie enige leser se koppie tee nie. Maar daar is iets in sy prosa – die soort varsgeid wat mens laas ervaar het met die vroeë werk van Kurt Vonnegut, gemengd met die kinderlike sinisme van Darrel Bristow-Bovey, wat jou eenvoudig om die hart gryp en meesleur, meesleur. Aan die einde van ‘n boek soos hierdie is jy of ‘n Kaganof-fan vir altyd, of jy wil jou polse sny. Of beide.”

**

this article originally appeared here

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

June 22, 2006
By Gary Cummiskey
Place: Jacana
Price: R135

The multitalented Aryan Kaganof has previously produced novels such as Hectic!, Stones Again and Laduma (as AK Thembeka). Kaganof’s fiction tends to be drawn directly from his own life, but most especially so in his latest novel, Uselessly, which focuses on his relationship, and reconciliation, with his once-estranged father.

Constructed as a series of letters to God by the male narrator JJ Uselessly, the novel constantly shifts between past and present. Back in the early 1960s, Harry Uselessly, JJ’s father, who prefers to arrange abortions for his pregnant lovers than use a condom, makes Daphne Nobody pregnant.

Though Harry gives Daphne money to have an abortion, she decides to have the child instead. JJ grows up in with his mother in a flat in Joubert Park, slowly beginning to despise her for her constant complaints about blacks and Jews, and will eventually regard the most irritating thing about her as being that she never realised how stupid she was.

Years later, as an adult filmmaker and poet in Holland, JJ receives a letter from Harry’s current girlfriend, telling him that Harry has been very ill, and that it would be a good time for JJ to return to SA, as his father wants to see him.

The novel thus focuses mainly on the reconciliation between ageing father and near-middle-aged son, and the scenes move from JJ’s interaction with his father in Cape Town and his own life in Joburg, having his car stolen, living off his girlfriend, spending almost every spare moment writing, and refusing to work for a living.

Indeed, the bond that seems to connect father and son is their mutual unconventional attitude to society, their refusal to be tied to commitments, a need for independence, and an admitted misogynist attitude towards women. To show allegiance to his father, JJ changes his surname from Nobody to Uselessly.

The tone of the novel is generally humourous, biting, irreverent and satirical. Yet beneath the humour there is sadness, tenderness, nostalgia and regret.

Some of the warmest scenes involve JJ’s recollections as a child playing the role of DJ during parties in his mother’s flat, and his walks with the family maid to visit her husband in prison
.

There is an early indication of his disdain for material possessions as he throws his toys over the balcony into the street below. There is also a silent scream of emotional pain as JJ recalls how his mom would verbally abuse him, saying that she should have used a knitting needle on herself and flushed him down the toilet.

Harry generally comes across as a somewhat selfish, hedonistic and miserly character, and his chuckling remark that he had sold what was to become the notorious Vlakplaas torture farm to the Nationalist government in the 1970s, seems callous (in fact he says he should have charged them more).

But in a scene, set towards the end of his life, when he phones JJ and weeps, saying he feels terrible that he left JJ to be raised alone with his crazed mother, there is a momentary insight into a vulnerable and guilt-ridden man.

Fairly early in the novel, JJ is puzzled that God has never met Harry in Heaven, because, despite “the abortions and that Nazi stuff”, he was essentially a very good man.

Like Nietzsche (who also appears in the novel) Kaganof questions conventional notions of good and evil, and his making God the recipient of JJ’s letters, as well as the references to Harry as being The Devil and Daphne as The Fallen Woman, are not incidental.

To conventional thinking, Harry is a selfish villain and Daphne a discarded victim, but in Daphne’s embittered and abusive attitude towards JJ, and Harry’s later warm reconciliation with him, we are forced to reassess such surface attitudes. But irrespective of parents’ intentions, the bottom line is, as Harry quotes from Philip Larkin: “They f**k you up your mom and dad, they may not mean to but they do.”

