Reviews

The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer

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steller0707's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

tomleetang's review against another edition

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4.0

"Yet while he listens, smiles exasperatedly into the telephone in his right hand, his other hand plays with himself the way a small boy seeks reassurance by touching his genitals - his fingers comb the damp springy hair, draw down the foreskin that has been pushed back during the shower, weigh the uneven balls, absently tender to the one that is smaller and lighter than the other."

This sentence exemplifies the style of The Conservationist: long, meandering sentences that can be a bit distracting but often deliver unexpected tangents, which stand out because they defy expectation and as a result provoke deeper analysis - what is that doing here? And why has it been placed here?

Within a paragraph, threads of thought interrupt one another, jumping without warning from a farmer's observations on jackals to the shape of a penis head. Lush, dreamy descriptions of the velt and vlei by the white protagonist conceal the rot beneath - the rot being literally and metaphorically the dead body of a nameless black man.

This novel is about Apartheid and the nature of South African society, but it isn't loudly hectoring in its politics, merely penetratingly observant. There is a plot, but it is utterly subservient to the style of the writing and the ideas the novel propounds.

casshaw's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

beclupton's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

bearprof's review against another edition

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2.0

This is not the kind of literature I enjoy. I had to force myself to finish it (and would have stopped early on except I was reading it as part of a challenge). There were two lines I particularly liked. "You think you've discovered the joys of simple living, but it's just that you've made enough money." "No one'll even remember where you're buried.". Otherwise, it meandered and blended, with run-on paragraphs and unmarked dialogue, almost like a stream of consciousness in book form.

moviebuffkt's review against another edition

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1.0

I read a comment on GoodReads that said something about this being the kind of book where you read each sentence multiple times and still have no idea what is going on.

Another commenter said "This book makes you feel stupid while you read it, but smart when you tell every one of your friends that you finished it." This is the comment I most agree with. I just... did not get this book. At all. And I was frustrated because I felt like I was missing something. In The Guardian review, it is noted that this is "a book that demands respect, but is hard to love." I feel much the same way about the main character, Mehring. Although... I don't think he deserved respect. He's just hard to love...

Mehring was a sexual predator, and his vanity and isolation set the tone for the book. Themes of death, and a return to the earth were poignant, as were the issues of cross-cultural racism found in S. Africa, but through the frame of the novel, I could not easily cull these story lines.