Uselessly is an enjoyable, engrossing and sometimes disturbing novel, which throughout its almost 200 pages never loses momentum. Written in a casual, colloquial style, it is a definite “must read”.

this review first published in The Star

buy uselessly now (in south africa)

ISBN 1-77009-100-9
published by JACANA

Dionysos ANDRONIS

Editions Jacana , Johannesburg, 2006

Ce cinquième roman de Aryan Kaganof est le plus métaphorique de l’auteur mais son vocabulaire est le moins difficile. Il n’y a pas ici des phrases en afrikaans, comme dans le premier roman «Hectic / Agité », ni des termes techniques comme dans le roman précédent «Citizen Cohen » qui est une bonne parodie du milieu cinématographique à travers les vécus autobiographiques du cinéaste. Sur la couverture du premier recueil de poèmes de Kaganof «Drive thru funeral », publié en 2003, il y a la référence d’un roman «James Joyce Uselessly » qui devrait sortir en 2003 mais qui est sorti finalement en 2006 avec le titre allégé «Uselessly . En espérant qu’il sera vite traduit en français, je vais vous le présenter brièvement.
James Joyce Uselessly est le héros du roman, c’est à dire Kaganof lui-même. La temporalité est facile aussi, pas très enchevêtrée. Le point de départ se trouve deux ans après la mort du père biologique de l’héros, Harry Uselessly, qui souffre d’un cancer en phase terminale. Tout le roman qui suit est un retour en arrière sur les derniers mois de la vie de Harry. Son fils l’avait rencontré seulement une fois dans la passé mais cette fois est évoquée en mise en abîme surnaturelle avec, comme personnages, Nietzsche et Mishima, deux auteurs chers à Kaganof. Nous avons lu vraiment très vite le roman «Uselessly » parce que la fluidité de l’histoire est significative, comme la valeur symbolique des personnages. Les derniers mois de la vie de Harry Uselessly sont évoqués par le biais de plusieurs lettres écrites par son fils J.J. (James Joyce). Chaque lettre commence par la phrase «Dear God / Cher Dieu…Thank you for your reply / Merci pour ta réponse » et nous décrit les vécus récents du fils J.J. Lors de notre dernière rencontre parisienne du 6-2-7 avec Aryan Kaganof, nous lui avons posé cette question sur l’origine de ce commencement et il nous a donné la confirmation que ça vient de nos anciennes lettres. Nous commencions toujours ainsi et nous continuions avec nos nouvelles récentes.
Il ne faut pas vous raconter la fin entièrement mais nous allons vous raconter seulement la moitié. L’avant dernière page 189 contient un parallélisme étrange qui peut servir comme la clé du mystère de cette quête du père. Ce parallélisme peut se résumer ainsi : DEVIL – GOD – DAD. La rencontre avec le père inconnu a été une rencontre très significative qui résume toute l’esthétique ambiguë Kaganovienne, comme nous l’avons plusieurs fois remarqué à travers nos textes. Une esthétique de l’équivoque centrée sur les facettes trompeuses du Mauvais et du Bon. Kaganof est un véritable adepte de Kenneth Anger. Ce dernier avait imaginé poétiquement l’Ascension du Diable («Lucifer Rising » est le titre d’un ancien film à lui) par le biais de la personnalité de son père spirituel, le «sataniste » anglais Aleister Crowley, qui figure plusieurs fois dans ce KagaBlog.
La dernière page du roman « Uselessly » nous décrit à travers un poème la chute des Twin Towers à New York en 2001, après la mort du père Harry.
Dans ce dernier roman de Kaganof, les citations homophobes indirectes sont discrètes et correctes : « I’m sitting with my old pals Gordon’s and Schweppes when a truckload of lesbos pours in….Then the lesbian babble takes hold. » (op.cit.page 118) Nous vous invitons à lire aussi le poème «a PC poem (not) » (voir ma rubrique personnelle du KagaBlog), traduit en français par nous. Ses allusions sont similaires mais sa brièveté voulue et intentionnelle nous laisse supposer qu’il a des non-dits, comme dans tous les poèmes métaphoriques.
Les non-dits du roman de Kaganof concernent surtout la condition artistique à affronter des imprévus, à s’inspirer par ces derniers et à les envisager comme des tours du sort qui visent à nous familiariser avec l’inconnu (ici il s’agit du père biologique). C’est la quête de l’inconnu la véritable nature de la quête artistique !

Just getting back to your book Uselessly – it really resonates with me
Thanks for writing it
rehad desai

A Review by Omoseye Bolaji

Uselessly is a very interesting book, readable, irreverent, witty, iconoclastic, zany, reflective, spontaneous, brimful of earnest affections. Or otherwise!

There is a hoary argument that works like these are essentially autobiographical, perhaps what respected African literary doyen, Es’kia Mphahlele suggested as “fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction”. It scarcely matters. There is a tendency for many “pundits” to assume that once a work is written in the first person,, it smacks of autobiography. It is a theory that can be pure balderdash, tosh. Dick Francis’ and his dozens of thrilling, convincing novels written in the first person – what fool would suggest such works are strongly autobiographical?

Uselessly is a humorous book, but not as funny as it is touted to be. But there are dollops of wit or humour scattered throughout the work alright. From the beginning we are told how the protagonist “used all the furniture for firewood. Damn these Jo’burg winters!” Also “the coke dealer who became a politician…his slogan was POWDER to the people!” “my girl’s bald, but not because of chemo” The humour is often irreverent. “God, why did you divide the year into four seasons? Couldn’t you have…left out the winter altogether?” Also “God, do you have a dad? And a mum?”; and “Goodnight (God), and God bless you”!

The attention to detail, or minutiae, is sometimes quite jarring. The obvious example is the warren of details on cancer/its treatment. But consider this too: “I vomited from 4.14 am to 5.03 am”

For those of us who relish African black literature, when we read in Uselessly, “dry shit caked on my arsehole” our mind goes to Ayi Kwei Armah’s classic, The beautyful ones are not yet born, where human manure is an integral part of the whole novel. Who can forget the latter part of the work when Koomson “the fat party man” is reduced to a cowering, flatulent mess, escaping via horrific, disgusting, soiled, caked toilets?

In Uselessly, there are many examples of frank, disarming honesty. “I was secretly glad (that the husband of Dorothy, his then nanny) was in jail for two years, because it meant that Dorothy and I would be going for our weekly walk for a long time still,” Also “Aunt Nelly’s…never had a maid because she doesn’t trust blacks”

The protagonist muses on the new South Africa intermittently; “It began to dawn on me that the so-called liberation had made SA a cheap and attractive holiday destination for the Europeans and Americans. Democracy meant that the masses could service the tourist industry. The freshly liberated slaves had been freed only to become slaves once again,” An exaggeration no doubt, but point taken!

It might well be that many of the ‘wisecracks” or even banalities in Uselessly are clichés; but as renowned African author Chinua Achebe comments in Anthills of the Savannah: “A cliché is a cliché only if you know it is a cliché!” Trumpeted ideals like “freshness and lucidity of language” mean little or nothing to 2nd, 3rd language users; or most non-academics if the truth be told.

The author of Uselessly, Kaganof, is often stated to be “a foremost counter culture revolutionary in SA” In Uselessly the mind boggles as the pupil protagonist tells his teacher: “Your parents and your teachers and your governments are murderers…ruthless assassins”

Not that the protagonist in Uselessly ever has a high opinion of himself: “My name is JJ Uselessly. Abuser of women, phoney artist, conman, liar, bum…my litany of crimes” But hardly any reader would believe his self-confessed “murders”

On a personal note I loved the succinct comment (page 145): “the brotherhood of chemotheraphy. Hallowed be Yul Brunner”. It immediately brought to my mind the magnificent old movie, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS where Charlton Heston starred as “Moses”, and Brunner as Moses’ half brother, Pharaoh Ramses.

kagablog readers will be enthusiastically welcomed at this gala event that will include free booze and stand up side down comedy. it will be held at the barney siimon theatre upstairs at the market on sunday 19 november at 5:30pm. bring smelling salts cos you will need to be revived cos this is going to be a very funny event!

buy uselessly now (in south africa) (in united kingdom)

hi aryan

i’m really glad you wrote because i’ve been meaning to write a gushy fan letter about how i totally got off on uselessly which, yes is very very funny but also broke my heart.

seriously big respect!
stacy hardy

buy uselessly now (in south africa) (in united kingdom)

Oct 02 2006 07:21:40:540AM – (SA)

Salomé Snyman

Uselessly deur Aryan Kaganof. Jacana Media (sagteband), R138. ISBN 1-77009-100-9

Bestel hierdie boek deur kalahari.net deur hier te kliek

Die postmodernistiese skrywer John Barth het dié skryfvorm ’n “literature of exhaustion” – gebore uit die uitputting van tradisionele letterkundige vorme – genoem.

As jy meen dat niks anders as letterkundige anargisme uit dié “dilemma” kan voortspruit nie, moet liefs nie kosbare tyd verkwis met die lees van Aryan Kaganof se Uselessly nie.

Diegene wat egter hou van tekstuele speelsheid, stilistiese nie-konformiteit en die uitdaag van die tradisionele, sal waarskynlik dol wees op die boek. (Dit sal ook help as jy ’n stywe dosis toilethumor kan verduur wat sterk herinner aan dié in oorsese televisiereekse soos Beavis and Butthead (vgl. die karikatuur op die voorblad) en Little Britain.)

Die persona “Aryan Kaganof” is die “reïnkarnasie” (te Randburg in 2001) van ene Ian Kerkhof ná sy terugkeer uit Nederland waarheen hy tydens die apartheidsjare geëmigreer het. Daar het hy hom as rolprentregisseur bekwaam en vele toekennings ingeoes.

Sy geesteskinders Wasted! en SMS Sugarman, die eerste vollengte rolprente onderskeidelik geskiet op ’n digitale videokamera en ’n selfoonkamera, prosawerke met titels soos Hectic! en digbundels (Post-mortemist poems, Jou ma se poems en so meer), verklap iets van dié kreatiewe gees wat ook ’n “kulturele terroris” en enfant terrible genoem is.

J.J. (James Joyce!) Uselessly, die verteller-protagonis in Uselessly, is in 1964 in Johannesburg gebore, “the illegitimate son of my mother The Sinner Lady and my daddy The Devil”. (Daar is inderdaad heelwat intertekstuele names dropping – Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Burroughs, Kierkegaard, ens. in Uselessly, ’n parodiese weergawe van Joyce se Ulysses.)

Die roman is in epistelvorm geskryf. In briewe aan God eis Uselessly antwoorde op persoonlike eksistensiële vraagstukke soos waarom sterflinge hul brood in die sweet des aanskyns moet verdien en of winter God se idee van ’n wrede poets is. (Dit noop die hoofkarakter om sy meubels as vuurmaakhout te gebruik!)

Uselessly – 39 jaar oud, werkloos en onderhou deur sy vriendin, ’n kroegmeisie – verduidelik sy lewensfilosofie só: “I was sent here in order to contribute to the slowing down of the universe, . . . I was forever re-moved from the grim social disease that unites most people: the sickness of ambition. Slowness is the alchemical formula for getting ahead through the medium of time and back to where it all began, the ultimate destination, which is You.”

God, reken hy, het die duiwel geskep as teenvoeter vir die saaiheid van alwetendheid en voorsienigheid.

Uselessly deel sy veelbewoë lewensverhaal met God en die leser (dié gedeeltes, “a tear-jerker, a melodrama with echoes of Euripides . . . ”, wek empatie vir die verteller!).

Sy enkelma het hom grootgemaak in Yeoville, Johannesburg. Die hoogtepunt van sy voorskoolse jare was weeklikse wandelings saam met die huishulp Dorothy na die Ou Fort-tronk waar haar man toegesluit was vir ’n pasboekoortreding.

Naweke het hy en sy ma deurgebring by sy tannie Nelly, oom Sam (wat sy goue Valiant elke naweek, die hele naweek lank, gepoets het) en niggies Moira en Myrna. Saam het hulle na Springbokradio se treffersparade – die ander hoogtepunt in sy lewe – geluister.

Heelwat later in sy lewe maak sy biologiese pa sy opwagting. Uselessly word per brief verwittig dat sy pa, Harry, aan kanker ly en graag met hom herenig wil word. Sy verblyf in Seepunt saam met dié eksentrieke karakter (wat onder meer ’n jokkie en ’n aandelemakelaar was) is die gelukkigste in sy lewe: “There was no process. No complicated session, no therapy, no discourse. I was healed. I had my Dad.”

Intussen begin Uselessly sy lewensverhaal Uselessly skryf. Dié metafiksionele aspek van die verhaal is kenmerkend postmodernisties. Die skrywerkarakter verduidelik: “The Dutch word “staart” means tail. The start is the tail end of this tale. This is a tale that keeps on starting over. It doesn’t have a surprise ending. It doesn’t have an ending at all. Just when you think that it’s finally ended, it simply starts up again. It starts with a “start”. It’s startling.”

Aryan Kaganof is slim (slinks?). Hy is terdeë bewus van die paradokse wat, soos Pandora, deur hom en sy alter ego-karakter losgelaat word. Hy spot trouens daarmee. In ’n onderhoud het hy gebieg dat mense soos hy wat, terwyl hulle voorgee om anti-establishment te wees, agter ’n sekuriteitsheining woon, skynheilig is.

Op s˘ beurt bieg die skrywerkarakter, Uselessly: “The problem with most books is that they’re written by and for people who read books. I want to write books for people who consider the very idea of reading a book absurd.”

Na aanleiding hiervan tree die verknorsing van die postmodernisme ook op die voorgrond: Wanneer hegemoniese strukture, literêr of andersins, gedekonstrueer word, word ander nie noodwendig in die proses geskep nie? Uselessly som dié ironie raak op wanneer hy lakonies opmerk: “subversion is my version”.

# Salomé Snyman is ’n doktorale student, departement Engels, Universiteit van Pretoria.

this review was first published by beeld, sunday 2 ocotber 2006